The Platform Is the Enemy
The tone is perhaps a <i>tad</i> melodramatic, but that keeps it fun to read!<p>I think there’s a question worth asking here that I don’t thing gets asked enough: what are the decisions we want to leave to humans? What decisions do we want to leave to <i>individual</i> humans?<p>This article reminded me of Neil Postman’s <i>Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology</i>. I’ve written my thoughts on it here.[^1] His primary thesis is that all technology has a trade-off and an agenda of how it wants to be used, and more importantly, we are often blind to that trade-off and agenda.<p>For simple technologies, like hammers and spoons, the danger is negligible. For more powerful technologies like writing, telegraphy, and statistics, the dangers are much harder to see.<p>I highly recommend <i>Technopoly</i> if this article struck a cord with you.<p>[^1]: <a href="https://lambdaland.org/posts/2020-08-16-book-review-technopoly-v2/" rel="nofollow">https://lambdaland.org/posts/2020-08-16-book-review-technopo...</a>