Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Malthus, Singularities and Chins-up

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by

James A. Bacon
in

The NY Time’s Jay Tierney has a good post that is also a useful tonic for what seems to be a creeping Malthusian trend on the Rebellion of late.

He discusses an article by George Mason University economist Robin Hanson that focuses on “singularities,” the stunning advances that have completely transformed the way we do just about everything (think the creation of agriculture and the industrial revolution). Hanson believes we’re due for another such event, perhaps within our lifetimes. What might it be? Hanson thinks it could be intelligent machines (no, not Terminators) that will increase growth 60 to 250 fold over current levels.

It’s all a big guess, of course. But I think it’s a far more likely outcome than the ashen forebodings that are both easy and fashionable to embrace.

In other words: Chins-up, people!

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  1. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    Controlled fusion for commercial energy is an example of a big shift. Should happen by 2030 or 2050 if it can be made to work.

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Singularities can work in both directions, which is what “Tipping Point” was all about, and it is the basis for large amounts of conservatism in how we estimate what environmental costs might be.

    “The world economy, which now doubles in 15 years or so, would soon double in somewhere from a week to a month.”

    That would not bode very well for EMR’s claim that we have too much consumption now. If the economy far aoutstrips the subsistence level, what will happen to all that money? Especially if all our knowledge jobs are taken over by little bugbots.

    EMR thinks only the wealthy will be able to fly soon. Under this scenario, that could be all of us! And we think we have problems with autmobiles.

    “The relative advantages of humans and machines vary from one task to the next. Imagine a chart resembling a topographic cross section, with the tasks that are “most human” forming a human advantage curve on the higher ground. Here you find chores best done by humans, like gourmet cooking or elite hairdressing. Then there is a “shore” consisting of tasks that humans and machines are equally able to perform and, beyond them an “ocean” of tasks best done by machines. When machines get cheaper or smarter or both, the water level rises, as it were, and the shore moves inland.”

    “In our graph of machines and humans, imagine that the ocean of machine tasks reached a wide plateau. This would happen if, for instance, machines were almost capable enough to take on a vast array of human jobs. In this situation, a small additional rise in sea level would flood that plateau and push the shoreline so far inland that a huge number of important tasks formerly in the human realm were now achievable with machines.”

    Great, I always wanted to be a chef or a hairdresser.

    “In either case, human labor would no longer earn most income. Owners of real estate or of businesses that build, maintain, or supply machines would see their wealth grow at a fabulous rate”

    I think this is what EMR calls winner take all.

    When that ocean comes in, we had better learn to enjoy fishing, because there won’t be any work to do. I’ve often said that knowledge work isn’t everything. Sooner or later somone has to make something and sell it.

    Or as my illiterate Mexican economist friend Jesus says: “What good all that money, it no go round and round?”

    Sorry Norm, I don’t see a good end to this story. It only reinforces my prediction that growth has its limits, efficiency has its limits, and conservation has its limits. Collectively, these mean that population has its limits, unless we move galactically.

    To me, this looks like yet another prediction that, yes Virginia, you CAN get something for nothing, or as Bacon once said, “Free, No Cost”.

    After reading this, I feel like Huckleberry Finn after his Aunt described heaven to him.

    “Why would a body want to go there?”

    RH

  3. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    On the other hand, if this is right, we’ll all have plenty of everything, so we can toss out environmentalism entirely, right?

    RH

  4. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Basically, Robin Hanson is adopting the argument of Ray Kurzweil that stunning advances in genomics, robotics, nanotechnology and above all machine intelligence will create unprecedented prosperity.

    Kurzweil acknowledges the existence o bottlenecks such as energy supplies, environmental degradation and the like. But he argues that with geometric increases in machine intelligence we’ll be so friggin’ smart that we’ll be able to figure out solutions for all the bottlenecks. He doesn’t know what those solutions will be — he’s just confident that we’ll find them.

    I find Kurzweil’s arguments interesting and reason for some optimism for the long term. But the “singularity” is still a couple of decades away, even under his optimistic scenarios, and we have to get from 2008 to 2028 without civilizational collapse. I think we’ll manage to muddle through… but only if we concentrate on the problems of the here and now rather than trusting in a singularity that will intervene like a deus ex machina to save us at the last moment.

  5. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    when I see a small child – alive after being born with a huge hole in his heart – I think about humans and machines…. and whether civilization has advanced or declined.

  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “we’ll be so friggin’ smart that we’ll be able to figure out solutions for all the bottlenecks.”

    And we will figure them out a lot sooner when we stop posturing and dogmatizing. When we look at the facts we have and figure out what they mean, instead of what we would like them to mean.

    Instead of

    “You can’t build your way out of congestion.”

    You have

    “You can build your way out of congestion only under the following conditions……”

    Instead of “no new taxes” you “have
    no new burdens on the citizen”.

    Instead of

    “Always recycle” we have “Always profit from the recycling markets.”

    Instead of “winner take all” we have “lets all win”

    Etc. Etc.

    RH

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “Two years ago, Jefferson County legislators capped the county’s share of taxes on motor vehicle fuel, heralding the action as true relief to rising pump prices.

    Now, with prices hurtling to more than $4.15 per gallon and no end to the increase in sight, lawmakers are re-evaluating what break, if any, their consumers ever saw.

    “I thought at the time that it was a good idea to do it because it would lower the price of fuel in Jefferson County,” said Legislator Michael W. Behling, R-Adams Center. “However, it seems like the minute we step out of Jefferson County, the fuel was cheaper. I don’t think it had the desired effect.”

    Jefferson was one of 14 counties to follow the state’s lead and cap its share of taxes at 8 cents per gallon, which is close to what it would normally keep from a $2.40 pump price.

    Seven counties no longer have caps, and Oswego County is considering rescinding theirs.

    Jefferson County, which was levying 3.75 percent on gasoline’s pre-taxed price before the cap, lost bigger and bigger sums of potential revenue as the pump price increased after the cap went into effect in July 2006.

    When retail prices hit $4 per gallon, the wholesale price, which excludes state and county taxes, is $3.70, according to the state Department of Taxation and Finance.

    That means, at $4 per gallon, Jefferson County could be collecting 14.1 cents per gallon if they had no cap. Lawmakers believed, however, that the revenue the county wasn’t collecting would translate into savings for the consumer.

    “I certainly don’t think it had the effect we thought it would,” said Legislator James A. Nabywaniec, R-Calcium.”It’s a discussion that we have privately said that we don’t feel it’s getting to the consumer.”

    So if the six cents per gallon savings at $4 did not go to the consumer as intended, where is it?”

    Must have disappeared into the singularity.

    RH

  8. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Due Diligence Minority Report:

    “we’ll be so friggin’ smart that we’ll be able to figure out solutions for all the bottlenecks.”

    when we decide that dealing effectively with bottlenecks may actually be more cost-effective than more/bigger/wider…solutions

    “And we will figure them out a lot sooner when we stop posturing and dogmatizing. When we look at the facts we have and figure out what they mean, instead of what we would like them to mean.”

    on BOTH sides

    Instead of

    “”You can’t build your way out of congestion.”

    You have”

    at one point in the continuum, especially those prone to revisionist memories one might dredge up a snapshot in time when it appeared to be true – but in the here and now – there is not a single example anywhere where the fact is that they have no congestion as a direct consequence of building more roads.

    the best you can say is that some places that have built more roads have lower congestion levels.

    The believe that the last 10% of an achievement of “congestion free” may cost you ten times what it cost you to get the first 90% is stated in practical terms as “you cannot build your way out of congestion”.

    “You can build your way out of congestion only under the following conditions……”

    see above

    Instead of “no new taxes” you “have
    no new burdens on the citizen”.

    if everyone pays a set per capita fee for government services and allows for inflation then the only “new” taxes would be for “new” services – no?

    “Instead of

    “Always recycle” we have “Always profit from the recycling markets.”

    we also “profit” by not having to pay for landfill space or subsequent costs of clean-up.

    for instance – “recycling of mercury is not about profit as much as it is about loss”

    Only when you can prove what the cost of having fishing you cannot eat can you claim that the profit exceeded the loss.

    Until then you basically are refusing to consider all costs as part of the profit equation and the theory is that the status quo requires those harmed to prove the dollar costs.

    In Europe – the reverse is true.
    A new product must demonstrate it’s efficacy and cost-benefit before it is allowed.

    Is Europe wrong?

    Instead of “winner take all” we have “lets all win”

    All do not “win” when kids suffer IQ deficits from mercury.

    A better way to measure IMHO is “win-win” where not only do the benefits truly exceeds the costs – but they do so for all stakehoders in an equitable way.

    Saying that we ALL win – from mercury pollution is an opinion – not backed up by the realities.

    Kids are the losers… in a scenario depicted as “we all win” when most often the “winners” are the ones saying “we all win”.

    just some different views….

  9. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    What’s different?

    Sounds like the same view to me, just more elaborate. When we finish elaborating, we will have something like the Cyc machine, that can spit out real commonsense, devoid of politics, and with ALL the facts in there, on BOTH sides.

    ——————————-

    “Saying that we ALL win – from mercury pollution is an opinion – not backed up by the realities.”

    I never said any such thing Larry, or anything like it.

    But this:

    “not only do the benefits truly exceeds the costs – but they do so for all stakehoders in an equitable way.” is exactly my position.

    So, we have a stakeholder that claims a certain amount of damage from IQ deficits due to Mercury. If that stakeholder makes excessive claims, then other stakeholders may enjoy excessive costs with little or no benefit.

    And this violates the precept that all stakeholders benefit in an equitable way.

    We do not benefit from mercury pollution, but there is a maximum amount we can spend to prevent it. Beyond that, the benefits no longer exceed the costs – unless you agree with the excessive amoount claimed by the first stakeholder.

    The dynamics of this are not at issue, the only issue is how to properly assess the costs of mercury damage and the costs of preventing mercury damage. If we err in either direction then we face the situation where costs exceed the benefits for some stakeholders in an inequitable way.

    All do not “win” when kids suffer IQ deficits from mercury. Absolutely right. Now, are you willing to spend an infinite amount of money just to eliminate every possibility that some kids will suffer from mercury IQ deficits?

    Because that is what it will take. What if that means you don’t have the money to spend to save more kids from some other problem, that is less expensive to avoid?

    We don’t all win from mercury pollution but there IS a level below which we all lose by pursuing it further.

    ———————–

    In Europe – the reverse is true.
    A new product must demonstrate it’s efficacy and cost-benefit before it is allowed.

    Is Europe wrong?

    This is a brand new law, we can’t tell if they are wrong yet. Anyway, you have it wrong. the product does not have to demonstrate efficacy or cost benefit. What it has to show is that it is not a danger.

    The requirement is that you have to prove a negative, which can’t be done scientifically. Manufacturors of existing products love this, because it essentially means no new products, and no new competitors.

    Guess who supported this new legislation?

    It is going to be hard to reach a singularity that way.

    RH

  10. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “So, we have a stakeholder that claims a certain amount of damage from IQ deficits due to Mercury. If that stakeholder makes excessive claims, then other stakeholders may enjoy excessive costs with little or no benefit. “

    who decides this RH?

    and why… if we got it correct – do we keep changing the rules as we find out more and more about harm that we assume was not harm?

    re: the European Law

    I misspoke but only slightly.

    they must prove something is SAFE as opposed to those potentially harmed having to prove actual harm.

    Our approach is the opposite.

    We allow a chemical on the market on the premise that is no evidence that it is harmful.

    This is how we got PCBs, dioxin, kepone, DDT, etc, etc, et al.

    How do you reconcile this kind of thinking when the following is an example of all-too-routine outcomes:

    “Scientists have known for 50 years that hexavalent chromium used in plating causes cancer. But federal regulators resisted stringent workplace standards until just last year. Remco did massive defense work on missiles and submarine and cannon parts.

    In court records, the company’s own insurance carrier claimed the contamination was widespread and criminal. The contamination included not just chromium, but also solvents and toxins created by burning chemicals.”

    http://www.ktvu.com/news/11321810/detail.html

    If this stuff was known to be deadly – why did it not get factored into this “we all win” cost-benefit process that you claim is done?

    and if they did the cost-benefit process 50 years ago.. why have they now ..changed their minds about the costs to those affected verses the benefits to missiles?

    Your theory is that we do the process.. and then from then on.. it is gospel.. and that the “right” of those doing the polluting are “grandfathered” because it’s unfair to revisit the issue because then…

    ….”…that stakeholder makes excessive claims, then other stakeholders may enjoy excessive costs with little or no benefit.”

    what I am asking you is how do you determine the right answer when you do the trade-off study?

    who decides?

    you say it’s wrong for the stakeholders to make “excessive” claims.

    Do you think the folks poisoned by these deadly chemicals were making excessive claims when they opposed the release of the chemicals – initially?

    do you think that once the initial decision is made – that form that point on the “rights” of the polluter are such that no new regs are allowed?

    If the regulators decide that the costs to kids IQs is “excessive” how do you prove otherwise?

  11. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Think of a piece of notebook paper.

    Imagine that you fold it in half. It’s twice as thick.

    Now imagine folding it again and again and again. It gets thicker and thicker with every fold.

    How thick is it after 100 folds?

    It is thicker than the known universe is wide.

    That’s because the thickness doubles with every fold. The original piece of paper is 2 to the 100th power thicker after 100 folds.

    Lots of things in computing double over fairly short intervals. Who can forget Gordon Moore’s classic “Moore’s Law”? Side note: Gordon Moore should most definitely receive a Nobel Prize for that observation from 1965.

    The problem isn’t the exponential improvement in hardware, it is the less than stellar linear improvement in software.

    Here’s a good summary:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

  12. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Also, speaking of singularities –

    I am staying in London this weekend (Chelsea). There is a singularity here. It is a singularity of opinion that the cordon or congestion tolls are a fiasco, that they stink, they have not decreased congestion, they are taxes and they were implemented under false pretenses by dishonest politicians.

    I am taking an informal, pub-by-pub poll. The question is simple:

    “Were the congestion tolls a good idea?”.

    So far, 14 – 0 in favor of “no” (although some answers started with an expletive before the “no”).

    Anyone care to wager what percentage of Londoners will answer “yes” by the end of the weekend and the end of my pub poll?

    I also get some rare insights when I tell these people that we are considering this idea in my home state of Virginia.

  13. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “who decides this RH?”

    It is exactly as you describe. there are proposals, opportunities for public comment, expert witnesses and so on. There is heavy lobbying from special interests, threats of lawsuits and lawsuits.

    When EPA gets down to the point where the value of the lawsuits on both sides is equal, then they figure the level of passion is about equal, and thet is where the standard gets set.

    In the end some high ranking guys go in the back room and decide whatever they want. And even then, they may be over ridden by the president.

    Basically, the system is a mess, but that’s the system we have. It isn’t all that bad, but it isn’t all that quantitative, either.

    What we often or sometimes have when you see increased standards is that someone is making a new property claim. Sometimes we will get a new standard just because someone figured out a better measurement. But the math for the claims of environmental damage are extremely prejudiced – in my opinion.

    And I won’t argue that there isn’t a bad history with Kepone, Dioxin, and PCB’s, DDT and others. But I will say that as a result of that bad history, and even curent stories like Formaldehyde in the FEMA trailers, what we have is a large contingent of chemophobic special interests who think that anything other than pure is bad. It is my strong belief, that as a result of this we are spending too much on some things and not enough on others. I actually beleive that sometimes the rules get changed more to put a feather in someone’s cap – to show that they have gotten things done – than because there is any more real evidence of increased harm.

    The answer to your question of who decides this isn’t clear, and the process isn’t transparent, which is what I think the problem is. the fact that we have to ask, and cannot simply look up the “danger” or costs of dodecanonoxy-HCL and see for ourselves how the numbers was derived, to me, is an almost certain sign that we don’t know or the answer is wrong.

    I believe that the right thing for environmentalists to do is to search for the right answer, and not the next strictest answer. I believe that we are wasting enormous sums trying to get more or less useless additional protection from what are really nonobservables.

    ————————–

    Our approach is the opposite.

    We allow a chemical on the market on the premise that is no evidence that it is harmful.

    No, this is absolutely not true.

    What actually happened was when the hazaradous substances act was passed there were tousands of products out there which had been used for decades with no evidence of harm. These products wer largely but not entirely grandfathered.

    At the same time, the EPA developed a lists of chemical that were likely to be hazardous – Organphosphates that are near cousins to nerve gas, for example, and they prioritized them as to which to investigate first.

    Also at the same time, they requested voluntary information from those materials farther down the list.

    We are working through those lists, but it takes a very long time to prove a negative, that is, that it is not dangerous.

    The European situation is quite different. They have banned all genetically modified food. I think this is politically motivated hysteria, but they MIGHT be right. So you need to figure out what the probability is and calculate from there.

    Under their new rule proving that a product is safe is not enough. That is pretty easy. Proving that it can never prove harmful in any situation is not so easy, and it is going to mean that many new products are never introduced.

    —————————

    what I am asking you is how do you determine the right answer when you do the trade-off study?

    And I have told you how that is done. It is basically the toxicity, times the prevalance, times the durability, times the utility, times the concentration times the population times the value of life. That is the cost of pollution, and it has a dollar value. You don’t know the exact numbers for all those issues, so you use a range of reasonable values. and you get a range of costs. Then you multiply by three to ten to give youself a margin of error, over and above the worst case.

    If you think that human lfe is priceless, then the number is infinite, and your ethical position requires you to go absolutely broke trying for absolute cleanliness.

    ——————————-

    “But federal regulators resisted stringent workplace standards until just last year. Remco did massive defense work on missiles and submarine and cannon parts.”

    In this case it appears that federal regulators resisted stringent standards because they knew that they would be paying the bill * 4, everytime they bought a cannon.

    “the company’s own insurance carrier claimed the contamination was widespread and criminal”

    What were they thinking? The insurance carrier is on the hook for this. If they knew, they should have acted, if they didn;t they should have inspected.

    “the contamination included not just chromium, but also solvents and toxins created by burning chemicals.”

    As a chemist, that sentence tells me not one thing. Your charcoal grill is known to create toxins by burning chemicals. What solvents? Ethanol? Soapy water? Anyone who knew anything would’t write that sentence.

    “If this stuff was known to be deadly – why did it not get factored into this “we all win” cost-benefit process that you claim is done?”

    I don’t claim that it is done. I claim that it is not done, and had it been done properly, this would have been prevented.

    And if it was done properly there are other processes that would have lesser controls because we are spending money on some things that just isn’t necessary. This cuts both ways, I freely admit.

    “and if they did the cost-benefit process 50 years ago.. why have they now ..changed their minds about the costs to those affected verses the benefits to missiles?”

    Fifty years ago, they probably didn’t do it. They are changing their minds now because they got caught, and because of new evidence. They are changing their mind now because we are no longer on a war footing and the benefits of missiles has changed.

    This isn’t a static deal. Something that has a low cost when there is low population had a much higher cost as population increases. We take a more cavalier approach to auto safety because it is usually one person per car, but we have much stricter and more expensive inspections and other standards for trains and planes.

    “If the regulators decide that the costs to kids IQs is “excessive” how do you prove otherwise?”

    The current number for one statistical year of healthy live is around $130,000. If the regulators show that 100 years of mercury poisonings will be averted then they can justify additional contol costs of $130 million. but if they arbitrarily choose a number of $1,300,000 for a statistcal year of life when dozens of other cases used the lower number, then they are the ones who have to provide a justification. Their numbers for figuring this out have to be transparent, so that they are subject to revision.

    Right now it is mostly smoke and mirrors and huge safety factors. There is no doubt they are doing the job intended, but what people like you fail to realize, or refuse to realize is that those big safety margins also come with large costs. Every dollar we spend preventing something when we don;t need to is something we can’t spend on something else.

    The Apollo cpasules had a heat shield with a safety factor of 15% and the thing weighed 1500 extra lbs. That meant 1500 lbs of other stuff we could not take.

    The next lander will have a safety factor of 8%.

    Which one would you rather have under you at 24000 mph? Which one would you rather pay for?

    RH

  14. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “do you think that once the initial decision is made – that form that point on the “rights” of the polluter are such that no new regs are allowed?”

    No. New regs represent a new claim of propertyrights by those wishing the regs. As long as they are willing to pay (fairly) for their new property rights there should be no problem issuing new regs, and also no objection to them.

    The reason you have objections is that we have an implicit agreement with people we license. They make investments that we benefit from and we put up with certain damages. when we change the regs we dchange that agreement and compensation is warranted.

    Never did I say you can;t make new regs. But, if you are going to compensate when you do, then you will be more cautious about your demands.

    As long as demands can be made essenstilly for free, there will be too many of them.

    RH

  15. Darrell -- Chesapeake Avatar
    Darrell — Chesapeake

    “How thick is it after 100 folds?”

    I love it when the so called experts come out with some new theory. We can solve all our problems in the future. Yeah, sure we can. Haven’t solved war, or starvation or disease immunity. Been trying since the dawn of man. Can’t solve the oil crisis even though we’ve had a hundred years and thousands of reports to comtemplate it.

    No, I’m afraid such pronouncements are fantasy, much like the theory of folding paper. Theoretics is all good on paper, but it all falls apart after ten folds.

  16. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    …”…we have an implicit agreement with people we license. They make investments that we benefit from and we put up with certain damages. when we change the regs we dchange that agreement and compensation is warranted.”

    the only agreement is that the permit that they are granted has a date on it – and on that date, the “implicit” contract expires until a new one is negotiated.

    it is at that point, where we re-appraise whether or not the “benefits” are still worth it.

    People who invest in businesses that pollute KNOW that these permits are not forever and that there is some level of risk if the business you invest in – is polluting something that there are concerns about.

    there is no permanent “implicit” or otherwise “agreement”.

    The thing about any kind of polluting activity is that it is not a right… never a right but instead a “permitted” activity dependent on the scope and scale of the impact that – that activity has on others who are represented by the state, who, in turn, controls the permits.

    You should know this Ray.

    There are many, many activities that you cannot engage on your land – without approval from the government that represents your neighbors rights also.

    Even the State itself cannot engage in activities that have impacts on land that they do not own.

    VDOT – has to obtain permits just like Dominion Power has to and Ray Hyde has to.

    You don’t get to decide what of your activities require permission – it’s the other way around.

    If you request and are granted a permit – it comes with a list of what you can and cannot do and what the renewal date for the permit is.

    That’s not implicit – it’s explicit.

    Further – if you violate your permit, it can be revoked immediately.

    The whole point of going through this chapter and verse is to dispel the notion that a polluter has “rights” that compete with the “rights” of those who are impacted from pollution.

    the polluter does not get to decide what the cost/benefit is.

    the polluter does not get to decide, for instance, that their pollution is “worth” the impacts to others nor does decide compensation if the amount of pollution it has been allowed to pollute in the past is further restricted.

    I think sometimes where we get into these debates is that you have a particular view as to how you think the process ought to work..but you speak of it in a way that implies that it is the way it actually does work.

    but all of this goes right back to the very beginning which is, do you as a landowner, have a “right” to pollute.

    And the answer is – that you do not.

    this may be perceived as unfair and even in your words “stealing” but it is the way it is.. and the explanation that I give – that it is the person (and his government) that determine what any landowner is allowed to do – if it impacts others.

    No landowner can decide on their own whether or not their pollution is “worth it”.

    capische?

  17. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Darrell – Yeah, it takes pretty strong fingers to get past the first few folds. You have to be really strong to fold paper that is growing by 1/2 km, 1 km, 2 km with every fold.

    Oddly, some areas of computing have been keeping pace with this exponential change for decades. Processor speed, storgae costs, bandwidth, even display technology. Some have not been keeping pace. Most notably software. So, when someone claime that Moore’s Law will save the world I’d ask what law governs the law of exponential gain in software. The asnwer is that there is no exponential gain in software and, therefore, no law that explains it. And that’s what will keep chips and disk drives from solving problems at an exponential rate.

  18. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Software is fundamentally an intellectual endeavor and in some respects it would be like expecting technology to produce better and faster books.

    The tools for developing software have vastly changed in the last 20 years but in the end – if a human can make a logical mistake in thinking… he can embed it in software and the computer only does what it is told – it never questions the instructions.

    Creating good quality software is a discipline akin to comparing the quality of Toyota verses lesser quality brands.

    You don’t create quality by trying harder.

    It’s a process – well described by a guy named Demming.

    a software contractor friend once said – You can have 2 out of 3:

    fast, cheap, or good.

    Your car has software.

    If your car has stability control or airbags or dozens of other computer controlled devices.

    When you go have a medical test where rays are directed towards your head or other body parts, it is often controlled by software.

    So – the point is – that it IS possible to produce high quality software – especially if someone’s life is involved.

    But there is not shortage of what I call “coders”… folks who believe that software is just “coding”.

    There are..by the way,, industry standards for best practices for software development.

    If you want to see a pretty good example of pretty good software – done for FREE – look at Firefox where they use excellent practices and have dozens/hundreds of folks scattered around the globe without any any authoritarian hierarchy and since they are not paid – cannot be threatened with the loss of their job if they screw up.

  19. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    I have been writing software for 28 years. There has certainly been progress over that time. However, the progress is not exponential. The advancements in many kinds of hardware has been exponential.

    Hence the problem.

    Some commentators look at the exponential advances in hardware and make broad (sometime societal) predictions based on the “exponential advances in technology”. The flaw in this logic is that software does not advance exponentially.

    Firefox, managed by Mozilla, is a great product. There are many instanced of great open source products – Apache for example. However, their progress is not exponential. Not even close. So, when Robin Hanson opens an article about the economic singularity with, “Stuffed into skyscrapers by the billion, brainy bugbots will be the knowledge workers of the future”, I have my doubts. The hardware will almost certainly be available for this vision. The software, however, is a vastly different matter.

  20. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Oh I’d agree completely.

    Software does lag.. and unlike hardware.. in which .. “crap” is punished ruthlessly.. i.e. the company that produces “crap” hardware.. has no choice but to leave the business ..usually…

    there is more tolerance of “crap” software…

    choose 2 out of 3 – cheap, good, fast

    the problem is now that software is not written for one stand-alone platform…

    even Firefox.. Version 3 .. has some “bugs”… they’re tracking them down.. but it just goes to show that even good quality stuff does not often come with Version 1.0.

    My career involved ..after all is said and done.. having a missile hit what is known as “CEP” (circular error probable)

    ..the folks who paid us really did not care what process we used to achieve the results – only that we achieve the results…

    no, if ands and but’s.. or “we thought this” or ” something unexpected happened”.. do the gig…

    behind every story of a software failures (that I’m familiar with)..though.. is usually some human folk.. who thought more highly of their skills that they should have…

    writing good software is a humbling experience…

    long story short – yes… software does not march to the same “double the output” drum as other stuff.

  21. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    there is no permanent “implicit” or otherwise “agreement”.

    Nonsense. of course there is.

    “People who invest in businesses that pollute KNOW that these permits are not forever and that there is some level of risk if the business you invest in …”

    Sounds like an implicit agreement to me. That risk shows up in the cost of the products they supply and the buyers wind up paying for pollution controls they demand. And, if they change their demands they will pay for the changes to the producers process as well.

    If you have some third party (like Sierra Club or whatever) making demands for more controls, then they are not part of that implicit agreement, because they are not the actual consumers.

    The initial agreement is that we recognize these companies provide benefits to us in the form of products, jobs, and taxes, and the products have costs to us in terms of product cost and externalities. We agree to accespt the benefits these companies if they agree to try to reduce the externalities and incorporate them in product costs.

    All this is worked out in dozens of planning documents and public hearings, and yet you don’t see it as an implicit agreement – a social contract. In your view, the government can do any thing they want, the company be damned.

    In fact the government cannot get the benefits it wants AND drive the company out of business with impossible demands or expenses its customers won’t pay. therefore SOME accomodation has to be made.

    There is only ONE which provides the maximum benefits at the least cost, and it is (probably) not the one that generates the lest pollution.

    You look at this as polluters against the rest of us, but it is really the rest of us against each other.

    Consider three groups of stakeholders. Each group is at risk of suffering damages that is measured in terms of loss of average statisical life. One group is at risk from Mercury, one from Malaria, and one from some chemical we have not yet discovered has previously unkown dangers. The value of one year of statistical life is the same for each group.

    As you point out (and the law requires) no stakeholder should bera an undue cost due to other stakeholders activities in seeking benefits. The benefits have to not only outweigh the costs, but those costs have to be distributed fairly.

    So, if the advocates for higher mercury standards are “successful” at getting demands met that are excessive then that means that other stakeholders are paying too much for mercury protection that they are not actually getting AND they are absorbing excess costs in the form of loss of statistical life, because lesser costs would have prevented more loss in their risk area.

    Standards which are too high are just as damaging as ones that are too low.

    RH

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