The left needs its own version of techno-optimism
The left needs its own version of techno-optimism
We live in dark, depressing and – frankly – terrifying times. Will technology push us over the edge or help us exit our many crises?
-
What the left needs is a fucking spine.
-
We have solarpunk's techno-realism though. It's not a political party, that's why many won't see it. But it's definitively there.. like open source projects, hardware, fediverse, and so on.
-
Depends what you define as "a spine"
-
oh yeah what should they be doing?
-
-
I would think any serious person worth their salt would take a luddite (by that I mean the values of the original bunch, not what the colloquialism has become) position and say that technology is as good as its implementation. If the technology makes it easier for people to do more in less time, thereby meaning that people can go do the fun stuff they enjoy doing, then absolutely. If, however, it's implemented to drive down wages and therefore living standards, then it is not an advancement that we should seek to implement.
Saying the left is techno-pessimistic is, in my opinion, lazy.
-
Yupp, and that's sadly a product of capitalism. For example, low load industrial robot arms with a default set of software can be bought extremely cheap nowadays. What the capitalist sees is not a robotic utopia, where people are freed from work and get to enjoy life more, but a labour force which is cheaper and more reliable than humans. They have no interest in making the world a better place. They just want to maximize profits.
Legislation worldwide is missing crucial time to find and enforce solutions for this.
Technology can be so beautiful, magical and immensely helpful to us. If we use it right. But given our current system, this is unfortunately barely the case.
-
I totally agree. Though, I think I would say that it's less that legislation is missing time and more that since the neoliberal revolution, workers' organisations (unions, parties, etc) have been so systematically either infiltrated or dismantled, there is no avenue for workers to put pressure on representatives to do this. Most governments are, in one way or another, bought by oligarchs.
Saying all that, it is good to see the resurgence of unions over the last 10 years. Though I question the radicalism and their grasp of the task at hand of many of them.
-
-
-
You mean SolarPunk?
-
I think what makes most people pessimistic is not technology itself, but the realization that it is always embedded in existing conditions and cannot change these conditions of its own accord.
The internet in particular has shown very impressively in the lifetime of many how quickly promising technology geared towards the common good can actually make life worse instead of improving it for everyone.
-
We do, it's even got its own community.
-
FOSS-optimism
-
We're perfectly optimistic about most technology. We can see how we can benefit from it, once most of the value it produces no longer ends in the owner class'es pocket.
-
We can see how we can benefit from it, once most of the value it produces no longer ends in the owner class'es pocket.
Yup, indeed. Remember when social media was celebrated as what enabled bottom up revolution in the Middle East 1 ? Well, a lot of people forgot about that, since big brained profiteers realised they can commercial people's personal data and sell them to entities that will weaponise the innate dark insecurities of the people to influence public policies.
1 I am aware that the Arab Spring largely failed, but so did the Revolutions of 1848. In spite of failures, I believe that the ideas have been planted and will be nurtured for future generations to reap. Even though the liberal revolutions failed in Europe, the liberal values they tried to champion are now in place in Europe. I believe the same will happen in the Middle East but it will take generations to materialise.
Edit: formatting
-
-
What we need is techno-realism. Technology in an oppressive economic/political system will be used to achieve oppressive goals. So it's the system that needs to be looked at, not just tech in isolation. And we should really be moving to an approach where we don't adopt new tech unless it's proven safe (not perfectly safe, but tolerably safe). And similarly, externalities need to be understood before mass adoption is enabled (e.g., massive power usage by shitcoins and LLMs).
-
who the fuck is the liberal hell hole the guardian think it is to take part in leftist discourse
-
Marshall Brain's "Manna" fits this bill, in my opinion. You can read the whole novella on his website, but I don't know how long it'll be available, as Marshall killed himself last November.
Rest In Peace, Marshall.
-
Woaw, if that's not optimistic. Kidding, gonna try his novella.
-
-
Step 1: Connect all base commodities prices
Step 2: Find tech that makes one (most likely power) cost approximately nothing, causing all the other base commodities cost roughly nothing
Step 3: Though Makerspaces with tool loan libraries/DIY/AR goggles with open source AI/ETC... make it so that anyone with base resources can make anything they could ever want
Step 4: No more need to work for stuff.
-
It is far easier to criticize than to do.
The purity testing will continue until morale improves.
-
I recommend checking Cory Doctorow's scifi novels on this topic (Walkaway, The Lost Cause). They truly distille love for technology from a historic materialism pov
-
If you want something that could fit the bill, maybe https://democracy.earth/
-
Tech that will allow to murder all Sunni combatants in the world, tech that will allow to murder all monarchs in the world, tech that will allow to murder all politicians in the biggest countries ...
OK, ancap is not the left, it's just that I feel that without ancap "balance of violence" idea there's not much to say of the left, and with anarchist left it should kinda align.
Because I'm just not interested with the colored-hair polyamorous UBI left, if these 3 things are more important for it than what is being done for their taxes in their name.