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2x2: Non-exotic, non-real: hobby crafts like model building. Relaxing and safe. Exotic, non-real: geewhiz tech. Stimulating in a mid way, and politically safe. Non-exotic, real: adult satisfaction, politically safe. Exotic+real: god-feeling, politically destabilizing
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Most of the hatred in the tech backlash is due to techies wandering into the exotic+real quadrant and awakening new Promethean forces, but then being unwilling to exercise the political agency unleashed. Those who want the agency can’t exercise it, those who have it don’t want it
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As a result, the political agency gets downcycled to mere economic agency, often of a banal (eg advertising) or criminal variety.
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Not sure where I’m going with this, but something to do with the general air of NPCness around a lot of tech tinkering that feels consciously self-chosen. Which is funny because of the “doer” and “maker” self-images that go with it. Agency as a hobby that avoids turning real.
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To non-techies this seems like “not working on real problems”. Really they mean “real but not exotic so you help out in ways we want you to, but otherwise shut up and stay in your lane” Try real+exotic and you’ve bought yourself a political fight whether you want one or not.
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This is partly why startup techies love “disruption” in a limited business sense. It’s a sort of deactivated political agency that disturbs just the economic peace and makes more money than power.
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But if business disruption is the limit of your political vision you’re still in hobby mode. A big, lucrative hobby but short of dent-in-the-universe ambitions you might pretend to. The most interesting techies embrace the political consequences of what they do.
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Which doesn’t mean turning into a politician formally or haunting DC. That’s just selling tech short for a shot at cronyism with existing political equilibrium. It means letting the tech find full expression and accepting the consequences, including any hate.
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It’s saying — this is a legit way of being human and the rest of you have to deal. Not apologizing for the impacts of tech or going through ritual contrition and penance. You moved the equation and created an imperative for others to either adapt or suffer being left behind.
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It feels cruel to say this, but if others don’t feel a responsibility to keep up, and try to impose on others the burden of maintaining a changeless state, you need feel no responsibility to bend over backwards maintaining an equilibrium you don’t need.
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Hm. The change of entropy at least is inevitable. I wonder if a deeper dive into stories like Prometheus or Frankenstein or Westworld might help explore these situations...
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For most of human history there was basically no change. Society and technology changed on the generation scale, at most. Ancient Egypt was relatively unchanging for 2500 to 5000 years.
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But, but... carbon neutrality to resist climate change 🌪 is change itself that sounds neutral to some but incendiary to others. So no Green New Deal because it’s change that ends up not changing? Or yes — because it’s change that restores equilibrium? 🧐
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I heard your interview in the podcast. You talked about the idea that social media has increased the available bit transfer rate, and that the ideas in most books produced today aren’t worth the effort it takes to create and propagate them - that we can traffic in 1/
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