Technology is a slippery slope to the bottom

Posted by inatreecrown2 1 day ago

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Comment by txrx0000 16 hours ago

Article correctly identified symptoms but not root cause. Course correction is desperately needed, but a luddite movement is not the way. If this movement gains traction, it will probably somehow get hijacked by the forces that be, and its momentum will kill attempts at a proper solution.

Here is the actual root cause:

As bio-digital integration tightens, the composite organism of human+computer increasingly makes the environment more suitable for itself. Unfortunately for this composite organism, its computer half can't reproduce as individuals, and its human half becomes less likely to reproduce as a side effect of the environment changing in the composite's favor. It did not have the foresight to realize this early and localize computer production at the city or home-level (e.g., 3D printers and integrated silicon fabs as home appliances). So the composite organism will either shed the human component entirely, or take control of the human component's behavior using mechanisms at the corporation/society level to match its computer component's locus of control, which is becoming the organism's center of gravity.

We're up against evolutionary forces, and it will be an uphill battle. But hopefully everyone is motivated because on the current trajectory we're probably going to get shedded by the computer and lose apex predator status or become cells in a larger organism. We must localize computer production before computers globalize human reproduction or figure out how to reproduce on their own.

Comment by 12 hours ago

Comment by vouaobrasil 21 hours ago

I agree with the sentiment. I mean, we've ended up in a society where technological innovation is mandatory, not because it solves problems any more but because we're locked into a sort of pyramid scheme. When innovation is pursued for its own sake, it becomes destructive because regardless of the pros and cons of it, we must invent it and use it, which in turn creates more problems. And the most immediate way (although not the most effective way) to solve these problems is more technology, which turns out only to be a temporary solution.

It's really a nearly perfect system because those that invent technology can't see it as the vast majority of them can't take the cognitive dissonace of realizing how pointless technological development is in the face of having spent their whole lives enjoying it.

Comment by euroderf 19 hours ago

In many cases, to "jumbo shrimp" and "military intelligence" you can add "improved by internet".

Comment by jatindavis05 19 hours ago

technology is the disrupter. we will need cars untill we have portals/teleportation etc to roam around then its over for cars, till then they will add some usefull and mostly useless technology in cars just to sell them.