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Techies Are the New Puritans

newrepublic.com

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Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#2
> In the Puritan model of charity, the rich have an obligation to do good for the poor—but the poor also have an obligation to the rich, to try to be a useful part of the same society.

The article's author not only disagrees, but considers this model so obviously erroneous that she doesn't see any need to explain what's wrong with it. I find this unhelpful, because it fails to explain why subsidizing people who contribute nothing to society, in such fashion as to provide an incentive to continue contributing nothing to society, is in any way a good idea.

Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#3
post #2

> In the Puritan model of charity, the rich have an obligation to do good for the poor—but the poor also have an obligation to the rich, to try to be a useful part of the same society. The article's author not only disagrees, but considers this model so obviously erroneous that she doesn't see any need to explain what's wrong with it. I find this unhelpful, because it fails to explain why subsidizing people who contr…

Conversely, just because you're poor doesn't mean you contribute nothing to society.

Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#4
post #2

> In the Puritan model of charity, the rich have an obligation to do good for the poor—but the poor also have an obligation to the rich, to try to be a useful part of the same society. The article's author not only disagrees, but considers this model so obviously erroneous that she doesn't see any need to explain what's wrong with it. I find this unhelpful, because it fails to explain why subsidizing people who contr…

There's the problem of lock-out: how do you contribute usefully to society without some baseline to work from, and where your day-to-day activities are forced to be about the most basic level of survival?

Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#5
Techies like to think of themselves as different from the very wealthy, but many of our attitudes are very similar and most techies aspire to join their ranks.

There's a persistent belief in common with the wealthy that we have earned, solely through our hard work and perseverance, our position in society. Never mind the advantages we had along the way.

Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#6
post #2

> In the Puritan model of charity, the rich have an obligation to do good for the poor—but the poor also have an obligation to the rich, to try to be a useful part of the same society. The article's author not only disagrees, but considers this model so obviously erroneous that she doesn't see any need to explain what's wrong with it. I find this unhelpful, because it fails to explain why subsidizing people who contr…

There's the problem of lock-out: how do you contribute usefully to society without some baseline to work from, and where your day-to-day activities are forced to be about the most basic level of survival?

It could be argued that the whole increase of drug use in USA is due to lockout and other effects

Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#8
post #2

> In the Puritan model of charity, the rich have an obligation to do good for the poor—but the poor also have an obligation to the rich, to try to be a useful part of the same society. The article's author not only disagrees, but considers this model so obviously erroneous that she doesn't see any need to explain what's wrong with it. I find this unhelpful, because it fails to explain why subsidizing people who contr…

Nobody contributes nothing to society. Even if nothing else, the wretched of the earth offer those better off an opportunity to practice not being fuckfaces. In many philosophical traditions, that's a pretty big deal.

Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#9

Do you think technology is going to take over the world? How do questions like this factor into this class warfare?

We already get the gist here. It has become imperative that we consciously strive to add "humanism" to our practices: human-centric this, human-readable that... Many of us have to be reminded to be nice — and there's a positive trend between circumstantial ethics and hours spent in front of the computer.

Non-technologists fear that technologists have lost their humanity, and thus incur an air of arrogance. That's the point here.

Most of them do not want (1) welfare from the tech hierarchy, and some of them do not want to participate in this arbitrary hierarchy (2) because of their aesthetic views on technology overall or (3) because of their lack of education regarding the subject.

Re: Techies Are the New Puritans

#10
post #2

> In the Puritan model of charity, the rich have an obligation to do good for the poor—but the poor also have an obligation to the rich, to try to be a useful part of the same society. The article's author not only disagrees, but considers this model so obviously erroneous that she doesn't see any need to explain what's wrong with it. I find this unhelpful, because it fails to explain why subsidizing people who contr…

I tend to agree with you. I don't _disagree_ with the author, because I don't know what the author's point is. She decries the "puritan" worldview, but outside of pointing out that it is an old one, she does not really bother to say what is wrong with it.
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