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I think advances in IT were a strong net positive for a long time. Certainly until into this century. The way much of it has developed in the last decade or so

I think advances in IT were a strong net positive for a long time. Certainly until into this century. The way much of it has developed in the last decade or so has been net negative (social media, surveillance, etc.). > We can access a world of information, but most of it is corrupted by (m|d)isinformation. In fact, most mainstream media is corrupted by it. We have more sources and can check. Any new medium needs time for people to learn to deal with it. No one doubts that printing has been a net positive, but it was used to spread misinformation - one of the first really influential printed works was Malleus Maleficarum. > We can communicate with family and loved ones around the world, at the expense of our data being exploited. Well, they have metadata, but a lot of chat is E2E. Email can be E2E encrypted too but people do not know about it and big companies do not want to support it. > We can buy and consume easier than ever before, but have to navigate a sea of poor quality products and scams I think that also reflects the way the wider economy has developed (concentration of production power in big businesses) and culture (people do longer feel a duty to do a good job for customers). > We have miraculous drugs, most of which are only accessible to the wealthy The poor have far better access to drugs too. Almost all drugs are available to people in developed countries, and even in poor countries availability has improved a lot.

jama211 1y ago
Yeah I don’t think the guy you’re talking to is really arguing in good faith or has thought through their opinion beyond wanting to shake their fist at clouds. Any one of those things, even if true, is still a huge effect. Take the “drugs only accessible to the wealthy” - they say that like that makes them basically pointless. Sure, it’s bad that the poorest communities can have difficulty getting access to the latest drugs, but the idea that hundreds of millions of people around the world who do have access to these drugs would still be a pretty cool achievement? Their points reek of “anything less than perfection may as well have not even existed” - which is a huge fallacy (often used in political ad campaigns to mislead the public).
jama211 1y ago
Yeah I don’t think the guy you’re talking to is really arguing in good faith or has thought through their opinion beyond wanting to shake their fist at clouds. Any one of those things, even if true, is still a huge effect. Take the “drugs only accessible to the wealthy” - they say that like that makes them basically pointless. Sure, it’s bad that the poorest communities can have difficulty getting access to the latest drugs, but the idea that hundreds of millions of people around the world who do have access to these drugs wouldn’t still be a pretty cool achievement? Their points reek of “anything less than perfection may as well have not even existed” - which is a huge fallacy (often used in political ad campaigns to mislead the public).

jama211 1y ago

Yeah I don’t think the guy you’re talking to is really arguing in good faith or has thought through their opinion beyond wanting to shake their fist at clouds. Any one of those things, even if true, is still a huge effect. Take the “drugs only accessible to the wealthy” - they say that like that makes them basically pointless. Sure, it’s bad that the poorest communities can have difficulty getting access to the latest drugs, but the idea that hundreds of millions of people around the world who do have access to these drugs would still be a pretty cool achievement? Their points reek of “anything less than perfection may as well have not even existed” - which is a huge fallacy (often used in political ad campaigns to mislead the public).

jama211 1y ago

Yeah I don’t think the guy you’re talking to is really arguing in good faith or has thought through their opinion beyond wanting to shake their fist at clouds. Any one of those things, even if true, is still a huge effect. Take the “drugs only accessible to the wealthy” - they say that like that makes them basically pointless. Sure, it’s bad that the poorest communities can have difficulty getting access to the latest drugs, but the idea that hundreds of millions of people around the world who do have access to these drugs wouldn’t still be a pretty cool achievement? Their points reek of “anything less than perfection may as well have not even existed” - which is a huge fallacy (often used in political ad campaigns to mislead the public).