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This should be the overriding concern of everyone in this forum. It's no longer astonishing[0], but it is quite disgusting how HN participants are able to compa

by rexpop 7y ago

This should be the overriding concern of everyone in this forum. It's no longer astonishing[0], but it is quite disgusting how HN participants are able to compartmentalize their enthusiasm for technology away from moral or ethical qualms. I suppose the most generous interpretation is to assume that they are simply unaware.[1] Upstream of that ignorance, however, is a fearful unwillingness to interrogate the foundations of one's own life. 0. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." ― Upton Sinclair 1. https://crimethinc.com/books/no-wall-they-can-build https://crimethinc.com/books/no-wall-they-can-build

crispinb 7y ago
Not compartmentalising is trickier than you imply, as the whole corporate-capitalist system of power (which supplies nearly all of your and my goods) depends at its root on current exploitation and drawing down on its investment in future destruction (of the entire biosphere). We can point fingers at many hideous individual corporate citizens in tech (Dropbox & Amazon spring immediately to mind, current Microsoft doesn't), but the whole system depends intrinsically on maintaining the ignorance you write of. How to extricate ourselves from all that? Personally, I'm for revolution to take it all down. But we know that isn't going to happen.
- rexpop 7y ago
  > hideous individual corporate citizens I agree with you, that pointing fingers like is useless. We very quickly run out of fingers. > I'm for revolution to take it all down. I wonder what you mean by that.
  - crispinb 7y ago
    > I wonder what you mean by that I'm not entirely sure. If I had a recipe I'd probably be a leader somewhere rather than an anonymous sometime programmer in deepest Northern NSW! One of the few things I'm pretty certain of though is that the capitalist-corporate system is a road to worldwide destruction. And that there are no diversions within the system, no reforms that can do anything other than alter the speed of the decline. It all has to go, by whatever means necessary. Though I'm open to the possibility that the course is a biological given, and capitalist-corporatism is merely a consequence of that biology. In which case, we're done.
ctrlaltdel121 7y ago
You must be enjoying quarantine, because if your ethical horse is up this high you must not be able to leave the house without encountering "qualms"
- geofft 7y ago
  That's basically the "yet you participate in society" of ethics discourse. It's entirely possible to encounter qualms in everything you see - that's hardly a sign that the world is okay as it is and we shouldn't try to make it better.
- rexpop 7y ago
  If you think I hold you all to a higher standard than I hold myself, you're mistaken. I have never been able to leave the house without encountering qualms. The world around me is an interconnected weave. Denying that fact only makes it easer to live a very particularly worthless kind of life.

by rexpop 7y ago

crispinb 7y ago

Not compartmentalising is trickier than you imply, as the whole corporate-capitalist system of power (which supplies nearly all of your and my goods) depends at its root on current exploitation and drawing down on its investment in future destruction (of the entire biosphere). We can point fingers at many hideous individual corporate citizens in tech (Dropbox & Amazon spring immediately to mind, current Microsoft doesn't), but the whole system depends intrinsically on maintaining the ignorance you write of. How to extricate ourselves from all that? Personally, I'm for revolution to take it all down. But we know that isn't going to happen.

rexpop 7y ago
> hideous individual corporate citizens I agree with you, that pointing fingers like is useless. We very quickly run out of fingers. > I'm for revolution to take it all down. I wonder what you mean by that.
- crispinb 7y ago
  > I wonder what you mean by that I'm not entirely sure. If I had a recipe I'd probably be a leader somewhere rather than an anonymous sometime programmer in deepest Northern NSW! One of the few things I'm pretty certain of though is that the capitalist-corporate system is a road to worldwide destruction. And that there are no diversions within the system, no reforms that can do anything other than alter the speed of the decline. It all has to go, by whatever means necessary. Though I'm open to the possibility that the course is a biological given, and capitalist-corporatism is merely a consequence of that biology. In which case, we're done.

ctrlaltdel121 7y ago

You must be enjoying quarantine, because if your ethical horse is up this high you must not be able to leave the house without encountering "qualms"

geofft 7y ago
That's basically the "yet you participate in society" of ethics discourse. It's entirely possible to encounter qualms in everything you see - that's hardly a sign that the world is okay as it is and we shouldn't try to make it better.
rexpop 7y ago
If you think I hold you all to a higher standard than I hold myself, you're mistaken. I have never been able to leave the house without encountering qualms. The world around me is an interconnected weave. Denying that fact only makes it easer to live a very particularly worthless kind of life.