The hottest Substack posts of Pessimists Archive Newsletter

And their main takeaways
530 implied HN points โ€ข 08 Feb 24
  1. In 1908, some dismissed the idea of flying machines heavier than air, underestimating their potential usefulness.
  2. The 'Beta Bias' is the tendency to underestimate the potential of new technologies by comparing them to established alternatives.
  3. Every nascent innovation has the potential for growth and improvement, often underestimated in early comparisons.
648 implied HN points โ€ข 24 Jan 24
  1. The US government classified the Power Mac G4 as a super-computer due to its computing power surpassing 1 GIGAFLOP.
  2. In 1979, a GIGAFLOP was seen as powerful and scary, but now we carry thousands of GIGAFLOPs in our pockets with modern devices.
  3. The marketing genius of Apple used the munition classification of the G4 to promote it as a 'Personal Supercomputer', leveraging the restrictions to market the product.
157 implied HN points โ€ข 09 Mar 23
  1. Samuel Butler warned about the potential dangers of intelligent machines in 1863.
  2. The letter inspired the concept of Butlerian Jihad in the Dune series.
  3. The letter discusses the idea of machines eventually surpassing humans in supremacy and the call for war against them.
Get a weekly roundup of the best Substack posts, by hacker news affinity:
98 implied HN points โ€ข 14 Feb 23
  1. Typewriters were once considered unromantic but are now seen as romantic gestures
  2. Technology has always influenced the way love is expressed, from typewriters to AI-generated love poems
  3. The debate around AI love poems raises questions about the future of romantic gestures and personalization