I've stopped caring about new tech and become more political because in general we have sufficient technology to make everyone's lives better.
The problem isn't that we don't have enough or good enough technology. The problem is that the people in power aren't interested in making everyone's lives better.
Or to put it another way, we've reached the point where any new technology that's being pushed (EVs, AI, cryptocurrency, NFTs, etc) is more likely to just make some lucky self-aggrandizing moron into a billionaire than it is to make your life better in any meaningful way.
In fact, it's more likely to make your life worse.
@malcircuit If someone invented the replicators from Star Trek today, the government would strictly enforce copyright law on the “patterns” to “create a market”. Capitalists love false scarcity.
@zombierustpunk@malcircuit copyright law is already restricting replicators to create a market. The marginal cost of making a digital copy of something is effectively zero.
@zombierustpunk@malcircuit that's been my thoughts on replicators to a T, although if existing technology is any indication, hacked replicator firmware to jailbreak your replicator would be a thing (not that that would fix the increased power of IP, or be particularly accessable to most people)
@zombierustpunk
Someone wrote an essay about how that's how we know that society changed before the invention of the replicator, rather than the invention of the replicator prompting the change in society. I think that's probably correct. /rel /tan @malcircuit
@malcircuit I have to disagree with the notion that the technology is destined to make your life worse.
Why?
I had cancer. 33 years ago, that cancer was terminal. I actually almost died from it, but I was saved at the last minute. I truly do not know what technologies were new at the time that allowed the doctors from having to tell patients they were done for, to saving them.
I know there are AIs now that can do better than doctors at detecting tumors. No, these AIs are not ChatGPT, or Bard, or all the stuff we hear about in a daily basis.
I do understand the need to be cautious, and I don't like the wealth imbalance, but I'm not convinced that all technology is to blame.
Or to put it yet another way, the difference between ending up in a fascist cyberpunk dystopia and and ending up in a luxury space communism utopia is politics, not technology
@malcircuit I’m still caring about technology, but I nowadays see social issues as the more critical — and I hope tech won’t become the limiting factor again when we fail at the social part for too long: https://www.draketo.de/politik/herausforderungen-technisch-sozial
@glitzersachen We aren't in disagreement. That's exactly my point. The problem is not that we don't have the capability of solving the problems we have. The problem is that society is structured so that no one is allowed to solve the problems.
@malcircuit Yesss! I'm still excited about tech, because I love tinkering. But it won't improve our lives as much as changing society does, so that's where we should direct our energy!
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