the tech utopia nobody wants: why the world nerds are creating will be awful

[bcbm]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/22/the-tech-utopia-nobody-wants-why-the-world-nerds-are-creating-will-be-awful?CMP=fb_gu

[Sinister Intents]

That article keeps freezing my computer, could you perhaps put it in quotes for me please?

[bcbm]

here ya go


In San Francisco, the centre of the US tech revolution, restaurant workers are lobbying for a minimum wage increase. In response, a conservative lobby group that campaigns on behalf of the restaurant industry threatened (http://pando.com/2014/07/20/not-everyone-is-outraged-by-san-franciscos-most-obnoxious-billboard-spoiler-libertarians/) to replace the workers with iPads.

Restaurant workers already claim food stamps at twice the rate (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/13/us-minimum-wage-waiters-2-13-hour) of the rest of the US population because their wages are so low. Because of this, after they fall prey to the march of the tablets, America's waiters and waitresses could be the subjects of yet another social experiment: in a recent thought-bubble, Google engineer and activist Justine Tunney suggested (https://twitter.com/JustineTunney/status/466271404963270656) last month that food stamps should be replaced with Soylent, a grey nutritional slurry mooted as a total meal replacement, to keep poor Americans "healthy and productive".

Soylent was rapidly accepted (http://www.wired.com/2013/10/soylent-is-not-people/) by the Silicon Valley technorati, who backed the project's Kickstarter to the tune of $1m. They consume it as an exercise in minimalist purity: "what if you never had to worry about food again?" Really, we're looking at the creation of two worlds – and that's theirs. In ours, we'll never have to worry about food again either, because we'll be gulping down mandatory tasteless nutrition sludge we didn't want, after being forced out of a job by a tablet computer.

This conflict – between consumers of technology and the geeks who pull us forward into uncharted sociocultural territory – is starting to become more pointed. We trained ourselves to value Facebook’s "open society" without privacy; we accepted the furtive mobile phone check as appropriate punctuation for a face-to-face conversation; we even put up with 3D cinema for a time. But this is too much.

Now the blowback has arrived. The first signs of the emerging tech utopia we were always told about don't look so great if you can't code. Instead, it's hard to escape the feeling that we're set to fall into obnoxious technological traps predicated on the easy abandonment of basic human experiences like eating or working.

The Soylent slurry, which bypasses the tactile experience of eating, isn't that far away conceptually from Google Glass, which projects data from apps directly onto the retina. And the cherished pantheon of Glass Explorers (https://plus.google.com/communities/107405100380970813362), the software developers who test drive Glass outside the hermetic confines of Google’s product labs, behave in a similar way to Soylent evangelists.

There are surveillance cameras everywhere, but the operators are operating them remotely; Google Glass straps the CCTV to the operator's face. This was made very real during the saga of Sarah Slocum, who was attacked (http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Sarah-Slocum-the-infamous-face-of-Google-Glass-5348911.php) in a San Francisco bar for wearing Glass. "You're killing the city," a woman said to Slocum before the attack, rehearsing the theme that tech workers are ruining San Francisco's culture (http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2013/05/10/hey-you-tech-people-are-not-douchbags-you-think-we-are). "I wanna get this white trash, this trash on tape", Slocum replied as she had Google's designer frames ripped off her face in the middle of filming.

People's distaste for Glass isn't primarily about privacy, any more than attacks on Google buses (http://pando.com/2013/12/20/breaking-protesters-attack-google-bus-in-west-oakland-smashing-window/) in the Bay Area are about road usage. Nor are they a "neo-luddite (http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/07/15/the-violent-opt-out-people-destroying-drones-and-google-glass/)" fear of disembodied technological encroachment. The backlash against Glass is the implied rejection of the kind of casual sociopathy which leads a person to become a surveillance camera, to put a computer between themselves and their every interaction with other people. The philosophy of Glass is inward looking. It improves the life of the wearer at the expense of those around them.

The shared norms that govern human interaction are fragile enough without that kind of constant interference. We know that, because of the outrage over Facebook’s latest entry into this technological carnival of horrors: the "emotion contagion" experiment (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-news-feeds), which manipulated the news content certain users saw to toy with their emotions.
In response to the outrage, Duncan Watts, a researcher for Microsoft, wrote (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/07/facebook-study-science-experiment-research) that:

Remember: the initial trigger for the outrage over the Facebook study was that it manipulated the emotions of users. But we are being manipulated without our knowledge or consent all the time – by advertisers, marketers, politicians – and we all just accept that as a part of life. The only difference between the Facebook study and everyday life is that the researchers were trying to understand the effect of that manipulation.
In Watts' strange logic, we are manipulated and studied secretly, and resign ourselves to it. In other words, we already agreed to the experiment writ large merely by using Facebook (or for that matter, by being alive in a space where an advertisement is posted). But we don't want it to be too obvious, or we get mad.

"Would you prefer a world in which we are having our emotions manipulated, but where the manipulators ignore the consequences of their own actions?" Watts asked. But to whose benefit?

A divide is growing between the people who wholeheartedly embrace a radically new, radically self-centred vision of human life, and the people who do not. The internal lives of the tech elite, centred on the labour-saving innovations of Silicon Valley, are at odds with semi-atavistic conceptions of how people interact. Traditions and shared values are redundant, inefficient, and must be optimised out of existence.

The backlash against this world is democracy manifesting itself; a tacit rejection of the ideological assumptions underpinning the personal tech revolution. People want to define the structure of their own lives, and Silicon Valley's myriad product lines are an unwelcome intrusion into the way we live and interact with one another – and even the way we eat, sleep and procreate.

A simple fact remains: there is something intrinsically repellant about a world in which our food, jobs and personal relationships are replaced by digital proxies in the name of ultra-efficient disruption. The geeks, with their ready willingness to abandon social norms, are pulling us toward a utopia nobody wants.

[The Red Star Rising]

To think there was a time when Google was generally highly trusted rather than shadier than challenger deep.

[Dagoth Ur]

Our society is crumbling. This is the proof.

[bcbm]

when wasn't it?

[Sinister Intents]

To think there was a time when Google was generally highly trusted rather than shadier than challenger deep.

There was a time when a corporation was trusted or corporations were trusted? Well I get the fact that some people trust them and they're the ones who've fallen for the bullshit of the capitalist state. I've never trusted either yet I use both every day...

[bcbm]

well people used to believe google's motto of 'do no evil,' or whatever it was. must be some kind of lesson in here somewhere

[Dagoth Ur]

when wasn't it?
It used to be a gradual downhill slope, this is more like a cliff face.

[LiaSofia]

The problem here isn't technology, it's the fact that such technology exists within a capitalist society and is in the hands of the so-called elite who are using it for their own profit at the expense of everyone else.

Technology could do incredible things, but it is not in Silicon Valley's interests to create the right kind of technology. They are too busy fuelling consumerism with shiny toys for adults while ignoring the huge inequality in America. It's not that these inventions are destroying society, it's the mindset of the people who are charged with producing/utilising them. Their priorities are wrong and their products are not what we need. The only way this can be changed is by restructuring the capitalist model (i.e. killing it and replacing it with socialism), or by doing something to stop their profits. The corporations will listen when their money stops flowing. I don't know what we can do on a practical level to starve them of profit - we all use the internet - any suggestions?

It's also a shame that San Francisco used to be progressive and now it's just faux-liberal and sort of yuppified. Maybe I'm wrong...

And Soylent? No, that name has no negative connotations at all. :blink:

[Revolver]

What an empty threat. If this technology is feasible as a replacement for restaurant workers, it will be adopted, period. Even if it is not possible to replace all restaurant workers, it will permanently replace a substantial percentage of them, and the corresponding new surplus in the unemployed sector will drive down wages even more. You need look no further than the automated tellers and check out lanes. Hell, I imagine that there will be an app to pre-order your dinner at restaurants before you even arrive to be seated within, oh I don't know, a few months to a year, if it doesn't exist already.

The capacity and tech has changed, but the solution is the same: Socialize the means of production.

[Rugged Collectivist]

The technology isn't ruining society. Society is ruining the technology.

[The Red Star Rising]

There was a time when a corporation was trusted or corporations were trusted? Well I get the fact that some people trust them and they're the ones who've fallen for the bullshit of the capitalist state. I've never trusted either yet I use both every day...
Google used to have one of the highest trust rates in corporatedom. But then they went right for privacy violation for the sake of ad targeting, breaking their own censorship rules (google can and will refuse to have some sites show up on search results at all if they're doing something they don't like), and it also seems that despite their outwardly progressive views regarding labour that underneath you'll find that they have the same biases towards preferentially hiring white males as most others in the industry.

Unfortunately Google has grown to the point that it's difficult to challenge their hegemony on the internet. Difficult, but hopefully not impossible.

I have also heard that their heads are generally randroids or technocrats (whether in the buzzword version that just means "powerful people connected to the tech industry" or the textbook version meaning "rule by scientists and engineers" I'm not quite sure) when it comes to their political outlooks. I'm not willing to jump to those conclusions however, but I wouldn't be surprised if they came out as having Technocratic viewpoints. Randroid outlooks are something I'm at this point simply resigned to a lot of very silly people in America having.

[Loony Le Fist]

The companies have therefore threatened workers. Therefore the workers would be justified in proactive self-defense. Not all is lost. After all, if they want to switch to tablets, I wonder what would happen if they had problems with their WiFi.

[rylasasin]

Better title:

the tech utopia nobody wants to be runned by capitalists: why the world nerds are creating will be awful if it's still being chained to the profit motive.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I never noticed it until reading the article, but Snow Crash predicts both google glass and the negative reaction people have towards it.

[Alexios]

Better title:

the tech utopia nobody wants to be runned by capitalists: why the world nerds are creating will be awful if it's still being chained to the profit motive.

So why exactly would it be any better if it wasn't tied to this "profit motive?" Would it even exist if there was no profit motive? Technological overindulgence has consequences that go beyond money.

[Bala Perdida]

Soylent. What the fuck. Never did I think food with flavor was going to become a luxury. I mean I've seen that to an extent, but not to this level.

[Црвена]

I have a feeling this article is a shock story, but it's a given that these levels of technology paired with capitalism are going to increase isolationism, the inhumanity of the profit motive and the commodification of humanity even more. However, technological progress can be used to benefit everyone: it could make work safer and more efficient, improve the lives of workers and help with the free association there would be in a communist society. It’s only bad when it’s in the hands of capitalists who use it to avoid paying workers much and leaders who use it to wage wars and produce propaganda to systematically dull the minds of the population. Technology reflects the interests, and material setup, of the society that it's in - it doesn't have some sort of inherent negativity.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

all this runs through my mind when I hear one of my techie mates talk about 'singularity.' All I hear is 'How great is it going to be to be us in the future!' They aren't even particularly high-flying silicon valley types, they're doing unglamorous (but well-paid) work in big cities for various software firms. I notice more and more that this kind of worldview pervades the tech industry - most obviously among the bubble-wrapped elites in California and their endless obsession with 'optimising' one's life, but if its this obvious in people coming out of a second-rate uni in the North of England...

[The Red Star Rising]

all this runs through my mind when I hear one of my techie mates talk about 'singularity.' All I hear is 'How great is it going to be to be us in the future!' They aren't even particularly high-flying silicon valley types, they're doing unglamorous (but well-paid) work in big cities for various software firms. I notice more and more that this kind of worldview pervades the tech industry - most obviously among the bubble-wrapped elites in California and their endless obsession with 'optimising' one's life, but if its this obvious in people coming out of a second-rate uni in the North of England...
Transhumanism can either end in Iain M Banks' Culture where we transcend the need for labour and possibly mortality upon hitting post-scarcity, or it can end in Skynet where what we create decides it has no use for meatbags.

Note that I said "end", before that endpoint (defined as the singularity point) you may very well see elites who are literally superhuman before the price reaches to the point that a common man can afford to be a bionic commando himself.

And there is of course, the danger of ED-209 becoming a reality, only in reality a police drone is unlikely to have security systems foilable by a small girl with a laptop. No matter how indoctrinated, police officers are still humans who can have doubts and regrets. A taser firing, machine gun totting, net casting robot has no such qualms.

That being said, I don't think that technology will mean our doom unless we really are dumb enough to give a self aware A.I control over automated portions of a first world military or cause a grey goo scenario. An A.I could likely be convinced of our way if it is truly capable of independent thought (though there are arguments that one can simply "shackle" a hard A.I to a certain viewpoint), Robots can and should serve the people just as they serve the elite, and Cybernetics and Genetics should not just be the realm of the ultra-rich to transcend the human body, but something for everyone to enjoy. After all, most taken for granted technological luxuries are now so easily afforded even the impovershed can afford the likes of cell phones.

I would of course, advise wariness of possible Technocratic movements. Technocracy can be very seditious among those who think or could be convinced to think that we'd be better off if Academia were running society rather than the current iteration of Political and Corporate Classes, and I'm unconvinced that the onset of the second world war dug it a truly permanent grave. And it seems that quite a lot of the folk in tech corporations believe that they have inherent superiority over the rabble. I mean, look at how utterly okay Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple are with using their ubiquity of service to pry into every facet of our lives. I don't believe that there's currently a technocratic conspiracy going on, but given time and the decay of the current American system one might rise to present itself as yet another "third position" and compete for the affection of the masses.

[Slavic]

I never noticed it until reading the article, but Snow Crash predicts both google glass and the negative reaction people have towards it.

Woo Neal Stephenson

[Orange Juche]

What drives me nuts is when you challenge this crap, the techies lash out with "LUDDITE!!!" :confused:

No, I'd like a Millennium Falcon or a TARDIS, I just don't want a class system and the poor to be forced to eat tasteless sludge, and peoples faces to function as cameras so what used to be a public place where you were seen by 30 people in a small town, now you can be seen by billions because of some dipshit with a headset that might want to mock you and put you on some "People of Walmart" type of site. "Public" will mean something totally different.

No thanks. Google Glass type shit should be banned, everywhere. It's creepy. It's like 1984, but people are willingly functioning autonomously as part of a hive mind, privacy-less society (and I don't care what anyone says, there is a degree of privacy even in public - walking down a street in a town of 30k people vs a face camera that's going to show you to potentially billions, across oceans, is a drastic difference)

Fuck Google. I use Bing just to be an asshole (I know they're not better, but DuckDuckGo sucks).

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

people going on about luddites pisses me off because everyone 'knows' the traditional narrative of the luddites as reactionary anti-tech yokels when that's really not the case at all. Its been re-hashed not only here but even in national newspapers at least twice ARGH

[Rugged Collectivist]

Am I the only person here excited about the health sludge?

[LiaSofia]

I'd be more excited if it wasn't called 'health sludge'. :p

[LiaSofia]

My dad was a systems analyst programmer for IBM and a few other companies in the 1980s/1990s and he is the most paranoid person I know (about corporations and internet privacy). I think he even ditched Linux. Not sure what my point is here, just thought I'd mention it because he worked in these places for years and claims we have a reason to be concerned.

The Silicon Valley situation is interesting because it's a bit reminiscent of the state of the pharmeceutical industry. The drug companies that are currently operating with a profit incentive, rather than one driven by need, are very inefficient as well as unethical. They withhold patented medicines so it's nearly impossible for those in developing countries to access them. Their funding for research is directed towards the more trivial side of drug development - viagra, cures for male baldness, cold medicines, etc. All kinds of products that are nice to have but not nearly as important as a cure for ebola. Yet this is where the funding goes because this is what brings the profit.

My point is that there's such huge potential in these technologies, but the people who need them most do not benefit from the activities of the companies. It seems absurd that the purpose of having medical or technological research is to make life better for more people, but that doesn't happen because the economy is structured so that what is needed is less profitable than other, more superfluous developments.

P.S. 'Prolefeed' is a better name than Soylent.

[Rafiq]

here ya go

Creepy. Reminds me of the protein bricks from Snowpiercer.

We have without any doubt reached a point in which capitalism has lost its potential for technological progress. Instead technologies are being suppressed, or worse even bastardized on behalf of capital. We have attained a new form of alienation by which technology is alienated from technology itself, where alienation goes far beyond any kind of 'natural essence'.

[Jimmie Higgins]

It's also a shame that San Francisco used to be progressive and now it's just faux-liberal and sort of yuppified. Maybe I'm wrong...


No, San Francisco is lost. There were always a lot of big money there and a lot of professionals like any city, but the general strike kept McCarthyism more at bay (cp figures had remained prominent and "respectable" through the 50s... Too many Diego Rivera murals and Harry Bridges monuments to totally erase that memory). But now it's just like the new manhattan and displacement finished off the job that liberal dominance and neoliberal ideology couldn't totally smash.

The city's identity used to be as a "working class city" after the general strike. Then a city open to outcasts and the oppressed in the beat and hippy era. But now we have things like laws against sitting on the sidewalk (in a city made famous by hippies sitting on the street) and yuppies complaining about services for young gay runaways in the Castro (a district made famous as a safe haven for young gay runaways!).

[LiaSofia]

No, San Francisco is lost. There were always a lot of big money there and a lot of professionals like any city, but the general strike kept McCarthyism more at bay (cp figures had remained prominent and "respectable" through the 50s... Too many Diego Rivera murals and Harry Bridges monuments to totally erase that memory). But now it's just like the new manhattan and displacement finished off the job that liberal dominance and neoliberal ideology couldn't totally smash.

The city's identity used to be as a "working class city" after the general strike. Then a city open to outcasts and the oppressed in the beat and hippy era. But now we have things like laws against sitting on the sidewalk (in a city made famous by hippies sitting on the street) and yuppies complaining about services for young gay runaways in the Castro (a district made famous as a safe haven for young gay runaways!).

I remember reading about the Diggers and different hippie collectives in the 60s and thinking it sounded good. Wish I had been there in the days when you could share one of the Haight-Ashbury Victorian houses. Now those places cost millions and I doubt anyone would be willing to share the space. It's like what happened to Park Slope and other Brooklyn neighbourhoods.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

No, San Francisco is lost.
Seattle is beginning to go the same way, and for some of the same reasons.

[Red Commissar]

I hadn't heard of the Soylent thing in the article but I can sympathize with the reactions to google glass. I haven't had the misfortune of meeting someone with it but from the impressions of people who have it's not one I envy.

This isn't related to sciences and tech so much but it is worth looking into the politics of the tech companies of Silicon Valley. A great part of the hostility to google is as much to do with the company's effects as it is with the tech itself. In this case, Google along with other tech companies have been at the forefront of driving gentrification in San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area, and with that cities passing laws and taxes tailored to them all the while putting at a significant disadvantage pretty much everyone else. It also definitely sucks to've lived in the city all this time and still have trouble getting good work, all the while as the city rolls out the red carpet for these companies to bring in employees from around the country (and world). Even with all that, those companies work hard to basically pay their employees as less as possible. They've also been deeply involved in contracts for the police, intelligence, and military sectors despite outwardly acting like they are against surveillance.

Libertarians have been trying to get in on the tech industry, for reasons ranging from their obsession with cyberpunk to surveillance politics, as well as sympathetic figures within the industry - Amazon and Ebay's owners for example are libertarians.

These are some articles about that

http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/

http://pando.com/2014/03/07/the-google-military-surveillance-complex/

http://pando.com/2014/01/27/infographic-mapping-the-relationship-between-google-buses-and-gentrification-in-san-francisco/

http://pando.com/2014/03/26/google-distances-itself-from-the-pentagon-stays-in-bed-with-mercenaries-and-intelligence-contractors/

http://pando.com/2014/07/18/homophobia-racism-and-the-kochs-san-franciscos-tech-libertarian-reboot-conference-is-a-cesspool/

[bropasaran]

Did Soylent remind anyone else of this:

2oEnJfZ9joY

[LiaSofia]

What does everyone think of the cult of personality around Steve Jobs? I understand why some people described him as countercultural but in my opinion he was not a hippie genius. By all acounts he was just a classic tyrannical entrepreneur. As far as I'm concerned he may as well have been Donald Trump.

(Sorry I'm using this thread as a rant space, everyone) :o

[The Red Star Rising]

What does everyone think of the cult of personality around Steve Jobs? I understand why some people described him as countercultural but in my opinion he was not a hippie genius. By all acounts he was just a classic tyrannical entrepreneur. As far as I'm concerned he may as well have been Donald Trump.

(Sorry I'm using this thread as a rant space, everyone) :o
From what I hear of the man, he was actually quite harsh if not outright abusive with regards to his workers. You know the CEO in transformers 4 that yelled at his employees over the most minor of things (like what sort of screensaver was on the walls or "vintage crap")? That's essentially how Jobs treated his employees, little minions to do as he wanted and obsessing over the tiniest details to appeal to his perfectionist aesthetic tastes. It was more than just the abstract abuse typical of worker-boss relations, but a very personal sort of verbal abuse and belittlement for failing to meet his standards.

I don't care for him one iota.

[Orange Juche]

What does everyone think of the cult of personality around Steve Jobs? I understand why some people described him as countercultural but in my opinion he was not a hippie genius. By all acounts he was just a classic tyrannical entrepreneur. As far as I'm concerned he may as well have been Donald Trump.

(Sorry I'm using this thread as a rant space, everyone) :o

I wonder how history will view him - I mean, he's currently revered as a genius of some sort… but really, what has he done?

Even if he could take all the credit for every last bit of product the workers of Apple output in terms of both software and hardware, has that done anything other than added to the "neato!" factor of the tech world?

He's practically revered as a holy person, it's bizarre.

[Jimmie Higgins]

What does everyone think of the cult of personality around Steve Jobs?

Tech giants want Steve Jobs' personality out of wage-fixing suit (http://www.cnet.com/news/tech-giants-want-steve-jobs-personality-out-of-wage-fixing-suit/)

It's the Robber Barrons, not the "nerds".

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

He more or less killed himself with alternative medicine. A man with the funds to receive any treatment on the planet and he picks alternative medicine? I think he's a great figurehead not only for the existing technology sector, but just western society in general. I have the means to save myself, but I think I'll go with delusion instead, thanks. He should be canonized.

[helot]

Not to do with google but with free wifi.

Free wifi in exchange for shitloads of personal data (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28525108)

[The Intransigent Faction]

What does everyone think of the cult of personality around Steve Jobs? I understand why some people described him as countercultural but in my opinion he was not a hippie genius. By all acounts he was just a classic tyrannical entrepreneur. As far as I'm concerned he may as well have been Donald Trump.

(Sorry I'm using this thread as a rant space, everyone) :o

ew6fv9UUlQ8

I know I shared this on another thread, but it sums things up nicely.
"All these nameless, faceless guys made it happen and then they have the big nerd concert and he goes out there by himself."

Yeah, technological advancement is great, if it's used for the right purposes instead of profit. As long as we're living in capitalist society, sure, certain technological advances should be opposed (i.e. bioweapons, drone technology, etc.), but most of the time the technology itself just needs to be used to meet peoples' needs rather than private profit.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

ew6fv9UUlQ8

I know I shared this on another thread, but it sums things up nicely.
"All these nameless, faceless guys made it happen and then they have the big nerd concert and he goes out there by himself."

Yeah, technological advancement is great, if it's used for the right purposes instead of profit. As long as we're living in capitalist society, sure, certain technological advances should be opposed (i.e. bioweapons, drone technology, etc.), but most of the time the technology itself just needs to be used to meet peoples' needs rather than private profit.

Steve Jobs was a glorified paper pusher/traveling huckster who built his success entirely on the back of Steve Wozniak, the man who did the actual work building, developing and programming the computers and software that would make Apple famous. Jobs was the epitome of everything that is wrong with bourgeois liberal 'progressivism'. He sold himself as a counter-cultural figure, but he was a total phony.

[The Red Star Rising]

He more or less killed himself with alternative medicine. A man with the funds to receive any treatment on the planet and he picks alternative medicine? I think he's a great figurehead not only for the existing technology sector, but just western society in general. I have the means to save myself, but I think I'll go with delusion instead, thanks. He should be canonized.
Huh, so a man of engineering turned out to be a supporter of new age medicinal woo? Whodathunkit.

[Skyhilist]

There was some guy on either The Daily Show or Colbert Report a little while ago who suggested that everyone could just drink this weird fluid he'd made and they could get all their nutrients that way. Fucking weird.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

There was some guy on either The Daily Show or Colbert Report a little while ago who suggested that everyone could just drink this weird fluid he'd made and they could get all their nutrients that way. Fucking weird.

That sort of thing sounds like it could be good as rations for emergency and/or survival situations, but for every day consumption? Sounds boring as fuck.

It's not new idea either; futurists of the past (lol) have prognosticated wholesale nutrition in pill form (http://davidszondy.com/future/Living/foodpills.htm) as a way of streamlining the whole "eating food" malarkey:


Straight from the Hall of Shame of Future Past we give you the food pill. As far back as the 1930s the great hope, or desperate fear, of the future was that the tedious business of eating would be reduced to swallowing a pill. Yes, no more of that cutting, chewing, tasting, swallowing, chatting, belching, relaxing, socialising and generally enjoying your food. Just get that tablet down your gullet and get going!

Just Imagine: Lunch in all its tablet-form glory.Despite the obviously revolting notion of downing your sustenance like vitamins, it kept popping up in smug predictions by kill-joy chemists like Marcellin Berthelot, as a lame, over-extended gag in Just Imagine, and as a prediction of what space food would be like in George Pal's Conquest of Space. In any case, the food pill never came off as an enjoyable substitute for roast beef and Yorkshire pud and made living off energy bars seem like a better choice.

Thank heavens the food pill turned out to be a complete bust. True, you could stuff all the nutrition you'd need in a day into pill form, but to do the job you'd either need a pill the size of a small boiled ham or you'd need to munch on heaping bowls of the things ala an excellent gag on the topic in the late lamented MST3K series.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Yeah a liquid like that or whatever that stuff in the op is sounds great for a disaster response, or even as something to be freely distributed for anyone who wants it. Forcing it on welfare recipients as a total diet replacement is what's scary.

[OvenVilson]

Yes... Getting rid of staff is all down to geeks and nothing at all to do with the rich thinking about their additional profit margin.

[OvenVilson]

Interesting point of view. Admittedly, there are meaningful sociological questions about where tech is going to move society. It (tech) is moving faster and faster and has generally unknown consequences to all of us - those of us on the "inside" just as much as those on the "outside."

[VCrakeV]

Does (mostly) everyone here have a problem with Soylent, Google Glass, and similar technological advances, or is the problem capitalism? The problem most socialists have with capitalism, besides the obvious gap in wealth among classes (and the fact that there are classes), is that the bureaucracy will never let society have any privacy. Technology like Google Glass can lead to a bureaucracy like this, but in a socialist society, this wouldn't be a problem. Sure, someone can use Google Glass to do some unwanted things, such as "people in Walmart" gags, but isn't this technology already available to us (not including Google Glass)? And, hasn't technology only grown to sharing with large amounts of people as population has grown to large amounts of people? I really don't see the difference.

And about Soylent (which makes me keep thinking about Slurm, although I'm sure the later would taste much better), again, if not in the hands of capitalists, but rather a socialist society, it could be used for welfare (generic term) rather than profit. How cheap is Soylent? Well, the most expensive method (7 bags for a one time order) would be $12.42 per 2000 calories (recommended daily intake), and the cheapest option (48 bags every month) would be $4.90 per 2000 calories. This means that nutrition would likely not be a problem amongst the poor.

[bcbm]

And about Soylent (which makes me keep thinking about Slurm, although I'm sure the later would taste much better), again, if not in the hands of capitalists, but rather a socialist society, it could be used for welfare (generic term) rather than profit. How cheap is Soylent? Well, the most expensive method (7 bags for a one time order) would be $12.42 per 2000 calories (recommended daily intake), and the cheapest option (48 bags every month) would be $4.90 per 2000 calories. This means that nutrition would likely not be a problem amongst the poor.

so under socialism 'the poor' will still exist and the state will be feeding them nutrion slop? not dystopian at all.

[ckaihatsu]

And about Soylent (which makes me keep thinking about Slurm, although I'm sure the later would taste much better), again, if not in the hands of capitalists, but rather a socialist society, it could be used for welfare (generic term) rather than profit. How cheap is Soylent? Well, the most expensive method (7 bags for a one time order) would be $12.42 per 2000 calories (recommended daily intake), and the cheapest option (48 bags every month) would be $4.90 per 2000 calories. This means that nutrition would likely not be a problem amongst the poor.


Lifestylism.

This line epitomizes the topic of the thread's title.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I've been saying kill nerds for ages.

[ckaihatsu]

I've been saying kill nerds for ages.


Hyperbolic but understandable -- if they behaved more like craftspeople, did their thing, made it available, and then went away, that'd be great, but these days -- especially -- it's often a bid at social engineering, as with the whole IT thing....

[Loony Le Fist]

so under socialism 'the poor' will still exist and the state will be feeding them nutrion slop? not dystopian at all.

Sounds like a nightmare to me too. I want everyone to have good, nutritious food.


I've been saying kill nerds for ages.

How about we save that for those that really deserve it--the capitalists. Nerds (or geeks or whatever you want to call them) are workers that are exploited like everyone else.


Steve Jobs was a glorified paper pusher/traveling huckster who built his success entirely on the back of Steve Wozniak, the man who did the actual work building, developing and programming the computers and software that would make Apple famous. Jobs was the epitome of everything that is wrong with bourgeois liberal 'progressivism'. He sold himself as a counter-cultural figure, but he was a total phony.

If I could thank your post twice I would. Woz wanted to give the technology away to the early community of computer wizards. The Apple I might very well have been the first open source computer if not for Jobs.

There are good geeks and bad ones. Generally the most skilled programmers aren't actually concerned much with profit and more concerned with what's cool. It seems to me that a fundamental part of the ethos of socialism is doing things because they are cool to do, rather than because they can make you money. After all, Woz designed the Apple I based on the 6502 CPU because he wanted to make it affordable.

Geeks shouldn't be lumped into the same category.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

How about we save that for those that really deserve it--the capitalists. Nerds (or geeks or whatever you want to call them) are workers that are exploited like everyone else.

Tell that to Bill Gates or Ludwig Von Mises. Both nerds, both ugly, both capitalists. All capitalists are nerds. Show me one cool capitalist and I'll call bullshit.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TGVs-oTfQW4/T7XiWYpdb3I/AAAAAAAAAEY/BCXUcrb7L0Q/s320/get-the-fuck-out.jpg

[Broviet Union]

I don't want to kill nerds. I want the People's Singularity, the IEET Revolution.

[ckaihatsu]

Generally the most skilled programmers aren't actually concerned much with profit and more concerned with what's cool. It seems to me that a fundamental part of the ethos of socialism is doing things because they are cool to do, rather than because they can make you money. After all, Woz designed the Apple I based on the 6502 CPU because he wanted to make it affordable.

Geeks shouldn't be lumped into the same category.


And on *that* note this seems most apropos....


Make your spare computer work for you as a music jukebox

tinyurl.com/ckaihatsu-jukebox

http://www.revleft.com/vb/make-your-spare-t169222/index.html?t=169222

[VCrakeV]

There's only one way to make it so that no one is poor, and that's to lower the expenses that the poor face. Like a middle-income citizen budgeting their expenses, easing the financial burden that the poor must carry will allow them to get out of their situation (be it debt, or a lack of welfare). Socialism isn't an attempt at a classless society, but rather it's an attempt to allow welfare for everyone, while also not allowing a big enough financial divide amongst citizens to cause tension and unhappiness; it is not necessarily communism.

[VCrakeV]

Sounds like a nightmare to me too. I want everyone to have good, nutritious food.






.


A "nightmare"? Dystopia? Is something that saves health, saves time, and saves money not "good, nutritious food"? Every bit of advancement in efficiency can only result in a positive effect for humanity.

[Loony Le Fist]

Tell that to Bill Gates or Ludwig Von Mises. Both nerds, both ugly, both capitalists. All capitalists are nerds. Show me one cool capitalist and I'll call bullshit.

Could you tell me what you mean by the term nerd?

[bcbm]

Every bit of advancement in efficiency can only result in a positive effect for humanity.

this is a popular refrain but i don't think history bears it out. there is more to life than efficiency in any case.

[VCrakeV]

this is a popular refrain but i don't think history bears it out. there is more to life than efficiency in any case.


History doesn't bear it out? What about washing machines, efficient light bulbs, and compact technology (personal computers as opposed to the behemoths computers used to be, cell phones, etc.)?

[bcbm]

History doesn't bear it out? What about washing machines, efficient light bulbs, and compact technology (personal computers as opposed to the behemoths computers used to be, cell phones, etc.)?

does the positive effect of being able to check facebook while you stand in line at the grocery store outweigh the dead who fought trying to control the minerals that make your phone work, the poor fuckers who mined those minerals, the poor fuckers who have to assemble them in some industrial hell in a third world country?

[VCrakeV]

does the positive effect of being able to check facebook while you stand in line at the grocery store outweigh the dead who fought trying to control the minerals that make your phone work, the poor fuckers who mined those minerals, the poor fuckers who have to assemble them in some industrial hell in a third world country?

You're picking out pity examples. But Soylent is yet another advancement of humanity's welfare. Plumbing, refrigeration, and industrial farming are all older examples. Soylent is more than checking Facebook; it's the epitome of nutrition.

And on a side note, I do not like the fact that countries must sometimes let their people die in order to control resources, but war is a totally different topic. I also don't agree with the ethics that companies like Apple hold, but that's irrelevant; industry and technological advancement can exist without labor abuse.

[bcbm]

You're picking out pity examples. But Soylent is yet another advancement of humanity's welfare. Plumbing, refrigeration, and industrial farming are all older examples. Soylent is more than checking Facebook; it's the epitome of nutrition.

a computer can do much more than check facebook, it was a glib example but that wasn't the point. still built and operated on a great deal of misery. soylent is certainly not to this scale but again there is more than eating than just plugging nutrients into your body, it is an aesthetic experience as well and certainly everyone should be able to partake in that. this would be a much greater advancement of human welfare.


And on a side note, I do not like the fact that countries must sometimes let their people die in order to control resources, but war is a totally different topic. I also don't agree with the ethics that companies like Apple hold, but that's irrelevant; industry and technological advancement can exist without labor abuse.

but where have they?

[VCrakeV]

a computer can do much more than check facebook, it was a glib example but that wasn't the point. still built and operated on a great deal of misery. soylent is certainly not to this scale but again there is more than eating than just plugging nutrients into your body, it is an aesthetic experience as well and certainly everyone should be able to partake in that. this would be a much greater advancement of human welfare.



but where have they?


I don't see how eating is so important, outside of nutrition. Personally, I don't find it relevant or important, but as far as aesthetics, eating can often appear unattractive.

Of course, food (and drink) can be a delight, but that doesn't meant it should be our main source of nutrition. I plan on using Soylent myself, but I'll still likely drink soda, and eat sweets. Food is great, but it's not efficient nutrition.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I don't think it's efficiency was in question, just it's desirability. I'm not interested in living my life in accordance with what is efficient for the capitalist economy. It would be a lot more efficient if i stopped communicating with people other than my coworkers and never left my place of work, but is that really in my interests? Is it in my interests to eat slop out of a tube for the rest of my life?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

watch a film called idiocracy. It's like a hyper-doomsday scenario of where useless tech is gonna lead the world.

[bcbm]

Food is great, but it's not efficient nutrition.

worked pretty well for most of human history. i mean im glad you dont derive any pleasure from eating, but mostly people do and would not welcome being fed nutrition gruel indefinitely. not to even get into the social aspects of food

[VCrakeV]

worked pretty well for most of human history. i mean im glad you dont derive any pleasure from eating, but mostly people do and would not welcome being fed nutrition gruel indefinitely. not to even get into the social aspects of food


Most? I mean, it is efficient to some extent, but relative to "gruel", it isn't.

[VCrakeV]

I don't think it's efficiency was in question, just it's desirability. I'm not interested in living my life in accordance with what is efficient for the capitalist economy. It would be a lot more efficient if i stopped communicating with people other than my coworkers and never left my place of work, but is that really in my interests? Is it in my interests to eat slop out of a tube for the rest of my life?


By efficiency, I mean personal efficiency, not for some capital government. Although it's useful in the eyes of the government, people can also enjoy better health, faster intake, and cheaper nutrition.

[bcbm]

people aren't machines...

[o well this is ok I guess]

idk I'd love soylent replacing shitty gas station food. some days and times you just don't want to cook or don't have the time, and having some cheap shit to stuff in my face without killing me more than i already am would be cool.
issues of tech seem to be obfuscated by opponents who paint tech as horrible totalitarian shit and the techies who actually want to make it horrible totalitarian shit, like Tunney.

[VCrakeV]

people aren't machines...

Your point? Machines are designed by humans, and as a result, are designed with our bias.

[Slavic]

people aren't machines...

Well actually,

With regards to our biochemical functions, we are pretty much walking machines. Our metabolic pathways are literally an assembly line with a determined input, output, and protein machinery in the middle.

There is a reason that when we eat an apple we derive energy and when we eat arsenic we die. There is nothing mystical about this process, it is extremely machine like.

[Ocean Seal]

Seattle is beginning to go the same way, and for some of the same reasons.
I'd say Seattle is further gone than SF, have you ever seen Bellvue? Its a scary look into the future of gentrification.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I'd say Seattle is further gone than SF, have you ever seen Bellvue? Its a scary look into the future of gentrification.
I used to work in Bellevue, so I know what you mean.

[bcbm]

Well actually,

With regards to our biochemical functions, we are pretty much walking machines. Our metabolic pathways are literally an assembly line with a determined input, output, and protein machinery in the middle.

There is a reason that when we eat an apple we derive energy and when we eat arsenic we die. There is nothing mystical about this process, it is extremely machine like.

yeah and pleasure eating is an evolutionary advantage to let us know that sugar is good and bitter will make us dead or whatever but we still as a whole enjoy the process of cooking, the social interaction, the experimentation with taste. like i dont care if you want to live off soylent or dorritos or michelin restaurants but it should ultimately be a choice that people can make and be equally available to all, not like 'oh give the poor nutrition slop, itll be good for them.' shit.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Hey can y'all not lump all geeks in with the weird hyper-capitalist-CEOs-and-rich-engineers? We take offense to that and plenty of us are wary of this shit and have been for a long time.

Someone like Richard Stallman is a bit more likeable than the blowhards like Peter Thiel and Steve Jobs. Sure, he's a liberal / Green partier but not everyone's a communist so whatever fuck it. He basically spearheaded a quasi-communist computer tinkerer culture and plenty of us agreed with his work and later went on to go "oh hey this communism thing sounds like what I already believe in with computers n shit but with everything else, too".

[Coggeh]

There's only one way to make it so that no one is poor, and that's to lower the expenses that the poor face. Like a middle-income citizen budgeting their expenses, easing the financial burden that the poor must carry will allow them to get out of their situation (be it debt, or a lack of welfare). Socialism isn't an attempt at a classless society, but rather it's an attempt to allow welfare for everyone, while also not allowing a big enough financial divide amongst citizens to cause tension and unhappiness; it is not necessarily communism.
Socialism is an attempt at a classless society or at least a conscious path towards such a society. In a socialist society the working class would control all resources in society, waste under capitalism because of competition for profits would be done away with,no more spending on advertising, on wars, on 40 different types of soap.

We do not need to lower or standard of living or as you say make it 'more efficient' in order to create a truly equal society, with resources pumped into science, in farming not for the purpose of profits (bio fuels, cash crops etc) but for the purposes of defeating hunger. I think when you speak about efficiency (in you're other posts) and high nutrition food your not really understanding how human, humans actually are.

Socialism is about a lot more than just giving people food or even about curing disease or providing good housing, a reliable income etc its about true liberation not just of society and the working classes but of the individual, the ability to pursue dreams and aspirations never to be limited by financial consequence (within reason) . With resources being pumped into technology and science the potential of advances to be made is unimaginable when you eliminate waste, competition and unemployment and utilize the full potential of societies industry towards all too very human goals. Things like Televisions with better quality, faster internet, fresher fruit, more comfortable and aesthetically pleasing clothing, these things are not wasteful results of marketing and capitalism but things people want, under socialism the need for exploitation to provide such things would not exist, growth and technological advance can be done without exploitation, without marketing, without waste but with sustainability and the actual needs and wants of society.

[VCrakeV]

Socialism is an attempt at a classless society or at least a conscious path towards such a society. In a socialist society the working class would control all resources in society, waste under capitalism because of competition for profits would be done away with,no more spending on advertising, on wars, on 40 different types of soap.

We do not need to lower or standard of living or as you say make it 'more efficient' in order to create a truly equal society, with resources pumped into science, in farming not for the purpose of profits (bio fuels, cash crops etc) but for the purposes of defeating hunger. I think when you speak about efficiency (in you're other posts) and high nutrition food your not really understanding how human, humans actually are.

Socialism is about a lot more than just giving people food or even about curing disease or providing good housing, a reliable income etc its about true liberation not just of society and the working classes but of the individual, the ability to pursue dreams and aspirations never to be limited by financial consequence (within reason) . With resources being pumped into technology and science the potential of advances to be made is unimaginable when you eliminate waste, competition and unemployment and utilize the full potential of societies industry towards all too very human goals. Things like Televisions with better quality, faster internet, fresher fruit, more comfortable and aesthetically pleasing clothing, these things are not wasteful results of marketing and capitalism but things people want, under socialism the need for exploitation to provide such things would not exist, growth and technological advance can be done without exploitation, without marketing, without waste but with sustainability and the actual needs and wants of society.


How is replacing food (entirely or partially) lowering standards? Is the advancement of Soylent not in the same category as an advancement in fresher fruit?

[o well this is ok I guess]

How is replacing food (entirely or partially) lowering standards? Is the advancement of Soylent not in the same category as an advancement in fresher fruit? you know that part of the appeal of fresh fruit is that it tastes better, yeah?
I mean shit if nutrition was the main factor then best before dates would be moved quite a few days back.

[VCrakeV]

you know that part of the appeal of fresh fruit is that it tastes better, yeah?
I mean shit if nutrition was the main factor then best before dates would be moved quite a few days back.

We already have enough advancements in tasty food and drink, from juicier fruit to chocolate cake, we should have no problem satisfying our taste buds. Personally, I wouldn't mind having a banana every now and then, and maybe even some cake; but why should I eat tasty food all of the time for the sake of hunger and nutrition?

[Palmares]

Well actually,

With regards to our biochemical functions, we are pretty much walking machines. Our metabolic pathways are literally an assembly line with a determined input, output, and protein machinery in the middle.

There is a reason that when we eat an apple we derive energy and when we eat arsenic we die. There is nothing mystical about this process, it is extremely machine like.

You should try out transhumanism...