HN Explorer

Ask HN: What is your 'Theory of Everything'?

11 points by good_vibes ↗ HN
I've been thinking a lot about scientific progress over the last 500 years and it blows my mind to think that Alan Turing was less than a century ago. Look where we are today. I wonder how all this science and technology will converge tomorrow and what life will be like by 2050.

15 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 52.4 ms ] thread
tabeth
All social problems stem from the fact that people believe it possible to be superior to one another. Once you get rid of this possibility, social problems, stemming from the "superiority problem" disappear. Utopia ensues.
qwertythrowawe
It is just your opinion that people cannot be superior to one another. Define any objective metric, and it is possible for one to be superior to another.
tabeth
I disagree. There's no such thing as an "objective metric." All qualities are contextual. Being smarter, strong, faster -- qualities one may say are "good" are not always desirable in all situations.

Even if it were possible for there to be an objective metric, that still doesn't mean one person is superior to another, even if they possess superior "objective metrics"

qwertythrowawe
Yes, qualities are indeed contextual. In a specific, well-defined context (e.g., the Olympics) it is possible to be objectively superior to others.

Outside of this specific context, we cannot definitively say whether one is superior. It is subjective speculation. Hence why I said it is your opinion. I believe we cannot rule either way.

tabeth
I'm not really sure what you're talking about. My original comment was referring to the general case. I'm sure, given enough constraints, anyone can prove anything.

Even your Olympic example is bad. Is being faster better? Maybe for track. Or maybe not, given the disadvantage sprinting has on long distance performance, etc.

Sure, you could say some qualities are best suited for certain situations -- but that was already obvious. My original point was that overall, in general, situation independent, it's silly to say one person is superior to another.

miguelrochefort
I can't provide a theory of everything, but I can predict the future:

- The application paradigm will come to an end.

- All apps will be replaced by a general purpose interactive language.

- We will realize NLP doesn't work.

- 80% of software jobs will disappear within the next 15 years.

- Privacy will be revealed as foolish and selfish.

- Transparency will become the norm within the next 30 years.

- Money will be replaced with a social score/currency. Honesty, consistency and predictability will be the most valued traits.

good_vibes
Why do you think 80% of software jobs will disappear? Won't there be many more new jobs for people in the industry to transition into?
reciprocity
Privacy is not foolish or selfish, and despite the ongoing momentum in decreasing levels of personal privacy, is an extremely precious and valued human desire and resource.
vuwyywvueyuve
Not a theory, but my "model of everything" is the network (or graph). I've never found a concept I can't understand in terms of nodes and edges
kwellington
Ideology has a genetic basis.

We are all combinations of the r and K gene sets. (there is no ideology which falls outside the political compass). Epigenetics will bring out ideology lacking in a society. The ideological dialectic is never-ending and the only way the human race survives.

For example, if UBI ever became a reality, it would simply then give those ideologically opposed to it all the time in the world to take it down.

Recently Steven Pinker has come closest to getting the ideas of ideological genetic predisposition into the mainstream, refuting the theory of tabula rasa. But ultimately the truth is too 'racist' for academia.

also: True creativity is not to break out of cliches, but to install new cliches.