#techno optimism

[nobodysprobablysimplethoughts]

I just finished the lotr trilogy and it is astonishing to me that not only is it anti war but also anti technology. the constantly forced forward movement of saruman to fuel the war effort is frowned upon by gandalf and others. saruman invents explosives ffs and the gears and machines in isengard are shown as evil. the hobbits, living simpler, and other men, who live without excessive technology are regarded as good. i need to find quotes for this

[alpaca-clouds]

My Issue with Techno Optimism

I think my least popular opinion within the solarpunk space is, that I do not like Techno Optimism. But there is a good reason for it.

The usual way techno optimists go about it is looking at the state of the world and say: "Well, it is not all bad, technology will save us one day." And this makes me so angry.

It is basically saying like: "One day there is gonna be magic and everything is gonna be okay."

This especially comes into play with the environmental stuff. "Oh, don't worry about clean energy. One day we are gonna have fusion reactors and with that unlimited clean energy." And also: "Oh, don't worry about the CO2 and climate change. One day we are gonna have machines to filter the CO2 from the air."

But actually, what they are saying is: "Let's not change anything right now. It is all gonna work out in the end."

We already have clean energy. We have photovoltaic, we have wind, we have hydro and we have nuclear. (And yes, contrary to what folks might have told you: We do know how to store nuclear waste safely.) We can invest money right now to build a renewable energy grid.

We also do know, how to store some of the CO2. Yes, trees, but also wetlands. Wetlands and especially marshes are AMAZING in storing CO2.

And no, we do not need some weird flying bus. Trains will do just fine.

To me the thing about solarpunk is, that already have all the tools we need to make it happen now. Techno optimists wanna wait for a solution to appear that allows them to not change their behavior. To just keep doing, what they have been doing the entire time. To not degrow. But that is just bullshit.

We need change. We need equity. We it now. Not in 20 years.

[biblioflyer]

Is Burnham’s choice "post-modernist" technopessimism?

This is the final part in a series on Discovery’s finale and the conflicting worldviews behind how to think about Star Trek. For more like this, use the Star Trek ethics tag.

The way I see it, there are two ways to approach this question.

If you approach this from the starting point that more technology is good and that technological advancements are innately emancipatory on net, even if they sometimes come with downsides, then you might think that ultimately Burnham is in the wrong. The Federation are the good guys after all and they can leverage this technology to provide abundance for everyone, even use it to ensure their enemies become friends by eliminating the materialist reasons for conflict.

The idea that on balance, the tradeoffs of a new technology could be harmful and a new technology should be refused or shelved until different social conditions emerge or maybe never, could be seen as techno pessimism.

On the other hand, many, many people across the internet, but particularly r/Daystrom have raised smart questions about the ability of Burnham or the Federation to be a steward of it. Burnham is mortal. She will die someday. The current generation of highly moral, highly responsible Federation leaders: Vance, Saru, Rillak, T’Rina, all mortal. They will die someday. Unless of course Burnham pulls the same trick as the last Progenitor and encodes a version of herself outside space and time in the control center of the Progenitor device.

This scenario is also highly reminiscent of the fallout from the Genesis Device where a quantum leap in terraforming technology was viewed as an existential threat and weapon of mass destruction by the Klingons. How powerful is this technology anyway? It is confirmed to have the ability to create and destroy or destroy by creating, but it's unclear over what timescale or physical scale.

What happens if the Breen for instance freak out and decide to reunite and go to war with the Federation? 

Can the Progenitor device unmake entire Breen fleets as fast as the Breen can launch them at the Federation?

If Burnham used the device in this manner, would this arouse the attention and wrath of higher civilizations?

Would the Metrons or Q tolerate this? We don’t know the status of either, other than the Q have been incommunicado for centuries but that doesn’t mean they’re all dead or senescent. This could get their attention. After all, this is power of a kind, maybe not of a scale, but of a kind of their own and they may see fit to hold another trial to see if Humanity still deserves to exist.

In this light, Burnham’s choice reflects a sort of “reverse Prime Directive.” This technology will leapfrog the wielder far beyond the state of the art. It is not necessary to invent the technology to use it. Not unlike the firearms Kirk passed out to his tribal friends to ward off the proxies of the Klingons who had been similarly armed.

Burnham might be wise enough to use the technology responsibly. The Federation might be. But the Federation is one civilization among many and it’s clear as day the Breen haven’t matured as a society since the Dominion War. The Federation itself is barely two years out of The Burn and can’t even muster enough ships to deter a Breen dreadnought on short notice. It is also going through growing pains socially as it knits itself back together and works to regain the trust of worlds that had to be autonomous during the Burn.

It's also a very small d democratic choice. As she states a few times, one person shouldn’t be entrusted with this power. I think it’s safe to say that how it's used doesn’t even seem like the sort of thing that the elected representatives of trillions should necessarily be entrusted with. Per Burnham, some choices have such sweeping consequences for so many people, it's unfair to entrust that power to any feasible deliberative body.

Fictional character, Michael Burnham, would probably not get along with real techno utopian Sam Altman, who has argued his organization must develop AI and be the first to unlock the highest potentials of it or someone else with more nefarious purposes will.

In the novel “Seveneves” Neal Stephenson coins the term “amistics” to describe the choices that different societies make in how they relate to technology.

Embedded in the concept, is the notion that societies can actively decide to adopt and reject certain technologies and their applications. According to amistics, it is not intrinsically good or natural to just grab hold of every single little new thing and utilize it to the fullest. This is different from being a luddite because it is done mindfully rather than reflexively. Amistics posits we can deliberate and ultimately decide a thing is not for us.

[nobodysprobablysimplethoughts]

‘My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same thing. If everything is dangerous then we will always have something to do. So my position leads not to apathy, but to a hyper- and pessimistic-activism’ (1984, p. 343).

~ Michel Foucault in "The Foucault Reader"

[wanderingmindthoughts]

back in april I read a very cool story on lightspeed magazine, TALK: "The Siren Song of the Otherworld Goggles", which is a commentary on the use of technology, and I really enjoyed it!

I spend a lot of time on my phone (around 7-10 hours per day, according to it) and I honestly love all of it. I don't feel guilty or anything like that; in all honesty I haven't felt bad about my screentime since I stopped being depressed.

which is why I resonated with this story. it is written as the narrator giving a talk about her use of "otherword goggles", which are a kind of AR glasses that let you see alternate versions of yourself, and it is implied that most people spend a lot of hours each day using them. this narrator is explaining that she's using these goggles to become a better version of herself by observing her alternate versions and incorporating what she liked of them into her life. this came after she realised that she didn't enjoy the versions of herself who spent all of their time on their own glasses; they were boring to watch!

but there were a lot of useful, interesting versions that she could learn from. so instead of ditching the glasses entirely, she decided to spend less time watching and more time doing things.

I loved this story because "less watching and more doing" is, basically, why I started this blog. I don't want to just read and watch and listen, I also want to write and to draw and to program. I have things to say! and I believe that doing things is a wonderful way of finding community.

and unlike the goggles in the story, that only allow watching, my phone (and other assorted pieces of technology) allow me to do things, too - not only I am currently typing this on my phone. I use it as a planner, a radio and a notebook; I use it to learn languages and I even studied several of my university courses right here on my phone.

I'm not satisfied with doomscrolling away the hours; I take advantage of each and every function that a phone offers. and I also need to spend time away from it -to meet friends, to do sports, to do art, to write research. all of them wonderful, pleasurable things that I want to do, so I don't find it hard at all to put my phone down when I need to.

[fuckedgospel]

Quite possibly more than any other attention focusing (straining) medium, the internet has aided in forming the most aggressive abstractions from reality.

Where it used to be the case that knowledge of the world was codified through long-form trials, experimenting or exploration, the internet has obscured the value or necessity of these traditional modes. The world we live in today is privileged with unprecedented access to information and answers to most, if not all, vital questions (as well as mundane curiosities.)

It has become possible to live of the world, without having to venture into it. From the comfort and warmth of our beds, we can gauge the weather. Appliance by appliance, even our homes are being integrated into the digital age. A few twiddles of our thumbs after checking the weather and the curtains can be automatically drawn at every window, still without slinking out of bed.

So far from our agrarian roots, even food materializes at our doorsteps, stories above the ground and hundreds of miles away from the soil it originated (and hopefully did.)

Yes, we live abstractly because modes of process have been systematically denatured. We fail consistently to acknowledge the consequences of convenience playing to the loss of meaningful process. The abundance created by widespread convenience is for intent and purpose, an inflated abstraction of necessity, resulting in widespread waste and mismanagement of finite resources.

When I think about the modern aggression of abstraction, I see fewer examples more obvious than the food in our diets. May I be spared for my attempts to dazzle and entertain you with this writing, but, if you are what you eat, what are you eating?

Having our basic needs met by industrial strength convenience, most of us in developed nations find ourselves on glorified vision quests, searching for our “identity”—which in itself is an abstraction from living purposefully. From early age, we’re quickly indoctrinated into the cult of aspirationalism, immediately derailing the chances for sensible management of our time. We learn to accept meanings in symbols established outside of our own developed values, and seek self-worth from a drying pool of socially prized occupations. All the while being strung along with tokens like, “follow your bliss…your passion,” dangling like a carrot attached to a gyroscope.

 We have been duped into finding or attempting to define ourselves by limiting or wholly cauterizing our vulnerabilities. The trend itself is not unique to our time, though in continuing to do so, living for abstraction, we reject involvement with tangible realities. Numbing our senses to information or experiences that may indicate discordance with whatever imaginary paths we’ve set ourselves down has gained broad appeal in the digital age.

Stability is craved in a world where change becomes more of a dirty, frightful word in polite conversation. It is this combination of numbing comfort and idealistic aspirationalism that has dug the maze of trenches for the identity warfare and politics we’ve come to find ourselves mired in today.

Now that I’ve bored you with the bones of my broad-statements, let’s bare some meat. Clever because I’m jumping back into food. Yes?

How often do you find yourself in the midst of proud vegetarians? Vegans, or even meat eaters? How often do those terms come up and the ensuing conversation doesn’t immediately spiral into personal jihads and emotional battering? It’s almost impossible to discuss food choices today without puncturing whatever bubble has been blown around an individual’s identity to protect them from any form of criticism or objective lines of questioning. Exceeding the realm of simple personal choice, like styles of dress or musical taste, our diets have also become badges of honor, belonging, or moral superiority, served with decadent dressings.

Our food culture perfectly captures the essence of our immersion into aggressive abstraction. Why do humans eat? Simply and universally, we eat to stay alive. We need food in order to provide our body with the energy necessary to…well, look for more food. We need to eat. Humans are basically zombies with a conscience and the ability to avoid cannibalism. Devoid of our romanticized hopes and dreams of progress, the body still needs fuel. Our earlier ancestors didn’t do much more than look for food and safe places to sleep and fuck. Sounds a lot like what we do today, huh? We aren’t actually much different than our predecessors. Sure we’ve got straighter spines, and our thumbs have never been more entertained, but what else really sets us apart from early human life? Not much. Still gotta eat.

Whenever I talk to someone about food or health, a speech bubble pops up and in it a cartoon image emerges of a person running tirelessly away from a hoard of buffalo (wings) led by the pale specter of death. Running, running, running…towards a cliff. One of the hallmarks of American culture is our inability to confront death in a realistic or open manner. Deemed too morbid or emotionally draining to be discussed outside of digital pittance for the deceased immortalized by the internet, we’ve buried the subject underneath heaps of kale and kettle bells.

It seems as though no matter where you turn these days, something new is giving you cancer. The internet might have you believe that whole grocery stores are actually just fronts for atomic waste storage. Last year it was gluten, now it’s red or processed meats and cheese. Gurus and dieticians alike pedaling all kinds of iodizing solutions and tips to preempt your next trip to market from possibly being you and your family’s last. Suddenly providing yourself with basic nourishment seems like a matter of national security, complete with three-letter-agencies and rebel forces competing for your fragile attention and dollars.

Our separation from anything resembling “nature” is firmly knotted in the decadent hypocrisy of the “natural” food movement of the post-agrarian world. Our fears and insecurities—specifically surrounding death—provide the perfect starting medium for all kinds of industrious growths of enterprise. In the world of abstraction, labels supplement for time spent collecting objective experience or knowledge. In our fear driven world, the forks in the road are conveniently marked by simple-signage. Avoiding the crippling paralysis that might arise in the presence of exaggerated choice, is made easier with the addition of words that pander to our basic fears and desires.

These days, you can slap the word “natural” on just about anything and with that, buyers are entitled to wax on about their “healthy” choices and look down on the conventional plebs poisoning themselves with artificial ingredients. Natural has become synonymous with “good for you;” which is exactly what you want to say to anyone who tells you about their diet. Most popular snack foods today have some “natural” version of their product. Usually made without the enriched flours, corn or dyes ubiquitous among shelved food. Now, rather than caving to the primal draw to the super-naturally red, puffed corn sticks, you have the option of simulating a more refined, healthy choice in the form of muted, earth toned puffed corn sticks. This is abstraction in its purest form. The appearance of interacting with a definite article—health, in this instance—while systematically denaturing our ability to perceive parts from the whole.

While there is no doubt that the foods we consume play a large part in our health, no food is in and of itself healthy or unhealthy. Like everything else in nature, our health is systemic, responsive to countless other factors in our environment, as well as our conditioning to those responses. Eating has become a part of the ritual of death-escapism.

By now, you might be wondering why I’m going on about this. What does this have to do with the Gospel of Fucked? We all know people love to fight over trivial differences, or build themselves up on them, so why care about this pettiness?

Well, this has everything to do with the Gospel of Fucked! Let me tell you.

We aren’t ever fucked by one particular event or happening. In the Gospel of Fucked, we seek to unveil the abstraction that overwhelms the individual senses so we can deconstruct the mechanisms that wind up fucking us.

Attempting to make progress with dualistic thinking is one of the greatest personal errors we can make as individuals. What we see today in the unraveling of the democracy that we’ve taken for granted, and civility as a whole, is popular abstraction and pageantry working to segregate people in an exponentially more ways than the simpler, broad castes: race, sex, religion. We Are Fucked because our democracy, our ability to make collective changes to better the world we share, are being torn apart by terminal polarization fomenting into popular hatred.

I am openly not techno-optimistic. I appreciate the internet for the potential it has in actually being an effective tool in bridging humanity, but I believe that it is just that, potential. While I’m not trying to downplay the obvious benefits and advances to humanity the internet has enabled. Connecting with loved ones has never been easier. Meeting new people isn’t limited by physical proximities. Education has never been more accessible. These are all wonderful things, that are definitely a credit to the internet, but I’m not naive enough to think that they are the greatest happenings brought on by it. There is a very unfortunate and lazy belief that technological progress will bring unlimited prosperity to humanity. What this line of thinking conveniently ignores is the human element.

 “The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”

                               --E. O. Wilson

[posthumanwanderings]

[austriankid1]

Jason Silva - Radical Openess (for TED-Global)