Ted Chiang: Fears of Technology Are Fears of Capitalism
I absolutely agree with the author that the fear of technology is really the fear of <i>capitalist</i> technology.<p>My favorite article about this is from Wendy Liu: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tribunemag.co.uk&#x2F;2019&#x2F;01&#x2F;abolish-silicon-valley" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tribunemag.co.uk&#x2F;2019&#x2F;01&#x2F;abolish-silicon-valley</a><p><i>“Reclaiming the emancipatory potential of technology will require prying it from the clutches of capital. But that is a worthy fight. If the task of politics is to imagine a different world, then the job of technology is to help us get there. Whether technology is developed for the right ends — for the public good, instead of creating a privatised dystopia — will depend on the outcome of political struggles.”</i><p>Back to this article. In the article the author writes:<p>&gt; How much would we fear any technology, whether A.I. or some other technology, […] if the entire world was run sort of on the principles of one of the Scandinavian countries?<p>Yet the Nordics are not run on any ‘principles’. Denmark, Sweden and the other Nordic countries are 100% pure capitalist countries.<p><i>Social democracies reap the spoils of imperialism and neocolonialism just as much as any other capitalist nation. They source the same coffee, timber, minerals and energy resources from the global south to extract as much value as possible. The only difference is that they also have safety nets for their own citizens; healthcare, strong labor unions, welfare programs and a ‘healthy’ political milieu. The exploitation of the global south comes at the expense of satiating their own citizens needs and desires at the cost of cheap products.<p>I live in a scandinavian country, and our economy is based on exactly the same features of capitalist mode of production that you can find in the UK and the US. Its not like Apple or Nescafe source the materials in their products differently than elsewhere.</i><p>Source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;communism101&#x2F;comments&#x2F;ky5p1x&#x2F;how_do_nordic_countries_profit_off_of_imperialism&#x2F;gjerrjy&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;communism101&#x2F;comments&#x2F;ky5p1x&#x2F;how_do...</a><p>The Nordic countries have the same bourgeois private property systems which enable the capitalist class to commoditize the means of production and exploit workers by paying them a wage. It’s also important to remember that the goal of communism is a stateless society: nation states are a tool of capitalism. Also this common debate of ‘Government vs. Corporation&#x2F;Capitalist firm’ is a false dichotomy. Both are part of the capitalist system as a whole. The firm is birthed by the capitalist state. An analysis of our current capitalist system that only looks within the borders of one state, when it is in fact part of a global production system (and therefore ‘forgets’ that capital can travel without limits, unlike the working class), is always an incomplete critique.<p>To sum up: the Nordics still use the exact same capitalist made products as every other capitalist country and participate in the same globalized capitalist mode of production.<p>Also important to critique when talking about technology is the current capitalist education system.<p>Curiosity and stimulating intellectual work is only rewarded (and thus reserved) for those in the working class who either pass the grueling ‘hunger games’-game that is school, or for those in the capitalist class who come from a wealthy family or received access to a big capital inheritance. When these intellectual laborers graduate they have become grandiose, paranoid, ‘punished by rewards’ -social darwinists with a <i>false consciousness</i> (Marxist term). The capitalists now try to keep these intellectual laborers unaware of the effects of the systems they are tasked to build&#x2F;expand. Systems which are now automating the exploitation of the rest of the working classes. They do this through offering job perks, Google buses, etc.. It&#x27;s all bribes. Meanwhile the members of the working class, who didn&#x27;t pass the hunger games, is kept intellectually wounded, so as to be easier to exploit and control by capitalists. If Silicon Valley capitalists really wanted to be as disruptive as they say they are, they would organize to immediately abolish ‘Intellectual Property’ laws. Instead they hide behind American exceptionalism (and behind the American military which enforces the tyrannical global IP regime). SV leaders are complicit in the most deadly ‘copying is illegal’ propaganda campaign, and system, ever invented. We live under a capitalist system that criminalizes sharing and helping others. Knowledge is not zero sum game. The incentives are all wrong and we need to recalibrate society.<p><i>“One lethal weapon in the arsenal of the West’s trade war against the Rest is intellectual property. The common heritage of humanity—including medical knowledge and the seeds for food—is turned into property under capitalism, to be bought and sold as ‘IP.’ […] It has been a well-recognized fact throughout written history that knowledge shared is knowledge multiplied. A physical commodity that is consumed becomes extinct. I consume an apple and it is no more. But knowledge is metaphysical. It is enriched when it is ‘consumed’ by an ever-expanding circle of consumers.”<p>[…]<p>“The notion that without IP protection, innovation would be stifled is an ideological position created and propagated by those that benefit from the privatization of knowledge. I came to a diametrically opposite conclusion over two decades of work with farming communities in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and much of eastern and southern Africa. Ordinary peasants and workers are amazingly innovative and productive, until their resources and knowledge are appropriated and corporatized, and the people enslaved to earn profits for corporations.”</i><p>— Professor Yash Tandon, Trade Is War: The West&#x27;s War Against the World