I love watching Star Trek. At its best, it both entertains and expands your mind. As Doctorow says, it explores the impact of technology on society and individuals, and it helps us see our current world in a different light.

But here's the thing: just as I would never try to learn physics from Star Trek, I would never take its ideas as prescriptions for how to run society. There's an episode in which Kirk almost triggers a nuclear war because he gambles that once faced with that possibility, the two sides will make peace instead. This is MAD theory on steroids.

Even the concept that there is no money in the Star Trek future is non-sensical. It is the economic equivalent of "Heisenberg compensators" or "inertial dampeners".

I feel the same way about Cory Doctorow. I enjoy reading him because he expands my mind. But I can't take him seriously.

Like Star Trek, Doctorow espouses simple themes in which there are good guys and bad guys. He envisions a utopia in which all his needs are met, and when the world falls short, he trots out the usual villains to blame, billionaires instead of Klingons. And he does it in an entertaining and clever way.

Reality is far more complicated, of course.

My father had a theory that the Industrial Revolution happened, not because of a technological change, but because the Bank of England invented fractional reserve banking. With fractional reserve lending, a bank can lend more money than it has on its books. And as long as that money is put to productive uses, the economy will grow faster than if the money supply were limited.

Instead of a central authority deciding what we should invest in, there is a distributed system that tries various things, some of which succeed and some of which fail. And with fractional reserve banking, there is more money for experiments, allowing for more shots-on-goal.

If I were to try to simplify things as Star Trek or Doctorow do, I might say that every material benefit that you have today, from electric lights to Uber, happened because someone decided to invest in an idea. In my morality tale, investors and founders are not "tech hucksters" but an essential cog in a complex, and almost miraculous machine that has made the world of 2025 almost unrecognizably better than the filthy, poor London of 1760.

I love watching Star Trek and reading Doctorow. But I find reality much more fascinating.

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hn_throw_250915 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

This comment reminds me of the one time when a critic said to Arnold how he wouldn’t want to look like him.

Arnold replied back, “don’t worry, you never will”.

	▲	GMoromisato 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I love Arnold. And I readily agree that I will never be as smart or successful as Cory Doctorow. I'm comfortable just being me.

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cptroot 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm curious. Aside from this general criticism of Doctorow, do you have any specific criticisms of TFA's contents?

Any thoughts about whether reverse-centaurs are something that should continue to exist? Perhaps something about how the AI boom is going to produce miracles, as opposed to making us all babysitters forced to keep up with supersonic idiotic toddlers?

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AnthonyMouse 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Any thoughts about whether reverse-centaurs are something that should continue to exist?

I don't think he has really articulated a meaningful distinction between the two. It seems to be approximately "it's a centaur when you want to use AI for something and a reverse centaur when the boss wants you to use AI for something".

What he seems to want is that if AI can reduce the time it takes to do something, the time saved should be used to improve quality rather than to produce more output with fewer people. Which is nice and everything, but if you want that to happen what you need is not abstract indignation that corporations are willing to produce trash as long as people are willing to consume it, it's some efficient mechanism for people to discover high-quality things in a sea of low-quality trash.

	▲	GMoromisato 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Agreed. Doctorow doesn't believe reverse-centaurs should exist. That's a fine but very shallow position. He's not saying reverse-centaurs should be banned, because he knows that's both untenable (how do you define "reverse-centaur") and counter-productive (reverse-centaurs will be out of a job, but VCs and billionaires will still exist). At best he's complaining about a system that requires people to be reverse-centaurs instead of centaurs. But he doesn't examine the properties of the system that cause that. Why can't the listicle author be a centaur like Doctorow? Why are they paid so little that they need to use AI to produce entire articles instead of just a minor citation? Maybe it's because of the power-law rewards to talent, in which the few people, like Doctorow, who attract a wide readership, end up taking all the money. In a "fair" system, maybe all authors should be paid the same flat rate. Then authors would work for the sheer joy of writing instead of to make more money. Of course, they might have to supplement their income in other ways, but at least it's fair, right? Right? I can't imagine Doctorow could disagree with that.

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GMoromisato 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't think poverty and injustice should continue to exist. But I don't think that my writing that is going to magically eliminate either.

I think my (uncharitable) reading of TFA is:

1. Billionaires and tech hucksters want you to be a reverse-centaur. 2. Most people don't want to be reverse-centaurs. 3. Therefore, don't be a reverse-centaur, be a centaur instead.

As for what's going to happen with AI, I don't know. We're at point where we can no longer extrapolate the future from the past, and that's definitely scary.

But I'm an old Gen Xer, and I've lived through many of these scary moments. And I'm an optimist at heart, so I believe that, in the long arc of history, the future will be better than the past, even if I have to suffer now to make it so.

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harimau777 2 days ago | parent [-]

I think the problem comes in the situation where an individual doesn't get to choose not to be a reverse centaur. E.g. because that's the only way for them to keep their job.

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GMoromisato a day ago | parent [-]

That makes sense, but Doctorow fails to go any deeper than "I don't think reverse-centaurs should exist."

Why, for example, is the listicle author a reverse-centaur instead of a centaur like Doctorow? IMHO it's because of power-law rewards to good writing. Doctorow can make a living writing a few books because his books are popular. But the listicle writer can't charge that much per page so has to resort to increasing his page output with AI.

This is not the fault of AI!

My friend is an author, and she works very hard to write her books, at least as hard as, say, Steven King. You would not be surprised to hear that she does not make the same amount of money per hour worked as Steven King.

If Doctorow wants to get rid of reverse-centaurs, maybe he should face the actual problem instead of blaming the usual suspects.

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arretevad 16 hours ago | parent [-]

Like all problems, It’s possible there are many contributing factors. Power laws may be one. The usual suspects might carry some of the blame as well. These things are not mutually exclusive. It’s unlikely there is one “solution” that will fix the systemic issues that create reverse centaurs. I don’t see the value in writing someone off simply because they do not explore the entire solution space.

	▲	GMoromisato 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		My original post fell short in that I criticized Doctorow without offering substance or examples. [Ironically, this is exactly what I accused him of!] Later, in response to various people here, I wrote a more substantive critique, which I stand by. And I stand by my original opinion: Doctorow is a talented and entertaining writer, but I can't take him seriously.