51–60 of 145 posts
Author's main point is that computers make their decisions based purely on how they are programmed, disregarding any human feeling. Well, the same can be said about nature.
The author eventually contemplates the "good" aspects of "machine ruthlessness" (e.g. "cryproanarchist technologies"), but ultimately warns against the "oppressive" potential inherent in all machines. The main problem with this argument IMO is that it equates oppression with the kind of unwavering ruthlessness that is the way of the machines: they will do as they are programmed - there are no exceptions (unless such…
Sure it's branded as an ideal in our profoundly corrupt societies. But would "equal treatment" bring equality? In this system, we are all free to own a castle or to work 12h/day in the mines from the age of 8. But however impartial the treatment of individuals the system is still meant for profound inequality and exploitation.
Of course i agree that at least here in France we are very very far off impartial treatment. Like you pointed out, the rich, the powerful and the cops are above the law and we lower people can get abused by the judicial system in many ways. I'm just trying to say that being impartial (or as the op says, ruthless) does not imply fairness.
Capitalist impartiality still means billions of people starving and working the fields/mines/factories to maintain the cheap throwaway lifestyle of urban modernity. And yes, this state of things and the neoliberalisation of everything very much relies on computers. I think calling "oppression" is not a far stretch, but rather an understatement.
On the history of computer oppression, you can do reading about "micro-management" and "bossware", and the restructuration of factories/administrations from the 80s to this day. Computers were and are an irreplaceable tool to enforce stupid policies that ruin the life and health of many working folks and the people they're supposed to serve.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure but the story of civilization has been a constant struggle to ensure nature does not make decisions for us. Whereas we're currently powering in the opposite direction with computers.
As we speak nature is serving us with a particulay nasty "decision" called climate change. No, we're still at the mercy but just on a different scale. Earlier it was the individual, now it is the population.
Machinist know that their tools, such as the lathe and mill, are always ready to rip your arm off if you fail to respect them. As long as you keep that in mind, and account for that, they can then be used to do in minutes what used to take months of careful work to accomplish.
The potentially life altering side effects of machine tools demand the machinist very carefully constrain the workpiece, and their access to it, and thus limit the side effects of the cutting tool and the power driving it. Loose clothing, or loose workpieces, shouldn't be allowed in the shop.
Back in the early days of computing, the side effects of a computer were strictly limited to the front panel lights of the first IMSAI, or the screens of early computers that lacked hard drives. Simply cutting power reverted everything back to the initial state. With some very limited exceptions (I'm looking at you Monochrome IBM monitors), you couldn't cause permanent harm, no matter what you typed or ran.
As we progressed and got floppy disks, they came with the option to Write Protect the disk (I.E. make it read only), and the option was trivial to deploy. This allowed us to experiment with a huge variety of software, it was common to come home from a meetup or user group with a stack of "shareware" floppy disks containing hundreds of different programs to try out. Because the OS boot disk was write protected, there was still no long term harm that could come out of this activity. The side effects were quite easily managed.
The liberation and freedom that this allowed was quite a rush. It can still be that way, if we take care to limit the side effects of computing. Operating systems that can be booted from separate read-only media make it possible to always start with a known state. Keeping copies of your data (like we did with backup copies of important disks) allows you to revert to a previously known good state.
It was only after we started installing software, rather than merely dumping it in a folder and running it, that things got far less fun, and more constraining and oppressive. You now had to carefully guard your machine as you could no longer easily revert it to a known state. Backups became hours long processes involving stacks of diskettes or tape drives. The ability to try out new things, and the freedom that came with that experimentation was lost along the way.
We need to return to our roots, to make it possible to experiment again. Just as with the careful constraining of the workpiece and path of the cutting tool in machining, we need to provide a means for the user to constrain the side effects of the computer and turn it into a powerful, yet safe tool.
We need a new class of operating systems for our computers that allow the user, at run time, to specify which files they wish to operate upon. Unlike the Unix environment on which all popular PC operating systems are modeled, we need the operating system, and not the program, to enforce the user's decision. This would again allow them the safety of knowing what was and wasn't at risk at any given time.
We can choose to make computers safer, and less useful as tools of oppression. Let's do so.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
tools are not neutral: they favor that which they make easier
Tools define a relationship with the entity being tooled, so you can learn a lot about the goals and values of the transactions by looking at the kinds of relationships that are/aren't implied. You can't feed people with an AR-15. The metaphors that define computing are all about abstraction, automation without human input, predictability, and control. Abstraction tends to lossy and context-insensitive, which is why…
Right conclusion, wrong rationale. The oppressiveness of computers comes from the fact that they can only exist through mass production techniques. Much of the cost-efficiency of computing comes from operating fabs at ever increasing economies of scale. Our current set of devices couldn’t exist without hundreds of millions of people coming together to work on the common purpose of producing those devices and their su…
How would that work? Unfortunately computers depend on a slew of mining industries plus advanced lithography, all heavily protected by IP. No existing player is incentivised to open up their techniques or make them more accessible. I could however imagine that it's fairly simple to build 1970s level computers today by any significant private or nation state entity. Sadly they'd be totally outcompeted by modern systems and won't be able to peer with them, and won't be attractive to the general public.
A deeply and clearly thought out argument for why immutable blockchains and code as law are terrible ideas, yet the conclusion is that crypto-anarchist technologies are a net good. No explanation or exploration of why that might be the case, given the preceding damning indictment of the principles such technologies are based on. Very odd. As to the broader issue, I agree with those here pointing out that indifference…
Right, I found the ending of the article to be baffling non sequiturs about the greatness of bitcoin. > Our systems of values, and traits such as love and empathy are evolved behaviours. They were selected for by those same implacable laws of nature and survival of the fittest. I think this is undoubtedly true, but it is also true of psychopathy. I think that the ability to construct a false self, as a defensive mech…
I suppose if we accept that alien life and civilizations do or will exist, then in the long run such traits, and counterbalancing social behaviours, will be subject to selective pressure. In the very long run.
Various appeals to emotion and analogies that ultimately provide little to nothing of value. Maybe it is a good article about why we build human-operated escape hatches and failsafes in software and hardware. When was the last time you saw train doors ruthlessly separate children from their parents ? Have you seen anyone lose a limb to that ruthless guillotine? No. Machines do what they are programmed or built to do.…
I certainly have seen with my own eyes a train door "ruthlessly separate a child from his parent". I don't think I've ever seen an adult so distraught. I have also seen with my own eyes a lift door close on the head of an extremely elderly man. These things do happen.
And no one pulled the stop train cord? The train just pulled away, business as usual, leaving them separated?
This oppressiveness is not inherent to computers, it's inherent to the people and institutions making use of them. The examples in the article say it all: government bureaucracies, beverage dispensers. They own the computers and impose their own rules on us, rules like deadlines and brand checking. We don't want these rules but they impose it on us all the same. Computers are neutral technology. It's just that we are…
Absolutely. I vehemently disagree with this essay. One of the reasons I am a passionate technology critic and sceptic is that I love technology and feel disgusted at the way it's co-opted and abused.
I am always vigilant not to become jaded or lose sight of the immense positive possibilities for digital technologies. But I sincerely believe that before that can happen and we can move into the true golden era of technological humanism, Big Tech, surveillance culture and over-bearing governments must be eliminated.
> it's inherent to the people and institutions making use of them.
I disagree. It resides within them and is amplified by technologies. "Inherent" implies that it is an indelible, fundamental feature. Not at all. Humans, as individuals and institutions can do better. We're just seeing amplification and facilitation of the same old human weaknesses, laziness, greed, stupidity, fear - go pick up some Aristotle, or any religious text for a comprehensive list of moral failings.
> Computers are neutral technology.
Not quite. All technologies carry values in their design. An AK47 and a baby incubator carry different values, one is a for taking life and one is for preserving it. At a more subtle granularity computers carry values with them. I recommend Edwin Black's "IBM and the Holocaust" for some insights here. A Google Pixel carries different values than a Raspberry Pi - though to most eyes the differences are invisible.
> It's just that we are increasingly losing control of them. We're no longer the ones making the rules, the corporations and governments are.
Yes, computers have enabled tyranny. That's hardly debatable now. I call it techno-fascism. Other people use different terms. It's there in everything from Facebook to "cashless commerce".
> The computers belong to them now
So long as computers are controlled by software, which is mutable, the more complete and devastating will be the reversal when we take them back. There is always poetry and irony in ultimate justice. One way of looking at it is the tyrants are simply building the apparatus to enable the greatest and most audacious bloodless revolution in the history of mankind. The future of freedom depends on "hackers".
Sell them more rope.
This oppressiveness is not inherent to computers, it's inherent to the people and institutions making use of them. The examples in the article say it all: government bureaucracies, beverage dispensers. They own the computers and impose their own rules on us, rules like deadlines and brand checking. We don't want these rules but they impose it on us all the same. Computers are neutral technology. It's just that we are…
tools are not neutral: they favor that which they make easier
"Gas chambers are just a tool"
But a tool that has very few uses besides large scale genocide. So of course it would be ridiculous to argue the gaschambers are just a tool, because they are (A) the result of an engineering project that tried to kill as many people as possible in a short time, without using valuable war resources like amunition, so the "tool" cannot be isolated from the context of it's creation, and (B) there is one thing gas chambers are good at and it is mechanizing genocide. One could potentially come up with other things they could be used for, but there is just the one thing theyr really excell at.
Computers have more uses, but they are "not just a tool" either, because in reality nothing is.