The Rise of Technoauthoritarianism
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
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> Technocrats are right that technology is a key to making the world better. But first we must describe the world as we wish it to be—the problems we wish to solve in the public interest, and in accordance with the values and rights that advance human dignity, equality, freedom, privacy, health, and happiness. And we must insist that the leaders of institutions that represent us—large and small—use technology in ways that reflect what is good for individuals and society, and not just what enriches technocrats.
Restricting innovation to only things approved by people with the right values and goals has quite a track record of backfiring spectacularly.
Counterpoint: not restricting innovation in any way has quite a track record of backfiring spectacularly, too, because it turns out the goal is often "make as much money as possible at the expense of everyone else".
Whether you're looking at today's FAANG's, or the United Fruit Company of the earlier 1900's, or the businesses (Standard Oil, etc.) broken up via the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, or the British East India Company, or ..., or tax farming back in Ancient Rome, or ... - the stories are extremely similar.
That quote has been repeated a bajillion times already. Importantly, it was over 20 years ago, as the article points out, when Zuckerberg was an arrogant college student in a private chat. Ironically, I think this quote is a great argument against Facebook and social media, but almost in the exact opposite way that journalists intend.
People change. People say dumb shit when they're in college, especially when they're trying to boast to friends, privately. One of the biggest downsides of Facebook and social media is that it preserves all the mistakes of our youth (which in my opinion should have the freedom to be gradually forgotten as they recede in the past) for all time. There has been a ton of research and musings about how today's young people are much more risk averse than generations past, largely to their detriment, and it's not surprising given how the consequences of a juvenile mistake are more severe now than ever before.
To emphasize, I'm not giving Zuckerberg a free pass, at all. I just think there are tons of much more recent actions and behaviors by Zuckerberg and Meta that deserve opprobrium that can easily be highlighted. You don't need to dredge up 2-decade old quotes that have already been widely reported. It smacks of lazy journalism and just shows that you are using some of the worst impulses that Facebook itself has made widespread.
Having had first-hand experience, it's like walking into a nice resort at age 50 and having someone at the dining table pick up a brawl from a rugby match 20 years ago, thinking oh hey this is where we left off last I saw you.
No one should have to experience this.
The fact that your entire life's story, your narrative, is also forever preserved in the archives of the net, also lends credence to the illusion of a permanent, unchanging, fixed and immutable self.
People don't change. They can't change. It's impossible to act "out of character," because if you act in a manner that is opposed to how you have been depicted, represented on social media in the past, people will say, "oh, that's not the real you!" and reject all your attempts at self transformation, reminding you of who you were, where you've been, what you were wearing in that group photo last Friday...
It's fundamentally changing our concept of self, ossifying it in our digital fossil record. It's impossible to introduce a discontinuity into the thread of your life's story when the cameras are rolling 24/7. The cognitive fluency of being able to access thousands of self-representations, facsimiles of who you are, makes it easier to identify with the selfie on the screen. Easier to identify with the profile picture or the avatar. Easier to become locked into the constraints you imposed on yourself when you decided to freeze a snapshot of your person and preserve it in a digital time capsule. Easier to fall prey to the delusion that the self is permanent and immutable.
You never step in the same river twice. It just looks like the same river when we take a picture of it and frame it on our wall.
Yes, but what indicators do we have, that he not just changed in a way, to better hide his real thoughts?
Also, most normal people still never heard that quote.
I am ecstatic that people are catching on to this ridiculous language game in which empty PR words and marketing copy are somehow confused with reality itself. The Ministry of Liberalism is anything but; just ask their colleagues at the Ministry of Truth and the Ministry of Peace.
Furthermore, free speech isn’t absolute, and libel, slander, fighting words, and untrue statements all aren’t protected by free speech laws in the US. Vindictive responses to exaggeration or lies are not subject to freedom of speech law. They certainly could be illegal for other reasons.
“Freedom of speech is usually seen as a negative right.[24] This means that the government is legally obliged to take no action against the speaker based on the speaker's views, but that no one is obliged to help any speakers publish their views, and no one is required to listen to, agree with, or acknowledge the speaker or the speaker's views.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#As_a_negativ...
Is this even a thing?
This article paints with such broad strokes that I think you could use the same approach to find “proof” that Silicon Valley has any ideology that you don’t like.
I mean “Silicon Valley” is both the home of DEI maximalists and the home of anti-woke crusaders like Elon Musk. It’s both the home of e/acc and the home of AI doomers. Find nearly any policy debate and you’ll find SV, like most other places, passionately divided.
It’s the mainstream media version of calling HN hypocritical.
In SV the question isn't, "Should we introduce self driving cars on the road and how will that impact safety?" instead it is "How can we get the disengagement and accident metrics of self driving cars below that of the average human driver?". The assumption is always that more software and more data collection will result in better products.
I don't really consider the DEI v anti-woke debate worth having. The anti-woke crusaders are all twitter addicts hooked on rage-bait and either these people are very rare in actual companies, or they keep their heads down at work. The DEI "movement" as experienced on the ground is simply the yearly corporate training that tells you not to say slurs at work and some fluffy PR speak on company hiring pages.
AI doomers and e/acc I'm less clear on. E/acc is just straightforwardly very fascist. AI doomers seem to have much broader ideological underpinnings, but still seem overall aligned with the more moderate strain of the "technoauthoritarianism" we're talking about.
So sure, not everything fits into it, it's not all-pervasive. But that doesn't mean we can't talk about trends and inclinations.
His futurist political beliefs were ultimately silly IMHO, but I don't think it's fair to cast anyone who quotes his futurist writings as a fascist, let alone casting the entire movement in which the person who quoted him plays some prominent role as fascist.
I don't care how unpopular what I'm about to say is becasue it's true, but most "E/acc-ers" are ultimately looking for a world like star-trek, though even they admit it'll look most closely to DS9. I know of almost none who serious advocate for any kind of fascism.
Ofc the “same acronym means 2 opposing standpoints” thing got confusing within hours, so they renamed it to e/acc and there ya go.
There’s nothing particularly effective about e/acc, they only needed the E to annoy the AI doomers.
Also, for completeness, looks like DEI is very standard and means "Diversity, equity, and inclusion". I didn't know that one either.
Do yourself a favour and set your web browser to open every page in Reader view by default. This cleans away ads, cookie popups etc, and also bypasses paywalls in most cases, including this article.