Hacker News Reader

Comment by _andromeda_ | Hacker News Reader

>This unending hamster wheel of capitalism and technology is driving us all to the brink of insanity

Things have gotten so much better over the years because of capitalism and more so because of technology. Without capitalism and technology, I dare say that majority of the 7 billion of us who are alive now would be dead. No jokes. Dead.

There'd be no antibiotics, sufficient food production, infrastructure to move produce efficiently, and the list is unending.

This article leaves a lot to be desired.

View on HN

> I dare say that majority of the 7 billion of us who are alive now would be dead. No jokes. Dead.

This is an illogical statement which rationalizes utilizing technology and capitalism to achieve greater numbers of instances of people. If we didn't have the resources/medicine/tech to support the 7.5B people here, then a lot of us wouldn't have been born. Jokes or not, if you aren't born, you can't die. ;) I suppose you are technically dead if you are never born, but nobody cares if they aren't ever born (or we can't tell, which is the same thing).

I do acknowledge people don't want to suffer greatly and causing suffering either passively or actively in others is wrong. Technology reminds me of sugar in the days of low fat diets. Yes, technology can help reduce suffering, but at what cost does it do that and is it worth it in the long run?

I could rationalize that the supreme pinnacle of human civilization will be perfect capitalism and technology that is beyond comprehension, enabling quadrillions of us to live here in this solar system and in good harmony with each other. Who's to say if more people/entities aren't a good thing why aren't there more of us? Surely not me!

> If we didn't have the resources/medicine/tech to support the 7.5B

The obvious implication from my statement is that if you took it away right now... You and I both know what I mean.

Edit: Didn't mean to be rude, just got a tad frustrated

Here's a counter argument to all of your points:

Superbugs have evolved to be resistant to all antibiotics.

Industrial scale food production is a huge strain on the environment, and in many cases pretty terrible conditions for the animals.

Capitalism exploits consumers' ignorance through information asymmetry. Think of how many businesses would be destroyed if deceit of all kinds were outlawed, and everyone had the true power of a Google or Facebook to analyze exabytes of information for their own benefit.

Much of technology is only economically viable as means of advertising and surveillance.

I'm a gainfully employed engineer who values western medicine, spends way too much time on the internet, and doesn't want to see billions of people die. However, to claim that capitalism and technology don't have unintended consequences is intellectually dishonest.

>capitalism and technology don't have unintended consequences is intellectually dishonest

Well argued. I respect that line of thought but I don't think I'm being 'intellectually dishonest'.

The benefits of technology and capitalism greatly outweigh any negative consequences. It is almost trivial, negligible.

Where there is nuclear power, there is a nuclear bomb. Where there is air travel, there are hijackings. Where there are smartphones, there are intelligence agencies vacuuming up their data. Where there is easy access to your own financial information, there is easy access to other's financial information. Where there is instant access to the worlds information, there is instant access to easy marks for charlatans and con artists.

For every action there is a equal and opposite reaction.

For every feature, there is an attack vector.

People die on roads everyday. Should we stop using vehicles?

That's moving the goal post. My point is that as technology marches on, unintended consequences are right behind it. What will be the unintended consequence of drones? Or the power grid connected to the internet, or driverless cars? Just imagine if someone is able to spread a computer virus to driverless cars once they are ubiquitous. Recent history has shown us that the auto industry is laughably bad at computer security.

This is a bedrock principle of computer security: no useful system can be 100% secure, because then even the intended user would be kept out.

You do know that "technology" and "capitalism" are not synonyms, right? And that a whole lot of technological advances have occurred outside of a capitalist context? It serves the interests of the powerful to pretend like we have to have both, but it's just not true.

>And that a whole lot of technological advances have occurred outside of a capitalist context?

Please enlighten me on when such instances have occurred.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com