Ask HN: Are we building a tech dystopia?
“Cybernetics” is the way into exploring this feeling more. There is a lot of high quality research on it, but it doesn’t permeate tech culture a ton except for privacy&#x2F;cryptography.<p>I can’t talk you out of your despair, but I can point to resources to flesh the concept out for you that I chased down after feeling similar.<p>I have not run into many tech-native people realizing and addressing this problem from tech-first except for the cypherpunks and chaotic ways it shows up in some parts of cryptocurrency tech, and then the VPN&#x2F;ProtonMail places.<p>I think engineers chasing this feeling is really important, as part of the cause is very much chasing RSUSs or w&#x2F;e while not realizing the crazy dystopian  governance layer our products are stitching together.<p>Tech-native starting points that address this heads on:<p>- “who owns the future,” Jaron Lanier, father of VR<p>- “True Names,” the version with essays at the beginning, Vernor Vinge<p>- Anything out of the cypherpunks, to include early bitcoin docs. You can disagree with the tech and also this group has really distasteful views around the edges, but they also created encryption that consumers could access, Tor, and similarly hugely impactful technologies based on the premise you have.<p>Philosophy:<p>- CCRU, Nick Land, Sadie Plant, Mark Fisher Nick Land is nuts today, but he had good thoughts on tech before the early 2000s.<p>- “The Cybernetic Hypothesis,” Tiqun.<p>- Leftist or very fringe groups and related papers in the Anarchist Library website or whatever it’s called.<p>Math or systems theory academics:<p>- Norbert Wiener, “the father of cybernetics,” out of MIT<p>- Donna Meadows’ systems books, I think also out of MIT<p>Fiction:<p>- Neal Stephenson and William Gibson write books that describe a believable future if the trends you describe continue.<p>Digging into this area unavoidably leads to more doom-y thinking but awareness in tech is necessary to even attempt to course correct.