This would stop the currently exponential pace of growth from outpacing what society, and regulation, can adapt to. Thus avoiding the inevitable crash that will happen when we lose control of the exponentially accelerating train of technology, and it flies off the rails.
No, what we need is a system where technological progress takes into account the benefits and detriments to all people and the system we exist in (nature+), when implementing said progress. The problem isn’t that things are moving too fast, it’s that a few people have seized control of these things and are pushing them, to the destruction of literally everything else.
Wouldn’t computers have been better if we all got the gains and by now, the time of AI, we were already only working 2-10 hours a week? Look at the charts, that’s where we should be right now. AI should be a “we all have to put in 45 minutes of gig work a week to maintain boomer levels of financial stability” moment.
And no, not just Americans or Western Europeans, everyone should be at this level by now. That is how far we have progressed, and that is what has been stolen from all of us.
We’re trying pretty hard to slow down EV and green energy adoption as much as possible in my country, that count?
But seriously, in an ideal world this would be the role of taxes. Technology running out of control and harming people or the planet because too many people are making too much money off it? Tax 'em until its no longer worth their while to behave in those ways.
Hmm yes I can definitely see a formulaically determined tax rate serving as the break
this. taxes and regulation are part of a healthy economy. Its like excersising and eathing right. we have been a idle junk food eating economy for a long time now.
Can we get one for politics and political corruption first?
It’s not as simple as that.
For some it might be true, but for others, the opposite would be actual beneficial.E.g. I see such a technological governor currently in action in my country trying to slowdown transition to sustainable energies.
I don’t think that is a desirable governor, unless you are over 60 and don’t give a shit about what will be happening in a few years, cause you’ll be dead by then.deleted by creator
Well, one could argue it is less corruption and lobbying but the normal process by which technological progress has been regulating itself for most of the time.
Typically, the younger generations embrace new tech in daily life, while the more conservative older generations are more set on preserving the status quo, ideally resulting in a steady, manageable introduction of new tech over the course of decades.
This in itself is not bad, but in some instances that natural slowing-down mechanism just fails.
Balls out!
Most governors don’t have the balls like this one.
Governors don’t cut off supply of steam - or fuel or anything - in a on/off kind of way: they regulate the input flow continuously in a way that self-stabilizes at the desired engine speed.
Good catch, fixed
Interesting idea, impossible to implement without creating problems ten times worse.
One could argue many such governors are already in place.
Some are financial, others are societal, a bunch are based on actual proactive intervention (e.g. through international laws because of ethics considerations).
The more important question is: who governs the governors?I suggest we get some Frankensteins, and have Lenny “The Guvnor” McLean.
If we define ‘governor’ as a system whose task it is to regulate sth to keep it at a constant level, a good successful existing example would be central banks. They regulate money supply in order to keep inflation at a constant, prescribed, level.
But that would be more like the steering mechanism employed before the invention of the governor for steam engines: actual persons trying to regulate the speed of the engine by manually pulling levers.
The equivalent to the governor would be an automatic intrinsic feedback loop that, once established, is continuously and automatically working without manual intervention.
So your steam engine governor analogy might be not quite fitting.
Yep, the international law that such a mechanism would require would inevitably be broken by the usual suspects. We’re just not capable enough of organizing ourselves as a species.
No, not really. It would limit beneficial advancements in technology as well.
Like crossing over to renewable energy sources and advancements in energy efficiency or battery technology. Thanks to EVs we have progressed significantly in that department within last few years.
Or medical advancements, covid and mRNA vaccines are probably a good example.
These would just need a different (higher) set point of the control loop, but still need some kind of regulating mechanism.
Even things like renewable deployment need some kind of selective dampening to make them work, e.g. to allow the old style energy infrastructure to keep up without the grid frequently collapsing.
Same for medical advancements. E.g. you don’t want the employment speed of new methods outpace the test and review measures ensuring people’s safety.
Well said
Fair, good point, yeah it would need some regulating mechanism to make sure that the gird can keep up and to make sure that medical advancements are safe to use.
I mean medical advancements already have a regulation mechanism in the form of certification that does indeed limit the pace of their development. It’s quite a clumsy one though and there’s no feedback loop, it’s more like a permanent break
Yes, i kinda forgot that.
the actual balls from balls to the wall are in the building
I think these are actually the balls from “balls out” when the engine is going full speed the balls swing way out and are spinning around.
IIRC, “balls to the wall” refers to ball-shaped knobs on the throttle levers of a lot of aircraft. To go fast you push that lever as far as it goes “to the wall”
Balls any smaller just wouldn’t do justice to such a powerful machine
Technological progress ≠ technological development
Progress is when developments lead to improvements. Development without progress is wasteful and self-serving at bestIn that case it is the technological developments whose pace needs to be dampened, because it is those that pose the danger.
Yes. Dampening is a good way to describe it. This feels akin to degrowth. Although it is not about shrinking, it is about directing efforts towards sensible, effective and necessary development. As opposed to going as fast as possible at an attempt to secure a competitive position
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The narrative of needing to progress all the time, in any way possible, is just too strong. And unfortunately, globally, it makes sense: if we don’t do it, somebody else will. This is the material for hypes & bubbles, yet it still continues.
And it’s a question of money. Financial growth is basically a synonym for progress.
I remember one of my school teachers explaining to us exponential growth and built-in obsoletion: economists theorize that economies follow a certain wave pattern: it goes up for a while, it comes down for a while. That’s a healthy economy. And this was reality for a while, until roughly the 1970s* iirc. Then something changed, and suddenly it became overwhealmingly important to uphold growth, at all cost. Like healthy tissue developing cancer. I think you can see how built-in obsoletion (and similar concepts like fashion, design etc.) plays an important role here: it’s what keep consumers buying.
So I, an innocent teenager, asked: “But wouldn’t it be better for everybody if we changed back to a more sustainable economy & production?” And the answer was “Yes, and they know it, but it would require a problematic transitional period of maybe a few decades, and not a single politician/party on the whole planet will risk that.”
That was 40 years ago. Since then I believe that education (and much better education than what we have nowadays) is the only way out of this mess, in the long term.
* what happened then?
