I’ve really flipped on “tech won’t save us” because it seems to have gone from correctly noting that you can’t solve the collective action or principle-agent problems with apps to being resistant to ever admitting that technological change could change the underlying constraints of specific problems - ThreadSky

opinionhaver.bsky.social • 83 days ago

I’ve really flipped on “tech won’t save us” because it seems to have gone from correctly noting that you can’t solve the collective action or principle-agent problems with apps to being resistant to ever admitting that technological change could change the underlying constraints of specific problems

Comments

bahrad.bsky.social•83 days ago

It seems obvious. Nothing alone can "save us" because "saving us" involves intertwined and complex social, political, economic, and technological issues. But if you're trying to get funding or support for an app or a policy, you need to overstate what it can do and conceal the complexity. It's hard.

ritterteufeltod.bsky.social•83 days ago

I really detest the kind of techno Utopianism that says that technological progress makes human flourishing inevitable and eliminates the need for political action and organizing. But technology, properly wielded by human communities working together, can make our lives better and save the world.

ritterteufeltod.bsky.social•83 days ago

I also think that it is worth considering the ways in which we have organized society to maximize our ability to take advantage of technology has been alienating but the solution to this isn’t abandon technology.

jessecohn.bsky.social•83 days ago

Which technologies do you see as (positively) transformative?

nanzhounoodles.bsky.social•83 days ago

High bandgap semiconductors can shrink and cheapen high voltage electronics while reducing copper demand, room temp or just less-cold superconductors, non-FF steel production, new ways of making cement without the GHG emissions.

nickel76.bsky.social•83 days ago

Imagine an app that gave workers the power to play employers off one another for your labor, one that employers had to use because all the labor used it to find jobs…

A digital union so to speak…

skeet.best•83 days ago

I quoted a post by a teacher yesterday noting that a functional society with its technological priorities in order would have many more opportunities for teachers and their response was to come into my mentions and go "how DARE you"

christosilvia.bsky.social•83 days ago

On the concept or on the show?

christosilvia.bsky.social•83 days ago

As for the show I can pretty easily intuit based on the guest whether an episode will be good or bad

lizamazel.bsky.social•83 days ago

Modify it to techBROS won't save you and then it's a world of fuck to the yes

lizamazel.bsky.social•83 days ago

after all, they're the only ones banging on about some shite utopia that's based on their arrested development fantasies of colonialism and/or the Jetsons.

actually useful tech doesn't purport to do more than solve the problem it's been designed to solve.

ok there can be more uses, not my point

mpbx3003.bsky.social•83 days ago

I wonder how much of this is down to how much you see "tech" as "targeted solutions to human problems" or "some form of magic" in this context and how much you conflate the two in the process.

medlock-thought.bsky.social•83 days ago

Which is nuts, because "technology affects what is politically possible" is literally on page 2 of the Communist Manifesto.

ed3d.net•83 days ago

like a lot of these sorts of bits, it's hard not to read it as "I have a following and they money me now so I need new outrages and the old ones can't have much hope either"

progressiveknife.bsky.social•83 days ago

Capital T Tech is too busy developing a B2B SaaS AI for the Blockchain product aand reading Moldbug.

andrewmaier.bsky.social•83 days ago

You've articulated well something I've felt for over a year now. And to be sure, I still idly listen to this podcast. But I can't bear the idea of putting money towards a 100% critical view with no willingness to entertain the upshot.

maxp94.bsky.social•83 days ago

One thing that kind of annoys me is that they kind of implicitly take VCs at their word when they claim that they’re interested in technology, and that they have an R&D model that actually works well.

0kultra.bsky.social•83 days ago

Actually imma gonna push back harder here.
A book is a technology.
Education(al process) is a technology (actually more like, a whole bunch of em)

So if one wants to say something like "we need to Edumagate the Massis" that means they want to solve the problem with technology

frontdeskattendant.bsky.social•83 days ago

sounds stupid. technology kinda gay fr

0kultra.bsky.social•83 days ago

actually I do think that a lot of those problems can be solved or at least greatly alleviated by "apps" but for that to happen people need to at minimum want to solve them

quantian.bsky.social•83 days ago

I know it’s bad politics or elitist or whatever but I’m increasingly coming around to the idea that if you can’t answer an elementary linear algebra question I should not have to pay attention to your opinions on political economy in the slightest

contextproblem.bsky.social•83 days ago

https://www.ssrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/hirschman.jpg

besttrousers.bsky.social•83 days ago

@bengolub.bsky.social a movement

philip.health•83 days ago

jaxzanproditor.bsky.social•83 days ago

I’m imagining a feature to restrict comments on your posts to only people who can do a singular value decomposition lol

mraginsky.bsky.social•83 days ago

I’m gonna have to raise the bar to
Ito calculus. Too many randos out there with opinions about diffusion models and whatnot.

inv1nciblesummer.bsky.social•83 days ago

I think that's somewhat too stringent of a numeracy test. Maybe something that interfaces with politics more directly, like, understanding probability notions such as expected value

crate.bsky.social•79 days ago

forget a poll literacy test, u gotta do a heart run on slay the spire

bengolub.bsky.social•83 days ago

And similarly, I guess, if someone can't answer a basic question about modern Asian history?

siebznet.bsky.social•83 days ago

I think a related phenomenon is ONLY apps being treated as tech.

Solar energy? Not tech. Candy Crush? tech.

aiyaruk.bsky.social•83 days ago

No there's definitely a contempt there for pretty much any kind of advancement - big 'we don't need any more technology than we already have' energy.

viriditax.bsky.social•83 days ago

I think that view was correct in ~2015 but hasn't been accurate since ~2020

someonelizz.bsky.social•83 days ago

yeah as a progressive who can’t drive, the kneejerk contempt for self-driving cars drives me crazy

whatthelightcando.bsky.social•83 days ago

It's wild how often one specific observation or message gets turned into a reductive blanket statement, used to justify doing absolutely nothing

driftingthrough.bsky.social•83 days ago

If you're not into game theory, what kind of opinions can you have?

aiyaruk.bsky.social•83 days ago

The sentiment really chaps my ass as a former engineer because technology has already saved you! It continues to save you again and again and again - the miracles of vaccines and wastewater treatment and a thousand other things are the bulwark holding back an incredible amount of suffering

lancelet.bsky.social•83 days ago

Absolutely.

What techno-pessimists are really complaining about is the management of technology.

“All the greatest minds of my generation have been hired to sell ads on social media.” - that kind of thing.

It has almost nothing to do with technology and a lot to do with making easy money fast.

lancelet.bsky.social•83 days ago

A core problem is the lack of funding for real technological advancement. Venture capital has, for years, been focussed on these tech unicorns, and doesn’t care about solid engineering companies.

Got a new scalable web service? Funded!

Got a new FEA/CFD/CAD/CAM approach? Tiny market, don’t care!

aiyaruk.bsky.social•83 days ago

I am painfully aware of this - both from working at a startup and then in highly technical simulation software after my time as a mechE. That said, there's a seething contempt for technology and the people who make it possible as an outgrowth of this problem that's really untenable long term

jamestiv.bsky.social•83 days ago

Notably, the nosedive in Elon's popularity started when he moved away from making new things in the real world and into fucking around in the cyber-social world.

I will admit I liked him when he was just the Tesla & SpaceX guy. Not so much now.

aiyaruk.bsky.social•83 days ago

He was never good at making things in the real world - QA on Teslas is dogshit because he tried to make hardware like software, hence the constant recalls.

aryafairywren.bsky.social•83 days ago

Yeah but yknow, he used to have more time and energy, so he could actually pay attention to problems as they appeared. Now? From what I recall, he's long been absent.

aiyaruk.bsky.social•83 days ago

Nah he was always Like This, he just has more visibility now

(I have friends who worked closely for him about a decade ago)

davidfavstar.bsky.social•83 days ago

Yes, but the people leading many of these tech organizations are increasingly anti-vax and against programs that will alleviate a lot of suffering so them and their rich buddies can get tax cuts

malthusiantrap.bsky.social•83 days ago

Yeah, but that's not a technology problem, that's the most basic hierarchy problem of the powerful controlling more stuff. You want to take some of their stuff, not have less stuff in society overall.

beneprism.rip•83 days ago

Allowing a handful of mostly dudes who all hang out together and who are as deeply immersed in finance and tech to define what 'technology' means in society is such a huge mistake and it's depressing that people will just agree with Elon Musk that he represents technological progress

daranglenn.bsky.social•83 days ago

People with power are barbaric assholes. And the people, especially in America, utterly detest those concerned with the common good and will elevate the sociopaths. Tech has to succeed in solving the science against the headwinds of society. What’s remarkable is they keep succeeding somehow.

davidfavstar.bsky.social•83 days ago

They faced what I would say is mild and deserved criticism for enabling the rise of misinformation online, which made them so mad that they turned in to Trump donors lol

ttkciar.bsky.social•83 days ago

As a (somewhat insular) engineer, it didn't occur to me until reading this conversation that people who were dismissive of technological solutions were talking about *obviously inconsequential* technologies, and not real or potential solutions (like vaccines, grid-scale storage, or SEA MATE).

aiyaruk.bsky.social•82 days ago

Oh they also have the same contempt for advancements in the things that make modern life possible. Very 'we already have the technology, why bother improving on it' as well as a non-understanding of the gulf between possible and feasible

progressiveknife.bsky.social•83 days ago

I love computers and I'm increasingly negative about the downside risk of technologies. We've made it easier than ever to scam the elderly!

xanadian.bsky.social•83 days ago

Eyeglasses! Hearing aids! Screenreaders! Transcription apps and subtitling! Scheduling and reminder apps! Absolutely oodles of mobility aids that I don't know about because my disabilities are different, but loads of people use! Over 9000 complex medical devices!

Etc etc etc

aiyaruk.bsky.social•83 days ago

I wear a weird little space age sensor 24/7 that monitors my blood glucose and means I don't have to stab myself in the hand 3x a day, the idea that tech advancements don't effect qol is hella dumb.

tektology-enjoyer.bsky.social•83 days ago

I think the operative issue is "Is tech the bottleneck in this problem?". Like Climate Change isn't really a technical problem - Gen III/III+ reactor designs & Fast Breeders will straightforwardly get us out of it. The fact that this hasn't happened means that the bottleneck is politics.

tektology-enjoyer.bsky.social•83 days ago

But yes. The frame really should be "there should be way more opportunities for ML people to work on stuff like this instead of Tricking People Into Clicking Ads https://www.sciencealert.com/new-ai-breakthrough-can-finally-detect-parasitic-worm-infections "

opinionhaver.bsky.social•83 days ago

yes, all widespread social issues require fundamentally political solutions, correct. Technology can radically change the *kind* of political soloution required. Like the vaccine changed the social issue of the pandemic from “how do we get people to minimize activity” to “how do we get people vaxed”

hikoukihikouki9.bsky.social•83 days ago

The pandemic was like the first time since WWII where Americans would go alone with some sort of collective action for the greater good after decades of mindless individualism and I don't really blame a lot of lefties for not wanting to let go of that

hikoukihikouki9.bsky.social•83 days ago

The less charitable part of it is that if the older people in your life were safe -- the pandemic was really fucking good for the professional class. Low interest rates, fake email jobs got faker, tech had surges in demand and of course BIG FISCAL happened.

mikebr.bsky.social•83 days ago

god it sucks so much that I missed being able to take advantage of any of that, now the housing market is permanently locked out

umbrarchist.bsky.social•83 days ago

We have an economic power game where most people are indoctrinated to be losers.

Double Entry Accounting is SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS old. Adam Smith wrote "read, write and ACCOUNT" multiple times in Wealth of Nations.

Where have economists been advocating mandatory accounting in the schools?

docgok.bsky.social•83 days ago

In the presence of sufficient tech progress, all political problems become shallow.

aelkus.bsky.social•83 days ago

langdon winner argued that technologies are not universally compatible with all forms of social organization

aelkus.bsky.social•83 days ago

choosing what technologies you use is a basic requirement for getting politics you want

aelkus.bsky.social•83 days ago

this is inherent to housing theory of everything. that rail is more compatible with democracy than car.

dollspace.gay•83 days ago

Turns out technology can in fact solve some problems, and in fact may be the primary driver of invention.

nightcreature13.bsky.social•83 days ago

Political as in what? The last point wasn’t true at all

differance.bsky.social•83 days ago

Plus Marx himself was pretty much a technological determinist. If you forego technological progress, you’re not a Marxist anymore

ianbobmorris.bsky.social•83 days ago

The tech won't save us people don't consider some things tech

ianbobmorris.bsky.social•83 days ago

the people too deep into tech won't save us think that certain technologies let people off the hook from changing society (like saying direct air capture would let emitters off the hook for their sins)

richardr.bsky.social•83 days ago

People thought they could slip in shit like "abolish capitalism" if we were already doing massive lifestyle changes to save the planet
Tech getting us most(?) of the way there blows up their ridiculous idea. Turns out they'll deny reality rather than abandon their plan

gnomekyle.bsky.social•83 days ago

Great example

publicuniversal.bsky.social•83 days ago

transportation tech in the form of hyperloops versus e-bikes are a pretty good example of this no?

opinionhaver.bsky.social•83 days ago

I don’t think the left should be like uncritical techno-optimists, I think some things like conventional social media might well be net negatives, but do think there’s a kind of counterproductive tendency to only regard the issues of science & tech only through a lens of sneering cynical pessimism

369enthusiast.bsky.social•83 days ago

this is also, like, a huge departure from how Marxists traditionally viewed science and society! i vaguely associate this with Foucault but i wish someone actually knowledgeable would write up how/when this shift happened

schizodelusion.bsky.social•83 days ago

The problem is the libertarians run everything, so everything became "anyone can post anything 24/7" on social media. Books have been written on why this makes everything so terrible. The solution is to greatly throttle posting and engagement, but zero platforms do this yet.

publicaddress.bsky.social•83 days ago

To the extent that you're right – and I think you're straw-manning a little – it may be due to the way technology is presented. There's a lot of noise about AI at the moment, but its backers do a terrible job of presenting reasons to feel good about it.

publicaddress.bsky.social•83 days ago

If Musk devoted more time to talking about big batteries helping solve our energy problems, and not making dubiously-founded claims about brain interfaces and artificial wombs that don't exist yet, we might feel more positively.

publicaddress.bsky.social•83 days ago

We get empty bullshit about tech that doesn't exist solving climate change – and not encouraging news about tech that does exist and *will* help, like electrovoltaic technology and batteries and micromobility. Things people can conceivably own and use and personally benefit from.

publicaddress.bsky.social•83 days ago

And finally, when you look at what the AI applications that *are* being promoted are doing to our information environment, scepticism is entirely rational.

shrimpmeatmom.bsky.social•82 days ago

I’m not exactly a sneering pessimist about tech, but I do fall firmly in the camp of no further tech would be a better outcome than continuing to give unchecked power and money to technozealots.

(And I strongly believe technozealot is a more accurate descriptor than techno-optimist)

famousmortimer.bsky.social•82 days ago

hear me out, though...most of the techno-pessimism these days (1) results from the people dominating the tech industry nowadays, and (2) is absolutely justifiable given who these people are and what they're doing. none of us live in a vacuum - given the context, it's perfectly reasonable

dspacefear.bsky.social•83 days ago

Absolute sneering cynical pessimism, generally, is something you should grow out of. Some of these guys have gotta pull their heads out of their asses and join the rest of us in the real world, where good things also happen.

martin509.bsky.social•83 days ago

I do find it kinda funny that that "we should improve the world somewhat" meme got adopted by a good number of people who do not believe in improving the world somewhat

daringsteel.bsky.social•82 days ago

people on the internet will really be like "you believe we should improve the world somewhat? that pales in effectiveness to my strategy" and then not have a strategy

kevincarson1.bsky.social•83 days ago

It's just a subset of the larger category of dogmatic doomerism: Trump is a god-king, a gnostic entity unbound by material forces like bureaucratic inertia or logistics, laws won't save us, nothing will save us, etc., etc.

themalaiseoftech.bsky.social•83 days ago

For me, the pessimism isnt tied to the tech…it is tied to who controls it, why it is being used, where it is used, how it is used and the degree to which it is used.

Is it solving a problem? If so, is it solving my problem? Is adopting it creating a problem where there was none?

dailey247.bsky.social•83 days ago

Technology, like capitalism, produces great benefits when well regulated & substantial misery when poorly regulated. Democrats being terrified of wielding power & Republicans being hostile to any checks on corporate excess makes people quickly forget the potential on the positive side of the ledger.

joeyk.bsky.social•83 days ago

Yeah exactly, I've framed it, in regards to climate change, as we have the technology that if you were starting from the ground up you could build a carbon neutral city/society, the problem is you're not starting at the ground

joeyk.bsky.social•83 days ago

And that technological improvements and political solutions go hand in hand, with it possible for one to make the other easier or harder

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