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0 pointsvouaobrasil2y ago0 comments

> Our default state as humans is pretty awful and materially deprived, so I think making technology to improve our conditions is good.

It's not a dichotomy! When I rail against technology, I am not saying that everyone need go back to the stone age. But don't you think there might be a happy medium?

At least personally, I've found that giving up a fair amount of technology in many cases has actually improved life in ways that I didn't think possible. Not everyone needs to be ascetic, but we seem to be headed to a life very tightly integrated with technology, and I think it's arguable that THIS POINT is past the point of that happy medium.

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4 comments · 3 top-level

ggpsv2y ago· 1 in thread

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it".

This quote summarizes much of the discourse in HN and the tech industry at large.

As you point out, it is in fact a false dichotomy but it is hard to run counter to hundreds of years of cultural conditioning that has run amok since the start of the industrial revolution. Hobbesian thought is common in these threads!

Luckily, we've had recent thinkers like Ellul, E.F. Schumacher, and Ivan Illich to challenge these entrenched views.

geraldhh2y ago

The Shirky Principle is not to be underestimated, yet more of a humorous take imho.

thou i would question the change in 'cultural conditioning' brought by industrialization als in practice it's mostly a means to scale society.

schumacher, being an atheist, is probably the most agreeable of the authors you mentioned.

BriggyDwiggs422y ago

I think much of our technology today is just about consuming more crap, and all that could go and we’d be fine, but I also think that our, say, medical technology could be infinitely better than it is. There’s also cool potentials like space travel or intelligence augmentation that I wouldn’t want to concede.

tazu2y ago

I've started thinking technology is best when it's invisible.

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