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I don't know if you realize that your comment about the "magic box" is essentially a modern version of "bread and circuses"; the idea that entertainment and di

I don't know if you realize that your comment about the "magic box" is essentially a modern version of "bread and circuses"; the idea that entertainment and distraction can substitute for genuine agency, security, and opportunity. Smartphones don't pay rent, cure illness, or provide economic mobility. Saying that technology advanced alongside extreme wealth inequality doesn't prove inequality was necessary for that advancement. Your argument is effectively a deflection from the real question, which is whether life is better than medieval times, but whether we could have the technology benefits we have today without the power concentration and disparity.

827a 1y ago
Of course, the big difference between The Feed and Bread & Circuses is: The feed is weaponized to be the perfect entertainment mechanism, which is well-indicated by how many hours a day the typical person spends scrolling it versus the maybe an hour a month a typical late-18th century french citizen would have spent at the circus. No one is trying to prove anything, because these things can't be proven. All we can do is study history and study the present. These things remain true to my eyes: 1. Wealth inequality is an intrinsic fact of human society. There's vanishingly few societies anyone reading this would choose to live in which had significantly lower levels of wealth inequality. Part of that is because: There are vanishingly few societies which had exceedingly low levels of wealth inequality, period. Its human nature, and society always seems to converge at a scale expression of human nature, even if there are pockets of attempts to circumvent it which near-always internally fall to corruption or get out-competed (e.g. the USSR). (I only say near-always because e.g. modern uncontacted amazonian/north sentinel island tribes likely have a pretty egalitarian society, and they haven't fallen yet. you could go live with them if you want to experience what that's like) 2. You're talking about managing wealth inequality on a social media site operated by a venture capital company. This behavior pattern generalizes to modern society: Desktop Linux exists, but people broadly prefer operating systems which enrich hyperwealthy oligarchs. Local markets exist, but Walmart and Costco reign supreme. Taylor Swift and Drake attract ten times the listeners of ten thousand indie artists combined. Human behavior patterns, even in extremely competitive and choice-heavy markets, tend to concentrate wealth. 3. None of that is to state that we live in a perfect or even good system. There may just exist the Least Bad. None of that is to state that we shouldn't make efforts to improve our system. Wealth inequality being an intrinsic fact of human society is not a blank check to aim for or even allow infinite wealth inequality. 4. Maybe technology could have evolved in a more egalitarian society; in other words, a society which does not exclusively and significantly compensate inventors for their inventions. There are some historical examples; technology development during the early USSR was quite impressive and significant. Of course, it barely lasted one human lifespan, and if you ever talk with anyone who lived in the USSR during the 70s and 80s its worth asking them if they feel they'd prefer to live under that system, or our current one.

827a 1y ago

Of course, the big difference between The Feed and Bread & Circuses is: The feed is weaponized to be the perfect entertainment mechanism, which is well-indicated by how many hours a day the typical person spends scrolling it versus the maybe an hour a month a typical late-18th century french citizen would have spent at the circus. No one is trying to prove anything, because these things can't be proven. All we can do is study history and study the present. These things remain true to my eyes: 1. Wealth inequality is an intrinsic fact of human society. There's vanishingly few societies anyone reading this would choose to live in which had significantly lower levels of wealth inequality. Part of that is because: There are vanishingly few societies which had exceedingly low levels of wealth inequality, period. Its human nature, and society always seems to converge at a scale expression of human nature, even if there are pockets of attempts to circumvent it which near-always internally fall to corruption or get out-competed (e.g. the USSR). (I only say near-always because e.g. modern uncontacted amazonian/north sentinel island tribes likely have a pretty egalitarian society, and they haven't fallen yet. you could go live with them if you want to experience what that's like) 2. You're talking about managing wealth inequality on a social media site operated by a venture capital company. This behavior pattern generalizes to modern society: Desktop Linux exists, but people broadly prefer operating systems which enrich hyperwealthy oligarchs. Local markets exist, but Walmart and Costco reign supreme. Taylor Swift and Drake attract ten times the listeners of ten thousand indie artists combined. Human behavior patterns, even in extremely competitive and choice-heavy markets, tend to concentrate wealth. 3. None of that is to state that we live in a perfect or even good system. There may just exist the Least Bad. None of that is to state that we shouldn't make efforts to improve our system. Wealth inequality being an intrinsic fact of human society is not a blank check to aim for or even allow infinite wealth inequality. 4. Maybe technology could have evolved in a more egalitarian society; in other words, a society which does not exclusively and significantly compensate inventors for their inventions. There are some historical examples; technology development during the early USSR was quite impressive and significant. Of course, it barely lasted one human lifespan, and if you ever talk with anyone who lived in the USSR during the 70s and 80s its worth asking them if they feel they'd prefer to live under that system, or our current one.