The biggest lie tech people tell themselves — and the rest of us
So the assertion that technology companies can’t possibly be shaped or restrained with the public’s interest in mind is to argue that they are fundamentally different from any other industry. They’re not. an echo of the very ethos that founded America: progress at all costs. and it’s time to question what “progress” actually means.
But I've also become allergic to that language—the rhetoric around "solving problems" and "building things" that springs from the privileged mindset of the lone techno-savior. I suspect this mindset is one reason the old-school punks didn't quite make it. Sometimes, there are no clear-cut problems and nobody needs to build anything new. Sometimes we just need to talk about it. If we build anything, it should be not software, but consensus. I, too, want to help shape these emerging computational layers to be less coercive and extractive, more expressive and equitable, before it's too late. So I think the most effective thing I can do now is to join various publics, listen to how people understand and engage with technologies, and let that understanding shape my work as I work to shape that understanding. I don't know how to do it yet, but I'm trying.
“The problem with literally any kind of technology getting better right now is we have to evaluate it not just in terms of ‘what does this do for me,’ but also ‘how does this let the company increase its control over me and my life’”
this I think relates to what I consider a fundamental problem with software... that it all depends on running on top of something else. that has the unfortunate side effect of meaning some other entity can control it a lot more easily than traditional products Random House can’t do a damn thing to the books of theirs that I own after I buy them. They’re mine.
“Tech glamorizes ‘seeking forgiveness, not permission’ which selects for people with high self-confidence, risk tolerance and often, ego. Nevermind unlearning *decades* of cultural, gendered and institutional conditioning that reinforced and incenti
lacks a canonical standard way to do things we don’t really know how to do?
“And that is completely at odds with the tech industry's business model. Anyway, that's why I keep pointing to employee-owned grow/distribution companies as the solution to bad ag & food problems, not the tech industry.”
“And that is completely at odds with the tech industry's business model. Anyway, that's why I keep pointing to employee-owned grow/distribution companies as the solution to bad ag & food problems, not the tech industry.”
And yet for all that power, the basis of these world shaping ideas is really very small and fundamental; layers seated directly on top of fundamental truths: life and death, attention as identity, and the arrow of time. What’s striking to me is the magnitude of impact created through these different layers because of their proximity to something very fundamental. There is little to no opportunity depth, there is only vast potential upward. The future will be catalyzed by those exposing fundamental truths and created by those who are willing to thoroughly understand and leverage the power of those truths directly. But those truths will be far easier to find when you are looking for the layers obscuring them from view.
They have given up, to a great extent, the amenities and achievements of civilization: solitude and leisure, the sanction to be oneself, truly absorbed, whether in contemplating a work of art, a scientific theory, a sunset, or the face of one’s beloved.
Weak technologies adapt to the world as it currently exists. Strong technologies adapt the world to themselves. Progress depends on strong technologies.
