Slashdot Mirror
Technology Is Making the World More Unequal; Only Technology Can Fix This (theguardian.com)
mspohr shares an excerpt from an article written by Cory Doctorow via The Guardian: The inequality of badly-run or corrupt states is boosted by the power of technology -- but it's also easier than ever to destabilize these states, thanks to technology. The question is: which future will prevail?" [The article discusses two sides to the issue:] Here's the bad news: technology -- specifically, surveillance technology -- makes it easier to police disaffected populations, and that gives badly run, corrupt states enough stability to get themselves into real trouble. Here's the good news: technology -- specifically, networked technology -- makes it easier for opposition movements to form and mobilize, even under conditions of surveillance, and to topple badly run, corrupt states. Long before the internet radically transformed the way we organize ourselves, theorists were predicting we'd use computers to achieve ambitious goals without traditional hierarchies -- but it was a rare pundit who predicted that the first really successful example of this would be an operating system (GNU/Linux), and then an encyclopedia (Wikipedia). [Cory also has a new novel, Walkaway , which explores these ideas further.] The future will see a monotonic increase in the ambitions that loose-knit groups can achieve. My new novel, Walkaway, tries to signpost a territory in our future in which the catastrophes of the super-rich are transformed into something like triumphs by bohemian, anti-authoritarian "walkaways" who build housing and space programs the way we make encyclopedias today: substituting (sometimes acrimonious) discussion and (sometimes vulnerable) networks for submission to the authority of the ruling elites.
Here's to technology: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.
#DeleteFacebook
Do said apps use APKs HOSTS file?
Cory Doctrow is not a soothsayer but a two-bit charlatan hack riding on the coat tails of others like Linux or Richard Stallman and passes it off as his own insight.
The facts of the matter are that socialists have been using the same techniques for years in modern media and in traditional (brick and mortar sense) ways and merely expanded the same techniques from letter writing into on board commentary systems.
The ONLY thing that makes social media even work is Facebook's omnipresent existence on the internet that you CANNOT avoid and intentionally used to sway public opinion for the highest dollar or power.
That Cory Doctrow calls this "progressive" is an entirely (and dangerously) clueless misunderstanding of the concept. This way leads to fascism and dictatorship (witness Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter censoring content they dislike based on their "rules" but surreptitiously ignoring similarly ignoring content that breaks the same rules they like...because...)
Thought control is not progression. Firing people for wrongthink is not progression and all of these are used to increase government control of the populace in increasingly bolder moves.
Bad times for all - But hey Cory's getting paid... buy his book to get his thoughts on it!
A broad base, low rate, progressive tax structure also helps fight inequality.
The lesson to be learned here is that tools empower people be they good or evil. The more you understand the tools the more powerful and dangerous you are to established systems of power.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The sad thing is that I actually now believe these type of people you allude to really do exist; The type of people who see no math error in the notion that you can replace IT professionals by outsourcing to ... something that isn't just some other country's IT professionals??
The inequality of badly-run or corrupt states is boosted by the power of technology
I call B.S. on that. Technology is the only thing keeping the poor man in the game. Technology is the only thing keeping inflation from running out of control.
These things boost the corrupt states and increase the gap between the rich and the poor:
1. Apathetic populaces.
2. Fiat money payment requirements.
3. Central banks that can inflate at will (that also loan money).
4. The ability of corrupt nations and dictators to borrow money from said banks or other overly-anxious capitalists (who probably have elitist bankers as parents).
5. Laws that make investing money difficult or elitist.
6. Minimum wage laws.
7. Governments that pay off the money they borrow with more borrowed money.
1) 3rd world dictator uses technology to oppress and slaughter millions of dissidents
2) Terrorists/Freedom Fighters (depending on whose side America is on) use snapchat to organize a revolution.
3) Country erupts into civil war, killing millions.
4) Terrorists/Freedom Fighters install their own oppressive dictator, perhaps with the masquerade of a rigged election.
5) If new dictator is smarter than the old one and bans or heavily restricts private internet use, then break; else goto 1;
All that's really changed is that all the assorted terribleness is much more efficient now.
Nice to know you aren't starving. Myself I only eat one meal per day. The truth is I can't even afford to eat, but when the alternative is dying, I have no choice. Tell me again when Trump is going to MAGA so I can find work anywhere.
There is no escape from the human condition. Technology merely amplifies it.
The internet was supposed to break down barriers and make the world a global village. But instead, for better or worse, we now have virtual enclaves of like-minded people who would never have found each other without the internet and social media.
The future is uncertain. Will it turns out to be an utopia, or dystopia? Your answer reflects your own worldview.
The problems of wealth inequality come from economics, not technology.
Allocate an array of reasonably large size, say a million entries, and fill each cell with the value 1.0
Next, choose any cell at random using a probability based on it's normalized value: Add all the cells together (the total) and make the probability of choosing any cell equal to it's cell value divided by the total.
Increment that chosen cell by a portion of its value; for example, increase the chosen cell value by 1%.
Repeat this process (select, increment) many times.
What you will find is that inevitably some cell values will increase exponentially, outstripping all other cells. Eventually one cell will become largest, outstripping all other cells.
Reset the simulation and rerun it, and the same thing will happen, only to different cells.
This is the model of our economic system. Compound interest is exactly this type of exponential increase, and will cause this same behaviour in simulation by itself. Other factors, such as getting better rates the more money you have, paying less in taxes the more money you have, will amplify this effect.
And which cell values get amplified is simply due to chance. In the beginning, it's being in the right place at the right time.
It's a math problem and easy to prove.
The human inability to identify, understand and control exponential increase is what leads to wealth inequality.
Not technology.
If technology was truly making us all unequal, then none of what he says would be true.
When Americans say "us all" or "everyone", they mean all Americans, not all humans. Yes, the world is becoming more equal, not less, and prosperity is increasing the most for the people at the very bottom, but if you exclude 95% of humanity from your calculations, and only look at Americans, then that is no longer true.
Humanity was unequal for the vast majority of its history. The current fad for equality is, for the most part, a historical blip.
Catastrophes tend to improve equality, because the rich have lot more to lose than the poor. One of the biggest levelers in history was the Black Death of the 14th century. The elite had most of their wealth in land, which collapsed in value because there was no one left to till it, while the poor saw their incomes soar since labor was scarce and valued.
The 20th century had 3 catastrophes in row: WW1, the Great Depression, and WW2. These all served as levelers, and by 1945, Western society was more level than ever. So people that grew up during the decades that followed, came to view the prevailing equality as "normal". Things are now regressing to the mean.
The Soviet Union was notorious for paying or otherwise turning huge swathes of the population into agents and informants; social media flagged posts being forwarded directly to the Secret Police can make any movement stillborn. There's an old Russian saying: "When three men sit down to discuss revolution, two are government agents, and the third is a fool." No new surveillance tech is needed for agents and informants to kill uprisings, although the internet makes casually passing info along to the Powers That Be much easier. The internet can make organizing easier, flash mobs for example; I seem to recall some of this happened during the Arab Spring, however look at what happened afterward: how good a job is internet organization doing at stopping ISIS militants in the middle east? So much for toppling badly-run states.
'Open source will create a shadow economy, routing around the existing corruption' is a fancy as well. Sure, if everyone had their own universal constructor and people were downloading pirate designs with cracked DRM, this might be possible. However, barring that, the incumbents can simply lobby for laws to be passed that restrict usage of open source/shadow economy tools. Look at laws that prohibit municipal wifi/fiber, or mandate govt. usage of MS Office/Oracle, or restrict or ban usage of Bitcoin. Doctorow's ideas here remind me of the phrase "The solution to the problems of Democracy, is more Democracy." As in, direct democracy can route around the corruption in a representative democracy. However, with propaganda, and how willingly people will sell their vote, this is arguably not as conclusive a solution as one would think, just a temporary rerouting of the problem. Imagine how many millions of poverty-level people would vote for the USA SAVE PUPPIES Act, because they love puppies right? And because the sponsor loves puppies SO MUCH, they're paying $100 to ensure they make the right choice and don't give in to the immoral temptations of the Act's opponents. Doing the right thing should feel good, ya know? And the act is being fast-tracked through referendum and is 900 pages long and noone has time to pore over it to find the evils it hides; and it's log-rolled so that individual clauses can't be stricken later once discovered without undoing the entire law which contains a myriad of other, actually-desirable things. Propaganda can get people to oppose net neutrality or countless other things that would be to their own benefit, thinking doing so will help them more (indirectly, once it trickles down... any day now...) and thus democracy dies to thunderous applause.
Sure we can get Wikipedia and Linux, but there was LOTS of hubbub at one time about how unreliable Wikipedia is, because it can be edited by anyone, until several studies found it to be as or more reliable on average than respected encyclopedias. Remember the Get The Facts campaign by MS about Linux, and FUD about backdoors being hidden in the Linux source because, again, anyone can edit it, and corporations using Linux being liable to be sued by SCO etc. for patent infringement? Bitcoin has been thoroughly associated with drug trafficking, ransomware, and money laundering in the public eye, not completely unwarranted. The problem is corruption tends to have money, which can buy propaganda, which can fool people into supporting the status quo; about the best I hope for is that principled people will obtain money, then use counter-propaganda. Knowledgeable people who don't fall for the propaganda can use the open-source stuff... but only when the sheeple don't go along with the plot to make it illegal. That's what we should really be afraid of here, and no ad-hoc tech group is going to get around that any better than The Pirate Bay has. How many of its operators are in prison now?
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
The 20th century had 3 catastrophes in row: WW1, the Great Depression, and WW2. These all served as levelers, and by 1945, Western society was more level than ever. So people that grew up during the decades that followed, came to view the prevailing equality as "normal". Things are now regressing to the mean.
You ignore the Cold War, which leveled the top off of the rich by making them pay for military and scientific competition between superpowers. Catastrophe was not enough. It was nationalistic competition which created equality through high taxes. A decade after the Cold War ended, tax cuts to the rich caused a regression toward inequality and the inevitable Great Recession.
if you only eat one meal a day how can you afford to post on slashdot? Perhaps you should cancel your network access and buy some more food.
Wikipedia is a very poor example of a non-traditional hierarchy. It has a very traditional and very solid hierarchy upon which it maintains its desired pro-Western establishment bias. Want an example ? Take a look at the cited sources for en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War and try to find a Syrian source among them. This isn't an accident. They want this bias and enforce this bias through their administrative hierarchy by making sure that any source that doesn't conform to the Reuters, BBC, NYT, WSJ etc point of view should be tough to include.
As for Linux, I think it became relevant when IBM and Canonical streamlined it for businesses and the general public but I may be entirely wrong here.
Equality is actually a quite noble goal to strive for, equality of opportunity, that is.
But seems like the two sides of "that fight" don't actually want it.
We could all be equal by being destitute. By having short, brutish, lives that end violently, in childbirth or starvation. That would be highly "equal", but extremely unpleasant.
We could also engineer a society where everyone had equal opportunities. But that would still give us people with great wealth and others who had nothing. Simply because some are driven (whether that is healthy, or not - a different issue) to attain power, wealth, knowledge, whatever and others are happy to sit around all day doing the bare minimum. Some people make good decisions - short term vs. long term, while others are impulsive, gullible and easily led.
We cold also have a society where everyone does the same sort of job and earns the same sort of money. (Since "equality" only seems to be about what you earn.) That would score highly on most measures of equality, like the Gini coefficient. But if a trillionaire moved to that "equal" country, the measure of equality would immediately be skewed and the country would show up as being highly unequal - even though none of the non-trillionaires were any worse off than before.
What technology has done is given us all more opportunities. Some seize them, others are too lazy or uneducated, or don't recognise it, or are looking the wrong way, or value other things. Some people just happen to be in the right place at the right time and buy into the right startup. Others are unlucky and go bust. But for the average individual, technology gives us all more. Whether you are a high-speed trader making millions (but who will soon be out of a job when an AI takes your seat), or a farmer in Kenya who gets up-to-date produce prices on their phone - you benefit from technology. You might have less equality, but you are better off, healthier, will live longer and be better educated.
In the end, that is what matters. Not whether the guy next door has a $1m yacht and you don't. That is just greed and envy, not equality.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The distinction between equality and equality of opportunity is a relatively false one, unfortunately. The idea is that inequality is okay, so long as it distinguishes between individuals on the basis of their merit.
That's fine, but how do we define merit, in a way that is not tautological or otherwise meaningless. If, for example, we leave in an environment where personal income is largely defined by your access to capital, rather than your labour, then this is a meritocracy, so long as you define "merit" as having lots of cash. This is largely the society we live in now. If you look back 200 years ago, then we leaved in a meritocracy, so long as you defined merit in terms of having lots of land (at least in Europe, it was less true in the US because there were fewer people and lots of land). If you go back 1000 years, then being good with hacking and slaying was more the thing.
We often see this problem when we look at CEOs with very large salaries. Well, it's said, we have to pay them that because its the market rate. Or, in short, they have merit because they get paid a lot, and we pay them a lot because they have merit.
At heart, we have to strive for some level of equality, and equality of opportunity just clouds the issue. The levels of inequality that we have now are, I think, not sustainable. In the past, the main mechanisms for solving this problem have been the union or other social movements. Or war. Let's hope it's not the latter again.
"People are making the world more unequal; Only people can fix this".
Technology is inherently neutral. It's the person or people that wield it that give it colour.
Personally, I aspire for "too cheap to steal".
We all realize this "article" and discussion is an advertisement for one of these "elites" to sell us his novel, right?
Social engineering as entertainment is part of the problem, more so than technology development.
Shouldn't it be "wash repeatedly with water?"
Requiem for the American Dream
But what when your apps app apps app? Then you are really apped and have to app!
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Why do you expect someone who writes about what others are doing to be original? Where is he passing it off as his own insight instead of something that he has observed others doing?
As for his fiction - is he supposed to actually invent the things he writes about instead of just loosely describing them?
...can ban the technology that endangers them.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Well this is a thinly veiled plug. Surely articles like this should have an advertisement warning
If you gave me a choice between a printer and a giraffe with explosive diarrhoea, i'll get my ladder and my raincoat
Well, ideally your merit should be measured on how much profit you do generate for the company etc, rather than the profit you make personally, but there are several, several, several ways around it.
But instead of trying to solve by this side, many people try to solve the issue with the direct equality of outcome measures, in ways that work more about leveling down the ones that succeeded rather than increasing the chances of the ones that didn't.
"People Are Using Technology to Make the World More Unequal; Only People Can Fix This"
There, fixed that for you.
Technology doesn't do anything by itself. It has no animus of it's own (yet). It's a tool...and like any tool, it can be used in good ways, bad ways, stupid ways and ineffective ways. The difference between the choice of ways is, and always has been, a question of people, not of the technology in question. And addressing problems with bad choices remains, as ever, a people problem.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
If you had a valid objection, you'd have made it, temporarily embarrassed millionaire.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
As person who remember state forced equality, with was imported to Poland on the bayonets of red army "liberators" I know how hard is to fight to gain right to be unequal. We should be equal under the law, we should have equal right. But, finally - humans are not equal at all. We had different views, imperatives, needs (as long as basic needs are fulfilled - an no, there is nothing like equality of stomach). Progress of entire human race is fueled by personal greed and lust of being "more than average". With forced equality there is no impulse to do more, to innovate, to pursuit new direction - as there is nothing to win. Innovation in communist (as communism forces "equality" at all cost) was usually driven by fear and slavery (yes, slavery - scientists were nothing more than asset to use) - or (what a surprise) by giving to valuable individuals extra benefits, freedom, and rights (and there "equality" ends). Yes, we should fight for equality - but in the good meaning - equality under the law, equality of freedom and right. But i fear that "equality" most people now thing is something more like equality seen in the past in the communist countries - witch is evil, fearful way to enslave all for the benefit of the even smaller (than right now) few. America has his power, rich, and influence not by forcing equality on all its population. No, United States of America was a country where any single person has equal right to be unequal - pursuit his chance to grove above the average. That was the reason that in the past people leave Europe ruled by closed aristocratic cliches - and hard work to win only one true prize. That was the reason that people enslaved by communist equality (as many people here were saying: "equality to have equally nothing") finally stand up and fight. As for technology - people are different. Smart and not. Tell me, if you will enforce equality - what will be the reason for smart people to do anything with that perk? If I - IT pro and businessman - will have nothing to earn "extra" for my effort, knowledge and work - what is the reason for me to work long hours 7 days in the week?
"I found the root cause of all of our problems. It's people. They're buggy."
My work here is done. I'll leave this as an exercise for you all: The solution to this problem is ____________.
We'll make great pets
No, no, dig up stupid!
Sigger than your average
We are equal. Born Equal in value as a human being. Not in Abilities, drive, skill, mental abilities. VALUE.
Technology helps smooth over the rough edges of abilities if made available to those with less ability, and more drive. A paraplegic can plow a field today, because of technology not available 130 years ago. His value as a human being remains unchanged.
But that isn't exactly how we view others. We don't value them as humans, but only as a complex calculation based on what they can do for society. We are trained that our value is based on how we contribute to society, when the reality is, we should be trained to see the innate value of each human by themselves.
This is how you produce true Liberty
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I hate to break this to you, but humans are, for the lack of a better term, evolved into social constructs that are tribal in nature. It is built in.
Unless you don't believe in Evolution, there is no way to change millions of years of family unit pods.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
The small hunter-gatherer groups are quite possibly the most unequal of all societies as the leader or leaders have essentially absolute authority over the other members of the group
One of the major advances in human evolution was the ability to understand abstract concepts such as the nation state or religion and to recruit individuals to support these ideas. This freed humans from the limitations of small family/tribal units.
More advanced societies have adopted concepts such as democratic socialism which allows governments to take care of less fortunate individuals. This is manifest to a small degree in the US where we have unemployment insurance, food stamps, limited welfare and limited health care. Other countries such as Scandinavian countries have taken greater steps to ensure that their less fortunate citizens don't fall too far behind.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Yes, lower forms of animals are violent, brutal and uncaring. Some human societies have evolved to be supportive and caring of all members. Scandinavia probably does the best job at this... the US, not so much.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Free Open Source Software runs most of the Internet and has been proven to be of better quality than proprietary software. (How's is that Windows crapware working out for you?)
It's great if you want to charge for OSS and if you'll provide real service, I'm sure you will be successful.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
How much profit you earn for a company is not the point, how much of the company you own is the point.
Inequality in our societies comes only to a small extent from the value of your labour (i.e. how much profit you earn), and to a much larger extent from inequalities of capital. If we live in a meritocracy, then, merit is not the work you do, the things that you think, it's how much you own. The more you own, the more merit you have.
Only those at the top have a preference for inequality.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Is "salary" really how you believe society measures merit? You don't believe that talent, skill, and/or productivity are naturally championed by civilized society? And that pay/profit/salary is a reward for this merit? Are you a self-hating Marxist elitist who is guilty about your wealth? Or, are you an impoverished prole who is envious of others' success and wealth?
Equality of opportunity is the correct equalizer, in my opinion, for any civilized society's progress. The best ideas rise to the top, with success as an incentive. This obsession with others' wealth, especially in a conversation about equality, is at best naive; and, at worst, an excuse for the poor to steal from the rich.
There will never, ever be an equality of outcome for human beings under any system, ever. Any mechanism that attempts to achieve this would necessitate the complete destruction of human nature. (The same human nature that drives technologists to press on with their work.)
Excursion from beneath rock needed.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.