Why the Future Doesn't Need Us
by Bill Joy · first published 2007
33% recommend61% neutral6% critical
Why HN recommends it
Bill Joy's 2000 Wired essay argues that genetics, robotics and nanotechnology could threaten humanity. It is a thoughtful, persuasive piece on technology risk and what human purpose means.
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Bill Joy's essay "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" [1] is a good read for anyone working through what such a society would be like and what it means for our race. I think it comes down to the philosophical question of what man's purpose is. [1] http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html
on “Is work necessary?” ↗This area is just one that Bill Joy covers in http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html Why the Future Doesn't Need Us, which is my favorite essay on lots of these ideas.
on “H5N1” ↗Great analysis. Reminds me of an updated, "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us", by Bill Joy.
on “We lost the war. Welcome to the world of tomorrow (2006)” ↗I agree that this is worth pondering. Also see (Sun co-founder and vi author) Bill Joy's essay Why the Future doesn't need us, which deals with these matters. https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/
on “Ask HN: Have you ever gone without a computer or phone for an extended period?” ↗…pastime. As for reason (2), modern technology is the worst thing that ever happened to the world, and to promote its progress is nothing short of criminal. Read Our Final Century, by Martin Rees; or read “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” an article by Bill Joy that appeared in Wired magazine, April, 2000. As for reason (3), to choose mathematics as one’s career would be very risky. Not long ago I received a letter from a gravestone…
on “Mathematicians will probably become obsolete before anyone else [pdf] (2004)” ↗I found Bill Joy's, “Why the future doesn't need us,” much more convincing.
…brainwashed into thinking we do. An interesting read is Technological Slavery The Collected Writings Of Theodore J. Kaczynski, A.k.a. ' The Unabomber' which has been mentioned in Bill Joy's famous post "Why the Future doesn't Need Us" and my guess is that despite his infamy he might be heralded as some kind of "hero" in 50-100 years time. Humans and society is in deeper in trouble than we think and stand "no chance of being saved".…
on “Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?” ↗…Biotech could be harmful in a massive way, done by a much smaller operator. So "we" don't really get to say. Someone will just use these technologies. This is what Bill Joy wrote of in 2000, in the essay "Why the future doesn't need us". How do we organize society around this different harm dynamic? EDIT: In some sense, nuclear technology is a great success story. Not used in anger since the second world war. Countries like Italy and…
on “1989 California Medfly Attack” ↗…development of computing and AI. Later he extended these ideas to an entire book [1]. The author's ideas are highly unconventional, but I won't say it's unreasonable or even uncommon in tech - Bill Joy's Why The Future Doesn't Need Us shares similar concerns, the author simply took a much stronger position. [0] https://berglas.org/Articles/AIKillGrandchildren/AIKillGrand... [1] http://computersthink.com/
on “Why it is important that software projects fail (2008)” ↗…driver has been thrown of and the horses (technology) are driving the carriage (us) in a wild ride towards the cliff. [An updated version of this philosophical thinking is Bill Joy's Grey Goo article "Why the future doesn't need us." http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy_pr.html]
on “Women are rejecting marriage in Asia. The social implications are serious.” ↗Reminds me of a symposium I attended at Stanford in 2000 titled "Will Spiritual Robots Replace Humanity by 2100?"[1][2]. (At the time, Bill Joy had written a provocative cover story for Wired headlined "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us: Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species"[3] and this panel was assembled in response.) Glad to…
on “Stanford to host 100-year study on artificial intelligence” ↗Bill Joy wrote about this back in 2000. The essay was titled 'Why the Future Doesn't Need Us' and offers a very (in my mind) depressing attitude of the future. One of his worries is that whatever positive things we can do with new technology are vastly outnumbered by the negative things we can…
on “The Software Revolution” ↗Bill Joy "Why the future doesn't need us" https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/amp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_The_Future_Doesn%27t_Need_... A very famous blog post by Bill Joy on the dangers of rapid technological change. Rather then…
on “Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?” ↗Here [1] is what Bill Joy had to say about this: Why the Future Doesn't Need Us [1] https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/
on “Ask HN: Opinion on Unabomber Kaczynski's “Industrial Society and Its Future”?” ↗Directly make me think about Bill Joy: Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/ https://reasonandmeaning.com/2014/12/02/bill-joy-why-the-fut...
on “Rethinking the Luddites in the Age of A.I” ↗