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Conversely I find it fascinating that anyone with more than the briefest of exposure to our industry could continue to harbor any kind of naïve optimism in the face of the industry's multi-decade track record of consistently fucking up everything it touches, sometimes in ways so spectacular they just might be existential threats to our society.

Seriously? An existential threat to society? Taken literally there is a serious need for all involved to get a sense of proportion. Nuclear weaponry are an existential threat to societies. There are many far more terrible things which are not existential threats wars, coups, purges, and pandemics while horrible are not. The presumed tech demons of social media and big data don't even belong on the list.

Taken metaphorically is this the new incarnation of the "ruining society" meme/rhetorical device after it got utterly discredited because society was already ruined by jazz music, women voting, women wearing pants, LGBT people existing in secrecy, rock music, metal, rap, LGBT people existing openly, and many more? If so it is just as insipid as its ancestors.

I find the self-flagellation complex of claiming tech to be the well from which all sorrows are drawn, ruiner of the perfect Eden which existed before not only utterly stupid but downright tedious and tiresome.

Seriously. An existential threat to society. Society requires several things to function. One of those things being a generalized consensus about what things have happened, what things are possible, and what should happen. Plugging your fingers in your ears and shouting nah nah nah isn't a reasonable reaction to the documented changes to society and geopolitcs over the last two decades, most of which can be in some way attributed to social media's warped influence. You correctly mention nuclear weapons being an existential threat yet you fail to acknowledge that deteriorating social and political norms make their use significantly more likely than at any point prior in the last 30 years. A lone individual was able to convince an armed and politically potent minority of the United States that lizard people are real and a threat to children worldwide. These people are now driving a race to the bottom that ends in control of the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet. What's tedious is individuals who have access to enough information to damn well know better playing the part of the frog in the pot of soon-to-be-boiling water.

I have been working on an article about this, broad summary is that things like AI - they can do a damn lot of damage before people figure out how impotent they really are.

It isn't the technology I fear, it is how people build grand expectations on the technology and then start throwing people under the bus of the "great god of progress".

Those that are first to implement new technology are usually the most reckless, uncaring to the possible blow back provided it benefits them. Those that hold back to analyse the risks many never make it to the market because they are crushed by the move fast people.

This is why we have such rampant con's a disinformation nowadays, those that push their ideas and concepts out fastest can generally get a good head start on those that are trying to be more moral or ethical.

> Conversely I find it fascinating that anyone with more than the briefest of exposure to our industry could continue to harbor any kind of naïve optimism in the face of the industry's multi-decade track record of consistently fucking up everything it touches.

I find it fascinating you focused on just the really negative aspects. I mean sure we did pollute the environment, but that's par for course for living things. Keep in mind Oxygen is a waste product for most methane based lifeforms. All living things are entropy maximizers, expecting stuff to not get shitty over time is almost a fools errand.

If true that pokes a rather large hole in the concept of progress now doesn't it?

Progress for who? Humans? Yes. Everything else not so much.

It's like AC. It's great for you but everything else is now more heated.

"Harbor any kind of naive optimism" - weasel words, is it bad to have any optimism? or just naive optimism? or just some naive optimism? write more clearly next time.

there are a variety of actors you are talking about and there are many, many good things technologists have created in my lifetime. saying the industry "fucks up everything it touches" is a sign you are the kind of cynic I'm referring to. my condolences.

Beyond bullshit convenience services (that invariably lead to labor exploitation issues) name one (1) unambiguous win to come out of the SV tech ecosystem in the last 20 years.

> talk in terms of ridiculous tribes like "tech bros" without realizing they're stereotyping people in a way nearly indistinguishable than the kinds of stereotyping that goes on in the minds of bigots

It's actually quite distinguishable.

Stereotyping is when you assign characteristics to a group that are unrelated to the group's actual defining characteristics, and so there's no reason to think the group actually has this characteristics. For instance, saying all black people like hot sauce or something to use a silly example.

Meanwhile, if you are talking about a group that you've defined in terms of characteristics relevant to whatever you are discussing, and are only assigning characteristics that are relevant to how you've defined the group, then that's just a necessary part of reasoning about the social dynamics of whatever subject you're talking about.

Furthermore, it's only bigotry when you are speaking negatively or hatefully about a group with morally irrelevant characteristics and members that can't choose whether or not to be part of that group (so membership in it is also morally inert). None of this is true for 'tech bros' as a group.

Tech bros are a specific tendency/subculture of people who work in tech, with attitudes toward technical progress characterized by a brash and hubristic belief that purely technological solutions can solve everything, and that qualitative considerations of human experience and existence are irrelevant to decision-making and should be ignored as "irrational."

Thus, talking about "tech bros" in this context perfectly meets all my criteria for being valid. The group is defined in terms of characteristics relevant to this discussion, isn't assigned any characteristics that don't follow from that, only garners a negative connotation for reasons based on the actual definition of the group, and it is a group that's just a philosophical category and so of course people can volitionally join or leave based on their actual beliefs.

Nice mental gymnastics and self-rationalization, but I never said calling people tech bro's was bigotry. It absolutely is tribalistic stereotyping though, which is a key part of the same underlying mental phenomenon that leads to bigotry, particularly in the way it is being done here, to be disparaging and generalizing about people.

I like it how people can just call actually carefully reasoning through definitions and logic "mental gymnastics" or "rationalization" so they don't have to actually engage with the point or demonstrate where a mistake was made. It's a very convenient way to poison the well indeed.

> It absolutely is tribalistic stereotyping

They're talking about an actually real philosophical and ideological tendency among some people in Tech. It's not a tribalistic stereotype. By that definition talking about any group of people that hears to a general ideology would be tribalistic stereotyping and that's extremely stupid. Being able to talk about the people that have a certain ideological tendency is a necessary part of talking about the social dynamics of issues.

> to be disparaging and generalizing about people

If you are talking about a general group of people and it's a group that is defined by their adherence to a squishy set of bad ideas, I don't see the issue with that.

It seems like you and the other people objecting to the use of the term "tech bro" just feel offended and want to wiggle out of that any way you can. So you try to reduce discussions down to purely only ever being able to talk about specific individuals, essentially ripping out an important conceptual aspect of the discussion by removing the ability to abstract, which is a crucial part of reasoning. Referring to the group of people that adheres to a certain attitude or ideology is not tribalistic nor stereotyping. Assigning arbitrary unrelated attributes to a group is stereotyping.

Rushkoff has been addressing difficult technology questions since at least the early 90s, so it's fascinating that the industry has not listened much before.

Eventually guys like this get tuned out because they tear other people down.

There are plenty of rational, thoughtful critics of technology, and the ones who are most listened to are the ones who have built things and shown themselves willing to error correct in a way that balances tradeoffs.

I also found his opening remarks offputting to the point where I stopped watching the video after a minute or so. I clicked on link in good faith ready to hear some ideas about the limits and dangers of technological of solutions, and instead was treated to some stereotypical and frankly hateful remarks about "tech bros".

And it's not just because I work in tech (I often fantasize about quitting my job and buying a farm and living a low-tech lifestyle). I would find such remarks equally offputting if they were made about any group of people really... a political group (on either the left or right), a religious group, ethnic gorup, etc. I'm fine with attacking ideas, but not groups of people.

Yep it's gross. I got downvoted of course but what I wrote is the truth.