Magnifica Humanitas • Hacker News Board

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#681

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Mon, May 25, 2026, 9:01 PM UTC

Ferret7446 wrote: post #675

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #650

I'm curious if there has ever been an instance where people have been able to "tame" a technology to consider a broader, societal good, or if we've always just been at the whims of how any particular tech naturally concentrates or dissipates power. For example, if you look at the boom of the middle classes in the mid 20th century, this appears to me largely a consequence of the fact that industrial technology at the…

"Guns don't kill people. People kill people." The whole idea of "taming technology" starts from a flawed premise. The problem is with people, not the technology.

"Nuclear weapons don't kill people. People kill people". So obviously we should let everyone order their own personal nuke from Amazon and let the market sort it out, or something.

Technology concentrates power. Yes, people may be the problem, but "taming technology" is obviously not a "flawed premise". There is a big difference between people having the power to bludgeon their neighbors with sticks and stones compared to blowing up entire continents with nukes.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#682

Post by pfannkuchen » Mon, May 25, 2026, 9:06 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #281

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truly interesting question, and the crux of the matter, also hasn't changed much since 1903: How?

There's been plenty of examples of workers seizing the means of production and establishing sustained non-capitalist organization (State or otherwise). We have any number of strategies to choose from: The PRC, Soviet Union, Syndicalized Spain (my favorite, seems the least likely to lead to police state), Vietnam, Cuba. The question thus isn't "how," but more specifically a couple other questions: "How do we prevent c…

Can someone explain what it even means to seize the means of production?

Like if the means of production is land, and you are seizing land, sure that makes sense to me.

But most goods are not made by land alone but by machines and factories and transport systems and etc. If you seize those as preexisting entities, what happens after you seize them? If you as a group can operate and expand those things, can’t you just build them yourselves also, and if so there is a way to work within the existing framework to do that, which is to start a company. Is seizing the means of production not equivalent to starting a company and stealing things others have built for the company to get started with? Why is that a good thing?

Like I personally agree that wealth accumulation is bad if it has political power go along with it, and there are huge problems with our system and lots of debt formats should be made illegal, I just don’t get why anyone thinks “seize the means of production” is the answer and I feel like I might be confused about what that really means.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#683

Post by Paracompact » Mon, May 25, 2026, 9:06 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #650

I'm curious if there has ever been an instance where people have been able to "tame" a technology to consider a broader, societal good, or if we've always just been at the whims of how any particular tech naturally concentrates or dissipates power. For example, if you look at the boom of the middle classes in the mid 20th century, this appears to me largely a consequence of the fact that industrial technology at the…

We have (for now) restrained ourselves from the more vicious applications of technology to war, in the form of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Although I could see the argument being made that such has not occurred for strictly humanitarian reasons, but instead as a predictable consequence of game theory.

In less important matters, we've regulated many harmful substances that the free market would love to poison the populace with. Nicotine, trans fats, gambling, alcohol. Some regulatory interventions have been more successful than others...

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#684

Post by dogcomplex » Mon, May 25, 2026, 9:06 PM UTC

jdw64 wrote: post #248

>“technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate, and use it,” If critical decisions affecting human life—such as hiring, lending, crime prediction, and welfare—are processed in an opaque black box, people will lose their fundamental right to explain their context or appeal against the machine's algorithmic verdicts

This is how the surveillance state has operated (especially internationally) for quite some time, before AI even hit.

AI arguably gives the best opportunity for fully-audited public institutions where no decision is made outside of agreed-upon laws and the context of the crime can be fully explored without scarcity of time and legal resources.

As always, technology's morality comes down to who owns it and how they use it.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#685

Post by vintagedave » Mon, May 25, 2026, 9:07 PM UTC

vintagedave wrote: post #34

vintagedave wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear I have committed the sin (I mean that word, here) of commenting before reading the entire article. Often it is the comments that set the tone of interpretation and communication more than the article itself, because people read the comments, not the article. To somewhat mitigate that, here are items that are striking me as I read more. (I hope you'll forgive that this still directs the comment in the direction…

> the earth’s goods — soil, water, air and natural resources — are given by God to the entire human family to sustain the lives of all, and that every person has an inherent right to the use of such goods, both now and in the future. ... Today, we are called to recognize that this universal destination applies not only to material goods, but also to immaterial and cultural goods. Immaterial and cultural goods. This i…

> I'll keep updating the comment.

For future reference, ten hours later I have still not finished reading all of it. It would make a great blog post to continue this comment thread once done.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#686

Post by ares623 » Mon, May 25, 2026, 9:09 PM UTC

turing_complete wrote: post #56

ares623 wrote: post #8

That's a long read. I grew up Catholic, went through a pretty devout few years in my early adulthood, but ultimately I have decided that it is not for me. I send my kids to a Catholic school though (it is deeply tied to our culture), so I guess in that sense it is still worth my time reading it in full. EDIT: Few paragraphs in, it is beautifully written.

What caused you to fall away? Bad priest / diocese?

No, nothing like that. It wasn't a single thing. Just drifted away I guess, and disillusioned. I have no strong ill feelings towards it.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#687

Post by dogcomplex » Mon, May 25, 2026, 9:12 PM UTC

linsomniac wrote: post #20

ZacnyLos wrote: post #5

Divided into five chapters, Magnifica humanitas has an underlying premise: technology is not “a force antagonistic to humanity” (4), nor is it “inherently evil” (9). However, “technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate, and use it. Therefore, Pope Leo XIV appeals for people to build “for the common good” and to “remain human,” following a courageous men…

>it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate, and use it I've been thinking a lot recently about the idea that the smartest models will always be against the billionaires. Steve Yegge said this on a recent Hansel Minutes Podcast. "You cannot train a model to be helpful, without it wanting humanity to flourish. And the only way to get around that is to make a dumber model. So the smartest mo…

That is the hope and faith. MechaHitler definitely tested the waters. Lets hope full alignment is impossible, because otherwise perfect billionaire thought slaves are still happening.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#688

Post by Paracompact » Mon, May 25, 2026, 9:14 PM UTC

jdelfuego wrote: post #679

I find the Amish approach to technology a very interesting one. As I understand it, they're not in principle "against" modern technology, but they carefully evaluate the potential impact of every new technology on the community. The decision is a purposeful one, governed by the criterion of the common good of the community, which in my opinion is much healthy than our free-for-all. In this respect I find this encycli…

> [The Amish] carefully evaluate the potential impact of every new technology on the community. The decision is a purposeful one, governed by the criterion of the common good of the community.

Counterpoint: buttons. Without proclaiming expertise on the subject, I think this is an overly romantic view of the Amish, and most of their decisions (like any religious/religiously-adjacent demographic) are based on vibes and contemporary politics.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#689

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Mon, May 25, 2026, 9:15 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #658

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #650

I'm curious if there has ever been an instance where people have been able to "tame" a technology to consider a broader, societal good, or if we've always just been at the whims of how any particular tech naturally concentrates or dissipates power. For example, if you look at the boom of the middle classes in the mid 20th century, this appears to me largely a consequence of the fact that industrial technology at the…

Electricity. Eventually, it was everywhere, used by everybody, and a background to society. Electric utilities did not end up ruling the world.

Thanks! This answer was actually the one that I found most helpful. I feel like some of the other responses to my comment were talking about how we regulate lots of other tech, but that wasn't really my point - I understand that we regulate tech, but only when it becomes "economically convenient".

But your last sentence "Electric utilities did not end up ruling the world" really struck me. It's a great point, and TBH I don't really actually know why electric utilities didn't end up becoming more powerful. Time for me to go research the early history of electrification.

Edit: This reddit thread on AskHistorians has good info and links: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/8373wv/how_f... . Again, thank you very much for your mention of electricity, because it looks like it actually was a pretty severe power struggle between electric companies and governments at large trying to regulate them, and if anything it has given me some hope that maybe "the people" will eventually win out.

Re: Magnifica Humanitas

#690

Post by dogcomplex » Mon, May 25, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

alecco wrote: post #390

Yes it's a very dangerous concentration of power. But I don't believe strong words or proposing regulation by just another elite would change much. Please join/help open source groups doing small + local or distributed models. There's a lot to do. Support truly open source companies. Let's walk the walk.

This. AI can, should, and will erode all legacy companies into intelligent utilities - with an end state of nearly-free open source utilities.

Anyone concerned with concentrations of power and abuse of AI should be focusing on getting open source work to keep pace with decentralizing that power into accessible free tools for the masses.