Flagged already, but I'll put this here anyway.
The root problem is much bigger than the big tech companies or the people running them, as I explain in this past comment:
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49690354">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49690354
I think we're all overly wound up. Recently I find my adversarial tactics too frequently misfiring against people and ideas that, in hindsight, probably did not have explicit ill-intent. The reality is that other people, even those at the top, as individuals, are not as misaligned with you as you think. Your interests only conflict by a moderate amount. What's actually extremely misaligned with you are the superorganisms they are a part of. This doesn't mean we should absolve individuals of responsibility and consequences, since that would create the wrong incentives. But it's worth noting that while they may seem in control, even the dictator Kim Jong Un lacks the ability to single-handedly undo the authoritarian system in North Korea, even if he has a sudden change of heart. The moment he tries is the moment he gets replaced by someone else. Dismantling these systems, or preventing them from being built in the first place, will take more than finger-pointing ideological battle.
I share your view, it's a discussion I commonly have with friends who are too blinded by individuals' actions instead of the systems that these individuals are part of, and from which those actions come from a series of rational but misplaced intermediary steps.
No single individual is controlling what their peer group does but by being a part of it those actions compound. Like you said, not even the most brutal dictatorships take actions single-handedly decided by someone, it's all part and parcel of the system they decided to (or ended up at) participate.
I think Byung-Chul Han hit the right spot when talking about "shitstorms" on "In The Swarm". Societies after the digital age got too narrowly focused on explosive bursts of outrage against individuals, instead of discussing more in-depth the issues that create systems these individuals live and navigate, and eventually take actions that are immoral, unjust, evil, etc. from the incentives of their environment, we only discuss things in binary terms (acceptable/transgressive), focused on the performative act of a monologue of outrage, without solidarity but with solitude, in our screens.
I've had this feeling for more than a decade, reading Byung-Chul Han so eloquently describe many observations and feelings I've had was refreshing for my own psyche. It's just extremely hard to try to instill some of these concepts unto others...
We may have to guide others to derive these concepts themselves in the same way we did rather than instilling the conclusion. I don't know how to do that yet, so for the time being, I just describe the problem.
txrx0000 · · focus · HN ↗
The root problem is much bigger than the big tech companies or the people running them, as I explain in this past comment: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49690354">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49690354
I think we're all overly wound up. Recently I find my adversarial tactics too frequently misfiring against people and ideas that, in hindsight, probably did not have explicit ill-intent. The reality is that other people, even those at the top, as individuals, are not as misaligned with you as you think. Your interests only conflict by a moderate amount. What's actually extremely misaligned with you are the superorganisms they are a part of. This doesn't mean we should absolve individuals of responsibility and consequences, since that would create the wrong incentives. But it's worth noting that while they may seem in control, even the dictator Kim Jong Un lacks the ability to single-handedly undo the authoritarian system in North Korea, even if he has a sudden change of heart. The moment he tries is the moment he gets replaced by someone else. Dismantling these systems, or preventing them from being built in the first place, will take more than finger-pointing ideological battle.
piva00 · · focus · HN ↗
No single individual is controlling what their peer group does but by being a part of it those actions compound. Like you said, not even the most brutal dictatorships take actions single-handedly decided by someone, it's all part and parcel of the system they decided to (or ended up at) participate.
I think Byung-Chul Han hit the right spot when talking about "shitstorms" on "In The Swarm". Societies after the digital age got too narrowly focused on explosive bursts of outrage against individuals, instead of discussing more in-depth the issues that create systems these individuals live and navigate, and eventually take actions that are immoral, unjust, evil, etc. from the incentives of their environment, we only discuss things in binary terms (acceptable/transgressive), focused on the performative act of a monologue of outrage, without solidarity but with solitude, in our screens.
I've had this feeling for more than a decade, reading Byung-Chul Han so eloquently describe many observations and feelings I've had was refreshing for my own psyche. It's just extremely hard to try to instill some of these concepts unto others...
txrx0000 · · focus · HN ↗
shrubby · · focus · HN ↗