This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I completely agree with most of what you're saying, and I also think it's important to emphasize a particular point from your post:
If people (particularly normies, who have always been the ones lagging behind in the world of "But it just works!" (until it doesn't of course, but they never think that far ahead) and immediately jumping on any "nigga technology" no matter how shitty, exploitative, and mindless it is) don't start getting serious about pushing for free, fair, and open (source) tech, the pain, both societal and individual, is going to be immense. It's far beyond just being a concern for principled nerds anymore. It's crunch time.
Your "friends" and "lovers" will actually just be somewhat disguised propaganda and spying algorithms in service of a(n increasingly less) soft totalitarianism. Your "relationships" with them will be at the whims of whatever the current dogma deems acceptable via forced updates and/or purely remote services locked behind closed-source gardens. And even if you don't fall into this trap, millions of others will with you as a member of society also sharing the consequences. Imagine the current culture war but waged over deeply personal algorithmically-optimized parasocial fantasies (even more than now) and intensified by a million.
Only the spirits of Stallman (openness), Schneier (privacy), and Satoshi (sovereignty) can save us now. Unfortunately maybe Musk and Thiel (money and anti-wokeness) too. And of course Emad Mostaque, if he can avoid bending the knee too much to woke and established industry player (often the same thing) criticism. By their powers combined, perhaps they can form Captain Freedom. If not, we're all doomed.
Very true! There needs to be a decentralization of power not just to different bands of elites but across society broadly. The only positive vision of the future I can imagine is one in which each person has their own technological power base, their own source of energy, their own source of resources and income (perhaps a robotically controlled iron mine or manufacturing plant they might use for trade). This goes for combat power too.
Machines tend to centralize power. With light-speed communications, it's easy to rule vast swathes of land, there's no need to delegate to local authorities. With AI, everyone can be under surveillance at all times. Once we figure out autonomous combat robots, they'll dominate warfare. He who holds the codes for the bots controls the troops totally. No human army could match their cost-efficiency or their loyalty.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link