A secret question hovers over us, a sense of disappointment, a broken promise we were given as children about what our adult world was supposed to be like. I am referring not to the standard false…
It's really so much more than that, though. Besides, the person I'm responding to said that technology hadn't advanced since the 1980s, and that's just not true.
I mean, there's more to it in that - as u/GenXen quoted - the internet has primarily brought about new ways of exerting social control, surveillance, marketing, financialization, and admin.
We all spend increasing amounts of time punching passwords into our phones to manage bank and credit accounts and learning how to perform jobs once performed by travel agents, brokers, and accountants
Graeber isn't saying that the internet isn't a technology that's developed, he's saying that it's been developed in forms that work against revolutionary or poetic activity. That's, like, the whole thesis. Unless you're suggesting that social media is actually good.
It's really so much more than that, though. Besides, the person I'm responding to said that technology hadn't advanced since the 1980s, and that's just not true.
I mean, there's more to it in that - as u/GenXen quoted - the internet has primarily brought about new ways of exerting social control, surveillance, marketing, financialization, and admin.
Graeber isn't saying that the internet isn't a technology that's developed, he's saying that it's been developed in forms that work against revolutionary or poetic activity. That's, like, the whole thesis. Unless you're suggesting that social media is actually good.
I'm not arguing with Graeber, I'm arguing with OP.