Everything as a Service
curiositysink.substack.com
Everything as a Service
1–10 of 37 posts
Re: Everything as a Service
#2It's always so strange to see one of these articles that endlessly seeks to philosophize modern political/economic circumstances but never directly reference labor theory/the alienation of man from his labor. I wonder if people are simply unaware of the large existing body of work on these issues or are just trying to use "politically neutral" language to describe the explicitly radical study on our existing structures of power and how individuals spend their time
Re: Everything as a Service
#3It's always so strange to see one of these articles that endlessly seeks to philosophize modern political/economic circumstances but never directly reference labor theory/the alienation of man from his labor. I wonder if people are simply unaware of the large existing body of work on these issues or are just trying to use "politically neutral" language to describe the explicitly radical study on our existing structur…
They could also be aware of it and reject the theory.
Re: Everything as a Service
#4The author is remembering a past that never existed.
And one of the examples he used to illustrate his point is a university project done by a student, photoshopped (poorly) to appear real-- not an actual in-the-wild ad campaign.
>NIKE FREE ad campaign for my Intro to Campaigns class. Photography by William Eason
https://www.behance.net/gallery/16285493/NIKE-FREE-Ad-Campai...
Re: Everything as a Service
#5It's always so strange to see one of these articles that endlessly seeks to philosophize modern political/economic circumstances but never directly reference labor theory/the alienation of man from his labor. I wonder if people are simply unaware of the large existing body of work on these issues or are just trying to use "politically neutral" language to describe the explicitly radical study on our existing structur…
I don't think it's strange at all. After the fall of the USSR and the revelations of its horrors all but the most radical in the west came to consider Marxism as a dead letter philosophy.
One ought to believe what they believe to be right, even if it is radical, but you shouldn't be shocked when others don't join in your radicalism with you.
Re: Everything as a Service
#6It's always so strange to see one of these articles that endlessly seeks to philosophize modern political/economic circumstances but never directly reference labor theory/the alienation of man from his labor. I wonder if people are simply unaware of the large existing body of work on these issues or are just trying to use "politically neutral" language to describe the explicitly radical study on our existing structur…
I don't think it's strange at all. After the fall of the USSR and the revelations of its horrors all but the most radical in the west came to consider Marxism as a dead letter philosophy. One ought to believe what they believe to be right, even if it is radical, but you shouldn't be shocked when others don't join in your radicalism with you.
[deleted]
Re: Everything as a Service
#7The author is remembering a past that never existed. And one of the examples he used to illustrate his point is a university project done by a student, photoshopped (poorly) to appear real-- not an actual in-the-wild ad campaign. >NIKE FREE ad campaign for my Intro to Campaigns class. Photography by William Eason https://www.behance.net/gallery/16285493/NIKE-FREE-Ad-Campai...
Agreed, this is an extremely simplistic view and write up. No references to any grounding theory or heuristics, wide use of hyperbole, and now this photo… good grief.
I’m not sure why this was posted to HN.
Re: Everything as a Service
#8It's always so strange to see one of these articles that endlessly seeks to philosophize modern political/economic circumstances but never directly reference labor theory/the alienation of man from his labor. I wonder if people are simply unaware of the large existing body of work on these issues or are just trying to use "politically neutral" language to describe the explicitly radical study on our existing structur…
> reference labor theory/the alienation of man from his labor. I wonder if people are simply unaware of the large existing body of work on these issues
I’ve been interested in reading more about this. Do you have any pointers to good info?
Re: Everything as a Service
#9Michael Sandel's The Moral Limits of Markets is an good and very accessible book on this topic of civic virtues being turned into transactions.
There's a case study in the book of economists asking Swiss citizens about their opinion on having a nuclear waste storage facility near their community. When people in the community were asked if they were okay with this, a small majority agreed. A common argument was that there may be risk, but if it has to go somewhere it may as well be here, out of a sense of civic duty.
The Economists then added an incentive and asked others the same question, but added that there may be an annual payment involved for the risk. The support dropped to something like 25%, people starting to give answers like "I'm not going to sell out my kid's health for money".
The naive view is that turning something transactional cannot be worse, after all people can have civity duty and money. But of course it doesn't work like that. The transaction changes the entire nature of a process, turning activities that were about civic virtue into transactions about profit, degrading the entire thing.
Lots of other good examples in the book. Children being paid to read books switching from what they liked to what was shortest, paid volunteers actually being less effective than unpaid ones, and so on.
Re: Everything as a Service
#10It's always so strange to see one of these articles that endlessly seeks to philosophize modern political/economic circumstances but never directly reference labor theory/the alienation of man from his labor. I wonder if people are simply unaware of the large existing body of work on these issues or are just trying to use "politically neutral" language to describe the explicitly radical study on our existing structur…
Labor theory is an insufficient and poorly evidenced claim that does not align with reality.