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People keep posting these inspiring, wide-eyed early visions of technology, a secret hope maybe that someone, somewhere can be enticed to go against the runaway

People keep posting these inspiring, wide-eyed early visions of technology, a secret hope maybe that someone, somewhere can be enticed to go against the runaway dystopia of modern surveillance capitalism. On a good day I think the trick will work. On a bad day I think it wont.

nonrandomstring 3y ago
Nostalgia for optimism is latent radicalism and resistance. So I think the days of "surveillance capitalism", or more generally the abuses of benevolent technology by the few against the many, are numbered. But there's a long way to go from here to there. And it will take more than posting starry-eyed nostalgia.
- BirAdam 3y ago
  Yeah, especially when Vannevar Bush also founded Raytheon thereby helping to forever entrench and fortify the military industrial complex in the USA. Optimism is a good and powerful thing but it must always be tempered with reason.
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    It's an interesting bind isn't it? Which is better? To live in times of hawkish fervour, with the pointy side of technology facing some external foe. Or to live in "times of peace" when the bored, paranoid and over-zealous folks who are "good with tools" turn upon their fellows to exploit and control. Personally I am more comfortable when I can't see the words "This side towards enemy". Makes one think the best thing that could happen to humanity is facing some hostile extra-terrestrial force. But William James already explored that in the "Moral Equivalent of War" [0]. We just can't seem to switch to seeing things like climate change, or AI-driven MegaTech as an enemy, because we look at it, and we see us [1]. [0] https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Moral-Equivalent-of-War https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Moral-Equivalent-of-War, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Equivalent_of_War_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Equivalent_of_War_speech [1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walt_Kelly https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walt_Kelly
  - jhbadger 3y ago
    He was also the first head of the NSF (the American National Science Foundation, a government organization that funds much of the research that goes on in universities). Vannevar Bush did a lot in both the public and private sectors.
fipar 3y ago
I’m all for dreaming of and working in on technology that actually improves people’s lives, and I also think we do a lot of that already (besides the obvious examples of all the medical technology that, along with the test of modern medical practice, made death while giving birth a rare tragedy instead of a common one, just think of music recording software, really, just imagine if Hendrix had access to a cd-quality porta studio on his pocket!), but let’s not forget the past was far from perfect, and had its own dystopias, far worse than getting tracked to be shown ads. Specifically, we’re discussing a text from 1945, by this time the Hollerith tracking system had been used for years to manage concentration camps. The system was used on all aspects of camp management, including who was murdered, and when a prisioner was available for a specific work. That’s as bad of a technological dystopia as I can think of and it hasn’t been modern for about 70 years already… So tl;dr: in agreement with you about trying to make good things, but let’s not fall for the rose-colored trap when remembering the past.

nonrandomstring 3y ago

Nostalgia for optimism is latent radicalism and resistance. So I think the days of "surveillance capitalism", or more generally the abuses of benevolent technology by the few against the many, are numbered. But there's a long way to go from here to there. And it will take more than posting starry-eyed nostalgia.

BirAdam 3y ago
Yeah, especially when Vannevar Bush also founded Raytheon thereby helping to forever entrench and fortify the military industrial complex in the USA. Optimism is a good and powerful thing but it must always be tempered with reason.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  It's an interesting bind isn't it? Which is better? To live in times of hawkish fervour, with the pointy side of technology facing some external foe. Or to live in "times of peace" when the bored, paranoid and over-zealous folks who are "good with tools" turn upon their fellows to exploit and control. Personally I am more comfortable when I can't see the words "This side towards enemy". Makes one think the best thing that could happen to humanity is facing some hostile extra-terrestrial force. But William James already explored that in the "Moral Equivalent of War" [0]. We just can't seem to switch to seeing things like climate change, or AI-driven MegaTech as an enemy, because we look at it, and we see us [1]. [0] https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Moral-Equivalent-of-War https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Moral-Equivalent-of-War, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Equivalent_of_War_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Equivalent_of_War_speech [1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walt_Kelly https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walt_Kelly
- jhbadger 3y ago
  He was also the first head of the NSF (the American National Science Foundation, a government organization that funds much of the research that goes on in universities). Vannevar Bush did a lot in both the public and private sectors.

fipar 3y ago

I’m all for dreaming of and working in on technology that actually improves people’s lives, and I also think we do a lot of that already (besides the obvious examples of all the medical technology that, along with the test of modern medical practice, made death while giving birth a rare tragedy instead of a common one, just think of music recording software, really, just imagine if Hendrix had access to a cd-quality porta studio on his pocket!), but let’s not forget the past was far from perfect, and had its own dystopias, far worse than getting tracked to be shown ads. Specifically, we’re discussing a text from 1945, by this time the Hollerith tracking system had been used for years to manage concentration camps. The system was used on all aspects of camp management, including who was murdered, and when a prisioner was available for a specific work. That’s as bad of a technological dystopia as I can think of and it hasn’t been modern for about 70 years already… So tl;dr: in agreement with you about trying to make good things, but let’s not fall for the rose-colored trap when remembering the past.