3 ms·

> Complaining about computers in this way is exactly the same as complaining about the inefficiencies of government or other large organizations. And those

> Complaining about computers in this way is exactly the same as complaining about the inefficiencies of government or other large organizations. And those would be valid complaints, no? You seem to be defending the system as-is, as inevitable, and dismissing ambitions about the world as it could be as if they were the words of dreamers, and ungrateful idealogues. One should not use our current dependency on broken systems as a self justification. That's unfalsifiable, as we don't get a null hypothesis re-run the history of computing where we made better decisions. I think the article is spot-on as an observation. And the last remark about it being an intrinsic "civilisational" problem, while seeming whiney, should not be dismissed if we are serious about solving many of the problems that technology has created as the price for progress. To simply accept it as an immutable feature is defeatist. We have to believe there are are better technologies than those which mirror the failings of big organisational inefficiency.

thewebcount 4y ago
> You seem to be defending the system as-is, as inevitable, and dismissing ambitions about the world as it could be as if they were the words of dreamers, and ungrateful idealogues. That’s not how I read what they wrote. I read it as, “we got here because people voted with their wallets/feet/attention/time to get us here. We have inefficient government, etc. for the same reasons. The ‘problem’, if there is one, is that we have a lot of competing, sometimes contradictory, desires and no clear winner. It evolved this way.” I didn’t feel they were saying it’s inevitable or unchangeable, just that it happened because that’s how a bunch of different people reacted to the situation. If they had acted differently, we’d be somewhere else.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  I'm really glad you wrote that. I read the OP again, and didn't see any different. But what I did see is the distortion in my own lenses. There's some _reason_ I can't read the OP differently, and it's about my stuff. Thanks for shining a different light on it.

thewebcount 4y ago

> You seem to be defending the system as-is, as inevitable, and dismissing ambitions about the world as it could be as if they were the words of dreamers, and ungrateful idealogues. That’s not how I read what they wrote. I read it as, “we got here because people voted with their wallets/feet/attention/time to get us here. We have inefficient government, etc. for the same reasons. The ‘problem’, if there is one, is that we have a lot of competing, sometimes contradictory, desires and no clear winner. It evolved this way.” I didn’t feel they were saying it’s inevitable or unchangeable, just that it happened because that’s how a bunch of different people reacted to the situation. If they had acted differently, we’d be somewhere else.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
I'm really glad you wrote that. I read the OP again, and didn't see any different. But what I did see is the distortion in my own lenses. There's some _reason_ I can't read the OP differently, and it's about my stuff. Thanks for shining a different light on it.