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It strikes me as a deeply self-serving and poorly thought-out ideology. Technologists think that simply throwing more tech at every problem is the solution to e

It strikes me as a deeply self-serving and poorly thought-out ideology. Technologists think that simply throwing more tech at every problem is the solution to everything? How is this not ad hoc justification at best, and "Hammer only sees nails" at worst?

beardyw 3y ago
Yes, I think "technological colonialism" would be a better term. We give these poor saps baubles and we get their riches.
- malermeister 3y ago
  I vote technofeudalism. Yanis Varoufakis, who coined the term afaik, has some interesting thoughts on it (and even wrote a book). Here's a Guardian Article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/24/yanis-varoufakis-technofeudalism-capitalism-ukraine-interview https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/24/yanis-varoufak... > “Imagine the following scene straight out of the science fiction storybook,” he writes. “You are beamed into a town full of people going about their business, trading in gadgets, clothes, shoes, books, songs, games and movies. At first everything looks normal. Until you begin to notice something odd. It turns out all the shops, indeed every building, belongs to a chap called Jeff. What’s more, everyone walks down different streets, and sees different stores because everything is intermediated by his algorithm… an algorithm that dances to Jeff’s tune.” > It might look like a market, but Varoufakis says it’s anything but. Jeff (Bezos, the owner of Amazon) doesn’t produce capital, he argues. He charges rent. Which isn’t capitalism, it’s feudalism. And us? We’re the serfs. “Cloud serfs”, so lacking in class consciousness that we don’t even realise that the tweeting and posting that we’re doing is actually building value in these companies.
  - nickpp 3y ago
    > Varoufakis says it’s anything but. Jeff (Bezos, the owner of Amazon) doesn’t produce capital, he argues Maybe Varoufakis should try creating an Amazon instead of writing some book and running Greece’s economy into the ground. We are serfs for even commenting here, by the way. This site is owned (and created) by the technofeudalists who founded YC, not by Mr Varoufakis. So what brings you here, serf on their property, if you don’t see any value in it? They are certainly not putting a gun to your head just like Amazon is not making you shop there.
    - EA-3167 3y ago
      Simply from a factual perspective, Varoufakis presided over the recovery of the Greek economy, not its destruction. Now you may or may not feel that's something he should get credit for, but it's a fact that he rejected EU austerity plans, and a fact that Greece's economy is improving. Personally I think his track record is impressive, and I'd argue that helping to save an EU-level economy is at least as impressive as what Jeff Bezos has done with his life.
      - nickpp 3y ago
        I thought Varoufakis stepped down in 2015 (after only half a year) and Greece's debt crisis continued until around 2018?!
    - malermeister 3y ago
      > Maybe Varoufakis should try creating an Amazon instead of writing some book and running Greece’s economy into the ground. This is not only factually wrong, but also an ad hominem fallacy. > We are serfs for even commenting here, by the way. This site is owned (and created) by the technofeudalists who founded YC, not by Mr Varoufakis. We are. I don't like it any more than medieval serfs did, but I don't think you should get to blame me for it. > So what brings you here, serf on their property, if you don’t see any value in it? They are certainly not putting a gun to your head just like Amazon is not making you shop there. All of you fine fellow serfs have made this a fertile land for discussion, by plowing the fields of comment threads. Direct threat of violence is the most unimaginative way of exerting power and modern day feudalists avoid it in fear of awakening class consciousness after all.
      - nickpp 3y ago
        > ad hominem fallacy It's not ad hominem to judge a critic's own track record in order to measure the weight of his words. Otherwise we'd end up listening to any little trust fund ideologues with no actual idea about how the world really works, like Marx.
        3y ago
tlb 3y ago
Nobody is claiming it's the solution to everything. The lesson from history (and not obvious from first principles) is that it's hard to predict what technology will be good for. You have to invent it first, and let people try to use it to solve whatever problems they have in order to figure that out. Cheapness & convenience often enables new uses -- for instance, personal computers turned out to have a lot of uses that mainframe computers didn't because they were too expensive and inconvenient for regular people to fool around with. "I can't imagine a good use for this tech, therefore it shouldn't be invented" is a perennially wrong argument.

beardyw 3y ago

Yes, I think "technological colonialism" would be a better term. We give these poor saps baubles and we get their riches.

malermeister 3y ago
I vote technofeudalism. Yanis Varoufakis, who coined the term afaik, has some interesting thoughts on it (and even wrote a book). Here's a Guardian Article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/24/yanis-varoufakis-technofeudalism-capitalism-ukraine-interview https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/24/yanis-varoufak... > “Imagine the following scene straight out of the science fiction storybook,” he writes. “You are beamed into a town full of people going about their business, trading in gadgets, clothes, shoes, books, songs, games and movies. At first everything looks normal. Until you begin to notice something odd. It turns out all the shops, indeed every building, belongs to a chap called Jeff. What’s more, everyone walks down different streets, and sees different stores because everything is intermediated by his algorithm… an algorithm that dances to Jeff’s tune.” > It might look like a market, but Varoufakis says it’s anything but. Jeff (Bezos, the owner of Amazon) doesn’t produce capital, he argues. He charges rent. Which isn’t capitalism, it’s feudalism. And us? We’re the serfs. “Cloud serfs”, so lacking in class consciousness that we don’t even realise that the tweeting and posting that we’re doing is actually building value in these companies.
- nickpp 3y ago
  > Varoufakis says it’s anything but. Jeff (Bezos, the owner of Amazon) doesn’t produce capital, he argues Maybe Varoufakis should try creating an Amazon instead of writing some book and running Greece’s economy into the ground. We are serfs for even commenting here, by the way. This site is owned (and created) by the technofeudalists who founded YC, not by Mr Varoufakis. So what brings you here, serf on their property, if you don’t see any value in it? They are certainly not putting a gun to your head just like Amazon is not making you shop there.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    Simply from a factual perspective, Varoufakis presided over the recovery of the Greek economy, not its destruction. Now you may or may not feel that's something he should get credit for, but it's a fact that he rejected EU austerity plans, and a fact that Greece's economy is improving. Personally I think his track record is impressive, and I'd argue that helping to save an EU-level economy is at least as impressive as what Jeff Bezos has done with his life.
    - nickpp 3y ago
      I thought Varoufakis stepped down in 2015 (after only half a year) and Greece's debt crisis continued until around 2018?!
  - malermeister 3y ago
    > Maybe Varoufakis should try creating an Amazon instead of writing some book and running Greece’s economy into the ground. This is not only factually wrong, but also an ad hominem fallacy. > We are serfs for even commenting here, by the way. This site is owned (and created) by the technofeudalists who founded YC, not by Mr Varoufakis. We are. I don't like it any more than medieval serfs did, but I don't think you should get to blame me for it. > So what brings you here, serf on their property, if you don’t see any value in it? They are certainly not putting a gun to your head just like Amazon is not making you shop there. All of you fine fellow serfs have made this a fertile land for discussion, by plowing the fields of comment threads. Direct threat of violence is the most unimaginative way of exerting power and modern day feudalists avoid it in fear of awakening class consciousness after all.
    - nickpp 3y ago
      > ad hominem fallacy It's not ad hominem to judge a critic's own track record in order to measure the weight of his words. Otherwise we'd end up listening to any little trust fund ideologues with no actual idea about how the world really works, like Marx.
      - 3y ago

tlb 3y ago

Nobody is claiming it's the solution to everything. The lesson from history (and not obvious from first principles) is that it's hard to predict what technology will be good for. You have to invent it first, and let people try to use it to solve whatever problems they have in order to figure that out. Cheapness & convenience often enables new uses -- for instance, personal computers turned out to have a lot of uses that mainframe computers didn't because they were too expensive and inconvenient for regular people to fool around with. "I can't imagine a good use for this tech, therefore it shouldn't be invented" is a perennially wrong argument.