Conversation

something i think about a lot: perfecting a methodology (ie technology) to the point that you can make concrete promises about future results is risky, undiversified bet, and so it is natural to want to protect one's ability to execute a particular methodology…
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because the only way to be profitable in business is to do things that you *know* will cost less than they are worth (at least on average), and developing that knowledge is friggin tough
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so suppose even the most benign r&d gamble successfully yields a process that just so happens to inconvenience some group or other—what are you gonna do, throw it out?
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it is actually disconcerting to hear preeminent public intellectuals say things like "technology is neutral" and "technology is just stuff", and yet be extremely lucid regarding other sociopolitical arenas
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Replying to
I do think new technology is roughly neutral but not empty of political content. The content simply doesn’t factor across prevailing political lines neatly so it’s like somewhat randomly distributed across it in general. The less capital intensive the tech, the truer this is.
Replying to and
In general you can detect the politics of a new technology by taking an inventory of which old political actors it shuts down and which new ones it activates. The more novel the tech, the less predictable this is.
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