I can also recommend "The Technological Society" by Jacques Ellul [0], which argues that technique (not just machines) is at odds with human autonomy and freedom. It seems paradoxical at first, given all the possibilities introduced by technology since the 50's. Are we not more free than ever before?
Then again, considering what surveillance capitalism is doing to us today, it is hard to deny that we are constantly nudged into certain grooves by algorithms that is fed massive amounts of our own fine grained behavioral data.
We crave autonomy, freedom and individuality. We often feel that we are unique and free. But zooming out, most of us are heavily formed by the environment around us, which nowadays consist of a lot of screen time and exposure to ads and content picked by algorithms, influencing many of our choices.
It's an interesting perspective to ponder, that's for sure!
> ... it is hard to deny that we are constantly nudged into certain grooves by algorithms ...
I don't see how that could impinge on freedom. We've been nudged into certain grooves by our emotions and instincts for as long as the species has existed. The "nudging" that corporations is exactly the nudging that evolution uses on us - and a huge number of the evolutionary nudges are stupid now (do I really need a fight-or-flight response to trigger in the middle of a meeting? No I do not. And all the instincts designed to operate in societies of 200 people are ineffective too. Why do we keep promoting tall people???).
It is also just a fact that our existences are close reflections of the society around us. "Freedom" in some sense isn't about freedom to act, but freedom to influence our environment, by direct control in the case of owning land and economic action or more indirectly through free speech to influence the culture in ways powerful people might disagree with. Which is why the government is generally an anti-freedom influence. People use it to lock the world into being a certain way; that way usually turns out to be a long way short of optimal and the cost to change something once the law gets involved is high.
> do I really need a fight-or-flight response to trigger in the middle of a meeting? No I do not.
I see some signs that you've never been in a drug deal gone awry...
> Why do we keep promoting tall people???
They have a better (over)view of the situation.
But more seriously, there is also an argument to be made that free will is an illusion, at which point you have to wonder what "freedom" really means, if anything.
> > ... it is hard to deny that we are constantly nudged into certain grooves by algorithms ...
> I don't see how that could impinge on freedom.
It depends on what freedom youre trying to preserve. You can spin a story and use technology to share your own narrative with a known susceptible audience. Much like what we say in elections in the US and UK.
The fact that instinct's heuristics are not well-adapted to every situation does not change the above point that the various algorithms which nudge may (do) also detract from one's freedom.
And there is an important difference between the two: instinct has been trained over eons to select for what is good for the organism (heuristic trade-offs notwithstanding). The algorithms have not, and often nudge toward choices that someone else would prefer we make.
> instinct has been trained over eons to select for what is good for the organism
They have not, they've had around 2 centuries. There is very little about the current world that instincts have been trained on. They are misleading and unhelpful on almost every topic. We keep seeing stupid mobs form and ignorantly break stuff for no useful reason which should be #1 on everyone's threat model.
The algorithms are positively benign compared to something like the US war frenzy after 9/11, or the constant rolling back of industrial prowess that the US has managed for the last 50 years because people keep accepting death-by-thousand-cuts because they don't have instincts for risk assessment. Communism was welcomed in with cheers, killed millions and we still struggle to convince everyone to have a positive gut-feel response to capitalism and free markets.
Also trading goods, whether at a market or otherwise used to be an equal competition. Nowadays abstract companies use abstract algorithms and massive data sets of not only sales but also data from other sources like the ads customer ever clicked on or hovered over to optimize the price for maximum profit.
This happens to consumers and intermediaries alike. Prices are maximised as much as they can be while still allowing enough sales to sustain the system. There's no fairness in pricing nor a human element most of the time. It's automatically kicking the customer and patting them on the back at the same time in real time.
I think "What Technology Wants" has the best response to this argument: it's correct, but most of us choose to live in a world of high technology anyway. He points out for example that Ted Kaczynski, who went to live in a hut in the woods, "had the freedom to harvest the potatoes whenever he wanted." Technology and automation ARE constraining, and their use does diminish freedom, but they also produce a world of options that is unimaginable to previous generations.
So I think WTW and Cal Newport and people like that have it right. The best we can all do as a society is to be aware of the influences of the technologies we select, to reject the ones that don't serve our aims, and to continuously make intentional choices.
Yes, we still can, but that is getting more and more difficult and
socially costly to do.
Being in control of technology used to be about knowledge. It was the
"geeks/nerds" who had an invisible advantage (until everyone else
caught up) Digital technology took over the world, so we say "were all
geeks now".
Today, being in control of technology is about courage and social
self-determination/autonomy - it is the "weirdos" who have the upper
hand in an enshitified surveillance society. Likewise, we're all going
to become weirdos eventually.
If they're the same thing then maybe being a geek/nerd was never about
technical capability in the first place, but about the ability to see
the future more clearly.
On DOP#1 we today have Autonomy and freedom...(sounding like a weekends true optimistic party-victiom)
...let me conclude
Are we not more free than ever before?
-surveillance capitalism
-constantly nudged by algorithms fed by behavioral data
-exposure to ads
-influencing many
-influence people use to lock the world into being a certain way
A nudge may (do) also detract (do I really need a fight-or-flight response to trigger in the middle of a meeting? No I do not.) -Why do promoting keep things wich people doesn't are or preciselier have/and be, that often seem to nudge people toward choices that someone else would prefer we make.
Prices are maximised as much as they can be while still allowing enough sales to sustain the system. There's no fairness in pricing nor a human element, it's automatically kicking the customer and patting them on the back at the same time in real time.
-They are making us more human, in terms of that free will is an illusion, at which point you have to wonder what "freedom" really means, if anything, and so the best we all can do as a society is to be aware, rejecting things don't serv our aims (celashion), and to continuously make intentional choices. Promoting: "As you have that choice!"
Hey wasn't there a "Yes cynism is the real good stuff"-topic two weeks ago...
> The best we can all do as a society is to be aware of the influences of the technologies we select, to reject the ones that don't serve our aims, and to continuously make intentional choices.
I think this is the only practical and realistic approach on an individual level, but it will never be what most people do, and society as a whole will largely be formed by the constrains that technology, and it's owners and creators, dictate. Only governmental regulation can somewhat mitigate the worst consequence of the forces of technology.
But Elluls critique is broader than technology, he talks about technique itself. His observation is that technique and "mass society" as he calls it, is pushing us away from forming community and meaningful relations in the long run. This empty hole is easily filled by corporations selling us things that soothes our existential longings.
Exactly! Man is trapped by techniques and methods invented and practiced by our ancestors. One could argue that it is still possible to escape modernity by moving into the wildernes and live primitively, but in most cases that would be illegal and you would become a hunted outcast.
The closest I have come to wiggle loose from the inertia of progress of technique, is moving to the countryside, growing some of my own food and not working a regular nine to five job.
Tangentially, and coincidentally (from the last page of the PDF) - Von Neuman in 1956 wrote
Since then, the complexity and the
sophistication of the weapons business
has been increasing very rapidly from
year to year. I should like to mention,
as an example of this, the phase of com-
puting machines. It is probably true
that since 1945 the over-all capacity of
these machines has nearly doubled every
year.
Note the preview, by almost a decade, of Moore's law, AND the fact that computers and defense seem linked forever.
[1] Defense in Atomic War, John von Neumann, Ordnance, Vol. 40, No. 216 (MAY-JUNE 1956), pp. 1090-1092 (3 pages)
I first read this piece some time ago, hidden in the back of one of his collected works volumes (VI: Games, Astrophysics, Hydrodynamics and... Meteorology) where I didn't quite expect to find an essay summarizing the predicament of humanity. It always amazes me how prescient and profound it is.
It seems to me the title was a rhetorical question, von Neumann does not think that we will make it. Even if the precise topics he covered are colored by the tensions of the day (global nuclear war) his argument was more universal:
"the effects that we are now beginning to produce are of the same order of magnitude as that of the great globe itself". Essentially what we now call the "Anthropocene".
He casually points out (remember, it is 1955!) "The carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by industry's burning of coal and oil-more than half of it during the last generation, may have changed the at atmosphere's composition sufficiently to account for a general warming of the world by about one degree Fahrenheit".
He argues effectively that against the altered biophysical reality unleashed by technological "progress" we don't really have sufficiently powerful feedback and control mechanisms and he doesn't think it is possible.
"All experience shows that even smaller technological changes than those now in the cards (the 1955 cards!) profoundly transform political and social relationships. Experience also shows that these transformations are not a-priori predictable and that most contemporary "first guesses" concerning them are wrong.
His pessimistic attitude is, I believe, hidden in the final paragraph: "The most hopeful answer is that the human species has been subjected to similar tests before and seems to have a congenital ability to come through, after varying amounts of trouble".
Did he really think that our past will always be a good predictor of our future? Technology changes the possible states of the world. Some of them may be terminal. Will the "amount of trouble" always be manageable?
20 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 59.5 ms ] thread- Can we survive technology? (1955) [pdf] | 3 years ago | 91 comments <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27928307>
- Can we survive technology? (1955) [pdf] | 5 years ago | 48 comments <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20724363>
Then again, considering what surveillance capitalism is doing to us today, it is hard to deny that we are constantly nudged into certain grooves by algorithms that is fed massive amounts of our own fine grained behavioral data.
We crave autonomy, freedom and individuality. We often feel that we are unique and free. But zooming out, most of us are heavily formed by the environment around us, which nowadays consist of a lot of screen time and exposure to ads and content picked by algorithms, influencing many of our choices.
It's an interesting perspective to ponder, that's for sure!
[0] https://archive.org/details/JacquesEllulTheTechnologicalSoci...
I don't see how that could impinge on freedom. We've been nudged into certain grooves by our emotions and instincts for as long as the species has existed. The "nudging" that corporations is exactly the nudging that evolution uses on us - and a huge number of the evolutionary nudges are stupid now (do I really need a fight-or-flight response to trigger in the middle of a meeting? No I do not. And all the instincts designed to operate in societies of 200 people are ineffective too. Why do we keep promoting tall people???).
It is also just a fact that our existences are close reflections of the society around us. "Freedom" in some sense isn't about freedom to act, but freedom to influence our environment, by direct control in the case of owning land and economic action or more indirectly through free speech to influence the culture in ways powerful people might disagree with. Which is why the government is generally an anti-freedom influence. People use it to lock the world into being a certain way; that way usually turns out to be a long way short of optimal and the cost to change something once the law gets involved is high.
I see some signs that you've never been in a drug deal gone awry...
> Why do we keep promoting tall people???
They have a better (over)view of the situation.
But more seriously, there is also an argument to be made that free will is an illusion, at which point you have to wonder what "freedom" really means, if anything.
It depends on what freedom youre trying to preserve. You can spin a story and use technology to share your own narrative with a known susceptible audience. Much like what we say in elections in the US and UK.
And there is an important difference between the two: instinct has been trained over eons to select for what is good for the organism (heuristic trade-offs notwithstanding). The algorithms have not, and often nudge toward choices that someone else would prefer we make.
They have not, they've had around 2 centuries. There is very little about the current world that instincts have been trained on. They are misleading and unhelpful on almost every topic. We keep seeing stupid mobs form and ignorantly break stuff for no useful reason which should be #1 on everyone's threat model.
The algorithms are positively benign compared to something like the US war frenzy after 9/11, or the constant rolling back of industrial prowess that the US has managed for the last 50 years because people keep accepting death-by-thousand-cuts because they don't have instincts for risk assessment. Communism was welcomed in with cheers, killed millions and we still struggle to convince everyone to have a positive gut-feel response to capitalism and free markets.
This happens to consumers and intermediaries alike. Prices are maximised as much as they can be while still allowing enough sales to sustain the system. There's no fairness in pricing nor a human element most of the time. It's automatically kicking the customer and patting them on the back at the same time in real time.
So I think WTW and Cal Newport and people like that have it right. The best we can all do as a society is to be aware of the influences of the technologies we select, to reject the ones that don't serve our aims, and to continuously make intentional choices.
That is great so long as you have that choice.
Yes, we still can, but that is getting more and more difficult and socially costly to do.
Being in control of technology used to be about knowledge. It was the "geeks/nerds" who had an invisible advantage (until everyone else caught up) Digital technology took over the world, so we say "were all geeks now".
Today, being in control of technology is about courage and social self-determination/autonomy - it is the "weirdos" who have the upper hand in an enshitified surveillance society. Likewise, we're all going to become weirdos eventually.
If they're the same thing then maybe being a geek/nerd was never about technical capability in the first place, but about the ability to see the future more clearly.
...let me conclude
Are we not more free than ever before?
-surveillance capitalism -constantly nudged by algorithms fed by behavioral data -exposure to ads -influencing many -influence people use to lock the world into being a certain way
A nudge may (do) also detract (do I really need a fight-or-flight response to trigger in the middle of a meeting? No I do not.) -Why do promoting keep things wich people doesn't are or preciselier have/and be, that often seem to nudge people toward choices that someone else would prefer we make.
Prices are maximised as much as they can be while still allowing enough sales to sustain the system. There's no fairness in pricing nor a human element, it's automatically kicking the customer and patting them on the back at the same time in real time.
-They are making us more human, in terms of that free will is an illusion, at which point you have to wonder what "freedom" really means, if anything, and so the best we all can do as a society is to be aware, rejecting things don't serv our aims (celashion), and to continuously make intentional choices. Promoting: "As you have that choice!"
Hey wasn't there a "Yes cynism is the real good stuff"-topic two weeks ago...
hope that wasn't too...'whenever'... P-:
(moshes-head-rising victory-fingers)
I think this is the only practical and realistic approach on an individual level, but it will never be what most people do, and society as a whole will largely be formed by the constrains that technology, and it's owners and creators, dictate. Only governmental regulation can somewhat mitigate the worst consequence of the forces of technology.
But Elluls critique is broader than technology, he talks about technique itself. His observation is that technique and "mass society" as he calls it, is pushing us away from forming community and meaningful relations in the long run. This empty hole is easily filled by corporations selling us things that soothes our existential longings.
Do we really have the freedom to stop that process now?
Same with electricity. Do we have the freedom to stop it, in developed countries?
On a population level, we stopped being free a long time ago.
The closest I have come to wiggle loose from the inertia of progress of technique, is moving to the countryside, growing some of my own food and not working a regular nine to five job.
But I still love builing stuff with computers ;)
[1] Defense in Atomic War, John von Neumann, Ordnance, Vol. 40, No. 216 (MAY-JUNE 1956), pp. 1090-1092 (3 pages)
[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/45360902
It seems to me the title was a rhetorical question, von Neumann does not think that we will make it. Even if the precise topics he covered are colored by the tensions of the day (global nuclear war) his argument was more universal:
"the effects that we are now beginning to produce are of the same order of magnitude as that of the great globe itself". Essentially what we now call the "Anthropocene".
He casually points out (remember, it is 1955!) "The carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by industry's burning of coal and oil-more than half of it during the last generation, may have changed the at atmosphere's composition sufficiently to account for a general warming of the world by about one degree Fahrenheit".
He argues effectively that against the altered biophysical reality unleashed by technological "progress" we don't really have sufficiently powerful feedback and control mechanisms and he doesn't think it is possible.
"All experience shows that even smaller technological changes than those now in the cards (the 1955 cards!) profoundly transform political and social relationships. Experience also shows that these transformations are not a-priori predictable and that most contemporary "first guesses" concerning them are wrong.
His pessimistic attitude is, I believe, hidden in the final paragraph: "The most hopeful answer is that the human species has been subjected to similar tests before and seems to have a congenital ability to come through, after varying amounts of trouble".
Did he really think that our past will always be a good predictor of our future? Technology changes the possible states of the world. Some of them may be terminal. Will the "amount of trouble" always be manageable?