I feel like there were mostly only steps 2 and 3. Most of step 1, solving problems, also just created more problems. Sometimes the pretending was better. Pretending was usually fun, at least.
Rise of social media coincides with disengagement from friends and community, but hey, we’re coming out soon with AI friends to help out! Wonder what problems that might create, which we can help you solve later. Yippee!
Man I can't imagine what it would be like to be someone who spent their whole life studying tech to help make the world a better place only for the industry to be actively sabotaging the world by the time they were an adult.
Grift is good business. In some ways, better than legitimate business. If you take the definition of grift as: offering a solution to a problem that doesn’t work, or to one that doesn’t even exist, or to one that you uourself created, it’s a great business model. Solving real problems is hard.
Wouldn’t you rather just convince someone there is a problem that doesn’t exist so when you say you solved it, no one can really argue? Or, solve the problem you create, 100% success! Anything in between is just hard work and risk of failure.
I remember when getting modern furniture from a store actually has the instruction manual included in various languages, pictures, etc.
Now its a piece of paper with a QR code, no access to real human help, and just English (sometimes Spanish). Tech just adding problems to sell solutions.
I remember thinking everyone in tech was liberal when I was in high school, because they were "progressive" compared to the dinosaur conservatives and religious fundamentalists of the Bush era. How naive I was ...
Technology now is "giving us stuff we don't want and making things we already have work worse while insisting it is the future and also we don't have a choice"
I wonder if that is related to Tech Bros getting rich fixing problems, then wanting MORE money with LESS effort, then deciding that "Actually, I think I should have ALL of the money and power and the masses of peons should be grateful to serve their master. Ugh whatever, I'll replace them with AI."
Big Tech are just turning into weapons companies at this point. Google has a contract to provide AI to Lockheed, AI to CBP, and AI to Palantir. Microsoft and Amazon also provide cloud services to IDF
Feels like it but planned obsolescence has been around for a while. Nintendo is getting flack for Switch 2 but in retrospect it’s kind of funny they didn’t get any sort of criticism when they shifted from the GBA to DS quickly.
As a programmer / developer in a past life, I can assure you that any talk of "look at what this amazing xyz will do for people" was quickly followed by "and look how much 💰 we can make!" ...And then we figured out how to maximize revenue models.
>The basic idea was that we could never win an election because we are such a small minority. But maybe you could unilaterally change the world through technological means without having to plead with people who are never going to agree with you. - Peter Thiel, 2010
Comments
Can't imagine it cause I am that person.
Aren't ya TIRED of THINKING for yourself and having FRIEEENDDDS. OUTSIDE??
https://bsky.app/profile/satyr-icon.bsky.social/post/3loykce6juc2b
When you have to show massive “growth” year after year, eventually you’ll have to make stuff up to keep it going.
Now its a piece of paper with a QR code, no access to real human help, and just English (sometimes Spanish). Tech just adding problems to sell solutions.
“move fast and break things“, a phrase meaning to break your own software to find the bugs before release
And changed its meaning to destroying existing industries, for personal benefit
https://futurism.com/facebook-beauty-targeted-ads
Honestly, life's constant little problems would be so much less burdensome if I weren't overwhelmed by *gestures at everything*
it every time!
they gaslight and try to imply you are the problem,
because you called them out on their bullshit.
Profit motivated actions always create problems.
https://bsky.app/profile/histoftech.bsky.social/post/3lozrryzkxk22
the tail is wagging the dog