cathalcon Hacker News • Recommends
On “We were wrong about GPUs”
"Preventing the Collapse of Civilization" by Jonathan Blow comes to mind - link to this video A fantastic talk.
0:00 / 0:00
#jonathanblow#softwarequality#complexity
Preventing the Collapse of Civilization / Jonathan Blow (Thekla, Inc)
DevGAMM
27K subscribers • 1 video on Hallway
- Recommended by 16 people: 14 on Hacker News and 2 curated lists.
- A classic. People kept recommending it from 2020 to 2025.
- Presented by Jonathan Blow, founder of Thekla, Inc.
- An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.
Beginner. No background in the topic needed.
315K views7 years ago16 recommendations
Tools and practiceHistory and cultureSimplicity and complexityHistory of computing
Jonathan Blow argues that software quality is deteriorating and warns that civilization risks losing the ability to maintain complex technological systems.
A discussion about how they make software and what this means by Jonathan Blow, Thekla, Inc. DevGAMM is the biggest game developers conference in Eastern Europe. DevGAMM gives gaming experts a chance to keep up with the latest thinking and developments in making games as well as share their knowledge and experience with each other. Learn more about DevGAMM – devgamm.com/ Subscribe to our newsletter – eepurl.com/dpj3Sz More about games and developers participating in DevGAMM – games.devgamm.com/ Become a speaker – bit.ly/3isHdJP Join our community: Facebook – facebook.com/devgamm/ Twitter – twitter.com/devgamm/ Discord (for developers) – discord.gg/dtDHa6F Contact us via email – contact@devgamm.comWhy it's here
16 people recommend thisWhat people say. Highly recommended as a thought-provoking critique of modern software complexity and the failure of inter-generational knowledge transfer.
Moments people linked to
programming-talkscurated list on GitHubRecommends
Under “Web Development”
Preventing the Collapse of Civilization 01:02:41 by **Jonathan Blow** (2019)
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Under “Software Development”
Preventing the Collapse of Civilization by **Jonathan Blow** (DevGAMM 2019) 01:02:41
pdkl95on Hacker News • Recommends
On “Let's Make the Web Weird Again [audio]”
> quality will deteriorate over time Jonathan Blow's talk "Preventing the Collapse of Civilization"1 makes a good argument that software quality has already suffered significant deterioration. We've just gotten used to software not working. Reboot the computer; refresh the webpage; spend the morning trying to work around the "improvements", regressions, and removed features in the software that forced an update. 1 link to this video
isollion Hacker News • Recommends
On “The Air Force is having to reverse engineer parts of its own stealth bomber”
Tangentially reminds me of this video by Jonathan Blow 0, "Preventing the Collapse of Civilization". The eye-opening moment, for me, was the importance (and neglect) of the inter-generational transfer of knowledge in maintaining technological complexity. 0 link to this video
anderspitmanon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Tell HN: AWS appears to be down again”
Anyone who finds this concept interesting to think about and hasn't seen this video may enjoy it: link to this video See also Foundation by Asimov.
elcapitanon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Disillusioned by Tech in 2022”
I'm not even expecting technology to get better anymore, I just wish the quality of software wasn't constantly decreasing. I've turned off automatic updates for most of them, e.g. MacOS, Android Apps, Firefox. Just can't stand the constant messing up of UIs that may have worked or were at least not as bad as the next version with more bloated features. Beautiful talk on that topic by Jonathan Blow, called "Preventing the collapse of civilization": link to this video
ilrwbwrkhvon Hacker News • Recommends
On “What's the problem with old but excellent Mac apps?”
I am reminded of the excellent "Preventing the Collapse of Civilization" talk by Jonathan Blow: link to this video
sjaakon Hacker News • Recommends
On “1.5-Inch Hand-Carved Agate from 1500 B.C. Shows Sub-Millimeter Details (2017)”
After reading this I can't help but think of a talk "Preventing the Collapse of Civilization" given by Jonathan Blow (the game dev) about progress and how it's not always increasing like we tend to think. Super interesting if you have the time for it: link to this video
theonemindon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?”
link to this video I think Jonathan Blow made a decent argument that we're in a decadent age of software. In a decadent age, the civilization still does and can do the thing, but has started to lose a grip on the fundamentals, so it's on the way out. A decadent age is a kind of end, doesn't necessarily feel like the end, it kind of feels like a stagnant bumbling. How many programmers do you know that can write assembly code? How many layers of abstraction between a web app and the silicon? Processor, OS, probably a byte-code VM, probably a framework... leaking a little bit all of the way. He makes a good point--where's the evidence that we can write good software? It seems possible , but it doesn't app…
asahon Hacker News • Recommends
On “The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero”
…ean it in the same vein as having a small percentage of farmers is desirable. By contrast, I visited a traditional silk factory in Stockholm (amazing btw) and the craft has been lost to the point where they're struggling to find craftspeople able to work their looms and other old equipment. See Jonathan Blow's excellent talk about lost technology: link to this video…
PartiallyTypedon Hacker News • Recommends
On “In 2019 RX470 were $70, RX580 $100”
Software has definitely gotten worse, and tbh it will only keep getting worse. I really like this talk by the possibly notorious Jonathan Blow on the software industry and software in general decomposing 1. 1 link to this video
mrwon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Forgetting the Asbestos – how we lose knowledge and technologies”
I liked Jonathan Blow’s ‘Preventing The Collapse of Civilisation’ talk on the same topic from 2019. 1 Although, it’s more related to software engineering. Previously discussed on a couple occasions. 23 1 link to this video 2 link 3 link
bsrkfon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Rust’s dependencies are starting to worry me”
…ain reasons for rising software complexity and lower software quality; see link (timestamped to the correct position) (they mention Rust explicitly as an example) b) another programmer rather seriously worried about software quality/complexity is Jonathan Blow, who's talk "Preventing the Collapse of Civilization" is worth watching in my opinion: link to this video (it's not talking about package managers specifically, but is on topic regarding software complexity/quality as a whole) Addendum: And sorry, I feel like almost everyone knows this xkcd by now, but since no one so far seems to have posted it; "obligatory xkcd reference": link…
dzongaon Hacker News • Recommends
On “If writing is thinking then what happens if AI is doing the writing and reading?”
every once in a while everyone should watch Jonathan's Blow: Collapse of Civilization 0 by not reading and going through docs - we cut out our critique ability as we just ingest fully what A.I gives us. by not writing we don't exercise thinking - question our assumptions etc. since what AI writes will mostly be positive not negative. 0: link to this video and just like that society stops thinking. stops creating. then civilization collapses.
iamwilon Hacker News • Recommends
On “The great software quality collapse or, how we normalized catastrophe”
Jonathan Blow already warned us six years ago. "Preventing the Collapse of Civilization" link to this video There is the Handmade and Better Software contingent that is pushing against this trend. I don't know if they'll succeed, but they at least care about quality in a way that a lot of software engineers aren't incentivized or don't know how to do anymore. link