Can’t stop thinking about this in the context of tech. Of course technological advances are a good thing, but isn’t there a point where progress for the sake of progress stifles any productive use? Who exactly is benefiting here? A decade or so ago, I was still able to communicate how I’m communicating now, but things have gotten substantially worse.

I’m looking at the state of the internet and can’t help but look at how every algorithmic breakthrough has just been used to gather data for marketing purposes or targeted advertisements. Lmao and I don’t even know how you can consider that progress to be honest.

The wildest part about this is that you don’t even need to be a leftist to agree. Everyone hates targeted ads and marketing bullshit besides people who make money in marketing and advertisement.

  • MF_COOM [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    This question is part of a minor discourse on the left rn. Jason Hickel wrote a short minor piece in this month's edition of Monthly Review about it called "On Technology and Degrowth": that is worth reading. (In fact the whole Monthly Review for this Summer is a big double issue on degrowth and ecosocialism, might be worth picking up a copy to read over there's a lot there.)

    This brings us to a critically important point. We must be clear about what growth actually is. It is not innovation, or social progress, or improvements in well-being. It is very narrowly defined as an increase in aggregate production, as measured in market prices (GDP). GDP makes no distinction between $100 worth of tear gas and $100 worth of health care. This metric is not intended to measure what is important for people, but rather what is important for capitalism. Of course, what is important for capitalism is not to meet human needs, or achieve social progress, but rather to maximize and accumulate capital. If social progress and well-being are our goal, it is not the market value of aggregate production that matters but rather what we are producing (tear gas or health care?), and whether people have access to essential goods and services (is the health care privatized or universal?). This is basic to socialist thought.

    • aebletrae [she/her]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yet the "it's the economy, stupid" talking point still won't die.

      In order to keep the campaign on message, Carville hung a sign in Bill Clinton's Little Rock campaign headquarters that read:

      1. Change vs. more of the same.
      2. The economy, stupid
      3. Don't forget health care.

      Although the sign was intended for an internal audience of campaign workers, the second phrase became a de facto slogan for the Clinton election campaign.

      — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_the_economy,_stupid#History

      And, of course, they forgot point 3.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        "it's the economy, stupid"

        One of the most irritating legacies of billdawg was that smug-ass proto- reddit-logo slogan.

    • Hohsia [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      What a depressing piece. All wonderful solutions, but most of them require westerners to be self-critical and address how they get their treats. Fuck

      I guess I didn’t even realize how my question so directly relates to capitalism- which further proves the fact that people who tout “ capitalism is everything I don’t like” should be treated to forced re-education 🥰

      • Hohsia [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Also, a lot of things just started clicking for me and my pseudo-Marxist brain. Of course westerners don’t care about climate change because it is directly tied to the exploitation on the other side of the world that gives them their treats. The people it’s going to affect first live in the global south and most don’t even know what goes on there so they can have some sense of comfort.