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It's really fascinating that our industry produces these kinds of bitter, cynical guys who are so brainwormed they talk in terms of ridiculous tribes like "tech

by gfodor 3y ago

It's really fascinating that our industry produces these kinds of bitter, cynical guys who are so brainwormed they talk in terms of ridiculous tribes like "tech bros" without realizing they're stereotyping people in a way nearly indistinguishable than the kinds of stereotyping that goes on in the minds of bigots. Yes, there have been waves of disruption over the last few decades where idealists have had all kinds of under-defined imaginary utopian concepts of where things ought to go with new media and new technology, and many of those things just didn't pan out. Sometimes it was due to capitalism, or stupidity, or the deficiencies of people in positions of power, but often when things fail due to capitalism after many attempts it's because people simply didn't want the thing once it was offered up. The good news is there is always another wave to catch and try again, try it differently, or try to simply correct what you feel went wrong. You can always tell when someone has flipped into becoming a poisoned cynic like this when they stop being cynical about the past and start being cynical about the uncharted future. I pray to God I go to my grave never being like this, it must be an absolutely miserable way to go through the world.

forgetfreeman 3y ago
Conversely I find it fascinating that anyone with more than the briefest of exposure to our industry could continue to harbor any kind of naïve optimism in the face of the industry's multi-decade track record of consistently fucking up everything it touches, sometimes in ways so spectacular they just might be existential threats to our society.
- Nasrudith 3y ago
  Seriously? An existential threat to society? Taken literally there is a serious need for all involved to get a sense of proportion. Nuclear weaponry are an existential threat to societies. There are many far more terrible things which are not existential threats wars, coups, purges, and pandemics while horrible are not. The presumed tech demons of social media and big data don't even belong on the list. Taken metaphorically is this the new incarnation of the "ruining society" meme/rhetorical device after it got utterly discredited because society was already ruined by jazz music, women voting, women wearing pants, LGBT people existing in secrecy, rock music, metal, rap, LGBT people existing openly, and many more? If so it is just as insipid as its ancestors. I find the self-flagellation complex of claiming tech to be the well from which all sorrows are drawn, ruiner of the perfect Eden which existed before not only utterly stupid but downright tedious and tiresome.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    Seriously. An existential threat to society. Society requires several things to function. One of those things being a generalized consensus about what things have happened, what things are possible, and what should happen. Plugging your fingers in your ears and shouting nah nah nah isn't a reasonable reaction to the documented changes to society and geopolitcs over the last two decades, most of which can be in some way attributed to social media's warped influence. You correctly mention nuclear weapons being an existential threat yet you fail to acknowledge that deteriorating social and political norms make their use significantly more likely than at any point prior in the last 30 years. A lone individual was able to convince an armed and politically potent minority of the United States that lizard people are real and a threat to children worldwide. These people are now driving a race to the bottom that ends in control of the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet. What's tedious is individuals who have access to enough information to damn well know better playing the part of the frog in the pot of soon-to-be-boiling water.
  - NovaDudely 3y ago
    I have been working on an article about this, broad summary is that things like AI - they can do a damn lot of damage before people figure out how impotent they really are. It isn't the technology I fear, it is how people build grand expectations on the technology and then start throwing people under the bus of the "great god of progress". Those that are first to implement new technology are usually the most reckless, uncaring to the possible blow back provided it benefits them. Those that hold back to analyse the risks many never make it to the market because they are crushed by the move fast people. This is why we have such rampant con's a disinformation nowadays, those that push their ideas and concepts out fastest can generally get a good head start on those that are trying to be more moral or ethical.
- Ygg2 3y ago
  > Conversely I find it fascinating that anyone with more than the briefest of exposure to our industry could continue to harbor any kind of naïve optimism in the face of the industry's multi-decade track record of consistently fucking up everything it touches. I find it fascinating you focused on just the really negative aspects. I mean sure we did pollute the environment, but that's par for course for living things. Keep in mind Oxygen is a waste product for most methane based lifeforms. All living things are entropy maximizers, expecting stuff to not get shitty over time is almost a fools errand.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    If true that pokes a rather large hole in the concept of progress now doesn't it?
    - Ygg2 3y ago
      Progress for who? Humans? Yes. Everything else not so much. It's like AC. It's great for you but everything else is now more heated.
- gfodor 3y ago
  "Harbor any kind of naive optimism" - weasel words, is it bad to have any optimism? or just naive optimism? or just some naive optimism? write more clearly next time. there are a variety of actors you are talking about and there are many, many good things technologists have created in my lifetime. saying the industry "fucks up everything it touches" is a sign you are the kind of cynic I'm referring to. my condolences.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    Beyond bullshit convenience services (that invariably lead to labor exploitation issues) name one (1) unambiguous win to come out of the SV tech ecosystem in the last 20 years.
freetime2 3y ago
I also found his opening remarks offputting to the point where I stopped watching the video after a minute or so. I clicked on link in good faith ready to hear some ideas about the limits and dangers of technological of solutions, and instead was treated to some stereotypical and frankly hateful remarks about "tech bros". And it's not just because I work in tech (I often fantasize about quitting my job and buying a farm and living a low-tech lifestyle). I would find such remarks equally offputting if they were made about any group of people really... a political group (on either the left or right), a religious group, ethnic gorup, etc. I'm fine with attacking ideas, but not groups of people.
- gfodor 3y ago
  Yep it's gross. I got downvoted of course but what I wrote is the truth.
jmkd 3y ago
Rushkoff has been addressing difficult technology questions since at least the early 90s, so it's fascinating that the industry has not listened much before.
- gfodor 3y ago
  Eventually guys like this get tuned out because they tear other people down. There are plenty of rational, thoughtful critics of technology, and the ones who are most listened to are the ones who have built things and shown themselves willing to error correct in a way that balances tradeoffs.
logicprog 3y ago
> talk in terms of ridiculous tribes like "tech bros" without realizing they're stereotyping people in a way nearly indistinguishable than the kinds of stereotyping that goes on in the minds of bigots It's actually quite distinguishable. Stereotyping is when you assign characteristics to a group that are unrelated to the group's actual defining characteristics, and so there's no reason to think the group actually has this characteristics. For instance, saying all black people like hot sauce or something to use a silly example. Meanwhile, if you are talking about a group that you've defined in terms of characteristics relevant to whatever you are discussing, and are only assigning characteristics that are relevant to how you've defined the group, then that's just a necessary part of reasoning about the social dynamics of whatever subject you're talking about. Furthermore, it's only bigotry when you are speaking negatively or hatefully about a group with morally irrelevant characteristics and members that can't choose whether or not to be part of that group (so membership in it is also morally inert). None of this is true for 'tech bros' as a group. Tech bros are a specific tendency/subculture of people who work in tech, with attitudes toward technical progress characterized by a brash and hubristic belief that purely technological solutions can solve everything, and that qualitative considerations of human experience and existence are irrelevant to decision-making and should be ignored as "irrational." Thus, talking about "tech bros" in this context perfectly meets all my criteria for being valid. The group is defined in terms of characteristics relevant to this discussion, isn't assigned any characteristics that don't follow from that, only garners a negative connotation for reasons based on the actual definition of the group, and it is a group that's just a philosophical category and so of course people can volitionally join or leave based on their actual beliefs.
- gfodor 3y ago
  Nice mental gymnastics and self-rationalization, but I never said calling people tech bro's was bigotry. It absolutely is tribalistic stereotyping though, which is a key part of the same underlying mental phenomenon that leads to bigotry, particularly in the way it is being done here, to be disparaging and generalizing about people.
  - logicprog 3y ago

by gfodor 3y ago

forgetfreeman 3y ago

Conversely I find it fascinating that anyone with more than the briefest of exposure to our industry could continue to harbor any kind of naïve optimism in the face of the industry's multi-decade track record of consistently fucking up everything it touches, sometimes in ways so spectacular they just might be existential threats to our society.

Nasrudith 3y ago
Seriously? An existential threat to society? Taken literally there is a serious need for all involved to get a sense of proportion. Nuclear weaponry are an existential threat to societies. There are many far more terrible things which are not existential threats wars, coups, purges, and pandemics while horrible are not. The presumed tech demons of social media and big data don't even belong on the list. Taken metaphorically is this the new incarnation of the "ruining society" meme/rhetorical device after it got utterly discredited because society was already ruined by jazz music, women voting, women wearing pants, LGBT people existing in secrecy, rock music, metal, rap, LGBT people existing openly, and many more? If so it is just as insipid as its ancestors. I find the self-flagellation complex of claiming tech to be the well from which all sorrows are drawn, ruiner of the perfect Eden which existed before not only utterly stupid but downright tedious and tiresome.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  Seriously. An existential threat to society. Society requires several things to function. One of those things being a generalized consensus about what things have happened, what things are possible, and what should happen. Plugging your fingers in your ears and shouting nah nah nah isn't a reasonable reaction to the documented changes to society and geopolitcs over the last two decades, most of which can be in some way attributed to social media's warped influence. You correctly mention nuclear weapons being an existential threat yet you fail to acknowledge that deteriorating social and political norms make their use significantly more likely than at any point prior in the last 30 years. A lone individual was able to convince an armed and politically potent minority of the United States that lizard people are real and a threat to children worldwide. These people are now driving a race to the bottom that ends in control of the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet. What's tedious is individuals who have access to enough information to damn well know better playing the part of the frog in the pot of soon-to-be-boiling water.
- NovaDudely 3y ago
  I have been working on an article about this, broad summary is that things like AI - they can do a damn lot of damage before people figure out how impotent they really are. It isn't the technology I fear, it is how people build grand expectations on the technology and then start throwing people under the bus of the "great god of progress". Those that are first to implement new technology are usually the most reckless, uncaring to the possible blow back provided it benefits them. Those that hold back to analyse the risks many never make it to the market because they are crushed by the move fast people. This is why we have such rampant con's a disinformation nowadays, those that push their ideas and concepts out fastest can generally get a good head start on those that are trying to be more moral or ethical.
Ygg2 3y ago
> Conversely I find it fascinating that anyone with more than the briefest of exposure to our industry could continue to harbor any kind of naïve optimism in the face of the industry's multi-decade track record of consistently fucking up everything it touches. I find it fascinating you focused on just the really negative aspects. I mean sure we did pollute the environment, but that's par for course for living things. Keep in mind Oxygen is a waste product for most methane based lifeforms. All living things are entropy maximizers, expecting stuff to not get shitty over time is almost a fools errand.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  If true that pokes a rather large hole in the concept of progress now doesn't it?
  - Ygg2 3y ago
    Progress for who? Humans? Yes. Everything else not so much. It's like AC. It's great for you but everything else is now more heated.
gfodor 3y ago
"Harbor any kind of naive optimism" - weasel words, is it bad to have any optimism? or just naive optimism? or just some naive optimism? write more clearly next time. there are a variety of actors you are talking about and there are many, many good things technologists have created in my lifetime. saying the industry "fucks up everything it touches" is a sign you are the kind of cynic I'm referring to. my condolences.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  Beyond bullshit convenience services (that invariably lead to labor exploitation issues) name one (1) unambiguous win to come out of the SV tech ecosystem in the last 20 years.

freetime2 3y ago

I also found his opening remarks offputting to the point where I stopped watching the video after a minute or so. I clicked on link in good faith ready to hear some ideas about the limits and dangers of technological of solutions, and instead was treated to some stereotypical and frankly hateful remarks about "tech bros". And it's not just because I work in tech (I often fantasize about quitting my job and buying a farm and living a low-tech lifestyle). I would find such remarks equally offputting if they were made about any group of people really... a political group (on either the left or right), a religious group, ethnic gorup, etc. I'm fine with attacking ideas, but not groups of people.

gfodor 3y ago
Yep it's gross. I got downvoted of course but what I wrote is the truth.

jmkd 3y ago

Rushkoff has been addressing difficult technology questions since at least the early 90s, so it's fascinating that the industry has not listened much before.

gfodor 3y ago
Eventually guys like this get tuned out because they tear other people down. There are plenty of rational, thoughtful critics of technology, and the ones who are most listened to are the ones who have built things and shown themselves willing to error correct in a way that balances tradeoffs.

logicprog 3y ago

> talk in terms of ridiculous tribes like "tech bros" without realizing they're stereotyping people in a way nearly indistinguishable than the kinds of stereotyping that goes on in the minds of bigots It's actually quite distinguishable. Stereotyping is when you assign characteristics to a group that are unrelated to the group's actual defining characteristics, and so there's no reason to think the group actually has this characteristics. For instance, saying all black people like hot sauce or something to use a silly example. Meanwhile, if you are talking about a group that you've defined in terms of characteristics relevant to whatever you are discussing, and are only assigning characteristics that are relevant to how you've defined the group, then that's just a necessary part of reasoning about the social dynamics of whatever subject you're talking about. Furthermore, it's only bigotry when you are speaking negatively or hatefully about a group with morally irrelevant characteristics and members that can't choose whether or not to be part of that group (so membership in it is also morally inert). None of this is true for 'tech bros' as a group. Tech bros are a specific tendency/subculture of people who work in tech, with attitudes toward technical progress characterized by a brash and hubristic belief that purely technological solutions can solve everything, and that qualitative considerations of human experience and existence are irrelevant to decision-making and should be ignored as "irrational." Thus, talking about "tech bros" in this context perfectly meets all my criteria for being valid. The group is defined in terms of characteristics relevant to this discussion, isn't assigned any characteristics that don't follow from that, only garners a negative connotation for reasons based on the actual definition of the group, and it is a group that's just a philosophical category and so of course people can volitionally join or leave based on their actual beliefs.

gfodor 3y ago
Nice mental gymnastics and self-rationalization, but I never said calling people tech bro's was bigotry. It absolutely is tribalistic stereotyping though, which is a key part of the same underlying mental phenomenon that leads to bigotry, particularly in the way it is being done here, to be disparaging and generalizing about people.
- logicprog 3y ago