Is Elon Musk the greatest visionary or the greatest snake oil salesman of our age?

[Yuwipi Woman]

It presents the human in rationalist, positivist, mechanical terms. The cause is seen as some kind of brain imbalance from a normal baseline, and the solution is to correct that imbalance. It does not recognise the human as a social being and as part of a society, in relation with others. It doesn’t even begin to address the web of issues that underlie any problems of living that might be presenting as overwhelming sadness, or other emotional distress.

If you think you can “fix” a human with dopamine then you have already lost, chips or no chips.

Again, I can agree with that.

I catch a lot of stick because I don't see technology as an all-encompassing good. It seems like every problem is looked at as a problem to solved with more technology. Its why people in the western world end up with a bed-side table full of prescriptions. Sometimes what people need is going back to basic human needs such as connection with others. We won't find that by adopting the worldview of people like Elon Musk.

 

[kabbes]

Again, I can agree with that.

I catch a lot of stick because I don't see technology as an all-encompassing good. It seems like every problem is looked at as a problem to solved with more technology. Its why people in the western world end up with a bed-side table full of prescriptions. Sometimes what people need is going back to basic human needs such as connection with others. We won't find that by adopting the worldview of people like Elon Musk.

Oh, completely. In fact, I would say that for all the potential good of technology, there has (probably!) never been a piece of technology introduced that didn’t act to increase inequality and cement the positions of the powerful. Because the powerful can use the technology more completely than the powerless.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Oh, completely. In fact, I would say that for all the potential good of technology, there has (probably!) never been a piece of technology introduced that didn’t act to increase inequality and cement the positions of the powerful. Because the powerful can use the technology more completely than the powerless.

Technology always requires an underclass who are sent to work in the mines.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

Again, I can agree with that.

I catch a lot of stick because I don't see technology as an all-encompassing good. It seems like every problem is looked at as a problem to solved with more technology. Its why people in the western world end up with a bed-side table full of prescriptions. Sometimes what people need is going back to basic human needs such as connection with others. We won't find that by adopting the worldview of people like Elon Musk.

Heard something on radio 4 about a megastudy over decades which showed that the one most important factor in better health and longevity is good connections/relations with other humans. Obviously plenty of others down the list but this one was at the top and cut across all divides.

 

[belboid]

there has (probably!) never been a piece of technology introduced that didn’t act to increase inequality

the see-saw

 

[pbsmooth]

Oh, completely. In fact, I would say that for all the potential good of technology, there has (probably!) never been a piece of technology introduced that didn’t act to increase inequality and cement the positions of the powerful. Because the powerful can use the technology more completely than the powerless.

I know what you're saying but I think by most standards world inequality has improved in the age of the smartphone aka last 25 years. Mainly due to decrease in levels of poverty in poorer countries I think.

 

[Dogsauce]

Heard something on radio 4 about a megastudy over decades which showed that the one most important factor in better health and longevity is good connections/relations with other humans. Obviously plenty of others down the list but this one was at the top and cut across all divides.

That sounds like the sort of thing Facebook uses to justify itself.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

That sounds like the sort of thing Facebook uses to justify itself.

it was more about quality IRL relationships sort of: you gonna call at 3AM when you have some major issue that is gonna drop everything and come to help you rather than the attention grabbing economy of the algorhythm

 

[Dogsauce]

it was more about quality IRL relationships sort of: you gonna call at 3AM when you have some major issue that is gonna drop everything and come to help you rather than the attention grabbing economy of the algorhythm

Tbh those of us of a certain vintage will remember the positivity of stuff like Friends Reunited when it started out, making connections with old friends, reunions arranged etc. - some of the benefits of that are still felt, like with the gang of school friends I’ll still occasionally meet up with at Christmas, early social media pulled in some characters that had become quite peripheral in our group and it was great to be back in touch. The ‘enshittification’ came later once ways were found to exploit these connections to make money, and how negativity and dispute increased traffic, so that became how everything worked. Fuck what facebook did to this.

 

[BigMoaner]

It presents the human in rationalist, positivist, mechanical terms. The cause is seen as some kind of brain imbalance from a normal baseline, and the solution is to correct that imbalance. It does not recognise the human as a social being and as part of a society, in relation with others. It doesn’t even begin to address the web of issues that underlie any problems of living that might be presenting as overwhelming sadness, or other emotional distress.

If you think you can “fix” a human with dopamine then you have already lost, chips or no chips.

Absolutely. These are the times we live in. Reduce reduce reduce. And then go on YouTube to listen to some LogicBro reduce even more.

 

[BigMoaner]

Philosophy, the social sciences and the humanities never have been so important (and devalued?) In my opinion.

 

[BigMoaner]

Again, I can agree with that.

I catch a lot of stick because I don't see technology as an all-encompassing good. It seems like every problem is looked at as a problem to solved with more technology. Its why people in the western world end up with a bed-side table full of prescriptions. Sometimes what people need is going back to basic human needs such as connection with others. We won't find that by adopting the worldview of people like Elon Musk.

I don't see it as close to an all-encompassing good. What should a technology do? Certainly you have medical tech that can save lives. Or transportation meaning we can explore the world. Of course there are millions of good uses. But as has been said, it has never really created a more equal society. We kill people with tech in wars, we stress them out in super sufficient tech based factories. Moving from equality, has it given the human more time? Does anyone feel they have a wonderful excess of leisure time due to tech? AT least that would be one direct tech-to-human benefit that would be fairly transformative. I certainly don't. Has it made you feel more connected with humans, animals, nature? Not me.

I am more nihilistic these days. I picture utopias - maybe socialist ones - and i see these problems we have today playing out anyway, eventually. Salvation, not solution (becase solution just means fixes that end up in more problems) is one line of nihilistic thinking that i have sympathy with. what is salvation then. The subject finding meaning outside of the ideological apparatus, and i suspect too there's an element of renuciation there too. I have friends who have began to do this with their relationship with tech. The 'gaps-between' are seen now as highly valuable. I had a friend yesterday tell me she deleted all of her dating apps and could feel literally her own subjectivity reforming after a week of distracted angst and confusion. Lust and connection monitised. The forever online, where conciousness and attention itself has been monitised. walking in the park with nothing other than your own human thought, feelings, and experience of said park an act of defiance. Try it - some people will always need somethign, a podcast blaring away, a playlist. Try sitting in a cafe (not a window seat) and just have a cup of coffee, no book, no newspaper, no headphones, with people all around you. Just sit there having a cup of coffee. I do this and it feels odd. People begin to stare - why isn't he doing something. Hustle, self improve, be more efficient - even in a damn cafe where people used to sit with other people just sitting. This is why i find the destruction of silence in public transport so insideous - people rabbiting on phones, facetiming, playing their tic toc videos with no headphones. These were once a place of shared silence where people actually had a gap to think. How can we process anythign in a constant state of distraction? The child who spends his childhood staring at a phone, that childhood monitised too. What is the mind and what do want to happen to it, is a question we should all ask? Not how happy i want it to be, or how peaceful. But what influences are allowed here in this experience of me being an i, a human subject? Why do i feel like i have to be always elsewhere other than where i actually am?

Sorry if that sounds depressing but we need to radically look at this stuff, not even for some view of smashing teh system, but for our own experience of conciousness itself. i probably sound a bit obessive about all this, but have lost two friends because of (far right) "online life", and I worry how distracted adn tired i feel all the time. i worry also the fact that if i didn't limit my kids time on the phones, they would be them all the time, from dawn to dusk. finally there are philosophers and theoriest etc who are catching up - we lived for a few decades in a nomans land where the tech revolution was like teh wild west, in our minds too.

 

[BigMoaner]

trying to stop the type of technology mentioned above is like trying to tell the tide not to come in, but you can leave teh beach and go and do something else though init?

 

[kabbes]

On top of the above, you also have the fact that computer-mediated interaction creates a data exhaust that is extracted, analysed and fed back into the system in order to alter behaviour in both the virtual and real worlds. That’s genuinely new.

Capitalism had already long turned ‘lives’ into ‘labour’, ‘nature’ into ‘real estate’ and ‘exchange’ into ‘money’ — all to control for trade and profit. But now it is also turning ‘reality’ into ’behaviour’ so that it can control and profit from that also. The self is saturated in data that hyperscaled companies depersonalise, aggregate and reconstitute back into the 21st century realisation of the early 20th century behaviouralist dream. The knowledge that you are being surveilled at all times also compels a conformity that precludes choice. Response stops being mediated by intersubjective context in the form of the reflected perspective of the other, and instead comes directly from the electronic stimuli. I don’t know where all that ultimately goes but it doesn’t feel good.

 

[BigMoaner]

On top of the above, you also have the fact that computer-mediated interaction creates a data exhaust that is extracted, analysed and fed back into the system in order to alter behaviour in both the virtual and real worlds. That’s genuinely new.

Capitalism had already long turned ‘lives’ into ‘labour’, ‘nature’ into ‘real estate’ and ‘exchange’ into ‘money’ — all to control for trade and profit. But now it is also turning ‘reality’ into ’behaviour’ so that it can control and profit from that also. The self is saturated in data that hyperscaled companies depersonalise, aggregate and reconstitute back into the 21st century realisation of the early 20th century behaviouralist dream. The knowledge that you are being surveilled at all times also compels a conformity that precludes choice. Response stops being mediated by intersubjective context in the form of the reflected perspective of the other, and instead comes directly from the electronic stimuli. I don’t know where all that ultimately goes but it doesn’t feel good.

yep, sure i heard somewhere that they have a handle on waht we will literally think next.

i dunno, luckily we have agency, i guess. or teh apperance of it anyway. I thank my lucky stars that i haven't got a shit ton of platforms that i am "engaged" in.

 

[kabbes]

. finally there are philosophers and theoriest etc who are catching up - we lived for a few decades in a nomans land where the tech revolution was like teh wild west, in our minds too.

This is an excellent paper on it from 2015 (from which I took the part about “reality” being turned into “behaviour” for monetisation, following the previous creation of labour, real estate and money):

https://cryptome.org/2015/07/big-other.pdf

One thing he discusses is how surveillance capitalist firms are radically disconnected from communities. In 1990, the big 3 Detroit automakers had $250bn in revenue and employed 1.2m people. In 2014, the big 3 Silicon Valley firms had the same revenue but employed 0.13m people. The automakers’ customers included their local community. The tech companies’ customers are buyers and users of data. Old capitalism thus had an inherent reciprocity with its community — its employees were its customers were its community. New capital has no such reciprocity. This radical disconnection brings whole new problems of anti-democracy to the old problems of capitalism.

 

[kabbes]

^^ by the way, that paper also brilliantly lays out the social destruction wrought by the idea of “smart contracts”, so beloved of the crypto bros. It’s not really relevant to this thread, but it’s very relevant to the Bitcoin thread, which many of the same urbanites read and I don’t really want to start another discussion on the same thing over there too. So those interested — have a look.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Sorry if that sounds depressing but we need to radically look at this stuff, not even for some view of smashing teh system, but for our own experience of conciousness itself. i probably sound a bit obessive about all this, but have lost two friends because of (far right) "online life", and I worry how distracted adn tired i feel all the time. i worry also the fact that if i didn't limit my kids time on the phones, they would be them all the time, from dawn to dusk. finally there are philosophers and theoriest etc who are catching up - we lived for a few decades in a nomans land where the tech revolution was like teh wild west, in our minds too.

yep, sure i heard somewhere that they have a handle on waht we will literally think next.

i dunno, luckily we have agency, i guess. or teh apperance of it anyway. I thank my lucky stars that i haven't got a shit ton of platforms that i am "engaged" in.

I'm with you. Sometimes I doubt my own sanity when it comes to my phone and computer. I used to think that they were really good a predicting what I'd want and would pop up ads in response. Or, it would happen in response to a certain event (drive past a candy shop, have an ad for the candy shop pop up). Now, I'm beginning to wonder if they're actually planting the desire for a product into my mind. Or maybe I just want candy.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

This is an excellent paper on it from 2015 (from which I took the part about “reality” being turned into “behaviour” for monetisation, following the previous creation of labour, real estate and money):

https://cryptome.org/2015/07/big-other.pdf

One thing he discusses is how surveillance capitalist firms are radically disconnected from communities. In 1990, the big 3 Detroit automakers had $250bn in revenue and employed 1.2m people. In 2014, the big 3 Silicon Valley firms had the same revenue but employed 0.13m people. The automakers’ customers included their local community. The tech companies’ customers are buyers and users of data. Old capitalism thus had an inherent reciprocity with its community — its employees were its customers were its community. New capital has no such reciprocity. This radical disconnection brings whole new problems of anti-democracy to the old problems of capitalism.

The other thing to consider is the relationship between tech company, government, and the individual. One of the biggest buyers of information is the US government. Amazon has entire divisions devoted to this. The government has to at least pretend to comply with the constitution. Amazon does not. We're reached a point where if the government wants information, it just farms out what they're not allowed to demand. I know I'm sounding a little bit like a conspiracy theorist, but there's not a lot I've said here that hasn't been confirmed by people like Edward Snowden.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Philosophy, the social sciences and the humanities never have been so important (and devalued?) In my opinion.

That's why they're being devalued. They help people develop critical thinking skills.

 

[BigTom]

Absolutely. These are the times we live in. Reduce reduce reduce. And then go on YouTube to listen to some LogicBro reduce even more.

Well Musk has certainly managed to reduce one thing:

Twitter's revenue, adjusted earnings drop about 40% in December - WSJ

Twitter Inc reported a drop of about 40% year-over-year in both revenue and adjusted earnings for the month of December, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday citing people familiar with the matter.

www.reuters.com

Twitter Inc reported a drop of about 40% year-over-year in both revenue and adjusted earnings for the month of December, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday citing people familiar with the matter.

 

[Dogsauce]

trying to stop the type of technology mentioned above is like trying to tell the tide not to come in, but you can leave teh beach and go and do something else though init?

This is why I enjoy cycling (when I can find time!). Loads of space for thinking, can’t play with the phone while riding. In times of crisis/sadness I’d always go out for a fifty miler to think things through. It’s great.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

This is why I enjoy cycling (when I can find time!). Loads of space for thinking, can’t play with the phone while riding. In times of crisis/sadness I’d always go out for a fifty miler to think things through. It’s great.

Its why I go out the woods to hike. Once-in-a-while, things build up to where I'm ready by go on a killing spree. I go walk until I'm more fit for human society again.

 

[8ball]

Oh, completely. In fact, I would say that for all the potential good of technology, there has (probably!) never been a piece of technology introduced that didn’t act to increase inequality and cement the positions of the powerful. Because the powerful can use the technology more completely than the powerless.

 

[eatmorecheese]

On top of the above, you also have the fact that computer-mediated interaction creates a data exhaust that is extracted, analysed and fed back into the system in order to alter behaviour in both the virtual and real worlds. That’s genuinely new.

Capitalism had already long turned ‘lives’ into ‘labour’, ‘nature’ into ‘real estate’ and ‘exchange’ into ‘money’ — all to control for trade and profit. But now it is also turning ‘reality’ into ’behaviour’ so that it can control and profit from that also. The self is saturated in data that hyperscaled companies depersonalise, aggregate and reconstitute back into the 21st century realisation of the early 20th century behaviouralist dream. The knowledge that you are being surveilled at all times also compels a conformity that precludes choice. Response stops being mediated by intersubjective context in the form of the reflected perspective of the other, and instead comes directly from the electronic stimuli. I don’t know where all that ultimately goes but it doesn’t feel good.

I recognise this and find it a bit terrifying.

 

[Rimbaud]

On top of the above, you also have the fact that computer-mediated interaction creates a data exhaust that is extracted, analysed and fed back into the system in order to alter behaviour in both the virtual and real worlds. That’s genuinely new.

Capitalism had already long turned ‘lives’ into ‘labour’, ‘nature’ into ‘real estate’ and ‘exchange’ into ‘money’ — all to control for trade and profit. But now it is also turning ‘reality’ into ’behaviour’ so that it can control and profit from that also. The self is saturated in data that hyperscaled companies depersonalise, aggregate and reconstitute back into the 21st century realisation of the early 20th century behaviouralist dream. The knowledge that you are being surveilled at all times also compels a conformity that precludes choice. Response stops being mediated by intersubjective context in the form of the reflected perspective of the other, and instead comes directly from the electronic stimuli. I don’t know where all that ultimately goes but it doesn’t feel good.

If you read Hannah Arendt's analysis of concentration camps of the Nazi and Soviet gulag variety, it is particularly chilling today in light of these technological and social developments.

She argues that the purpose of the camps was not extermination per se but rather as laboratories in practising total domination, and reducing people to a "never changing identity of reactions." Something which consumer electronics are already well advanced at today.

The camps in Xinjiang are in the same mould and they are very clearly used as laboratories for surveillance technologies and reducing people to predictable conditioned reactions. I have a fear that they are a harbinger of a possible future of where this ultimately goes.

 

[Yossarian]

According to BBC Panorama, misogyny and child exploitation is thriving at Twitter, layoffs have left things in extreme disarray, and Musk is accompanied by bodyguards at all times when he's at Twitter HQ.

Rory was employed until very recently as part of a team tackling child sexual exploitation [CSE].

His team would identify accounts sharing abusive content about children, escalating the worst to law enforcement. Before the takeover such content was a huge problem, he says - and he already feared they were understaffed.
"Every day you would be able to identify that sort of material," he says.

But his team was cut soon after the acquisition, he says, from 20 people to around six or seven. In his view that's too few to keep on top of the workload. Rory says - before he left - neither Mr Musk nor any other member of the new management made contact with him and his old team, who between them had years of experience in this area.

Twitter can’t protect you from trolls any more, insiders say

Current and former employees of the company say there are serious ramifications from mass lay-offs.

www.bbc.com

 

[hitmouse]

This is an excellent paper on it from 2015 (from which I took the part about “reality” being turned into “behaviour” for monetisation, following the previous creation of labour, real estate and money):

https://cryptome.org/2015/07/big-other.pdf

One thing he discusses is how surveillance capitalist firms are radically disconnected from communities. In 1990, the big 3 Detroit automakers had $250bn in revenue and employed 1.2m people. In 2014, the big 3 Silicon Valley firms had the same revenue but employed 0.13m people. The automakers’ customers included their local community. The tech companies’ customers are buyers and users of data. Old capitalism thus had an inherent reciprocity with its community — its employees were its customers were its community. New capital has no such reciprocity. This radical disconnection brings whole new problems of anti-democracy to the old problems of capitalism.

Posted this on a previous page, but did you see the LRB piece about the reaction economy?

William Davies · The Reaction Economy · LRB 2 March 2023

It is an infernal riddle of digital culture that ‘authenticity’ is constantly breeding its opposite: the ‘...

www.lrb.co.uk

 

[BigMoaner]

One thing he discusses is how surveillance capitalist firms are radically disconnected from communities. In 1990, the big 3 Detroit automakers had $250bn in revenue and employed 1.2m people. In 2014, the big 3 Silicon Valley firms had the same revenue but employed 0.13m people. The automakers’ customers included their local community. The tech companies’ customers are buyers and users of data. Old capitalism thus had an inherent reciprocity with its community — its employees were its customers were its community. New capital has no such reciprocity. This radical disconnection brings whole new problems of anti-democracy to the old problems of capitalism.

Yes, a fascinating and worrying trend. All very strange. Reading this reminds me of my current obsession with reading about New York italian american Mafia, a load of them have recently served their (very long) prison sentances and are doing interviews about growing up in mainly Brooklyn and Queens in the 70, 80s, 90s. The true crime angle just interests me full stop, but another equally fascinating thing about it all is their descriptions of what their neighbourhoods were like back then - the fact that literally everyone knew each other. If you were a kid, you would just sit on a curb and eventually you would have talked to tens of dozens of people you knew. The place was a hive of cafe bars, social clubs, candy stores, diners, and the whole place was a teeming community. They have an intense love for the "old neighborhood". Now that formation - the local business, the structures of peoples lives, the items being sold - all capitalist, you could say. But a pefect example of teh reciprocity you talk of. And these giant incredibly powerful models - what do they actually sell? Mildly entertaining content, I suppose. Delivery of goods. But there is not as you say that reciprocal dynamic that combines and arguably serves entire communities.

 

[Santino]

On the general ongoing shitness of twitter, my work email account is getting bombarded with emails alerting me to content from accounts that my work twitter account doesn't even follow.