6 ms·

I believe the cultural wars focus the population's attention on issues that divide us, rather than issues that would unite: concentration of power, gutting of m

by clcaev 5y ago

I believe the cultural wars focus the population's attention on issues that divide us, rather than issues that would unite: concentration of power, gutting of main street, etc. The detachment of our news and media from local civics denies our population practice working together, with real problems, with real consensus. Instead the polarization is on more abstract, national, and intractable concerns -- political sport with little hope of amicable resolution. As technologists, how can we work to rebuild regional and local political and economic sovereignty? Sustainable power comes from the bottom up, not the top down.

jtbayly 5y ago
> Sustainable power comes from the bottom up, not the top down. I’m all for decreasing the size and scope of the federal government as well, but I hardly think that’s a non-polarizing opinion.
- Pfhreak 5y ago
  Interesting, I read that more as a call for more union power and worker ownership. Our biases are showing. :D
  - luckylion 5y ago
    It can be both, can't it? If you reduce the power of the federal government, you increase local power. In some places, that'll mean more worker ownership, in others it'll mean more libertarian power etc. But by allowing both to exist separately, you're not forcing them to fight over the country.
Consultant32452 5y ago
A decade ago the activists were occupying Wall Street. Now they’re all aligned with the mega corps and the fighting is about semantics of how we say that lives matter. I believe this was deliberate. That doesn’t mean I necessarily believe some evil people twirled their mustaches to plot evil in secret, but is rather the result of many organizations working unison towards common goals without the necessity of central planning.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "A decade ago the activists were occupying Wall Street. Now they’re all aligned with the mega corps and the fighting is about semantics of how we say that lives matter" Completely different issues. They are aligned against discrimination, but divided on economic inequality.
  - Consultant32452 5y ago
    They are aligned with anything that lets them continue to make money. And they are more than happy to keep your finite attention on topics that don’t affect them. One hits the bottom line and the other is some execs go on a retreat and they hang a few signs up.
  - barbacoa 5y ago
    It the same issue but with a slight of hand to shift blame. There is a sentiment that at a macro level the economic system is geared to advantage those at the top. What I see mega corps are doing now is try to shift that frustration from a discussion of class to a discussion of race. Suddenly the white working class outside of major economic centers, the same ones who have seen their economic prospects erode over a generation due to deindustrialization can be painted as the villain and racists.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > It the same issue No, its not. The racial justics movement predates OWS, and was active when OWS was a thing. Its true that BLM was, triggered, or coincided with a reenergization of that movement, but it wasn’t grounded in OWS’s complaints. (There was a big-money sponsored grouo which coopted some OWS complaints but shifted the focus go better serve particular institutiobal interests; but it was the Tea Party Patriots, not BLM.) > What I see mega corps are doing now is try to shift that frustration from a discussion of class to a discussion of race. At the time BLM emerged, much less when theie efforts started bringing corporations around, its not like there was a widely salient class-based but race-free narrative that institutions paying lip service to BLM werr marginalizing. > Suddenly the white working class outside of major economic centers, the same ones who have seen their economic prospects erode over a generation due to deindustrialization can be painted as the villain and racists The BLM movement is about powerful institutions and the lack of unequal lack of accountability and concern they exhibit by race. As a class, the “white working class outsidd of major economic centers” is not a focus, positive or negative of BLM activism, and are only really relevant, in any negative sense, to the extent they actively or passively support or participate inbthe racist institutions and actions BLM addresses.
titzer 5y ago
> As technologists, how can we work to rebuild regional and local political and economic sovereignty? I think you hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, technologists are naturally focused on scaling solutions up to the entire world. We want to use technology to push hard real world problems behind a screen, behind keyboards, and behind servers. This creates a contradiction in our thinking that cannot be resolved. It cannot be resolved because the political climate is created by exactly that phenomenon of scale, by pushing people and their problems behind screens and servers and making them dance at the touch of our keyboards. You really want to fix things? Stop thinking about technology and making money and help out in your local community. Don't take this to mean you, personally. Just someone else. Someone else should work in their local community. We can still write code and make money. Oh wait. Dang it again.
- Fellshard 5y ago
  Unfortunately, the very idea of locality and federation of power is itself one of the dividing lines - clever, that, really. The people who believe all things must be fixed from the top down, and the people who believe things can only be fixed from the bottom up.
  - ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
    I'm not sure that line cleaves along political affiliation, but I'm willing to be convinced. I know both Democratic party insiders who have pivoted to local political activism following the presidential election, and Republican businessmen who are adamant that taking a stand in local politics is the way forward for their movement.
    - Fellshard 5y ago
      It's certainly not perfectly along the fault line, but enough so to make it difficult to persuade.
- bordercases 5y ago
  "We" is a helluva drug. Same with "you". What about "I"?
jrsj 5y ago
I know I am very pessimistic on this but I honestly believe if someone started to succeed in doing this the political & economic establishment would crush them by any means necessary.
inglor_cz 5y ago
As the late Douglas Adams said: "Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation." https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Babel_Fish https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Babel_Fish Inflammatory news and memes very clearly propagate in communities sharing the same language. They can overcome the language barrier (e.g. English to Hungarian), but they usually lose quite a lot of their original potency in the process. The more people speak English on a proficient enough level, the bigger the pond through which the ripples go. I do not really believe that anyone can carve this pond back into small puddles. Not in the time of the Internet.
weasel_words 5y ago
"As technologists, how can we work to rebuild regional and local political and economic sovereignty?" I always thought it fascinating how "technologists" thought themselves somehow able to solve social issues. SV is a glaring example of this - Mark Zuckerberg anyone? Anecdotally, I know many people in the MMO game industry. Wonderful people, but none have more than average EQ. Most are extremely awkward and/or have social anxiety (which, in part, is what drove them to become gamers in the first place). It is really interesting to watch them struggle with trying to figure out what "social" features to add, but cannot grok what actually makes something social. Trying and failing over and over -- sometimes on the most obvious things. Why would you think you could solve social problems when you, yourself, aren't a social animal?
- clcaev 5y ago
  Zuckerberg is on record disparaging his users with regard to their blind trust in him. He is an astounding demonstration of market failure. I presume that, to affect the world in a positive way, it's done though collaboration with those able to articulate real problems and form a coalition of those working to address them. In this regard, technical expertise is a necessary element, but one should not confuse our part of the effort with the entire work. We should not be seeing ourselves as building "the solution" to social challenges, so much as we may better equip a community that tackles those problems.

by clcaev 5y ago

jtbayly 5y ago

> Sustainable power comes from the bottom up, not the top down. I’m all for decreasing the size and scope of the federal government as well, but I hardly think that’s a non-polarizing opinion.

Pfhreak 5y ago
Interesting, I read that more as a call for more union power and worker ownership. Our biases are showing. :D
- luckylion 5y ago
  It can be both, can't it? If you reduce the power of the federal government, you increase local power. In some places, that'll mean more worker ownership, in others it'll mean more libertarian power etc. But by allowing both to exist separately, you're not forcing them to fight over the country.

Consultant32452 5y ago

A decade ago the activists were occupying Wall Street. Now they’re all aligned with the mega corps and the fighting is about semantics of how we say that lives matter. I believe this was deliberate. That doesn’t mean I necessarily believe some evil people twirled their mustaches to plot evil in secret, but is rather the result of many organizations working unison towards common goals without the necessity of central planning.

pmoriarty 5y ago
"A decade ago the activists were occupying Wall Street. Now they’re all aligned with the mega corps and the fighting is about semantics of how we say that lives matter" Completely different issues. They are aligned against discrimination, but divided on economic inequality.
- Consultant32452 5y ago
  They are aligned with anything that lets them continue to make money. And they are more than happy to keep your finite attention on topics that don’t affect them. One hits the bottom line and the other is some execs go on a retreat and they hang a few signs up.
- barbacoa 5y ago
  It the same issue but with a slight of hand to shift blame. There is a sentiment that at a macro level the economic system is geared to advantage those at the top. What I see mega corps are doing now is try to shift that frustration from a discussion of class to a discussion of race. Suddenly the white working class outside of major economic centers, the same ones who have seen their economic prospects erode over a generation due to deindustrialization can be painted as the villain and racists.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > It the same issue No, its not. The racial justics movement predates OWS, and was active when OWS was a thing. Its true that BLM was, triggered, or coincided with a reenergization of that movement, but it wasn’t grounded in OWS’s complaints. (There was a big-money sponsored grouo which coopted some OWS complaints but shifted the focus go better serve particular institutiobal interests; but it was the Tea Party Patriots, not BLM.) > What I see mega corps are doing now is try to shift that frustration from a discussion of class to a discussion of race. At the time BLM emerged, much less when theie efforts started bringing corporations around, its not like there was a widely salient class-based but race-free narrative that institutions paying lip service to BLM werr marginalizing. > Suddenly the white working class outside of major economic centers, the same ones who have seen their economic prospects erode over a generation due to deindustrialization can be painted as the villain and racists The BLM movement is about powerful institutions and the lack of unequal lack of accountability and concern they exhibit by race. As a class, the “white working class outsidd of major economic centers” is not a focus, positive or negative of BLM activism, and are only really relevant, in any negative sense, to the extent they actively or passively support or participate inbthe racist institutions and actions BLM addresses.

titzer 5y ago

> As technologists, how can we work to rebuild regional and local political and economic sovereignty? I think you hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, technologists are naturally focused on scaling solutions up to the entire world. We want to use technology to push hard real world problems behind a screen, behind keyboards, and behind servers. This creates a contradiction in our thinking that cannot be resolved. It cannot be resolved because the political climate is created by exactly that phenomenon of scale, by pushing people and their problems behind screens and servers and making them dance at the touch of our keyboards. You really want to fix things? Stop thinking about technology and making money and help out in your local community. Don't take this to mean you, personally. Just someone else. Someone else should work in their local community. We can still write code and make money. Oh wait. Dang it again.

Fellshard 5y ago
Unfortunately, the very idea of locality and federation of power is itself one of the dividing lines - clever, that, really. The people who believe all things must be fixed from the top down, and the people who believe things can only be fixed from the bottom up.
- ravel-bar-foo 5y ago
  I'm not sure that line cleaves along political affiliation, but I'm willing to be convinced. I know both Democratic party insiders who have pivoted to local political activism following the presidential election, and Republican businessmen who are adamant that taking a stand in local politics is the way forward for their movement.
  - Fellshard 5y ago
    It's certainly not perfectly along the fault line, but enough so to make it difficult to persuade.
bordercases 5y ago
"We" is a helluva drug. Same with "you". What about "I"?

jrsj 5y ago

I know I am very pessimistic on this but I honestly believe if someone started to succeed in doing this the political & economic establishment would crush them by any means necessary.

inglor_cz 5y ago

As the late Douglas Adams said: "Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation." https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Babel_Fish https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Babel_Fish Inflammatory news and memes very clearly propagate in communities sharing the same language. They can overcome the language barrier (e.g. English to Hungarian), but they usually lose quite a lot of their original potency in the process. The more people speak English on a proficient enough level, the bigger the pond through which the ripples go. I do not really believe that anyone can carve this pond back into small puddles. Not in the time of the Internet.

weasel_words 5y ago

"As technologists, how can we work to rebuild regional and local political and economic sovereignty?" I always thought it fascinating how "technologists" thought themselves somehow able to solve social issues. SV is a glaring example of this - Mark Zuckerberg anyone? Anecdotally, I know many people in the MMO game industry. Wonderful people, but none have more than average EQ. Most are extremely awkward and/or have social anxiety (which, in part, is what drove them to become gamers in the first place). It is really interesting to watch them struggle with trying to figure out what "social" features to add, but cannot grok what actually makes something social. Trying and failing over and over -- sometimes on the most obvious things. Why would you think you could solve social problems when you, yourself, aren't a social animal?

clcaev 5y ago
Zuckerberg is on record disparaging his users with regard to their blind trust in him. He is an astounding demonstration of market failure. I presume that, to affect the world in a positive way, it's done though collaboration with those able to articulate real problems and form a coalition of those working to address them. In this regard, technical expertise is a necessary element, but one should not confuse our part of the effort with the entire work. We should not be seeing ourselves as building "the solution" to social challenges, so much as we may better equip a community that tackles those problems.