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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   4845 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 18, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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How do most right wing folks here reconcile new technology? I can get behind some of the more libertarian critiques of modern leftism, like free speech and economic objections. But it seems like most right wing people just openly don't like modern tech and want to halt its progress. Specifically AI, VR, longevity research, cryonics, etc.

Am I just misunderstanding the claims?

The conservative argument here (which I'm torn on), is that we are in a delicate balance and we're clearly still reeling from the internet and nukes. We're very fragile and introducing any of these things is hugely dangerous.

I think we're still dealing with the fallout from the introduction of mass-production of highly addictive drugs.

This is not an endorsement of the war on drugs, quite the opposite, but I honestly began to understand why the war on drugs was initiated.

There's a big noncentral fallacy going on where people use the examples of, e.g. Marijuana and LSD to argue that fear of drug use is overblown when in actuality we've got opioids killing somewhere around 150 per day in the U.S., and dependence on other drugs crippling people's lives in droves.

And don't even get me started on my belief that humans simply were NOT ready for Social Media.

With all that said, technological process is inevitable enough that any ideology that doesn't manage to integrate it into their worldview is doomed to obsolescence.

Most right wing people have no real problem with AI, as far as I can tell. They generally don't like VR, but that's because it's mostly used for porn- a use case of "like CoD or Halo but in VR" tends to meet with a very different reception.

I'm not sure right wing people think about longevity research or cryonics at all.

But I love all of that stuff?

What I don't like is putting chips in devices that just don't need them. DRM coffee makers, smart home shit that can just suddenly not be supported and fuck you your product doesn't work anymore, or smart home shit that suddenly starts charging subscription for continued use. Not to mention all the tracking involved, new points of failure and planned obsolescence. As well as the capacity for operators to just take away your service for wrongthink.

I agree with all your points there, I think Big Data owning all of this new technology is horrifying. I suppose when I talk to conservatives offline the anti tech stance is far more common than here.

By "right wing" do you mean conservative? If so, the whole thing about conservatism is being wary/pessimistic about new things.

If by "right wing" you mean "small government/pro business", then I'm not sure I see that group as being particularly against new technology.

Yeah conservative is probably a better term.

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