Technology
This is what I mean by “bureaucratic technologies”: administrative imperatives have become not the means, but the end of technological development.
David Graeber • The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy
As my life has come to consist so overwhelmingly, and for so many years, of looking at images on screens — and of looking at the world through a camera, which is also a phone, which is also a screen — the distinction for me between the screen and the non-screen can wobble.
Blackbird Spyplane • This Life Gives You Nothing - Blackbird Spyplane
That pretty much answers the question of why we don’t have teleportation devices or antigravity shoes. Common sense dictates that if you want to maximize scientific creativity, you find some bright people, give them the resources they need to pursue whatever idea comes into their heads, and then leave them alone for a while. Most will probably turn
... See moreDavid Graeber • The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy
Furthermore, tech companies have not only profited from phone addictions and teen anxiety, but they’ve also aided and abetted governments in violating human rights. Facebook’s lack of moderation in Myanmar enabled Burmese military personnel to orchestrate a genocide of the Muslim Rohingya minority group. In the U.S., judges use biased risk... See more
⚡️ Take Back the Future!
As faith in financial, political, and media institutions collapsed, networked technologies formed the foundation for grassroots movements like the Arab Spring, #MeToo, and Black Lives Matter. On Twitter, people spread protest messages beyond their immediate social networks, moving from viral tweets to thousands-large demonstrations from Zuccotti... See more
⚡️ Take Back the Future!
In theory, it’s easy to reject technology wholesale, but in practice, that means ceding its power to myopic megacorporations. Extreme techno-pessimism absolves technologists of using their skills for good, and absolves the left of using technology’s speed and scale to empower people. Like science fiction writer Ted Chiang said in an interview with... See more
⚡️ Take Back the Future!
the Internet has unleashed all sorts of creative vision and collaborative ingenuity. What it has really brought about is a kind of bizarre inversion of ends and means, where creativity is marshaled to the service of administration rather than the other way around.
David Graeber • The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy
“Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
Brian Klaas • The Death of the Student Essay—and the Future of Cognition
While early tech leaders hoped to liberate humanity from hierarchical governments, their products instead multiplied the available channels for exerting control.