On Sat, Apr 4, 2026 at 10:55 AM Hugo Buddelmeijer via <[email protected]> wrote: > > - A Short History of Progress, by Ronald Wright. Wright argues that > this is essentially what humans do since the beginning: invent > technology, then use that to cause enormous problems, to be solved with > new technology. So it is good that there are also naysayers; we should > cherish those voices, because maybe we can break this cycle.
Except this simply is not true. We are markedly better off any previous generation! Technology has reduced poverty to a consequence of mental illness, drugs, or authoritarianism. Today's enormous problems, global warming and energy security, are a direct consequence of listening to the naysayers! Perhaps we should listen to the naysayer naysayers. The original request was to 'please provide more details on "tremendous human suffering" because I know too little about that' and get book recommendations. It should be possible to identify the "tremendous human suffering" (past, present, and future!), "infringing intellectual property", and where "unprofitable technology is putting national economies at risk". Guix needs more automation to be sustainable. A visceral minority opposition to AI may kill the project. "To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems." - Homer Simpson, Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment
