Autoenshittification. How the computer killed capitalism. – by Cory Doctorow

None of this is divine mandate. What is “freedom” is not immutable but a contemporary observation.

Is the future better of setting themselves aside to clean up after us? Are they not allowed to be free from our mess? One unique in the history of the species.

Why is today free from the consequences they put upon tomorrow?

The long term investment in us is actually selfish. It’s akin to expecting our religion to be the next generations

I get your point, but I don’t believe it’s gonna make cars cheaper for me. All the software and connectivity tends to be misused for extracting more money via subscriptions, controlling me and in extreme cases even holding me hostage by updating the software, and making repairs uneconomical by locking me in to one vendor or pairing parts.

Not to mention the various privacy and security risks involved with permanent connectivity, escalating software complexity and questionable ownership of the devices built into the car.

> While I dislike the elecronification trend, cars are definitely better than they were 30-40 years ago, in a completely different league when it comes to reliability.

I'm going to have to strongly disagree here, particularly w/r/t reliability.

We purchased my wife's vehicle new in 2014. While it's relatively well-regarded and we're happy with it overall, it's been far from trouble-free. We recently replaced the engine due to a well-known mechanic defect - but it was a defect that should have been apparent much earlier than it was, but went unnoticed because of a firmware issue in the ECM. In addition to that, we've had problems with the infotainment system needing to be manually rebooted every month or so in response to increasing "weirdness" over time. The buttons on the steering wheel stopped working consistently in ~2019. There were workaround for a while, but these days all of the buttons on the left side do the same thing (activate the connected phone's microphone), and the ones on the right don't work at all. I've torn the whole steering column and dash apart to verify that it's not a wiring issue; it has to be something wrong with the infotainment system at this point.

This wasn't our only experience with newer vehicles. Every one we've ever owned - or just worked on for friends - is plagued by these sorts of electronic "gremlins". They get worse over time, too. Yes, new vehicles are very nice with all the bells and whistles when they're new... but those same features quickly become "just one more thing to break" as the vehicles age. To make matter worse, they're typically very expensive to fix, even if you have the skills, time, and tools to do it yourself. I'm already $1,500 deep into fixing those buttons on the steering wheel, and haven't succeeded yet.

I drive a 2000 Jeep Wrangler. Granted, it's "only" 24 years old, but it has been far more reliable than any other vehicle my family has owned since I got it. When I bought it, in ~2011, I was looking for an older model - ideally it would have been a CJ-7, which was made from 1976-1986 - right at your 40 year cutoff. I've replaced several major components, sure - the engine, the entire rear end, the front suspension, etc. - but it has >200k miles on it, and the engine was poorly maintained when I bought the vehicle. What's more, all of that combined cost less than the engine replacement in my wife's 2015 model year vehicle.

There's much less to go wrong, too. There's no infotainment system to start acting funny, no backup camera to break, no buttons on the steering wheel to start doing random things they're not supposed to... it's just a vehicle.

Complexity is the enemy of reliability, and modern vehicles are very complex. Some of that is due to the market demanding new features. Some of it is due to government regulations. Some of it is just manufacturers using more complex solutions because time marches on.

... I have more to say here, but no time. Maybe I'll come back :)

He's arguing that capitalist systems morph over time into feudalistic systems and the argument is pretty persuasive but there's an issue: capitalism initially emerged out of feudalism.

The text's theory of history requires a hidden variable that controls the feudalism->capitalism->feudalism process, but no candidate for a hidden variable is suggested by the author. Sure, any reader can think up some candidates for the hidden variable, but letting the reader fill in the blanks is a con.

I still have a belief that capitalism and free markets are superior, but not the way we're doing it now. I'm not trying to no true scotsman here, but a man born in germany to 2 austrian parents and dressed in a kilt is no true scotsman.

as i see things there are some major issues are

- Removing money from gold standard, allowing power to accrue to those who can control the supply. Instead of competing for what consumer wants, they just change the rules, or tax the future to line their own pockets today.

- People have bought the lie that the government can do net good things for the economy, not just move the peas around the plate. I think it started with income tax and the social safety net (whereas prior we had charitable works that largely worked by proximity -- you knew the person you were helping or being helped by, meaning you had a spiritual need to treat them humanely, vs a money printer government which seems like it can go on forever, but see my point above about real money.

- An image based society, we no longer appreciate and compete on enduring values like long marriages, objects that last a life time (or longer), making a hard choice that denies ourselves the appearance of gain etc. For example our clothes only need to last long enough to make that IG/TikTok post, then they can be discarded. A BMW when photographed appears identical to the one which has its $120 a month options rented or not.

- Sex (porn/hookups) and attention(likes, foodie calls, onlyfans) have become huge traps to men, and women, respectively. Meaning people feel like why would I work years/decades to get what others print money for, or why would I preserve something my partner might want when I can get what I want in exchange. These tools have made every boy/man a john, and every girl/woman a prostitute exchanging artificial attention for sex, and artificial sex for attention ...

We cannot make real progress while we continue to applaud fake things. A millionaire isnt what it used to be, and neither is anything we see on social media.

also see my pseudo rant here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34560255

How would I fix things?

- Return to gold standard and constitutionalize that governments cannot take on debt (they can only work with current cash reserves, not even projected taxes).

- A better education system (likely not a state run monopoly) will help people think smarter about everything.

- Social media influencers need to be held liable for inaccuracies and sued into oblivion for what amounts to false advertising and fraud

- Pornography needs to be age gated (and enforced) like alcohol, lottery, and voting. Sellers need to be held accountable just as selling alcohol to an underage person is the seller's fault. So should be providing pornography. Also it should be an Opt in system at the ISP level meaning the biggest names are not accessible.

I know this will get downvoted into oblivion because there's so much content people are likely to disagree with at least one point. But this is my best working model rn for how to get back to the stability that will allow us to make real progress again as a society.