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Computers are an oppressive technology

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Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#91

Post by towaway15463 »

Everything that is not human is ruthless. Non-ruthlessness is a purely human quality due to our ability to empathize with other humans and even non-human animals and objects.

Animals are ruthless, they will kill or devour you alive without a second of hesitation or remorse.

Nature is ruthless, it will freeze you to death, drown you, or demolish your community forever deaf to your pleas for mercy.

The universe is ruthless, its laws are unbending and its vastness is deadly and inhospitable to human life.

We are far beyond our evolved ecological niche which means we must conquer and alter everything around us or else be destroyed by it. We cannot sue for peace with an unthinking and unfeeling world. The only option is to shape it to suit our needs.

Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#92

Post by saalweachter »

jmyeet wrote: post #88

Maybe computers are "inherently oppressive" but this is about the weakest and most inneffective argument for that I can imagine. Let's start with the "ruthlessness" of closing automated train doors in the tedious and pointless opening anecdote. Why is that bad? It's bad if you have main character syndrome. But that one person missing their train might otherwise be a delay for hundreds of other people. It may have a k…

Incidentally, whenever they have to announce "stand clear of the closing doors" more than twice, I now assume this is happening: https://youtu.be/l2-fLxSE1yw

Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#93

Post by beginnercounter »

towaway15463 wrote: post #91

Everything that is not human is ruthless. Non-ruthlessness is a purely human quality due to our ability to empathize with other humans and even non-human animals and objects. Animals are ruthless, they will kill or devour you alive without a second of hesitation or remorse. Nature is ruthless, it will freeze you to death, drown you, or demolish your community forever deaf to your pleas for mercy. The universe is ruth…

My cat doesn't devour me. It cuddles me.

Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#94

Post by Agamus »

beginnercounter wrote: post #93
towaway15463 wrote: post #91

Everything that is not human is ruthless. Non-ruthlessness is a purely human quality due to our ability to empathize with other humans and even non-human animals and objects. Animals are ruthless, they will kill or devour you alive without a second of hesitation or remorse. Nature is ruthless, it will freeze you to death, drown you, or demolish your community forever deaf to your pleas for mercy. The universe is ruth…

My cat doesn't devour me. It cuddles me.

Your cat was domesticated.

The OP here is correct on most parts, but wrong on a major one.

Humans are animal. The only reason we exercise compassion or empathy is because we have mastered limited power and resource - we are mostly comfortable and safe.

As soon as that changes, we become as animal as the next, and much more dangerous than any that has ever lived, on account of how mostly insane we are.

Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#95

Post by inamberclad »

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #79
matheusmoreira wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Computers still scale much faster than humans.

Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#96

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

Writing is an inherently oppressive technology.

Some of the first uses for writing were tax records to record what was owed to the king.

A large bureaucratic state could not exist without writing.

In addition, up until recently, literacy was confined to the upper classes, and the common people could not read or write. This was used to perpetuate the privileges of the upper classes.

Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#97

Post by [deleted] »

Frost1x wrote: post #89
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Computers are neutral technology. Don't make me tap the sign: Technology. Is. Not. Neutral. A shame so few technophiles have read Jacques Ellul[1]. Ellul's La Technique (and his later "Propaganda") should be mandatory reading for anyone thinking about systems. Be careful though, this thinker/philosopher has verbalized a problem that made Ted Kaczinsky conclude the only solution is for us as a species to retreat int…

A 500+ page book is beyond most peoples tree time to explore from a comments faith alone so here's a summary I found (the quality of which is unknown) since I'm always interested to some degree in new perspectives ( https://www.supersummary.com/the-technological-society/summa... ): While Ellul separates technique from the individual machines that contribute to its reign, he maintains that machines represent an ideal…

[deleted]

Re: Computers are an oppressive technology

#98

Post by swayvil »

It's like we discovered hammers. What a marvelous tool. So we amputate everybody's hands, feet, eyes and ears. And replace them with prosthetic hammers. Which is awkward and unattractive.

Then we raze the world to make room for nail-factories.

The poster-boy for success is this hammer-limbed freak crawling through an apocalyptic wasteland of steel shards.

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