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Reports like these make me so jaded and cynical about technology and all the supposed ills it cures. So much money goes into solving non-problems like 15-minute

by spaceman_2020 4y ago

Reports like these make me so jaded and cynical about technology and all the supposed ills it cures. So much money goes into solving non-problems like 15-minute delivery or cryptocurrencies when such a huge swathe of the world still struggles with energy, security, and access to basic dignity.

barterr 4y ago
I’d say that’s more of a capitalism problem than a technology problem
- soggylaundry 4y ago
  well if you look at world history, it always has been like this -- look at all those proudly-written enslavements, crimes and massacres. But we're starting to grow out of it, and tech is helping us track down crimes that were near-impossible to track down.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    Very often tech is enabling these crimes. Monitoring and punishment of millions of people was much more difficult before.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      And exposure and transparency was much more difficult before too. A tool is a tool, how it is used is the important part.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      The Soviet Union had no trouble at all monitoring and punishing tens of millions of people. It also operated forced labor camps (gulags) on a vast scale.
- reitanqild 4y ago
  Actually, on average the rich countries that has diverged most from capitalism has been significantly worse. I'm leaving out the developing countries on purpose here: they may have had it even worse but it doesn't feel fair to blame them. Nazi Germany and Soviet/USSR (the whole time more or less) can't blame anyone else for the insane scale of human suffering that they created. Both are representatives of centrally planned economies where companies either don't exist in a western sense (Soviet), or only exist to serve the country (Germany).
  - LtWorf 4y ago
    Both nazi germany and soviet union were poor countries at the time.
    - reitanqild 4y ago
      Well, but I still don't want to put them in the same category as Congo or Bangladesh. There are major differences.
    - MandieD 4y ago
      Nazi Germany became Nazi Germany in large part because of severe economic problems, but by the late 30s, living conditions for conforming, “good” Germans had improved somewhat.
  - MandieD 4y ago
    There was a reasonable supply of consumer goods for “good” Germans in the late 30s and early 40s after the economy started turning around, and food wasn’t a serious issue until very late in the war, and was worst in the years right after (again, for “good” Germans). Weird little anecdote: my mother-in-law had her feet x-rayed in a shoe shop to check the fit of her new shoes circa 1943 in Essen. Absolutely no military benefit to ensuring that a 3 year old’s shoes fit, but definitely a market advantage for a shoe shop competing for sales (remember, we didn’t know that casual x-ray usage by non-radiologists was a terrible idea). The big industrials were geared for military production, especially after 1939, but their owners often helped support the Nazis on their way to power, because they were more worried about Communists and Socialists, and either didn’t take the Nazis seriously, or figured the conservatives could get them under control… or actually agreed with them. There’s a reason that the modern Social Democratic Party in Germany is the same organization that existed pre-NS era, but the Christian Democrats (conservatives) and Free Democrats (market liberals) were completely new post-war organizations.
- lupire 4y ago
  "capitalism" (as used by critics) means "unregulated market', which means it's just the economic term for "human nature". The only thing unnatural about capitalism is external enforcement of property claims, and that's not what causes slavery.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Slavery is the norm in non-capitalist societies. The emergence of free markets coincided with a dramatic decline in slavery.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > The emergence of free markets coincided with a dramatic decline in slavery. Free markets are an analytical fiction like frictionless surfaces; they don’t exist in the real world. The emergence of the real-world economic system for which the term “capitalism” was coined (which is not the same system as the modern mixed economy that has generally replaced it, though both critics and defenders of the modern mixed economy conflate it woth capitalism, with which it shares some core elements) corresponds with the expansion of chattel slavery and the development of the slave trade, and pressure for its abolition corresponds with (and often involved the same people as) early organized opposition to capitalism.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        > Free markets are an analytical fiction like frictionless surfaces; they don’t exist in the real world Yes, they do exist. They aren't perfect. Nothing human is perfect. Slavery goes back to the dawn of man. In America, slavery was the norm (including among the native americans) until the US was formed. Yes, I know that only half the colonies had abolished slavery when the union was formed, it was forcibly abolished in the rest in 1865.
        yellowapple 4y ago
        > Yes, I know that only half the colonies had abolished slavery when the union was formed, it was forcibly abolished in the rest in 1865. It had to be forcibly abolished because "free" market capitalism failed to bring about abolition itself; plantation owners had a vested interest in maintaining the institution of slavery. In fact, said vested interest is sufficiently strong that we never actually abolished slavery in the US; we simply replaced plantations with private prisons, and chattel slaves with penal slaves. Said private prisons, penal slavery, and the broader prison-industrial complex are all the direct consequences of "free" market capitalism as applied to the American penal system.
- HideousKojima 4y ago
  Labor camps in the Soviet Union suggest otherwise. More likely, being an evil asshole is a human universal, and the (relatively) peaceful life and society we enjoy in the west right now is the exception in history, not the rule. Capitalism as a system at least has the advantage of acknowledging the existence of self interest and attempts to harness it. Communist systems try and pretend it doesn't exist or can somehow be socialized away (i.e. the New Soviet Man).
  - listenallyall 4y ago
    > Capitalism as a system at least has the advantage of acknowledging the existence of self interest and attempts to harness it. Hey! Ayn Rand has joined the chat.
  - prottog 4y ago
    There are a a lot of people who believe that evil assholes are only created due to the oppressive forces du jour (whether that be capitalism, white supremacy, or whatever), not that it is innately a part of human nature.
    - HideousKojima 4y ago
      Which is just patently silly from a cursory glance at history and the horrific acts committed under every economic, religious, and social structure ever.
pavlov 4y ago
It’s alright to work on things that don’t solve humanity’s problems. But what’s so horrible in today’s tech is that a lot of people working on things like 15-minute delivery and cryptocurrencies pretend that they’re solving fundamental problems, improving the world, and rescuing third world people from poverty. Both gig apps and crypto are very much guilty of such overblown rhetoric.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  It might be alright to work on things that don't solve humanity's problems, if they still give someone some joy or make something better or easier for someone. But a lot of people spend a lot of time working on things that make things worse for a lot of people in order to enrich a few people, and I think maybe that's not okay.
  - mandmandam 4y ago
    Corporate tax accountants should really be walking around in supervillain costumes, while janitors and sewer workers wear red and gold capes.
    - eropple 4y ago
      On the scale of banal evil, corporate tax accountants are a lot lower than the people directing them to do what they're doing. The benefits of Fancy Tax Practices are not accruing the people enacting them. Hard agree on the second clause, though.
      - wnoise 4y ago
        The benefits not accruing to them doesn't make them less evil, it merely means they're willing to do great evil for even less personal benefit.
        eropple 4y ago
        And where do you work? Who's used your stuff to be an antisocial jerk? How's the beam in your eye? Like, I generally pride myself on never having worked for any company I wouldn't admit to working for later, but even some of those are kinda bad. (I contracted at a daily fantasy sports company for a while, and I'm not proud of that.) The recognition that labor is frequently if not generally in a compromised position is kind of the point when people are talking about "unrestrained late capitalism".
themitigating 4y ago
You shouldn't be cynical about technology, it's what people choose to make. The reason is a combination of capitalism, greed, selfishness, etc
- viggity 4y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZDXvgUxAgQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZDXvgUxAgQ Friedman: tell me is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed? Of course none of us are greedy, it's only the other fellow who's greedy. This the world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry in that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history is where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear that there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by free enterprise. Donahue: so it seems to reward not virtue as much as ability to manipulate the system. Friedman: and what does reward virtue? You think the Communist commissar rewards virtue? you think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think, excuse me, if you'll pardon me, do you think of American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed on the basis of their political clout? Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest? You know, I think you're taking a lot of things for granted. Just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us well now I don't even trust you to do that let alone myself
  - prottog 4y ago
    > You think the Communist commissar rewards virtue? you think a Hitler rewards virtue? I know he meant it in a different way, but I find it makes more sense to think of political appointees as rewarding virtue. Of course, often times that virtue is simply personal fealty or loyalty to the party ideology, but I do believe that a despot rewards those he finds most virtuous -- as opposed to those that are the most productive or the most capable.
null_object 4y ago
> So much money goes into solving non-problems like […] cryptocurrencies… More to the point: so much of this human suffering is dependent on the existence of this technology.
joemazerino 4y ago
Technology cannot cure human problems. Exploiting the weak are a problem only morals and values can solve.
- dsr_ 4y ago
  Technology can help fix human problems; technology can destroy lives. That's what tools are.
- ookdatnog 4y ago
  I don't think it's a mere coincidence that these horror stories of people being enslaved, murdered, tortured, etc, all while the police is bribed to look the other way, seem much more common in countries suffering from desperate poverty. Not to say that such a thing cannot happen in a rich country, but it is certainly less common. To say that only morals and values work to address these problems seems to imply that the suffering of these people in poor countries originates from a deficiency in morals and values. It seems more likely to me that the root cause is their awful material conditions. Technology can help with improving material conditions (although it is not guaranteed to do so).
  - joemazerino 4y ago
    If you research history you'll find that not all societies share the same values and ethics. There isn't a perfect society, mind you, but some respect human life and diginity more than others.
    - ookdatnog 4y ago
      Values and ethics can change very quickly, and can do so in response to material conditions. See for instance Germany's values and ethics 80 years ago vs now, and take note of the difference in material conditions.
aaron695 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

barterr 4y ago

I’d say that’s more of a capitalism problem than a technology problem

soggylaundry 4y ago
well if you look at world history, it always has been like this -- look at all those proudly-written enslavements, crimes and massacres. But we're starting to grow out of it, and tech is helping us track down crimes that were near-impossible to track down.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  Very often tech is enabling these crimes. Monitoring and punishment of millions of people was much more difficult before.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    And exposure and transparency was much more difficult before too. A tool is a tool, how it is used is the important part.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    The Soviet Union had no trouble at all monitoring and punishing tens of millions of people. It also operated forced labor camps (gulags) on a vast scale.
reitanqild 4y ago
Actually, on average the rich countries that has diverged most from capitalism has been significantly worse. I'm leaving out the developing countries on purpose here: they may have had it even worse but it doesn't feel fair to blame them. Nazi Germany and Soviet/USSR (the whole time more or less) can't blame anyone else for the insane scale of human suffering that they created. Both are representatives of centrally planned economies where companies either don't exist in a western sense (Soviet), or only exist to serve the country (Germany).
- LtWorf 4y ago
  Both nazi germany and soviet union were poor countries at the time.
  - reitanqild 4y ago
    Well, but I still don't want to put them in the same category as Congo or Bangladesh. There are major differences.
  - MandieD 4y ago
    Nazi Germany became Nazi Germany in large part because of severe economic problems, but by the late 30s, living conditions for conforming, “good” Germans had improved somewhat.
- MandieD 4y ago
  There was a reasonable supply of consumer goods for “good” Germans in the late 30s and early 40s after the economy started turning around, and food wasn’t a serious issue until very late in the war, and was worst in the years right after (again, for “good” Germans). Weird little anecdote: my mother-in-law had her feet x-rayed in a shoe shop to check the fit of her new shoes circa 1943 in Essen. Absolutely no military benefit to ensuring that a 3 year old’s shoes fit, but definitely a market advantage for a shoe shop competing for sales (remember, we didn’t know that casual x-ray usage by non-radiologists was a terrible idea). The big industrials were geared for military production, especially after 1939, but their owners often helped support the Nazis on their way to power, because they were more worried about Communists and Socialists, and either didn’t take the Nazis seriously, or figured the conservatives could get them under control… or actually agreed with them. There’s a reason that the modern Social Democratic Party in Germany is the same organization that existed pre-NS era, but the Christian Democrats (conservatives) and Free Democrats (market liberals) were completely new post-war organizations.
lupire 4y ago
"capitalism" (as used by critics) means "unregulated market', which means it's just the economic term for "human nature". The only thing unnatural about capitalism is external enforcement of property claims, and that's not what causes slavery.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  Slavery is the norm in non-capitalist societies. The emergence of free markets coincided with a dramatic decline in slavery.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > The emergence of free markets coincided with a dramatic decline in slavery. Free markets are an analytical fiction like frictionless surfaces; they don’t exist in the real world. The emergence of the real-world economic system for which the term “capitalism” was coined (which is not the same system as the modern mixed economy that has generally replaced it, though both critics and defenders of the modern mixed economy conflate it woth capitalism, with which it shares some core elements) corresponds with the expansion of chattel slavery and the development of the slave trade, and pressure for its abolition corresponds with (and often involved the same people as) early organized opposition to capitalism.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      > Free markets are an analytical fiction like frictionless surfaces; they don’t exist in the real world Yes, they do exist. They aren't perfect. Nothing human is perfect. Slavery goes back to the dawn of man. In America, slavery was the norm (including among the native americans) until the US was formed. Yes, I know that only half the colonies had abolished slavery when the union was formed, it was forcibly abolished in the rest in 1865.
      - yellowapple 4y ago
        > Yes, I know that only half the colonies had abolished slavery when the union was formed, it was forcibly abolished in the rest in 1865. It had to be forcibly abolished because "free" market capitalism failed to bring about abolition itself; plantation owners had a vested interest in maintaining the institution of slavery. In fact, said vested interest is sufficiently strong that we never actually abolished slavery in the US; we simply replaced plantations with private prisons, and chattel slaves with penal slaves. Said private prisons, penal slavery, and the broader prison-industrial complex are all the direct consequences of "free" market capitalism as applied to the American penal system.
HideousKojima 4y ago
Labor camps in the Soviet Union suggest otherwise. More likely, being an evil asshole is a human universal, and the (relatively) peaceful life and society we enjoy in the west right now is the exception in history, not the rule. Capitalism as a system at least has the advantage of acknowledging the existence of self interest and attempts to harness it. Communist systems try and pretend it doesn't exist or can somehow be socialized away (i.e. the New Soviet Man).
- listenallyall 4y ago
  > Capitalism as a system at least has the advantage of acknowledging the existence of self interest and attempts to harness it. Hey! Ayn Rand has joined the chat.
- prottog 4y ago
  There are a a lot of people who believe that evil assholes are only created due to the oppressive forces du jour (whether that be capitalism, white supremacy, or whatever), not that it is innately a part of human nature.
  - HideousKojima 4y ago
    Which is just patently silly from a cursory glance at history and the horrific acts committed under every economic, religious, and social structure ever.

pavlov 4y ago

It’s alright to work on things that don’t solve humanity’s problems. But what’s so horrible in today’s tech is that a lot of people working on things like 15-minute delivery and cryptocurrencies pretend that they’re solving fundamental problems, improving the world, and rescuing third world people from poverty. Both gig apps and crypto are very much guilty of such overblown rhetoric.

jrochkind1 4y ago
It might be alright to work on things that don't solve humanity's problems, if they still give someone some joy or make something better or easier for someone. But a lot of people spend a lot of time working on things that make things worse for a lot of people in order to enrich a few people, and I think maybe that's not okay.
- mandmandam 4y ago
  Corporate tax accountants should really be walking around in supervillain costumes, while janitors and sewer workers wear red and gold capes.
  - eropple 4y ago
    On the scale of banal evil, corporate tax accountants are a lot lower than the people directing them to do what they're doing. The benefits of Fancy Tax Practices are not accruing the people enacting them. Hard agree on the second clause, though.
    - wnoise 4y ago
      The benefits not accruing to them doesn't make them less evil, it merely means they're willing to do great evil for even less personal benefit.
      - eropple 4y ago
        And where do you work? Who's used your stuff to be an antisocial jerk? How's the beam in your eye? Like, I generally pride myself on never having worked for any company I wouldn't admit to working for later, but even some of those are kinda bad. (I contracted at a daily fantasy sports company for a while, and I'm not proud of that.) The recognition that labor is frequently if not generally in a compromised position is kind of the point when people are talking about "unrestrained late capitalism".

themitigating 4y ago

You shouldn't be cynical about technology, it's what people choose to make. The reason is a combination of capitalism, greed, selfishness, etc

viggity 4y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZDXvgUxAgQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZDXvgUxAgQ Friedman: tell me is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed? Of course none of us are greedy, it's only the other fellow who's greedy. This the world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry in that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history is where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear that there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by free enterprise. Donahue: so it seems to reward not virtue as much as ability to manipulate the system. Friedman: and what does reward virtue? You think the Communist commissar rewards virtue? you think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think, excuse me, if you'll pardon me, do you think of American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed on the basis of their political clout? Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest? You know, I think you're taking a lot of things for granted. Just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us well now I don't even trust you to do that let alone myself
- prottog 4y ago
  > You think the Communist commissar rewards virtue? you think a Hitler rewards virtue? I know he meant it in a different way, but I find it makes more sense to think of political appointees as rewarding virtue. Of course, often times that virtue is simply personal fealty or loyalty to the party ideology, but I do believe that a despot rewards those he finds most virtuous -- as opposed to those that are the most productive or the most capable.

null_object 4y ago

> So much money goes into solving non-problems like […] cryptocurrencies… More to the point: so much of this human suffering is dependent on the existence of this technology.

joemazerino 4y ago

Technology cannot cure human problems. Exploiting the weak are a problem only morals and values can solve.

dsr_ 4y ago
Technology can help fix human problems; technology can destroy lives. That's what tools are.
ookdatnog 4y ago
I don't think it's a mere coincidence that these horror stories of people being enslaved, murdered, tortured, etc, all while the police is bribed to look the other way, seem much more common in countries suffering from desperate poverty. Not to say that such a thing cannot happen in a rich country, but it is certainly less common. To say that only morals and values work to address these problems seems to imply that the suffering of these people in poor countries originates from a deficiency in morals and values. It seems more likely to me that the root cause is their awful material conditions. Technology can help with improving material conditions (although it is not guaranteed to do so).
- joemazerino 4y ago
  If you research history you'll find that not all societies share the same values and ethics. There isn't a perfect society, mind you, but some respect human life and diginity more than others.
  - ookdatnog 4y ago
    Values and ethics can change very quickly, and can do so in response to material conditions. See for instance Germany's values and ethics 80 years ago vs now, and take note of the difference in material conditions.

aaron695 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]