There is definitely caste system in hiring process. If you take any big company operating in India, and you will most certainly find the caste system replicated in the corporate structure in India. The Brahmin caste dominates the corporate hierarchies and are the perpetrators of this system, typically through favoritism and through their early advantage (but their grip is loosening up slowly).
Just checked the profiler, it is a professional feature. 200 USD for a year. Not within my purchasing power as of now, but thanks for the suggestion :)
> The idea of humanity returning to a caveman-level of knowledge seems unlikely to me.
Agreed! :)
Also, do you have or maintain a list of great books which you came across ? I see your profile, and you mention "Philosopher, writer and entrepreneur traveling the world."
You made some interesting points down below, but i couldn't reply to those, hence responding here :)
Tbh, i am enjoying your arguments as such!
> barring some sort of total worldwide wipe of electronic data, the information and knowledge will still be out there
Isn't the world shifting in its warfare strategies ? We fought with different tools at different times. But the modern warfare seems to be moving towards misinformation, destruction of information etc ?
> I'd say it's inevitable that over time, humans will re-centralize and re-organize.
Agreed! It seems that eventually we would have to re-organize!
> Civilizations seem to benefit from having competition, as long as they don't destroy / are destroyed by them. It's a fine balance.
Agree with this one too, but i am more worried about generations that would follow us. It is a very fine balance indeed, hope humanity treads it with reason :)
Right :) But all resources are finite regardless of how far we travel. Civilizations may collapse before we accomplish everything we set out to do on other planets. There are two aspects to be taken care of, one is the exploration of space and the other is maintaining the fragile environment (socio-political-economic) here on earth.
Also, if countries co-operate on space exploration it would be better, than making it a race to be first etc. Which will only lead to worse outcomes between nations if history is any indicator. :)
I just got downvoted for saying something similar :) That isn't the problem. The reason i shared these opinions here on HN, is due to the faith in the HN community that they would be willing to have a civil discourse even if its opposed to their worldview. That is something i least expect from the HN community. :)
I would be happy if those who downvoted without reading the entire argument, would also contribute their views on why this argument is wrong :)
That is an interesting POV, which i have considered too. But in order to reach Mars / Moon - don't we need resources from earth in order to build ? Resource extraction is energy intensive. It consumes a lot of energy here on earth. How much energy would it require to first build and then transport resources from other planets back to earth etc ? What would be the impact in case during re-entry with resource payload from other planets, a spacecraft propelled by nuclear energy bursts ? What are the other unknowns which we are willing to take for granted ?
Space research and development has indeed given us some very useful outcomes - no doubt. Also, other countries are into space research and development too, worried that this could put other able countries in a race that could result in bad outcomes.
We have plenty of problems to solve here on earth. Is technology only about solving for curiosity of what is possible ? Or is technology about solving real problems of energy, minimal impact to the environment etc ?
The ocean cleanup project is a good example of solving problems for humanity here on earth. Now that we managed to dump enormous amounts of plastic into our waterways and eventually into oceans. There are other interesting problems which beg technological solutions too.
True, but i wasn't referring to exploitation of the ecology on the Moon - of course, there is no ecology on Moon. I was referring to the ecological destruction on earth (consumer culture and profit motives driving us to the brink of ecological collapse on earth). There are other studies where impacts of the first world countries and their economies on the planet is well documented, but i do not wish to enter into that conversation as such.
Countries are thinking of planets as resources to be extracted and profit from, which in itself is incorrect, imo.
Simple and genuine question, why does the US feel entitled to all natural resources and do as it pleases ? Isn't the Moon and the mars common to all humanity ? Why does the US assume it can do whatever it wants on these planets ? With this, other countries will join the race, and soon moon and mars will be exploited just like we have unleashed massive ecological destruction on earth.
Actually, i would love to have a discussion with you - since there is a lot of thinking that went into quitting the smartphone. I have been mulling quitting smartphones for more than 2 years now. Only the pandemic let me to quit the smartphone. I do not have much anxiety over corona, it's beyond control. But smartphone is within our control. To quit or not seemed a simple decision for me. I was always willing to quit. My work demands made me put up with it for so long. Since WFH began due to pandemic, i see no need to use a smartphone anymore. I have diligently tracked my usage on smartphone and am pretty aware of how much time i wasted on it. Surprisingly, i am not addicted to any social media. But i started getting addicted to Youtube (if you consider that a social media, then yes). I didn't waste my time on pointless conspiracies etc on youtube. But nevertheless, i wasted enormous amounts of time on it. Hence, i was just waiting for the perfect time to quit it and to set expectations to people who would otherwise want to reach me.
I am already living this idea. I do not own a smartphone in 2020. It has been close to 2 months and i do not miss it. Once the lockdown is over, then the real test of how long i could resist the allure of smartphones would be evident.
Linux desktop is simply unreliable. I know this might not be what the community would like to see in the comments, but in my experience, the linux desktop has a long way to go in terms of reliability.
For example, an ubuntu update, literally crashed my system and i managed to recover my machine from collapse. I am a techie, so i managed to do this, how many normal people can do this ? Would they know where to look for the issue ?
Also, the desktop freezing, and constant popups asking to submit reports for some internal issues is quite an annoyance.
Having said these, using only cli linux is the best and no OS comes closer to the versatility of linux. But as a desktop, i feel its has not made it. Reliability is a core feature.