Stumbled upon this in the France community when browsing Local. Needs to be shared wider.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/2694719
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/2685916
OK, c’est pas vraiment "l’image du jour". Elle correspond plus à la période troublée que nous traversons actuellement.
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While this is essentially true, IMO it's become a bit of a distraction. The immediate problem we face today is technology.
In the 90s, people believed technology (i.e. the internet) would protect liberty against power (or "security"). We thought that removing the barriers to information would put our rulers in a goldfish bowl where we could keep an eye on them. It was a reasonable expectation. But it turns out to be us in the goldfish bowl.
It seems those with power simply have more time and resources available for surveillance. And now the technology is reaching a point where rulers will soon have awesome tools at their disposal, and they're sure gonna be tempted to use them.
Our problem is technology. Not sure how to put a positive spin on this. Technology itself will provide some solutions. But IMO it's more important than ever to get involved in politics. In any appropriate way.
Technology is not the problem, it is a tool. As with any other tool, it can be misused; that doesn't make the tool the source of the problem. There is nothing inherent about technology that means it must be used for evil.
The real problem is how capitalist industry uses that tool, and every other tool at their disposal, to exploit and discard humans, and the collateral social and environmental damage wrought by that system.
Capitalism is the nefarious problem with technology, not the technology itself.
There is nothing inherent about technology that means it must be used for evil.
Sure. In theory. But there are things we know about humans and their weaknesses, and these things are not going to change overnight (except perhaps in the fever dreams of some Marxists, of whom you might be one). Technology of this power did not exist before, and now it does. So technology is indeed the proximate problem.
People are the problem, then. All people. And not in a solvable way.
I can't fucking fix you or myself or anyone else. If technology was the problem, machines can be repaired or replaced. People can't, yet you all insist on being fucking insufferable.