Post AavLsHX4cVaWqa5lB2 by bohemianchic@infosec.exchange
(DIR) More posts by bohemianchic@infosec.exchange
(DIR) Post #AavLsHX4cVaWqa5lB2 by bohemianchic@infosec.exchange
2023-10-19T03:55:46Z
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A Techno-Realist Manifesto: A thread (1/N)Much has been said about the "promises" of technology, but for those who have historically been neglected and outcasted by the system, we understand that these promises only mask a new era of exploitation.Yes, you are right. We are being lied to.We are being lied to by the so-called champions of modern innovations. They are singing melodies and lullabies to tame the masses whilst the chains of our subjugation are fastened tighter. The rise of the digital era, hidden under the guise of progress, has in many ways been the tool of the rich to further entrench class inequalities.
(DIR) Post #AavLsIjW9j8WZSvDDE by bohemianchic@infosec.exchange
2023-10-19T03:56:23Z
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(2/N)We are told to remain optimist and accept the top-down approach to technological development as it is. But optimism has never solved the problems of the downtrodden, nor has it ever truly challenged the structure of power that perpetuate oppression and inequality. Handed down optimism from oppressors is nothing but a beautiful façade that hides the tremors of unrest and inequality. We are led to believe that all is well, that the system is working for everyone, but the realities speak otherwise.
(DIR) Post #AavLsJfIgtMDSfxMHI by bohemianchic@infosec.exchange
2023-10-19T03:56:54Z
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3/NWe are being brainwashed that we are the saviours of the world and that our control over nature and our collective intelligence will save us all. This entitlement, a hallmark of unchecked capitalism, believes that the planet is theirs for the taking. The very essence of our birthright should be a commitment to equality, sustainability, and the betterment of all. It is not about amassing power or material wealth, nor is it about laying claim to everything within our reach.
(DIR) Post #AavLsKSviN3XwbAzdQ by sj_zero@social.fbxl.net
2023-10-19T09:42:01.125717Z
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Thinking that everyone deserves equality is a symptom of capitalism. There's so much wealth flying around that people think you deserve a slice whether you contributed to it or not. Examples of tribal communism tended to be a lot more brutal. The line between life and death was thin, and decisions about who lives and who dies would have to be made, or everyone would die.
(DIR) Post #AavLsLYHfwvvJUgmcS by bohemianchic@infosec.exchange
2023-10-19T04:02:47Z
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4/NTechnologyThe champions of techno-optimism glorify technology as the only eternal source of growth. They put technology on a pedestal that disregards the multifaceted nature of human progress.Yet, they miss the broader and most important point: Who has access to these technologies? Who benefits, and who gets left behind? Does electric lighting mean much to the young kid in an island off coast of Mindanao? Does the Internet bring communities closer, or does it also create vast digital chasms between those with access and those without?
(DIR) Post #AavlSExq8zN0A1r3su by troutish@aus.social
2023-10-19T11:00:14Z
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@sj_zero @bohemianchic there is no such thing as "tribal communism" - communism is a doctrine of economics based on the pre-existing condition of a capitalist society. It was predicted to emerge as a response to the excesses of capitalism. I'm not sure what the point of your post is, but that' piece of it was poorly worded.
(DIR) Post #AavlSGAdetCZu0qnTM by sj_zero@social.fbxl.net
2023-10-19T14:28:33.018192Z
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Tribal communism is an established anthropological concept spoken of in academic literature for at least a century. In many primitive societies, the community collectively owns and controls the assets of the tribe. It predates modern capitalism for sure, but by some measures it predates private ownership as a concept. It may even predate homo sapiens.It seems like a form of cultural chauvinism to imagine that a concept like communal ownership and leadership is something that didn't exist until a European decided to grace us with his wisdom. Marxism didn't exist before Marx created it, but the idea that communism didn't exist until Marx or before capitalism is rather ahistorical.Capitalism has its problems for sure -- I've written a lot about them myself -- but the one thing it's really good at is increasing the size of the pie. That's why the richest countries in earth all implement it, including so-called "communist China" which went from starving millions of people to death to bringing millions of people into the middle class when Deng Xiaoping introduced some free market reforms, introducing a measure of capitalism to a nation that previously fully rejected it.Inequality doesn't matter nearly as much as people pretend it does. What matters is that people's specific part of the pie grows, and if that happens because they're getting a smaller piece of a much bigger pie, that's just as good as getting a bigger piece of a smaller pie.There is historical evidence that income and power inequality does have some balancing mechanisms. Secular cycles exist where populations grow and thrive, then are slowly stifled by increasing inequality often to the point that a crisis occurs, then that leads to eras where the population shrinks and the value of individuals increase which forces the powers that be to share the wealth and power more in order to get access to the benefit of individuals. Some examples of this are the post black death period, the postwar period, and even some periods outside of modern capitalism such as the waxing and waning of imperial China.Inequality generally matters most when the pie isn't growing enough so individual people's share of the pie is shrinking or stagnating. That does happen, and arguably has been happening for quite a while in the west. unfortunately, just as the postwar boom inevitability led to better conditions for the common man, the baby boom inevitability led to deteriorating conditions and so the cycle will likely begin again soon. the population is set to collapse more than it has ever in history, with Japan already being on a demographic cliff where there are many more old people than young people and below replacement birth rates, and almost all rich countries facing a similar trajectory.
(DIR) Post #AayxyWRmSai6Zdtmgy by troutish@aus.social
2023-10-21T01:30:47Z
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@sj_zero @bohemianchic In *NO WAY* did I suggest that collective ownership did not pre-exist capitalism (or even pre-exist individual property ownership). What tribal / Indigenous communities do is a much better and more sophisticated form of resource management than what Communism itself is, in my opinion.
(DIR) Post #AayxyXJJFZWpFewX7w by troutish@aus.social
2023-10-21T01:32:08Z
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@sj_zero also capitalism is not really good at "increasing the size of the pie" - it's really good at telling everyone it's why the size of the pie increases... But actually that's what democratic governments and technological advancements are really good at.The 'pie' increases primarily when resource availability increases. Capitalism is an extremely *inefficient* user of resources, it may increase the *capital* part of the pie, but it wastes most of the rest of it.
(DIR) Post #AayxyYENpNBM6fe75U by sj_zero@social.fbxl.net
2023-10-21T03:32:58.095205Z
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My posts keep being so long because I end up giving a lot of examples. Sorry.You can say that in no way did you suggest that collective ownership did not exist, but you said "Tribal communism isn't a thing". When I read that, I interpreted that it could mean two things: Either that tribal communism as a term doesn't exist, or that tribal communism as a concept doesn't exist. I elaborated that both do exist and explained in some detail and referred to a century of anthropological literature that references the term, from the early 1900s to today.I've given examples that show that free markets (the core of capitalism) do increase the size of the pie. The example I've already given you shows that democracy is not a requirement to increase the size of the pie. The free market reforms of Deng Xiaoping were not accompanied by free government reforms. At least one Chinese commentator has suggested that this was the cause of the Tiananmen Square massacre, that Chinese students believed the free market reforms had come with free democratic government reforms and they were disabused of that notion by force.Another example of free markets but not democracy increasing the size of the pie is Singapore. It's a single party state, a longstanding dictatorship, but the pie has grown massively there because of the free market capitalism exercised by the country, and it's considered to have high levels of economic freedom.A third example of free markets but not democracy would be Dubai. It's run by a dictatorship, but the pie has grown massively there because of free markets. (It's also an example of the dangers with unfettered capitalism, since there's an underclass of virtual slaves imported from other countries)By contrast, there are a number of democratic republics in South America that moved away from free markets and the pie got considerably smaller. My own home country of Canada is a parliamentary democracy that had relatively free markets for a long time, but it has implemented more and more central control of the economy, and in the process the pie has shrunk (though they play with the numbers so they can pretend it didn't happen, but in another post I pointed out the astronomical cost of living increases in the past 20 years that are not properly captured by CPI)The idea that we're both using smart phones or personal computers to discuss, and I'm commenting using a website I run myself using open source software on servers I own and operate myself and you're also on servers someone owns and operates independently sort of breaks the idea that you can just say "technological progress" in a vacuum, or that the pie doesn't grow except for some nebulous concept of "Capital". The first computer companies were doing brisk business creating mainframes for other big companies or for governments. Some of the employees of these companies tried to get them to consider less expensive microprocessors and small personal computers, but the big companies and governments had no interest in these things at first. In free market economies, these employees often left the big companies with their expertise, and started for example MOS technologies who created the famous 6502 processor that brought microprocessors to the masses at large discounts over Motorola's high cost processors, or a number of different personal computer companies such as Apple and Commodore that produced innovative new computers. The company founders were able to acquire equipment and make their own thing, and in both cases there were massive payoffs. The same goes for smart phones -- Steve Jobs took a risk building the iPhone. His design brought existing technologies together and also introduced many new innovations. Apple at the time was a bit player in the market. They had something like a 2% share in the personal computer market. The new product effectively created a new product category. Both personal computers and smart phones dramatically increased the size of the pie because entirely new product categories came to exist because individuals were able to take risks with their own money and their own skills. And right now, I'm writing this post on a website I run myself because I'm allowed by capitalism to buy computers without having to ask permission from a central authority. Open source software primarily comes from capitalist countries where individuals with the skills to create it have enough independent wealth to engage in creative endeavors like open source software as well.There's longstanding innovations that came directly from the sort of small scale innovation you can achieve under free market capitalism. An early computer company out of England called Acorn ended up trying to keep some promises to build special modules that would provide much higher CPU power. One of the innovations they tried was reducing the instruction set so they could manufacture the chips inhouse. This was called Reduced Instruction Set Computing, or RISC. It ended up surprising everyone with high CPU power but low actual CPU power use. If you're reading this on a smart phone, there's a very good choice this story is highly relevant to you, because most smart phones use Acorn Risc Machine processors, or ARM processors.These innovations might not seem important -- it's just another product, who cares? However, the decentralized process of people taking risks and many failing but some succeeding is how many unintuitive innovations succeed, and surprisingly many seemingly intuitive innovations fail for reasons their inventors didn't anticipate, and reinforcing successful innovations and ending the unsuccessful innovations can go on to massively grow the pie in ways other economic systems can't. Acorn created a surprise processor in the early 1980s that went on to run most smart phones, but at the same time Intel has tried to get rid of x86 or x64 numerous times but failed because the reality didn't meet the fantasy, and in free markets failed products generally stop wasting money. One example of this was the Merced program, which looked really good on paper but ultimately ended up being a waste of time and money.Actually, open source software proves that markets can create different incentives than you might expect. Despite not being directly profitable, many large cap companies contribute routinely to the Linux kernel or other open source projects because the commons ends up being something that's more useful than just each individual contributors contributions.