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I appreciate your cynicism, but history has shown that slavery is unsustainable and that humans resist and succeed against it time and time again. In this same

I appreciate your cynicism, but history has shown that slavery is unsustainable and that humans resist and succeed against it time and time again. In this same future you've described, we will value and own the corporations instead of things directly. The reason we will remain under the illusion that we have autonomy and freedom will be, despite having lost the ability to hack everything we own, we will have the ability to choose from many competitors who operate much differently and cater to specific types of users. No longer will we need to be lone islands of hackers to get our use-case working great, we will collectively organize around our use-cases to develop the most compatible products. The wealth of open-source software and specifications will be a foundation for these new businesses to operate from. It's inevitable because the pressure from consumers must be relieved in one way or another. The founding of companies like Framework seem to exhibit this principle at work. Squeezing on one side inflates the other side.

gurkendoktor 5y ago
> history has shown that slavery is unsustainable and that humans resist and succeed against it time and time again The problem is that technology as a force amplifier is getting better and better. At some point it gives the 1% enough power and artificial smarts to enslave the 99% indefinitely. When people in history have overthrown slavery, the masters couldn't stop all transportation in the country (minus bicycles) with the push of a button. That's where we are headed here. Same with the cash-less society and so on.
- birdyrooster 5y ago
  The force amplification of technology empowers individuals, not necessarily just the incumbent leaders. This allows other countries to catch up and offer alternative, competing visions for the future of governance. Just like YouTubers have used new prosumer software and hardware to produce content rivaling or surpassing their much larger, legacy predecessors, so to will the upstart governments and economies of the world. Just like there will be more competing businesses for non-serviceable hardware (e.g. ASICs or SoCs), there will be more governments capable of servicing their infrastructure needs. Cash-less societies can mean many things, there will be credit-based barter networks which are hyper-local, regional, national, etc. There are privacy coins. Users can mine new, anonymous coins on other networks to obfuscate their purchases and funds transfers. Technology gives users these many avenues to avoid government monitoring when fighting tyranny. We don't need cash, and we have options if it looks like the enslavement is upon us.
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    > The force amplification of technology empowers individuals That's what they want you to believe. When the platform is controlled by the corporates, without any regulation, 99% of the individuals don't matter.

gurkendoktor 5y ago

> history has shown that slavery is unsustainable and that humans resist and succeed against it time and time again The problem is that technology as a force amplifier is getting better and better. At some point it gives the 1% enough power and artificial smarts to enslave the 99% indefinitely. When people in history have overthrown slavery, the masters couldn't stop all transportation in the country (minus bicycles) with the push of a button. That's where we are headed here. Same with the cash-less society and so on.

birdyrooster 5y ago
The force amplification of technology empowers individuals, not necessarily just the incumbent leaders. This allows other countries to catch up and offer alternative, competing visions for the future of governance. Just like YouTubers have used new prosumer software and hardware to produce content rivaling or surpassing their much larger, legacy predecessors, so to will the upstart governments and economies of the world. Just like there will be more competing businesses for non-serviceable hardware (e.g. ASICs or SoCs), there will be more governments capable of servicing their infrastructure needs. Cash-less societies can mean many things, there will be credit-based barter networks which are hyper-local, regional, national, etc. There are privacy coins. Users can mine new, anonymous coins on other networks to obfuscate their purchases and funds transfers. Technology gives users these many avenues to avoid government monitoring when fighting tyranny. We don't need cash, and we have options if it looks like the enslavement is upon us.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  > The force amplification of technology empowers individuals That's what they want you to believe. When the platform is controlled by the corporates, without any regulation, 99% of the individuals don't matter.