s/inherently/increasingly/
Computers are an oppressive technology
111–120 of 145 posts
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#112This 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…
There is also the question of increasing human-machine integration, eventually resulting in a direct read-write interface to
the brain (see Neuralink, OpenWater, and VALVE's research and goals), in the context of proprietary software under corporate and government control.
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#113If there's a risk of oppression, it's likely to be due to the power of a small number of people to control a large number. For instance the people who can afford to employ a large pool of programmers have more control than those who can only write their own programs, or who at worst are confined to the user side of the relationship.
Since I'm not in that first group, my only hope is to differentiate myself from the last one. Hence why I enjoy programming for my own use despite note writing "software" for other people to use.
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#114Maybe 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…
> Maybe computers are "inherently oppressive" but this is about the weakest and most inneffective argument for that I can imagine.
The whole thing was an incoherent mess.
The author didn't even realise that every point he made concerning the "ruthlessness" of the machine, applies to all external natural forces as well.
A storm doesn't ask for permission to destroy a house, a flood cannot be bargained with and indiscriminately drowns people, gravity itself pulls you down and causes your body to be smashed into bits if you fall from too great a height.
Machines are no different from nature in that regard, except that we can take measures to protect ourselves from the perceived "ruthlessness" of the devices we create.
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#115I didn't understand this OC's thesis, so can't criticize.
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FWIW, Seeing Like a State has connected a lot of dots for me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State
My take:
Administration (tax, trade, war, public health, etc) requires control.
Control requires centralization.
Centralization requires bureaucracy.
Bureaucracy requires standardization and information technology.
Computers are tool for digitizing information technology (replacing paper with bytes).
So are computers inherently oppressive? Sure. To the extent that participating in collective action reduces or impinges on individual actions.
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A more interesting question for me is how innovation accelerates inequity.
Winner takes all (preferential attachment) is something like a natural law.
Reducing transaction costs (innovation, competitive advantage) merely accelerates the inevitable outcome.
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#116This 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 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 happe…
The more neutral/academic term (instead of techno-fascism) is "algorithmic control"
Plenty of great reading: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C44&q=alg...
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#117All this rumination on the evils of train and vending machine doors, and yet environment-burning ransomware-funding Bitcoin is held up as a counterexample for good?
This all seems pretty wooly.
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#118A 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…
I’m not so pessimistic, all this means is that freedoms must be actively fought for and maintained. That they cannot be taken for granted. However we have many times fought against supposedly more efficient autocratic systems and won. Napoleonic imperialism, and that of the great Central European powers of WW2, Fascism, Stalinism, South American military dictatorships. We’ve beaten them all. A successor to Maoism is still in power in China, but Mao would have been horrified by the reforms under Deng. We’ll see how Xi’s reversion works out.
I know there’s a strong current of left sentiment here that thinks billionaires are somehow taking everything for themselves, but the fact is the freedom of movement and association that enabled globalisation has raised hundreds of millions out of poverty. Those billionaires employ millions of people. I’d rather they ran these companies than government functionaries. For the first time more than half of humanity now live comfortable middle class lives. Progress in my lifetime has been breathtaking, and it’s been so fast a lot of people’s ideological assumptions about how the world is and works have been left far behind.
There’s still a lot more to do of course, 10% of people in severe poverty is still far too many. China under Xi shows how a technologically competent authoritarianism can achieve a stable steady state that will be very hard to break down. We must do it though, the future of humanity depends on it. If such a regime was to gain broad sway over humanity there’s a real possibility Orwell’s vision of a boot stamping on a human face forever could come to be. I don’t think it’s inevitable though. The fact is free and open societies are actually far more efficient and productive.
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#119A 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…
> 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.
I think there's an important distinction between things like bitcoin and the technologies described in the article. The technologies mentioned in the article all take some sort of action without ongoing human input.
Things like bitcoin (and other crypto-anarchist technologies), on the other hand, preserve human agency. I mean, there's a lot of automation on the mining side of bitcoin, but the currency side allows trades to be initiated by human beings. Bitcoin preserves human agency so well that people using it to commit crimes is one of the arguments against it.
Now, you could argue that what I'm describing is a bad thing, or that the tradeoffs are unfavorable, or what have you. And there are several reasonable arguments in this area. But I think the distinction between technology that responds to human input and does work for us and technology that runs autonomously and makes its own decisions based on rules set up at a prior date is important here.
Re: Computers are an oppressive technology
#120The 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 norma…
That's true, but I think the author touches on this in calling machine "ruthless". While we may imagine a total bureaucracy, where the train operator themselves close the doors, amputating your arm. That train operator had the ability to, at any point, diverge from the bureaucracy and save your limb. Machine, and by extension computers, are not similarly able. The machine is unable to diverge from its programming. The doors are going to amputate your limbs, and the computer COULD NOT do anything about it.
If I apply that insight to my own experiences, I can definitely spot places where I have disagreed with stakeholders about something because they don't see computers as nearly as ruthless as I do.
What I'm trying to convey is that the type of bureaucracy that emerges from people is fundamentally different than the same bureaucracy with machine. In human bureaucracy every cog has agency to resist the process. In a machine the cog can't resist its own functioning. Not just will it amputate your arm, it never had a choice in the matter.