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Illich's concept of a "Radical Monopoly," is also immensely relevant to internet platforms. Radical monopoly is a concept defined by philosopher and author Iva
by motohagiography 6y ago
Illich's concept of a "Radical Monopoly," is also immensely relevant to internet platforms.
Radical monopoly is a concept defined by philosopher and author Ivan Illich in his 1973 book, "Tools for Conviviality," and revisited in his later work, which describes how a technology or service becomes so exceptionally dominant that even with multiple providers, its users are excluded from society without access to the product. His initial example is the effect of cars on societies, where the car itself shaped cities by its needs, so much so that people without cars become excluded from participation in cities. A radical monopoly is when the dominance of one type of product supersedes dominance by any one brand.
Social media as a technology in the forms of Facebook/Instagram/Twitter could be seen as a radical monopoly for reputation, as is Linkedin for employment, colleges for education, etc.
I think Illich's criticisms of car culture pushed him outside the Overton window of policy making, but his radical monopoly concept is a useful critical tool for reasoning about tech and ethics. A counter argument could use the example that the discovery of fire created a radical monopoly on heat, and therefore it's so general as to be applied arbitrarily to anything you don't like. However, being able to think about the consequences of a new radical monopoly might have on some aspect of human experience is useful for anticipating policy options in response to dynamic technology development.
- Jtsummers 6y agoCounter-counter argument. Fire can be produced by nearly anyone with a bare minimum level of competence and coordination required (flint and steel, two sticks and a string, various other methods). A car or college education cannot be provided by a person to themselves. They are reliant both on the thing to participate in society, and on society in order to obtain the thing.
- thelightthat 6y agoCould you link to anti car HN discussions or articles? Thank you
- pantaloony 6y agoHis essay on (in part) cars drove (haha) me to run the numbers and despite being fairly conservative with how much closer-together my city would be without car infrastructure (esp. parking lots and massive, useless “green space” setbacks and margins to keep roads at a tolerable distance from people) and despite my being somewhat thrifty on car spending and having a relatively short commute—sure enough, I was right around break-even for time savings vs. a bike in a hypothetical very-few-cars version of my city.
- alex_young 6y agoIt's crazy for most of us to imagine, but huge modern populations in Europe have been doing this for thousands of years. Dense urban cores without cars is how cities were designed to work. It's amazingly great to get around in these places, there are shops accommodating every need you can imagine in all parts of the urban core, and it reduces a lot of friction when considering to go out for something spontaneous.
- Ericson2314 6y ago> I think Illich's criticisms of car culture pushed him outside the Overton window of policy making. Then or now? Cars being terrible and destroying society is not a fringe view in many places.
- Chiba-City 6y agoI live car-free in a DC embassy neighborhood near a Metro station. Cars are depreciating assets. Why would anyone want one? Commercial vehicles make sense, because they are productivity tools that (hopefully) pay for themselves.
- doukdouk 6y agoNo, but being "anti cars" is still extremely controversial, see for instance the "Yellow Vests" in France.
- Ericson2314 6y agoYes it's controversial, but that controversy is not evenly distributed: there many places one can be openly anti-car and still get elected. (And that's not even counting proportional representation giving voice to minority views.)
- CM30 6y agoIt's a fringe view in most of them. Sure, quite a few people in many places don't drive or feel the need to, but I suspect if you asked the population at large what they thought of cars as an concept/invention/technology, they'd be at worst neutral to them, and often see the positive side. I know for sure that most people around here either drive or want to, and that many peope consider it unthinkable to not do so. The anti car ideaology is something that seems far more common on Hacker News and certain online forums than it is in the real world/offline.
- Ericson2314 6y agoIt's common in certain cities. More in Europe than US. But more among US urban politicians than perhaps even their constituents (which is why the GP about public policy is silly). US major cities I'd wager is like even split between politicians that like cars, politicians that dislike cars but are too scared to do anything about it, and politicians that dislike cars and aren't scared. Here's to hoping we get more Ada Colau and less Bill de Blasio.