4 ms·

And the story we tell ourselves today is, frankly, a dismal one. It's that all of computing should be invented and put into the service of "the economy" rather

by scroot 9y ago

And the story we tell ourselves today is, frankly, a dismal one. It's that all of computing should be invented and put into the service of "the economy" rather than people. Instead of a culture of "computational literacy" in which human thought is extended to another level to the same effect as written literacy hundreds of years ago, we have an environment of complex technologies that cater to our most base evolutionary addictions and surveil us for profit. Our universities are no longer institutions where people learn how to think, but rather where they learn how to "do" -- usually "doing" involves vocational practices that already exist, especially those that some manager (ie provost or dean) deems economically important. This is why you have generations of programmers bitching about type systems instead of the very politics, history, and social consequences of their own wares. We don't have funding like ARPA/IPTO anymore and the devices and software of our world show it. Everything is some iteration on ideas that came from that period, good or bad – iterations whose goal is always "efficiency" in some form. Our current political culture prevents big initiatives like this, because how on Earth would they benefit the economy in the short or medium term, the limits of our new horizon? Because these technologies have been created in service of an economic system that has proliferated social problems, they can never be a meaningful solution to those problems. Sure, we might invent some new systems for dealing with environmental catastrophe, but they are always predicated on the assumption that people should consume more and more. We are at the behest of billionaires – smart ones, mostly – who understand complex systems but also have an interest in ensuring that they remain complex. It is unlikely that we will achieve a new kind of transcendent way of computing until we change the way we think about politics and economics. That is our environment. That is the "fit" that our technical systems have, as you say.

alankay1 9y ago
Clear thoughts and summary!
mmiller 9y ago
Great description of the problem (and great description of what we could have instead)! What came to mind as I read what you said here was a bit that I caught Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about from 8 years ago. As I heard him say this, I thought he was right on point, but I also felt sad that it's pretty obvious we're not thinking like this in computing. It turns out this is not just a problem in computing, but in science funding generally. That's what he was talking about, though he was quite polite about it: https://youtu.be/UlHOAUIIuq0?t=22m30s https://youtu.be/UlHOAUIIuq0?t=22m30s It strikes me that a very corrosive thought process in our society has been to politicize the notion of "how competitive we are" economically. Sure, that matters, but I see it more as a symptom than a cause of social problems. I hate seeing it brought up in discussions about education, because sure, competition is going to be a part of societal living, and in many educational environments, there's some aspect of competition to it (a story I heard from my grandfather from when he entered medical school was, "Look to your left. Look to your right. Only one of you will be graduating with a medical degree," because that was the intended ratio along the bell curve), but bringing economic competitiveness into education misses the point badly. I understand where the impulse to focus on that comes from, because globalization tends to produce a much more competitive economic landscape, where people feel much more uncertain about basic questions they have to answer. Part of which is creating the life they want, but often people end up missing a significant part of actually creating it (if it's even feasible. What I see more often is a compromise, because there are only so many hours in a day, and only so much effort can be put into it) in the process of trying to create it. They get caught up in "doing," as you said. As I've thought back on the '60s, it seems like while there was still competition going on, the emphasis was on a political competition, internationally, not economic. There was a significant technological component to that, because of the Cold War/nuclear weapons. The creation of ARPA and NASA was an effect of that. My understanding is we underwent a reorientation in the 1980s, because it was realized that there was too little attention paid to the benefits that a relatively autonomous economy can produce, killing off bad ideas, where what's being offered doesn't match with what people need or want, and allowing better ones to replace them. That's definitely needed, but I'm in agreement with Kay that what education should be about is helping people understand what they need. Perhaps we could start by telling today's students that if and when they have children, what their children need is to understand the basic thought-inventions of our society in an environment where they're more likely to get that. Instead, what we've been doing is treating schools like glorified daycare centers. Undergraduate education has been turned into much the same thing.
- scroot 9y ago
  > My understanding is we underwent a reorientation in the 1980s, because it was realized that there was too little attention paid to the benefits that a relatively autonomous economy can produce, killing off bad ideas, where what's being offered doesn't match with what people need or want, and allowing better ones to replace them. There was a rightward swing in the late 1970s that took root in our political system, then commentariat, and then culture. It has never reverted. The term "neoliberalism" gets thrown around (usually by dweebs like me) but it's the precise term to use. Wendy Brown's recent book is probably the best overview of the topic in recent years. The cultural shift that was unleashed in that period is so insidious that you don't even notice it half the time. Think about dating apps/sites where users talk about their romantic lives using terms like "R.O.I." Or people discussing ways to "optimize" their lives by making them more efficient. It's nuts. Steve Jobs' old "bicycle of the mind" chestnut is, in a way, emblematic of this way of thinking. He was talking about how the most "efficient" animal was a human with a bicycle. He wanted human thinking to be "more efficient." If you listen to Kay, on the other hand, he's talking about something entirely different. The transcendent effect of literacy on mankind created the very possibility of civilization, for good or ill. Computing as an aid to thinking in the way the written word was previously could take this to the next, higher stage – one we cannot really describe or talk about because we don't even have the language to do so. But short term thinking, shareholder value, and the need for economic growth – these are and have been the pillars of our politics and culture for several decades now. No one says who that growth benefits, of course, which is why it's no coincidence that the maw of inequality has opened ever wider during the same period. If you're wondering where all the "good ideas" are, well, we don't have time for good ideas. We only have time for profitable ones, or at least ones that can be sold after a high valuation. The culture also trickled into the university, and then to funding (not just science funding, but funding for most fields. We need more than science to do new science). I have been on the bitch end of writing NSF grants for pretty ambitious projects, and the requirements are straight out of Kafka. They want you to demonstrate that you'll be able to do the things you're saying you'll hope to be able to do. That's not how it used to work. But the angle is always the same: they want something "innovative" that can be useful as immediately as possible. Useful for the economy, that is. They don't understand this undeniable fact: if you want amazing developments, you have to let passionate and smart people screw around and you have to pay them for it. The university used to be the place to screw around with ideas and methods. Now it's career prep. > I understand where the impulse to focus on that comes from, because globalization tends to produce a much more competitive economic landscape, where people feel much more uncertain about basic questions they have to answer This kind of globalization is a choice, one made by powerful people with explicit interests. It was not inevitable. Right now I live in the wealthiest country that has ever existed on the planet. And right now many of its citizens are calling their elected leaders to beg them not to take away the sliver of health care that they have left. We serve the economy and not each other. When there's a big decision to make, our leaders wonder "how the market will react," rather than how people will be affected. Last point: the idea of this thing called "the economy" as an object of policy is relatively new. Timothy Mitchell has an amazing chapter on it in his book Carbon Democracy. The 20th century was one where we allowed the field of economics to cannibalize all others. The 21st has not taken the chance to escape this.

by scroot 9y ago

alankay1 9y ago

Clear thoughts and summary!

mmiller 9y ago

Great description of the problem (and great description of what we could have instead)! What came to mind as I read what you said here was a bit that I caught Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about from 8 years ago. As I heard him say this, I thought he was right on point, but I also felt sad that it's pretty obvious we're not thinking like this in computing. It turns out this is not just a problem in computing, but in science funding generally. That's what he was talking about, though he was quite polite about it: https://youtu.be/UlHOAUIIuq0?t=22m30s https://youtu.be/UlHOAUIIuq0?t=22m30s It strikes me that a very corrosive thought process in our society has been to politicize the notion of "how competitive we are" economically. Sure, that matters, but I see it more as a symptom than a cause of social problems. I hate seeing it brought up in discussions about education, because sure, competition is going to be a part of societal living, and in many educational environments, there's some aspect of competition to it (a story I heard from my grandfather from when he entered medical school was, "Look to your left. Look to your right. Only one of you will be graduating with a medical degree," because that was the intended ratio along the bell curve), but bringing economic competitiveness into education misses the point badly. I understand where the impulse to focus on that comes from, because globalization tends to produce a much more competitive economic landscape, where people feel much more uncertain about basic questions they have to answer. Part of which is creating the life they want, but often people end up missing a significant part of actually creating it (if it's even feasible. What I see more often is a compromise, because there are only so many hours in a day, and only so much effort can be put into it) in the process of trying to create it. They get caught up in "doing," as you said. As I've thought back on the '60s, it seems like while there was still competition going on, the emphasis was on a political competition, internationally, not economic. There was a significant technological component to that, because of the Cold War/nuclear weapons. The creation of ARPA and NASA was an effect of that. My understanding is we underwent a reorientation in the 1980s, because it was realized that there was too little attention paid to the benefits that a relatively autonomous economy can produce, killing off bad ideas, where what's being offered doesn't match with what people need or want, and allowing better ones to replace them. That's definitely needed, but I'm in agreement with Kay that what education should be about is helping people understand what they need. Perhaps we could start by telling today's students that if and when they have children, what their children need is to understand the basic thought-inventions of our society in an environment where they're more likely to get that. Instead, what we've been doing is treating schools like glorified daycare centers. Undergraduate education has been turned into much the same thing.

scroot 9y ago
> My understanding is we underwent a reorientation in the 1980s, because it was realized that there was too little attention paid to the benefits that a relatively autonomous economy can produce, killing off bad ideas, where what's being offered doesn't match with what people need or want, and allowing better ones to replace them. There was a rightward swing in the late 1970s that took root in our political system, then commentariat, and then culture. It has never reverted. The term "neoliberalism" gets thrown around (usually by dweebs like me) but it's the precise term to use. Wendy Brown's recent book is probably the best overview of the topic in recent years. The cultural shift that was unleashed in that period is so insidious that you don't even notice it half the time. Think about dating apps/sites where users talk about their romantic lives using terms like "R.O.I." Or people discussing ways to "optimize" their lives by making them more efficient. It's nuts. Steve Jobs' old "bicycle of the mind" chestnut is, in a way, emblematic of this way of thinking. He was talking about how the most "efficient" animal was a human with a bicycle. He wanted human thinking to be "more efficient." If you listen to Kay, on the other hand, he's talking about something entirely different. The transcendent effect of literacy on mankind created the very possibility of civilization, for good or ill. Computing as an aid to thinking in the way the written word was previously could take this to the next, higher stage – one we cannot really describe or talk about because we don't even have the language to do so. But short term thinking, shareholder value, and the need for economic growth – these are and have been the pillars of our politics and culture for several decades now. No one says who that growth benefits, of course, which is why it's no coincidence that the maw of inequality has opened ever wider during the same period. If you're wondering where all the "good ideas" are, well, we don't have time for good ideas. We only have time for profitable ones, or at least ones that can be sold after a high valuation. The culture also trickled into the university, and then to funding (not just science funding, but funding for most fields. We need more than science to do new science). I have been on the bitch end of writing NSF grants for pretty ambitious projects, and the requirements are straight out of Kafka. They want you to demonstrate that you'll be able to do the things you're saying you'll hope to be able to do. That's not how it used to work. But the angle is always the same: they want something "innovative" that can be useful as immediately as possible. Useful for the economy, that is. They don't understand this undeniable fact: if you want amazing developments, you have to let passionate and smart people screw around and you have to pay them for it. The university used to be the place to screw around with ideas and methods. Now it's career prep. > I understand where the impulse to focus on that comes from, because globalization tends to produce a much more competitive economic landscape, where people feel much more uncertain about basic questions they have to answer This kind of globalization is a choice, one made by powerful people with explicit interests. It was not inevitable. Right now I live in the wealthiest country that has ever existed on the planet. And right now many of its citizens are calling their elected leaders to beg them not to take away the sliver of health care that they have left. We serve the economy and not each other. When there's a big decision to make, our leaders wonder "how the market will react," rather than how people will be affected. Last point: the idea of this thing called "the economy" as an object of policy is relatively new. Timothy Mitchell has an amazing chapter on it in his book Carbon Democracy. The 20th century was one where we allowed the field of economics to cannibalize all others. The 21st has not taken the chance to escape this.