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Computers are an oppressive technology

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Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#71

Post by coldtea »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #12

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…

>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.

Well, to build things at the modern computer industry scale, you need government bureaucracies, huge corporations, tons of discipline, from the assembly line to the cobalt mines, and enterprises and bureaucracies with a use for it, 99% to streamline control, control more effectively and wider, and penny pinch customers even better.

Now, give surveillance, instant indexed cataloguing, 24/7 tracking, remote controllable money and id access and more, to the same governments and corporations, and that's just going to point to more control.

Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#72

Post by Victerius »

BirAdam wrote: post #70

Unless you’re religious enough to find meaning in all things the following is true: all meaning, all utility, all purpose, and all value are subjective and are assigned by humans. A computer, on its own, has zero meaning, zero utility, zero purpose, and zero value. Until one or more humans decide it has something, it is without any such attribute. People may decide that the ease a tool gives some task is a display of…

Even a tool as simple as a hammer or a knife would be useless to a fish or something without hands and the appropriate dexterity (e.g. an ape).

Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#73

Post by plasticchris »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #47
jazzyjackson wrote: post #43

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…

I get your point, but consider that you can hunt with an AR. It’s pretty popular for women hunters as a deer rifle (which I found surprising).

Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#74

Post by krona »

delusional wrote: post #25

The author fails to define their use of the term "oppression". Instead this work seems more focused on "ruthlessness", which is also hinted at by the url. In that direction, it's interesting. I agree with the main points brought forward. Machine are indeed ruthless, and it's certainly interesting to see how that ruthlessness is used to achieve more human ends. How machines are put in as an intermediary to shield the…

> How machines are put in as an intermediary to shield the humans behind the curtain from accusations of inhumanity. I think it may mirror systems in general. Where any large enough organization of people takes on a mind of it's own, and thereby becomes more ruthless and less human than any of the individuals making it function.

You've described the essence of a bureaucracy, an organisational structure where in normal circumstances the humans themselves don't make decisions, processes do.

Occasionally a human might 'update' a process retroactively like a programmer fixing a bug, but nominally the system is automated and entirely rational, mechanistic, 'efficient'.

The incorporation of computers can make this easier and more scalable, but it's not a necessary condition.

Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#75

Post by My92ndaccount »

The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in "advanced" countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in "advanced" countries.

Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#77

Post by ethbr0 »

BirAdam wrote: post #70

Unless you’re religious enough to find meaning in all things the following is true: all meaning, all utility, all purpose, and all value are subjective and are assigned by humans. A computer, on its own, has zero meaning, zero utility, zero purpose, and zero value. Until one or more humans decide it has something, it is without any such attribute. People may decide that the ease a tool gives some task is a display of…

That's where I thought author was going -- that computers by default have no values.

That is, rather than being ruthless, their primary characteristic is ambivalence. They don't care about anything unless specifically programmed to care.

And most of the worst features of computing in practice stem from this.

The unresponsive GUI, because a background process has stalled it. The "end user shall have no ability to program except via Excel" corporate devices, because IT has only programmed in security values. The Windows update that forced a restart and closed without saving work in progress. (And yes, I'm ignoring the complexities of user-primacy on computing behavior to make a clearer point)

And it feels like we're getting better at this and prioritizing user desire / action over other computing tasks. But article was an excellent reminder that there is no default compassion... save what we program in.

Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#78

Post by quickthrower2 »

Victerius wrote: post #72
BirAdam wrote: post #70

Unless you’re religious enough to find meaning in all things the following is true: all meaning, all utility, all purpose, and all value are subjective and are assigned by humans. A computer, on its own, has zero meaning, zero utility, zero purpose, and zero value. Until one or more humans decide it has something, it is without any such attribute. People may decide that the ease a tool gives some task is a display of…

Even a tool as simple as a hammer or a knife would be useless to a fish or something without hands and the appropriate dexterity (e.g. an ape).

“Like a fish needs a bicycle” is an old saying

Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#79

Post by MarkPNeyer »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #20
Santosh83 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computers are fine but total computerisation of human society may not be so. That's actually what the article should have explored in my opinion. Computers are neither ruthless nor kind, its controllers, humans, are. So the question then becomes, who controls them and how sophisticated they (the computers) become, and how much they infiltrate our world. A simple thought... should everything that can theoretically be…

Institutions made of people have limited reach. Human resources are finite, there's a physical limit on the scale of what they can do. A computerized society is limitless. A state might want to spy on everybody but it's impossible to do so due to limited manpower. Computers remove those limits and allow states to implement global surveillance.

Computerized societies are still limited by their resources. We are all seeing now the effects of a society that thinks it can print money without ruining its money supply.

Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#80

Post by ethbr0 »

Santosh83 wrote: post #16
matheusmoreira wrote: post #12

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…

Computers are fine but total computerisation of human society may not be so. That's actually what the article should have explored in my opinion. Computers are neither ruthless nor kind, its controllers, humans, are. So the question then becomes, who controls them and how sophisticated they (the computers) become, and how much they infiltrate our world. A simple thought... should everything that can theoretically be…

> So the question then becomes, who controls them and how sophisticated they (the computers) become...

There's also unexplored (by article) concept of inadvertent or emergent control.

E.g. Dept A encodes Rule 1 and Dept B independently encodes Rule 2, yet applied together Rule 1 and 2 produce an unexpected outcome. In which case, neither Dept A or Dept B (the ostensible controllers) could be said to actually control the outcome.

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