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This article seems to have an odd rhetorical stance against people solving problems. Things like: > Inevitably, Elon Musk, techno-capitalism’s own Zelig, also
by roenxi 2y ago
This article seems to have an odd rhetorical stance against people solving problems. Things like:
> Inevitably, Elon Musk, techno-capitalism’s own Zelig, also has strong opinions on the subject: in destroy-infrastructure-first wars of the future, he opined in a recent Westpoint appearance, “any ground based communications like fiber optic cables and cell phone towers will be destroyed.” If only someone ran an internet satellite company to save us!
I get the impression this is supposed to be dripping sarcasm, but in a fairly literal sense it is describing the expected and productive dynamic. Musk has identified a problem and is proposing a solution. To hurry matters along he is implementing the solution whether everyone agrees there is a problem or not.
How else is it supposed to work? This dynamic turned up a few times and I don't expect the author to have a productive theory for how we're supposed to organise people to effect change - I expect it will involve waiting for Democrats and Republicans to agree on something first (which, traditionally, not a process that leads to the highest of speedy successes). If we're waiting for people with no financial stake or know-how to build and promote satellite networks it could take a while.
- fidotron 2y ago> How else is it supposed to work? Through an ethics committee gated, peer-reviewed, consensus driven academic technocracy. They are criticizing one extreme while being oblivious that they represent the other.
- cess11 2y agoI've never seen him advocate for something like that, would you mind giving a source to your claim?
- fidotron 2y agoIt's the Soros way, which permeates to the things he supports such as this. He went through a phase of introducing his books by claiming he's a misunderstood sociologist that is doing what he's doing (on the markets) to prove his various theories, which he developed at the LSE under Popper. This particularly applies to the concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexivity_(social_theory) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexivity_(social_theory) . Essentially, the things Soros actually did that people hate him for (such as in the UK the episode with the pound) he claims he did to demonstrate that individuals shouldn't be allowed to do them and that especially markets cannot be trusted to be resistant to problematic individuals. Instead some overarching control mechanism must be inserted of the nature I described.
- cess11 2y agoWe can get to that later. Do you have a source for your claim?
- fidotron 2y agoYou can buy many books George Soros wrote on Amazon. Please use my affiliate link: https://www.amazon.com/Soros-Lectures-Central-European-University-ebook/dp/B0035GTHKK?ref_=ast_author_dp_rw&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.6UpGPlzjWEa3MDlnu02EZrqN_OGUxQ7wQ4yTvId4niZupWMRonl4W5fSsj2iPY1UCMbXPP9CZ00EMCirdJjm5tbjPBmVT2j896_HZqwr4aQEJ9gK5kgg2luV34IXEb2OgLi06n8BPddRMGXfOIK1q686hpRCuuceBx-3FKaWWNcLVxDR3YPYZbxEPtAIc2u_wveYinGEUvhuVgfRZmm-VEoK6Sm4hby6tVhkcRxqf-I.oANucB5796kLBvf42ju5R0c8gxmYPDMzkXU7x3wOLWo&dib_tag=AUTHOR https://www.amazon.com/Soros-Lectures-Central-European-Unive...
- cess11 2y agoWhat do you mean, "solving problems"? Arguably he's rather causing problems by serving the empire his family has emigrated to, filling the skies with surveillance-capitalist crypto-military junk and pressuring other states to do the same.
- kortilla 2y agoFiber cuts are a real problem today even without explicit war. Russian fishing boats have a habit of “accidentally” cutting critical undersea cables that take months to repair. Places in seasonably inhospitable water end up stranded from the internet when this happens (e.g. Nome, Alaska).
- cess11 2y ago'Pissing my pants to get warm' kind of solution. Not sure why anyone would take it seriously, especially since it is now quite obvious that this space junk is a military tool.
- kortilla 2y agoWhat are you talking about? It works todo with millions of paying customers solving a very real problem of connectivity.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- _delirium 2y agoI believe the implication is that they're seeding the problems in the discourse for the purpose of selling their solutions. A slightly more overt version of the submarine: https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- roenxi 2y agoIf you follow that thought a little though it ends up in a world where people can't act on problems that they perceive; they have to identify the problem and whinge about it until someone else handles it. As a veteran of arguing with people on the internet I speak with some experience on the topic of whinging about problems; that strategy is never going to get good results and is only worth following if you find entertainment from arguing with people. To get results in the real world the process needs to be the person who identifies problem sells the problem and the solution at the same time.
- RandomLensman 2y agoWhy would orbital infrastructure be spared in such hypothetical future wars?
- throwawayqqq11 2y agoThe problem is, musk and co. dont know the actual problem to solve: Sustainability. My guess is, their vision of a better world is just psychological self defense and way too many people buy into that delusion.