Authoritarianism Keeps Surging in Western “Free Democracies”
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com
Although one cannot stop bad people from using technology, we can enable good people to use it too, through free (libre) software. If you write software, please set it free and let all use it freely.
The Luddites didn't smash machines because they thought they were evil. They smashed them because they were elements of institutional power over people. I keep feeling- like the luddites- that going back isn't the way, that it's not the machines nor power, not a conservative return to an old era that we need, but a system of empowerment, where we can leverage ourselves & have dignity in our relations with technology that is the way forward.
He explains in the book why the very existence of technology rules over humans, not the other way around, and why it is not subject to rational human control. It’s force unto itself, with an emergent will independent of those of humanity. He makes the case that technology would create the same outcomes even if AI or non-human aliens were using it, the only requirement for the dystopia which he predicted is an entity caring about its survival. His predictions came true, we’re living it today.
But what led to technology? It’s the human desire for more material, the old greed and the only thing that is known to be effective at controlling it at the societal scale is religion, specifically Islam. Note that emergence of technology is highly correlated with the decline in faith which came with the enlightment and that technology developed primarily in less religious western populations.
There are great awful harms we are walking down the path of, and it's dreadful. But it's such an extreme conservatism to say that the only viably course is back. Society could have a say in shaping the way forward and there are plenty of great paths open before us. But we only get those ends if we can look to the future, versus hearkening only to thr past.
There are so many seas of potential we have, such vast capabilities that embue us with agency & possibility. What lead us to technology? The desire to feed & shelter & cloth ourselves, the desire for health, natural human inquiry about the natural world, a desire for betterment. Greed keeps stealing the reigns, but what folly to wish us back to the woods, to malign the whole effort of civilization because the efforts aren't purely aimed yet. It's cowardice in the extreme, this idolizing of a past over the imminence of the journey forward.
I was shocked for an entire week for the lie I realized I was told. The lie that technology has benefitted humanity, that we live better than our ancestors. I didn’t want to believe it at all, who wants to accept Rust or Neovim is fundamentally immoral? They were the best things in the world, from my bubble of aspiring coder & Linux enthusiast.
I am not going to counter your criticisms here because I don’t have time and the book does it far better than me: https://ia600300.us.archive.org/21/items/tk-Technological-Sl...
The press should be allowed to operate, but I'm done with right wing bloggers dignifying the spreading of conspiracy theories as "journalism".