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Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

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Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#141

Post by fasterik »

lisper wrote: post #110
jfengel wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People really don't get how poorly freshman philosophy presents the field. It's not even a survey of an introduction to a prologue. So every passing thought feels like "philosophy".

It doesn’t help that a lot of philosophy is actually bullshit.

It really depends on what you mean by philosophy. Academic philosophy? Ancient philosophy? Pop philosophy? Self-help content?

For a list of topics that aren't bullshit, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a good starting point.

https://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#142

Post by yks »

jltsiren wrote: post #55
yks wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In societies like that, Silicon Valley’s rich nerds might discover that they’re not the ones with the real might, see Putin’s Russia, which many of them adore. Money is but one of the facets of power.

Russia is a country with a strong centralized government capable of enforcing laws whenever it wants. In the absence of effective laws, one of the biggest threats to rich people would be their own hired thugs. If the thugs decide that they don't respect you and they would make better rich assholes, they will kill you and take your property. Historically, societies like that were often ruled by the biggest and the mos…

Russian state is a final form of the thug-centric governance. The economic oligarchs maintain their riches at the behest of thugs, but they don’t have the power nor freedom.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#143

Post by Jtsummers »

hunterpayne wrote: post #108
Jtsummers wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Literally the mayor of Seattle has never paid her own bills and her husband has never worked either. Where is your evidence for this? It's a pretty strong claim.

The fact that its been verified by multiple sources, including the mayor herself.

That's just a claim, not evidence. If she's said it, it should be easy to link to an interview or an article showing these statements.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#144

Post by snowpid »

ETH_start wrote: post #114

The government has expanded by any objective measure: From 20% of GDP to 40% of GDP today From a 34 regulatory agencies/offices to 77 today. From 5 percent of occupations needing a license in 1950 to 23 percent today From zero federal environmental review in 1950 to 26 months today for major projects. From almost zero collective bargaining agreements in the public sector in 1950 to approximately 36 percent of public…

Which government has expanded? Most communist governments felt after 1990 and privatised their economies.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#145

Post by chermi »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #25

In the US at least, we've been brainwashed to think that government, by definition, must be bloated, corrupt and inefficient. Believing this axiom, people vote to hand over every possible service to private enterprise. Now we are in a situation where a handful of unelected business men have more power over our lives than the elected government.

That's not brainwashing, that's lived experience.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#146

Post by chermi »

preg_match wrote: post #140
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t really understand this perspective? I’m not a small government guy, I think the government ought to play an important role in providing a good regulatory framework and a strong social net. But if someone’s going to have direct power over my life, I’d much prefer a business owner or boss I can freely choose in principle rather than a government official who may not view me as part of their winning coalition.

The flip of this is that businesses aren't elected, and you have no control over them. If they have a monopoly, then you're 100% fucked, you have no choice. And realistically, they don't require a monopoly. If there are 1000 competitors but they all have the same evil ideology at the helm, the result is identical. Your choice is now "flee the country". Except, wait no. Those companies have the entire western world by…

If the government is in control, it's a sanctioned monopoly. You seem to be opposed to monopoly?

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#147

Post by andyjohnson0 »

> "So, to the degree that we can locate an origin point for the promise that better computer technology would make for better democracies, I think the moment you would first look to would be January 1984, that Super Bowl ad that Apple ran for the release of the Macintosh, with the the sort of George Orwell, 1984 [theme]."

With the greatest respect to Ms. Lepore's scholarship, I would suggest that that ad is too pop-culture and too early for our current Valley overlords. Instead I'd suggest John Perry Barlow's Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace [1] from 1996:

"Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

"We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear."

...and on and on it goes. Some kind of strange Davos fever dream from thirty years ago.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#148

Post by notahacker »

ReptileMan wrote: post #94
strken wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm baffled by the claim that tech oligarchs are bad readers, as opposed to getting the point but disagreeing. Some authors seem to think that readers may only read Heinlein if they are prepared to join the army the next day or renounce their citizenship.

>Some authors seem to think that readers may only read Heinlein if they are prepared to join the army the next day or renounce their citizenship. I am kinda tired of those [expletive]. Paul Verhoeven the first in line. Heinlein's thesis was that power unearned is power abused. And since voting is gifted power - people abuse it. Heinlein's idea that the only way to earn the franchise is to first serve the society may…

I mean, exploring how people make irresponsible voting decisions in sci-fi contexts might be an interesting, but Starship Troopers is actually a story about how a structure of power dedicated to conflict with faceless aliens seeks to perpetuate itself by only permitting those who have had obedience to it literally beaten into them to vote, and Heinlein (at least 1950s Red Scare Heinlein) isn't exactly critical of it or even ambivalent about it.

It doesn't have a lot to say about not voting on tribal, ethnic, cultural or religious lines or voting for candidates to troll, but does have an awful lot to say about the virtues of militarism.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#149

Post by preg_match »

chermi wrote: post #146
preg_match wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flip of this is that businesses aren't elected, and you have no control over them. If they have a monopoly, then you're 100% fucked, you have no choice. And realistically, they don't require a monopoly. If there are 1000 competitors but they all have the same evil ideology at the helm, the result is identical. Your choice is now "flee the country". Except, wait no. Those companies have the entire western world by…

If the government is in control, it's a sanctioned monopoly. You seem to be opposed to monopoly?

I really don't like this type of arguing where people try to play stupid. You know it's different, because you used the word "sanctioned". And this was really the whole point of my comment.

We live in a representative democracy. We all have a choice in who we vote for, what polices we support. In addition, we have checks and balances in place to prevent the consolidation of power. The government is not "one thing", it's hundreds of things working together.

Now, the system is not perfect, and I never claimed it to be. But compare this to how corporations functions. Corporations function as totalitarian dictatorships. You cannot vote. You have no influence. And they make decisions unilaterally, regardless of how harmful or stupid said decision may be.

The arm in which we control corporations IS the government. It IS regulation. The only reason you're not working 80 hours a week and dying young is because of the government. Now, again, that doesn't mean the government is perfect. But those regulations were protested for and voted in by people just like you and me, and I think that's good. So sue me.

Re: Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy

#150

Post by 6510 »

epgui wrote: post #136
lisper wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t help that a lot of philosophy is actually bullshit.

Well “a lot” in volume sure, but that feels unnecessarily (maybe ignorantly) dismissive of the core corpus of the field. Find me any field in which there isn’t “a lot” of BS.

If it is known that a lot of the marbles are pink there would have to be other colors. That means there is something to it!
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