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As a German, the idea that mass murder and high tech are different sides of the same coin has shaped my world view forever (after reading Dialectic of Enlighten

As a German, the idea that mass murder and high tech are different sides of the same coin has shaped my world view forever (after reading Dialectic of Enlightenment and On the Critique of Instrumental Reason). Horkheimer red-pilled me on our western societies and I'm grateful for it.

el_dev_hell 6y ago
I mean this sincerely: WTF does that mean? Mass murder is the opposite to technology?
- throwaway7281 6y ago
  Germans learn about the history of the Third Reich in detail and I always asked myself: how could this happen? Smart, hard-working, intelligent, compassionate, literate people start to plan industrial murder of millions of people on the basis of what exactly? Now, here's the thing. Progress is not that shiny guiding light. It is an extreme force, especially a force to control things, especially nature. The Third Reich planned mass murder, as it were a railroad track or lunar landing - the form was exactly the same and they did not understood: that this similarity in form revealed and forever merged the idea of progress to the most inhumane behavior and destruction. If that does not make sense, I encourage you to just read a bit about the concentration camps or the Third Reich in general. Good timing, too - we have 75th anniversary of V-E Day coming up.
  - tim333 6y ago
    Bad though that was, massacres and genocides go back millenia and went on without much tech involved. eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Neanderthals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Neanderth..., Pinker's stuff, the book Demonic Males on how chimps do it
- hnick 6y ago
  Two sides of the same coin generally means complementary items that may seem unrelated, not opposites. An English teacher I had banged on about theme and style being two sides of the same coin when writing. The example here would be that mass murder is not really as effective without technology, whereas technology enables us to flip to mass murder quickly even if we previously didn't consider it. They are complements.
dkural 6y ago
That's an excellent point, and most likely lost on 99.99% of tech enthusiasts. If I could get people in science and engineering to understand one concept deeply, that'd be it - that grand narratives of progress are often used as tools of oppression, including mass murder; especially for those whose stories don't fit neatly into the overall plot. Power regimes co-opt key constituencies (such as technocrat/builders) with these progress narratives to preserve the order of the world.
lappet 6y ago
Can you elaborate why high tech is similar to mass murder? I don't always embrace tech but I see tech as a tool that can function differently based on who is using it

el_dev_hell 6y ago

I mean this sincerely: WTF does that mean? Mass murder is the opposite to technology?

throwaway7281 6y ago
Germans learn about the history of the Third Reich in detail and I always asked myself: how could this happen? Smart, hard-working, intelligent, compassionate, literate people start to plan industrial murder of millions of people on the basis of what exactly? Now, here's the thing. Progress is not that shiny guiding light. It is an extreme force, especially a force to control things, especially nature. The Third Reich planned mass murder, as it were a railroad track or lunar landing - the form was exactly the same and they did not understood: that this similarity in form revealed and forever merged the idea of progress to the most inhumane behavior and destruction. If that does not make sense, I encourage you to just read a bit about the concentration camps or the Third Reich in general. Good timing, too - we have 75th anniversary of V-E Day coming up.
- tim333 6y ago
  Bad though that was, massacres and genocides go back millenia and went on without much tech involved. eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Neanderthals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Neanderth..., Pinker's stuff, the book Demonic Males on how chimps do it
hnick 6y ago
Two sides of the same coin generally means complementary items that may seem unrelated, not opposites. An English teacher I had banged on about theme and style being two sides of the same coin when writing. The example here would be that mass murder is not really as effective without technology, whereas technology enables us to flip to mass murder quickly even if we previously didn't consider it. They are complements.

dkural 6y ago

That's an excellent point, and most likely lost on 99.99% of tech enthusiasts. If I could get people in science and engineering to understand one concept deeply, that'd be it - that grand narratives of progress are often used as tools of oppression, including mass murder; especially for those whose stories don't fit neatly into the overall plot. Power regimes co-opt key constituencies (such as technocrat/builders) with these progress narratives to preserve the order of the world.

lappet 6y ago

Can you elaborate why high tech is similar to mass murder? I don't always embrace tech but I see tech as a tool that can function differently based on who is using it