Capitalism will eat itself. Countries with cultures which favor decentralization and personal relationships between producers and consumers with thrive and retain their spirit.
Capitalism is decentralization.
Computers are an oppressive technology
101–110 of 145 posts
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a thought experiment why not go to the extreme and see if the "just a tool, it's about what people make with it"-point would hold there. " 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…
Gas chambers are widely used for sterilising materials going into clean rooms for compounding of medicines. While this does meet the definition of “one more thing”, it is rather an important one.
With showerheads?
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#103Earlier 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…
Whether computers count as ruthless depends on fine details of your definition of ruthless. If you mean the mental/emotional state necessary for a human to act without regard for consequences of their actions to other people, then computers are not ruthless. If you just mean acting without consideration of how their their actions will affect people then computers fit this definition of ruthless perfectly by virtue of…
> because we don’t know how to program them to consider how their actions will affect other people.
We don't have to. For example, a ruthless train door could be made less ruthless, by having sensors that respond to someone who is nanoseconds late, to open the door, just that once, just like it's elevator door brethren, but only once.
The problem is that "inherently opportunistic people" will take advantage of the machine kindness and take an entire train full of people hostage.
The oppressive train door is a dictator everyone loves, maybe if they were also razor sharp, people would give them the respect they deserve. phwump. guillotrains. on time, every time.
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#104This is both a dumb essay and good reading for an HCI course (human computer interaction).
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I think that's precisely what the parent comment was being ironic about. We built industry to evade natural conditions, but through mass industrialization and planned obsolescence we're actually pushing nature to eradicate us all (and millions of other species alongside). Aren't you two saying the same thing?
This is definitely not what I was saying. What I was saying is that I live in a house with a roof and electric lighting, and use modern medicine. The key word was "struggle".
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you mean the mental/emotional state necessary for a human to act without regard for consequences of their actions to other people, then computers are not ruthless. I don't understand, what am I missing? I've never seen a computer have any regard for the consequences of its decisions. Computers are thus completely ruthless.
I think the GP points to the fact that given the inability of computers to evaluate the consequences of its programming, ruthlessness is a concept that cannot apply to them because by definition involves disregard about those consequences, not ignorance. edit: typo
I think there is a conflation of malicious and ruthlessness in this thread, showing no pity or compassion (def of ruthless) does apply to a computer because they can do neither. However, being actively malicious and disregarding consequences probably only applies to humans controlling them because the computer is ignorant of those consequences as you say.
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#107A 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…
I agree that things should be considered ultimately as political (even judicial if needed).
But it’s not a given - Black Mirror describes worlds in which that reality does not win a survival-of-the-fittest competition against harsher technological regimes. It seems every time we describe these dystopias they become true, which for me is a reflection that it’s easier to destroy than to create, absent a learned culture.
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#108computers do what they're told. If it's oppressive, then the influencers are oppressive
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#109This 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…
infiltrate? They're not spies. They're savants at best.
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#110Computers are an inherently oppressive technology only in the same sense as any technology that isn't, like, a magical box that automatically feeds everyone on earth from thin air forever. There are certainly negative aspects to computers, some of which are touched upon in the article (my specific pet peeve is "middleman" apps like DoorDash or Uber whose sole value-add is to allow you to avoid talking to "the help" delivering your groceries, making your food, etc.). I think it's more productive to judge computers by their net "oppression", and for every Bitcoin or GrubHub there is an encrypted messaging app that stops the state from peering into an aspect our lives, an anonymity tool that lets people speak freely, or a Wikipedia. To use one facet of computing as an example, the populace in aggregate has more secrets than the government, so if each secret kept by the government via encryption adds 1 unit of oppression and each secret kept from the government via encryption subtracts 1, (theoretical, perfect) cryptography would clearly be liberatory on net.