HN Explorer

Ask HN: Are You Hopeful for the Future?

4 points by piratesAndSons ↗ HN
How hopeful are you for the future? For me, everything seems bleak. The AI owners and their parasitic nature show no sign of stopping — they're grinding working people to dust, relegating us to a state of penury. AI spy glasses and cameras are multiplying in every inch of this land, collecting anything and everything to identify you, whether to sell you something or to feed some policing action.

Politicians, kept loyal by their share of the loot these AI parasites are stealing from working people, aren't interested in doing anything about it — their interests and the parasites' are perfectly in sync. Jobs aside, there's also this ambient dread haunting the atmosphere, slithering through the camp like a snake at night. Your job will be automated, you will lose your healthcare, and eventually you'll be left to your fate to starve — that's the only advertisement I hear. What is your state?

6 comments

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bediger4000
I'm not at all hopeful. I feel that this is the end of an age, an interregnum is upon us all.
WheelsAtLarge
Extremely hopeful, there are always ways to find gloom. I'm sure 100 years, 200 years, and any other period you choose ago, people were scared of what was coming. Yet, we are here and thriving. As a species, race, nation, and individuals, we have overcome a lot and accomplished a lot. There is no reason to think that will stop. A meteor might get us, but we can't do anything about it, so there is no reason to worry about it, especially since we don't know. Our future is what we make it, so our best bet is to do our best so we get and have what we want. We are scared of what we don't know, so it's natural to feel gloomy about what's coming, but doom and gloom are not the norm. As a whole, we have done great. If you don't like what you see, then change it. Every one of the people who made a change in the world was unknown at one time. Yet, they changed that and changed the world. Don't for a second think that you can't.
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eucryphia
The Gramsican march through the institutions is complete. 300 million fully armed and trained Americans are the only thing holding back international socialism. The global 7% can be taken out in seconds by a couple of dozen CCP neutron bombs. Socialism’s 100 million body count last century was just the start.

It won’t affect me, I’ll be dead in 30 years. I won the lottery of life, born in the latter half of the 20th century in a British colony with running hot water.

andersonpico
> The Gramsican march through the institutions is complete

what in the ever living conspiracy theory hot pot is that

> 300 million fully armed and trained Americans

not even close

> I won the lottery of life, born in the latter half of the 20th century in a British colony with running hot water

but not enough money to treat this deep-seated mental illness?

> It won’t affect me, I’ll be dead in 30 years

thank god or maybe it's too long

anenefan
I'm half and half and all very much dependent on the situation and circumstance. My hope is people will see problems for what they are and change how things are done.

The gloomy issues I see arriving are:

   Continued loss of critical thinking ...  govts. might have though a less intelligent public is easier to control, but we're slowly starting to see there is a greater cost ... it's cheaper to educate people as best can be even if they might end up with a low level job.  
   
   govts forcing adoption of new tech which is biased towards established business and no real choice for the mere user to stick with what they prefer to use -- things like forcing one particular browser or something the govt's web site developers rely on but which doesn't play well or forcing the public into endless OS update game.
   
   The moving via updating - systems that didn't have a internet interface and thus had an effective air gap, to run via web ...  and then watch the havoc when some smart arses prove how clever they are breaking though the security. 
   
   The same as above in that air gapped systems such as traffic lights / management, are moved to the web, and an A.I. is left to run the show.  The sad thing is in the future people if they don't change will just accept that some days SNAFU happens.
   
   The slow erosion of privacy by silly or over the top forms of web security, mostly to satisfy anonyphobes  ... I'm counting the months I'll need to start providing 2FA or a fully tracked browser, just to get simple information like finding out which is the better brand of bulb because that information might be abused and lead to mischief.