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I can only hope we're so lucky that the enshittification happens that quickly and thoroughly. It would be yet another clear demonstration that technology won't

by tivert 2y ago

I can only hope we're so lucky that the enshittification happens that quickly and thoroughly. It would be yet another clear demonstration that technology won't save us from our social system. It will just get us even more of it, good and hard. The utopian hype is a lie.

Voultapher 2y ago
Technology by and large accelerates and concentrates. I like the framing that technology is obligate. It doesn't matter whether you've built a machine that will transform the world into paperclips, sowing misery on its path and decimating the community of life. Even if you refuse to use it, someone will, because it gives short term benefits. As you say, the root issue lies in the framework of co-habitation that we are currently practicing. I think one important step has to be decoupling the concept of wealth from growth.
- tivert 2y ago
  > I like the framing that technology is obligate. It doesn't matter whether you've built a machine that will transform the world into paperclips, sowing misery on its path and decimating the community of life. Even if you refuse to use it, someone will, because it gives short term benefits. Is that some idea you got from Daniel Schmachtenberger? Literally the old reference I can find on the web to "technology is obligate" is https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-07-05/the-ride-of-our-lives/ https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-07-05/the-ride-of-ou..., which attributes it to him? Anyway, I'm skeptical. For one, that seems to assume an anarchic social order, where anyone can make any choice they like (externalities be damned) and no one can stop them. That doesn't describe our world except maybe, sometimes, at the nation-state level between great powers. Secondly, I think embracing that idea would mainly serve to create a permission structure for "techbros" (for lack of a better term), to pursue whatever harmful technology they have the impulse to and reject any personal responsibility for their actions or the harm they cause (e.g. exactly "It's ok for me to hurt you, because if I don't someone else will, so it's inevitable and quit complaining").
  - Voultapher 2y ago
    > Anyway, I'm skeptical. For one, that seems to assume an anarchic social order, where anyone can make any choice they like (externalities be damned) and no one can stop them. That doesn't describe our world except maybe, sometimes, at the nation-state level between great powers. In my experience that's exactly the world we live in. The combination of capitalism and science are currently driving the sixth mass extinction. https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/09/death-by-hockey-sticks/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/09/death-by-hockey-sticks/ > Secondly, I think embracing that idea would mainly serve to create a permission structure for "techbros" (for lack of a better term), to pursue whatever harmful technology they have the impulse to and reject any personal responsibility for their actions or the harm they cause (e.g. exactly "It's ok for me to hurt you, because if I don't someone else will, so it's inevitable and quit complaining"). I was making an observation of the effects technology has had the last 12000 years. So far it has been predominantly obligate. I want a future where that's not the case anymore. I don't have the full plan on how to get there. But I believe an important step is to get away of our current concept of wealth, as tied to growth and resource usage.
titzer 2y ago
Indeed. How much more evidence do we need that in the end, technology always is at the service of the power structure; the structure stutters briefly at the onset of innovation until it manages to adapt and harness technology to reinforce the positions of the powerful. Progress happens in that brief period before the enshittification takes root. The FAANGS exist now solely to devour innovators and either stamp them out or assimilate them, digesting them into their gluttonous, gelatinous ooze. OpenAI's only plan is to grow fast enough to be a new type of slime.
- tivert 2y ago
  > [I]n the end, technology always is at the service of the power structure...Progress happens in that brief period before the enshittification takes root. Personally, I'd deny there's ever any progress against the power structure due to technology itself. Anything that seems like "progress" is ephemeral or illusionary. And that truth needs to be constantly compared to the incessant false promises of a utopia just around the corner that tech's hype-men make.

by tivert 2y ago

Voultapher 2y ago

Technology by and large accelerates and concentrates. I like the framing that technology is obligate. It doesn't matter whether you've built a machine that will transform the world into paperclips, sowing misery on its path and decimating the community of life. Even if you refuse to use it, someone will, because it gives short term benefits. As you say, the root issue lies in the framework of co-habitation that we are currently practicing. I think one important step has to be decoupling the concept of wealth from growth.

tivert 2y ago
> I like the framing that technology is obligate. It doesn't matter whether you've built a machine that will transform the world into paperclips, sowing misery on its path and decimating the community of life. Even if you refuse to use it, someone will, because it gives short term benefits. Is that some idea you got from Daniel Schmachtenberger? Literally the old reference I can find on the web to "technology is obligate" is https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-07-05/the-ride-of-our-lives/ https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-07-05/the-ride-of-ou..., which attributes it to him? Anyway, I'm skeptical. For one, that seems to assume an anarchic social order, where anyone can make any choice they like (externalities be damned) and no one can stop them. That doesn't describe our world except maybe, sometimes, at the nation-state level between great powers. Secondly, I think embracing that idea would mainly serve to create a permission structure for "techbros" (for lack of a better term), to pursue whatever harmful technology they have the impulse to and reject any personal responsibility for their actions or the harm they cause (e.g. exactly "It's ok for me to hurt you, because if I don't someone else will, so it's inevitable and quit complaining").
- Voultapher 2y ago
  > Anyway, I'm skeptical. For one, that seems to assume an anarchic social order, where anyone can make any choice they like (externalities be damned) and no one can stop them. That doesn't describe our world except maybe, sometimes, at the nation-state level between great powers. In my experience that's exactly the world we live in. The combination of capitalism and science are currently driving the sixth mass extinction. https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/09/death-by-hockey-sticks/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/09/death-by-hockey-sticks/ > Secondly, I think embracing that idea would mainly serve to create a permission structure for "techbros" (for lack of a better term), to pursue whatever harmful technology they have the impulse to and reject any personal responsibility for their actions or the harm they cause (e.g. exactly "It's ok for me to hurt you, because if I don't someone else will, so it's inevitable and quit complaining"). I was making an observation of the effects technology has had the last 12000 years. So far it has been predominantly obligate. I want a future where that's not the case anymore. I don't have the full plan on how to get there. But I believe an important step is to get away of our current concept of wealth, as tied to growth and resource usage.

titzer 2y ago

Indeed. How much more evidence do we need that in the end, technology always is at the service of the power structure; the structure stutters briefly at the onset of innovation until it manages to adapt and harness technology to reinforce the positions of the powerful. Progress happens in that brief period before the enshittification takes root. The FAANGS exist now solely to devour innovators and either stamp them out or assimilate them, digesting them into their gluttonous, gelatinous ooze. OpenAI's only plan is to grow fast enough to be a new type of slime.

tivert 2y ago
> [I]n the end, technology always is at the service of the power structure...Progress happens in that brief period before the enshittification takes root. Personally, I'd deny there's ever any progress against the power structure due to technology itself. Anything that seems like "progress" is ephemeral or illusionary. And that truth needs to be constantly compared to the incessant false promises of a utopia just around the corner that tech's hype-men make.