#jonathan taplin

[indizombie]

The men (and they are mostly men) who are inventing this world of super machine intelligence and biological engineering tend not to believe in religion. But they want to be gods. As the writer and commentator G.K. Chesterton contended in 1932, “The truth is that Irreligion is the opium of the people. Wherever the people do not believe in something beyond the world, they will worship the world. But, above all, they will worship the strongest thing in the world.” Today the strongest thing in the world is Big Technology. Until we stop worshiping at the temple of Saints Peter or Elon or Zuck or Marc, we will be trapped in the future they want.

Jonathan Taplin, ‘How Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg, and Andreessen—Four Billionaire Techno-Oligarchs—Are Creating an Alternate, Autocratic Reality’, Vanity Fair

[universitybookstore]

Once upon a time, the Internet was viewed by its creators as the ultimate tool for democratic empowerment--a decentralized platform providing a forum where thoughts and ideas could logically discussed. Well, things didn’t quite turn out as those visionaries had hoped. In his new book, Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy, Jonathan Taplin explores how these three companies in particular have used the Internet to make enormous profits, erode individual privacy, and propagate social inequality. Or, to quote The Guardian--

“...[A] timely and useful book because it provides an antidote to the self-serving narrative energetically cultivated by the digital monopolies. They have had an easy ride for too long and democracies will, sooner or later, have to rein them in. The first step down that road is to stop viewing them through rose-tinted spectacles and see them for what they really are: enormously powerful corporations that move fast and break things, while minimising their tax bills and shirking the responsibilities that come with their media power.”

[indizombie]

One of the men who coined the term transhumanism (along with Julian Huxley) was English cryptologist Irving John Good. Good wrote in 1965, “Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultra-intelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an ‘intelligence explosion,’ and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.” ChatGPT heads us in that direction.

Jonathan Taplin, ‘How Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg, and Andreessen—Four Billionaire Techno-Oligarchs—Are Creating an Alternate, Autocratic Reality’, Vanity Fair

[darklyscanning]

jonathan taplin's move fast and break things has interesting info that should be heard... but man, he's irritating.

[random-bookquotes]

The current narrative we seem to tell ourselves about our privacy is that it is a sort of currency we trade to corporations in return for innovation. But the corporation has an insatiable appetite for our most personal data in order to drive us to consume during our every waking moment. I think this is critical, because in some ways social networks are powerful engines of conformity. The ability for students to develop their own ideas, identities, and political affiliations should take place outside of the panopticon view of Facebook, but whether this is any longer possible is an open question.

Jonathan Taplin, Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy

[random-bookquotes]

Those seeking political and economic change should consider embracing art. Part of our role as citizens is to look more closely at the media surrounding us and think critically about its effects—specifically, whose agenda is being promoted and whether it’s the agenda that will serve us best.

Jonathan Taplin, Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy

[random-bookquotes]

There is a sense in which art, politics, and economics are all inextricably and symbiotically tied together, but history has proved to us that art serves as a powerful corrective against the missteps of the establishment. There is a system of checks and balances in which, even though the arts may rely on the social structures afforded by strong economic and political systems, artists can inspire a culture to move forward, reject the evils of greed and prejudice, and reconnect to its human roots.

Jonathan Taplin, Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy

[random-bookquotes]

Cultural amnesia only leads to cultural death. If the only university students who receive state help are computer engineers, we as a culture will lose something.

Jonathan Taplin, Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy