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What do you sense about technology? Can you describe what you're worried we are creating? Obviously there are unintended negative effects, but I think it's not

by boppo1 5y ago

What do you sense about technology? Can you describe what you're worried we are creating? Obviously there are unintended negative effects, but I think it's not certain how they'll play out.

giraffe_lady 5y ago
That's literally the point of the quote and their statement, I think. Any specific thing can be convincingly shot down in a forum of relative experts like this one. We don't know where it's going or how it'll play out. But we can feel that it is already bad and is going to get worse. Some day people will try to say "we didn't know" but that will be a lie. Some of us did and tried to convince y'all. But because we aren't able to convincingly predict the future in minute detail we've been ignored.
- ls65536 5y ago
  The worst part is whenever bringing up such points others are often quick to dismiss them as wacky "conspiracy theories" or even just unfounded pessimism about the state of things as they are today. Merely bringing up comparisons of certain observations about society today to those of Nazi Germany (or other reprehensible regimes throughout history) risks getting oneself cancelled or targeted in other ways. "How dare you compare the horrors of World War II with the relative ease of things today! It's nowhere near as bad today as it was back then!", cry the detractors. And they may be right about that in some sense, but those who don't learn from history and apply its lessons to the present are doomed to repeat certain mistakes, or at least to make history rhyme, as the saying goes. The chilling effect caused by the stifling of open discussion about how things are today and where they could risk going wrong in the future is how we all end up sleepwalking into the well-known horrors of the past that we'd otherwise all wish to avoid.
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    We can thank Snowden for giving us a pretty good example of what has gone wrong and how conspiracy theories cannot all be dismissed - all the more effective, probably, because of the discontinuity it represented in this slow "boiling the frog" business.
- hervature 5y ago
  History is full of groups opposed to technological progress. Perhaps the most famous being the Luddites who are now the namesake of a word that signifies someone who is opposed to technological advancement. How do you differentiate your senses now compared to what they sensed back then? As it turns out, they were incredibly wrong and the amount of suffering has reduced as a direct consequence of technology. Technology has also made us more aware of human suffering but we should be careful to adjust for information available. The truth is that, since WWII, the quality of life has increased tremendously due to technology.
  - giraffe_lady 5y ago
    You should look into what the luddites were actually doing and why. There's definitely a lesson there but not the one you think. Anyway yes, as I said. Dismiss excuse invalidate. I will truly be happy if I turn out to be wrong about this. Where will you be if you are wrong?
    - hervature 5y ago
      They were angry because factories could produce their crafts more cheaply and then they could not find a job (in their choice of craft) because the factories had reduced the demand for those jobs. So they burned down factories in order to protect their jobs. The same sentiment has been rediscovered every technological shift. Refrigeration, computation, internet, etc. Last time I checked, no one feels bad for all those iceberg harvesters that used to bring ice cubes to millionaires in the Southern US who no longer work. We are too busy enjoying our iced teas I suppose. > Where will you be if you are wrong? You do not know my stance on the matter. You presume, because I responded inquiring into how your senses were different, that I was not on your side. But I would most likely be in a little cabin in the mountains. I have quit Meta for the past 6 years, have de-Googled myself (in so much that you cannot really what others do), and generally agree that many technologies are more harmful to society than help. Particularly, what people call surveillance capitalism. That being said, I recognize that it is not the underlying technology that is problematic but the institutions and decision makers. If you read the article, they are recreating the exact widening of the gap between themselves and the people under the guise that they know better (since the have the data, they made it, only they understand the tech, etc.) I would never advocate for the destruction of the internet to prevent these institutions but rather educate and elucidate my peers to narrow this gap. I asked you to help close this gap by telling me what you see and your response was "you're the problem for even asking".
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  We can at least sense that the potential is there for technology to become something horrible and oppressive - either on its own, or underlying some kind of oppressive government. We don't have to know the exact form it will take. We should oppose all the forms that tech can become oppressive.
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    Well, the 20th century gave us a lot of examples already... But are you seriously rejecting the post-WW2 paradigm where tech was made sacred and engineers and scientists were turned into its high priests ? I know some people like that, but I wouldn't have expected to see them on hacker news !
dogman144 5y ago
It's def interesting to see a pushback commentary on cybernetics (catchall term for what I think OP is describing), so I'll wade in. The overall system and how it is applied and incentivized, not the random non-deterministic effects some of which are cool and some very bad, is the issue. Tech introduces a governance layer with increasingly par relevancy with the rest of our civil social contract. I have to pay taxes to the city, and I also have to do it through a website. I want to go out to a restaurant, I have to pay via a toasttab app. I want to use public transportation, and its a cashless affair. I want to go to a concert, I need a ticketmaster app on an updated smart phone with geolocation services turned on (and so on). I want to get car insurance, I install an app and list my social media for discounts. Worse, the system leverages massive network effects, so there are stronger links everyday to enforce tech and civil society, not just the civil society part. Worse, the automation will eventually start drowning the knowledge class careers as well. While I am definitely letting my ideology leak through above, this area has a tremendous amount of research behind it so this just isn't me and my luddite buddies. Big Tech discovers it occasionally, cypherpunks(tor, pgp, bitcoin) have been on it for a while, non-technical observers (pysch, lib arts) often notice it from external evaluation especially around misinformation, and so on. MIT pioneered cybernetics research, which specifically aims for the above governance. It's really hard to miss this dynamic if you work in the industry and look beyond your company, and even if you do miss it or don't believe your own take, there is a mountain of cross-disciplinary research on it.
- nonrandomstring 5y ago
  Cybernetics, both as a term and idea carries an interesting history. Norbert Wiener was himself a devastating critic of the immediate Dr. Strangelove type conclusions his generation of peers immediately took to. At the time a comparison was made to eugenics, though I forget by whom within that circle. It has incarnations not just in the obvious twentieth century fascist/axis contexts (Germany, Italy, Japan) but then in South America and as a Soviet version, both with leftist spins. The most modern condemnation I have encountered (other than of economists/doco-journalists like Varoufakis, Adam Curtis etc) is from "The Invisible Committee" which offers an anarchist take [1]. [] [1] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-invisible-committe-to-our-friends https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-invisible-commit... [] This presents some really interesting dichotomies/contradictions for the libertarian-anarchists stereotypically of Silicon Valley.
mftb 5y ago
Not op, but I want to jump in. I sense that we're building a culture of surveillance and manipulation. Long-term none of us wants to live in such a society or culture, but we're building it anyway, because in the short-term it's incentivized, by economics. When your long-term goals and short-term actions don't line up, you're in for nasty weather.
jotm 5y ago
Recently been seeing, uh, changes in some of my relatives. First Covid denial, then antivaccine in general (wtf), now that and war denial (yes, "there's no war"). Otherwise pretty smart people, but somehow they fall for the dumbest shit. Thinking back, I don't think I ever heard them express such views, and especially not be so adamant about it. They get angry when anyone points out why they're wrong. They're always right, everyone else is wrong... I didn't believe in Fecebook/Twatter making everyone dumber (never used them myself), but maybe there's truth to that. I guess that's one way technology is affecting the masses, and it's scary because you can't stop the masses, the majority will win, as for now they're in a democracy, actively voting to destroy it and probably not even realizing it. All so a few rich assholes can gain more power. Other than that, the centralization of everything, that just can't be good. Not only software, but hardware, too. I mean, half of the world's chips (and most of the best ones) are made on one tiny island - God forbid something happens to it. The few big companies making computers will gladly solder everything and break a chip if you try to reuse it elsewhere, just so you throw it away and buy a new computer when the time comes (i.e. it breaks). Can't even fix your own car anymore because disconnecting the battery means you need your onboard computer reprogrammed - at an authorized price gouge...errr, I mean, service center, of course. Not to mention surveillance and the ability to charge you with something at any point if they ever so wish (thanks to "social media"). Technology itself is not at fault, but it does give assholes a whole lot of newpower.
- nonrandomstring 5y ago
  > I mean, half of the world's chips (and most of the best ones) are made on one tiny island - God forbid something happens to it. Resilience is one of the big issues I work with. It's one of the topics that's not about tyranny or malice, but is in some ways more frightening. It's because we don't see it as "other inflicted" that it stays beneath the radar somewhat.
- dogman144 5y ago
  Ya I'm not sure how anyone could have missed the numerous and very public insanity-descents from known figures or their own relatives, and think things are still business as usual.
nonrandomstring 5y ago
> Can you describe what you're worried we are creating? Not in a casual comment. So I took some time to write a book that hopefully contains some insights if you're genuinely interested to know. So did a bunch of other people; For a gentle interest to modern tech critique I'd suggest Zuboff, Rushkoff, Lanier and so on, but to be honest of you want non-fictional/sci-fi accounts of the "Nineteen Eighty Four" and "Brave New World" type then I'd recommend starting with Postman, Illich, Ellul and Mumford as these lay firmer foundations. IBM and the Holocaust (Edwin Black) is obviously worth a read in this context. > Obviously there are unintended negative effects Those are interesting. But so are the intended ones. > but I think it's not certain how they'll play out. I'd put good money it being uncertain too. :)
- pjbeam 5y ago
  I second Ellul recommendation, FWIW. The Technological Society is a great place to start.

by boppo1 5y ago

What do you sense about technology? Can you describe what you're worried we are creating? Obviously there are unintended negative effects, but I think it's not certain how they'll play out.

giraffe_lady 5y ago

That's literally the point of the quote and their statement, I think. Any specific thing can be convincingly shot down in a forum of relative experts like this one. We don't know where it's going or how it'll play out. But we can feel that it is already bad and is going to get worse. Some day people will try to say "we didn't know" but that will be a lie. Some of us did and tried to convince y'all. But because we aren't able to convincingly predict the future in minute detail we've been ignored.

ls65536 5y ago
The worst part is whenever bringing up such points others are often quick to dismiss them as wacky "conspiracy theories" or even just unfounded pessimism about the state of things as they are today. Merely bringing up comparisons of certain observations about society today to those of Nazi Germany (or other reprehensible regimes throughout history) risks getting oneself cancelled or targeted in other ways. "How dare you compare the horrors of World War II with the relative ease of things today! It's nowhere near as bad today as it was back then!", cry the detractors. And they may be right about that in some sense, but those who don't learn from history and apply its lessons to the present are doomed to repeat certain mistakes, or at least to make history rhyme, as the saying goes. The chilling effect caused by the stifling of open discussion about how things are today and where they could risk going wrong in the future is how we all end up sleepwalking into the well-known horrors of the past that we'd otherwise all wish to avoid.
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  We can thank Snowden for giving us a pretty good example of what has gone wrong and how conspiracy theories cannot all be dismissed - all the more effective, probably, because of the discontinuity it represented in this slow "boiling the frog" business.
hervature 5y ago
History is full of groups opposed to technological progress. Perhaps the most famous being the Luddites who are now the namesake of a word that signifies someone who is opposed to technological advancement. How do you differentiate your senses now compared to what they sensed back then? As it turns out, they were incredibly wrong and the amount of suffering has reduced as a direct consequence of technology. Technology has also made us more aware of human suffering but we should be careful to adjust for information available. The truth is that, since WWII, the quality of life has increased tremendously due to technology.
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  You should look into what the luddites were actually doing and why. There's definitely a lesson there but not the one you think. Anyway yes, as I said. Dismiss excuse invalidate. I will truly be happy if I turn out to be wrong about this. Where will you be if you are wrong?
  - hervature 5y ago
    They were angry because factories could produce their crafts more cheaply and then they could not find a job (in their choice of craft) because the factories had reduced the demand for those jobs. So they burned down factories in order to protect their jobs. The same sentiment has been rediscovered every technological shift. Refrigeration, computation, internet, etc. Last time I checked, no one feels bad for all those iceberg harvesters that used to bring ice cubes to millionaires in the Southern US who no longer work. We are too busy enjoying our iced teas I suppose. > Where will you be if you are wrong? You do not know my stance on the matter. You presume, because I responded inquiring into how your senses were different, that I was not on your side. But I would most likely be in a little cabin in the mountains. I have quit Meta for the past 6 years, have de-Googled myself (in so much that you cannot really what others do), and generally agree that many technologies are more harmful to society than help. Particularly, what people call surveillance capitalism. That being said, I recognize that it is not the underlying technology that is problematic but the institutions and decision makers. If you read the article, they are recreating the exact widening of the gap between themselves and the people under the guise that they know better (since the have the data, they made it, only they understand the tech, etc.) I would never advocate for the destruction of the internet to prevent these institutions but rather educate and elucidate my peers to narrow this gap. I asked you to help close this gap by telling me what you see and your response was "you're the problem for even asking".
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
We can at least sense that the potential is there for technology to become something horrible and oppressive - either on its own, or underlying some kind of oppressive government. We don't have to know the exact form it will take. We should oppose all the forms that tech can become oppressive.
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  Well, the 20th century gave us a lot of examples already... But are you seriously rejecting the post-WW2 paradigm where tech was made sacred and engineers and scientists were turned into its high priests ? I know some people like that, but I wouldn't have expected to see them on hacker news !

dogman144 5y ago

It's def interesting to see a pushback commentary on cybernetics (catchall term for what I think OP is describing), so I'll wade in. The overall system and how it is applied and incentivized, not the random non-deterministic effects some of which are cool and some very bad, is the issue. Tech introduces a governance layer with increasingly par relevancy with the rest of our civil social contract. I have to pay taxes to the city, and I also have to do it through a website. I want to go out to a restaurant, I have to pay via a toasttab app. I want to use public transportation, and its a cashless affair. I want to go to a concert, I need a ticketmaster app on an updated smart phone with geolocation services turned on (and so on). I want to get car insurance, I install an app and list my social media for discounts. Worse, the system leverages massive network effects, so there are stronger links everyday to enforce tech and civil society, not just the civil society part. Worse, the automation will eventually start drowning the knowledge class careers as well. While I am definitely letting my ideology leak through above, this area has a tremendous amount of research behind it so this just isn't me and my luddite buddies. Big Tech discovers it occasionally, cypherpunks(tor, pgp, bitcoin) have been on it for a while, non-technical observers (pysch, lib arts) often notice it from external evaluation especially around misinformation, and so on. MIT pioneered cybernetics research, which specifically aims for the above governance. It's really hard to miss this dynamic if you work in the industry and look beyond your company, and even if you do miss it or don't believe your own take, there is a mountain of cross-disciplinary research on it.

nonrandomstring 5y ago
Cybernetics, both as a term and idea carries an interesting history. Norbert Wiener was himself a devastating critic of the immediate Dr. Strangelove type conclusions his generation of peers immediately took to. At the time a comparison was made to eugenics, though I forget by whom within that circle. It has incarnations not just in the obvious twentieth century fascist/axis contexts (Germany, Italy, Japan) but then in South America and as a Soviet version, both with leftist spins. The most modern condemnation I have encountered (other than of economists/doco-journalists like Varoufakis, Adam Curtis etc) is from "The Invisible Committee" which offers an anarchist take [1]. [] [1] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-invisible-committe-to-our-friends https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-invisible-commit... [] This presents some really interesting dichotomies/contradictions for the libertarian-anarchists stereotypically of Silicon Valley.

mftb 5y ago

Not op, but I want to jump in. I sense that we're building a culture of surveillance and manipulation. Long-term none of us wants to live in such a society or culture, but we're building it anyway, because in the short-term it's incentivized, by economics. When your long-term goals and short-term actions don't line up, you're in for nasty weather.

jotm 5y ago

Recently been seeing, uh, changes in some of my relatives. First Covid denial, then antivaccine in general (wtf), now that and war denial (yes, "there's no war"). Otherwise pretty smart people, but somehow they fall for the dumbest shit. Thinking back, I don't think I ever heard them express such views, and especially not be so adamant about it. They get angry when anyone points out why they're wrong. They're always right, everyone else is wrong... I didn't believe in Fecebook/Twatter making everyone dumber (never used them myself), but maybe there's truth to that. I guess that's one way technology is affecting the masses, and it's scary because you can't stop the masses, the majority will win, as for now they're in a democracy, actively voting to destroy it and probably not even realizing it. All so a few rich assholes can gain more power. Other than that, the centralization of everything, that just can't be good. Not only software, but hardware, too. I mean, half of the world's chips (and most of the best ones) are made on one tiny island - God forbid something happens to it. The few big companies making computers will gladly solder everything and break a chip if you try to reuse it elsewhere, just so you throw it away and buy a new computer when the time comes (i.e. it breaks). Can't even fix your own car anymore because disconnecting the battery means you need your onboard computer reprogrammed - at an authorized price gouge...errr, I mean, service center, of course. Not to mention surveillance and the ability to charge you with something at any point if they ever so wish (thanks to "social media"). Technology itself is not at fault, but it does give assholes a whole lot of newpower.

nonrandomstring 5y ago
> I mean, half of the world's chips (and most of the best ones) are made on one tiny island - God forbid something happens to it. Resilience is one of the big issues I work with. It's one of the topics that's not about tyranny or malice, but is in some ways more frightening. It's because we don't see it as "other inflicted" that it stays beneath the radar somewhat.
dogman144 5y ago
Ya I'm not sure how anyone could have missed the numerous and very public insanity-descents from known figures or their own relatives, and think things are still business as usual.

nonrandomstring 5y ago

> Can you describe what you're worried we are creating? Not in a casual comment. So I took some time to write a book that hopefully contains some insights if you're genuinely interested to know. So did a bunch of other people; For a gentle interest to modern tech critique I'd suggest Zuboff, Rushkoff, Lanier and so on, but to be honest of you want non-fictional/sci-fi accounts of the "Nineteen Eighty Four" and "Brave New World" type then I'd recommend starting with Postman, Illich, Ellul and Mumford as these lay firmer foundations. IBM and the Holocaust (Edwin Black) is obviously worth a read in this context. > Obviously there are unintended negative effects Those are interesting. But so are the intended ones. > but I think it's not certain how they'll play out. I'd put good money it being uncertain too. :)

pjbeam 5y ago
I second Ellul recommendation, FWIW. The Technological Society is a great place to start.