Not knowing everything about technology you use is bad
I've been fixed on this theme and cannot seem to verbalize it correctly. I see it as a major problem that most of us have minimal understanding of how and what produced the items we use to live (survive, find comfort in, and entertain). I see this as a major problem in terms of our helplessness to a system that is beyond our efficacy. Can anyone help me explore this idea and possibly give more "meat" to why this seems a very major problem? It's like the problem is there, but I cannot quite capture it in words yet and am looking for help in fleshing this out.
Comments (77)
1) We use technology and items that we have no idea how they work. We are a forever behind the veil of our own mode of production and living. You are ignorant in any highly detailed way, of your own way of being and survival.
The reason for making: most people don't know the workings of, say, a remote control, but they use it. Here you explicitly see the workings, without knowing what it's for. The construct just walks along the beach.
What's the problem with not knowing how your remote control function? You gotta have knowledge about everything you surround yourself with? Will it lead to disaster if you don't know?
I don't know, that's what I am trying to find out haha. Think of it as a concept that is sort of on the tip of your tongue but haven't quite narrowed it yet. It seems to have something to do with efficacy, being alienated from larger forces that one can never be a part of, but that control you, economic implications, metaphysical implications, etc.
Total nonsense, but I can imagine people think like this.
Yep, certainly in a practical sense, not knowing how a technology works, relies you to trust what others know... It is still beyond that. It is more than just, "I hope this mechanic knows what he's doing". It's more like not understanding the minutia of the metals used to create the parts of your engine. The amount of minutia we are not aware of, but rely upon is dizzyingly vast. The amount of patents, the amount of machine parts, the amount of even one ounce of what went into modern products.
I am not sure if this is relevant, but it seems to draw parallels with what Graham Harman was discussing in an object's interaction with other objects. They never "know" fully the depth of that other object, only how it interacts with it..
But instead of objects, rather it is knowledge of our own human world of being which is excluded from ourselves as individuals by ourselves (as a vast network of interactions).
Our ignorance of what it takes to do something or make something or use something we haven't personally done, or made, or used is unsurprising; it's to be expected, in fact. This has been the case forever. Romans who had not made or used concrete in constructing harbors, or temples, or many other things were ignorant in comparison to those who had done so. Those ancients who weren't architects didn't know how structures were designed or built. Those who weren't shipbuilders were ignorant of the making of ships.
Although we've used technology of various kinds for millenia, it seems to me that only recently, relatively speaking, have some of us come to believe that technology renders us somehow divorced from "reality" and "being" or some-such in what strikes me as a hyperbolic, Romantic, quasi-mystical manner a la Heidegger with his talk of hydro-electric plants as if they were monsters, or our coercing the world to do what we please, summoning forth the power of the sun (I forget what he condemned so excitedly). He compared it to the peasant lovingly planting seed in Nature's bosom, if I recall correctly. There was a chalice too, I believe. Chalice good, coal bad.
Technology presents real problems, but I suggest some restraint when it comes to contriving metaphysical and epistemological horrors arising from the fact that we don't know how to make certain things.
Our technology has advanced exponentially while the species has hardly evolved. This seems to me a fundamental problem.
Being self-sufficient seems like it is an important quality of a mature human being. It seems to me that there is something fundamentally repulsive (pathetic) about not being able to take care of yourself when you ought to be able to. Not understanding the technology we use and being unable to live without it makes realizing this quality of self-sufficiency impossible.
It's humiliating to depend on that which we don't understand. At the same time, it's the special trick of our species to specialize in techniques as we do (divide and conquer), while also being able to pass down and therefore build up bodies of specialized knowledge that are well beyond any individual's comprehension. This allows us to form a kind of technologically evolving 'superhuman' entity. It's hard to feel that one fully exists in the shadow of this beast. If I die, the machine will roll on, just as I roll on as one of my skin cells dies. A few neighboring cells notice perhaps in each case.
And speaking of cells, consider also that our bodies themselves are more complex machines than our spaceships or our computers. So even the caveman depends on that which he does not understand. He's just ignorant of his ignorance.
Finally, a more practical response: living a simpler life that is easier to understand will likely involve living a sweatier life, digging in the dirt. And no Novocain either.
No, this isn't ridiculous.. There does seem to be a tier that knows more.. But even they only know more in their specialty. It would be very hard for a biotechnical engineer to understand mechanical engineer to understand an electronic engineer to understand a material engineer and so on..Though if given time, it would be easier for them to understand each other than someone with no background... they all need some basic sampling from each in undergrad at least and complicated enough maths for differential equations and Calculus III, statics, and such.
Yes this! You are very close to what I'm trying to say.. But there is something even more troubling than it being pathetic and repulsive to not be able to take care of yourself. Here I am using a computer in which I only know a vague understanding of certain things but for which the technology is well known amongst electronic and computer engineers. And monitors and their displays, a rudimentary knowledge but relies on so many intricate parts and concepts coming together. The plastic that encases the computer, the silicon chips, the copper wires and, even what the basis for the green in most PCB boards.. All of it requires millions and millions of minutia-knowledge that I can never fully comprehend.. And even if I did, all the minutia that is adjacent to that , and to that, and to that.. What is it about this behemoth complexity upon complexity that seems to subsume ones own efficacy? It is pathetic our reliance but inability to know all of it.. But it is more than that.
I would imagine our cultural evolution is part of what makes our species survive, so that seems to make sense.
Good point..even our own basis of life is hidden to some extent. However, unlike natural causes, technology is man-made and yet it eludes most men, though they use it.
Technology commands us.. We consume it, and yet we don't know it. There is at least some form of power dynamics that comes from being excluded from that which we survive from.
As someone who works in the computer industry I feel confident saying that the technology is not well-known amongst the engineers that are thought to understand it.
That is one of the things that is so fucking sinister about modern technology, nobody understands it in its entirety, nor can they manufacture it themselves. Every technician understands a part, and even then they don't need to understand it as much as they just need to know how to use it. And if a person were to come close to grasping all of what goes on inside a single computer model, it would only be by an immense sacrifice of everything else in their life.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well I think it certainly has something to do with Marx's notion of alienation, being reduced to a cog, a button-presser, the maintainer, etc. Humans did not evolve to do this sort of crap, it goes against our natural state of being. There's this blind, amoral force of technique that drags us along in its current of relentless improvement of efficiency, whether we like it or not.
Let's start in the inner workings of our brain and intuition. It's powerful.
Is there something like the fantasy of an ideal adult that is frustrated here? Even our 'visionary' tech billionaires are riding on the back of a beast they can't control or understand. Some of us have tiny maps of the abyssal territory that are just a little less tiny than the maps of others.
Reminds me of the use of pesticides. We as the public know scarily little about the effects and use of pesticides, not only on us but the environment as well, and yet certain health organizations just keep giving the green light. I think if we knew more about what pesticides did in your body we'd be appalled.
Technology is not an end in itself; it is just one of many means that we humans employ in the project of survival. So even if our goal is only to survive, having an imperfect or limited understanding of technology reduces the value of that technology itself. Everyone knows how to make a wheel. So even if all the wheel-factories in the world were to be destroyed, people could still build their own wheelbarrows and carts. Most people don't understand the science of electricity however. So if there was an apocalyptic event, a few people would be able to generate electricity; most couldn't.
If the project of humanity is more than just survival, then the problem is even greater. Let's say the project of humanity is to optimize human existence. Not just survive, but survive in such a way that individual and social existence is improved as much as possible. Bare minimum, this can only occur if advances in human life are passed forward from generation to generation. However you only use a technology optimally to the extent that you understand it. And you can only pass forward what you understand.
For example, many people think that discovering a source of unlimited, inexpensive power would solve the world's problems (fusion energy). This is naive. All power, when used or applied, ends up as heat. So suddenly increasing power-consumption by an order of magnitude could result in an environmental catastrophe.
Technology can only be used optimally to the extent it is understood. Or to the extent that it's use is directed and controlled by those that really understand it, I guess....
May I ask what your role is specifically?
Quoting _db
Right, and then they don't even know how that cup was made or the chair they sit on.. and back to square one :lol:. Quoting _db
Yes, for sure we are alienated from the production that makes us survive and from meaning in the work (often stretching it to be meaning in the meaninglessness or Sisyphus or Kafka or Office Space or whatnot). But there is something else.. this dialectic is getting closer, but not quite hitting it yet...
1) We are born to forces that we know little to nothing about. Patents, manufacturing knowledge, electro-mechanical-materials-structural-engineering, chemical, biological, medical, etc. etc. But I'd like to harken back to my minutia-mongering neologism. Technology parses to a degree of such minutia. The minutia is blindingly boring. There is a drowning weight to it.. Just how the internet works alone or code language, or engineering blueprints.. There is something deadeningly inhuman.. Yet it is what sustains.
2) The power differential of those who hold the technology and those who don't. Those who know more and those who don't. Those who know more and have the means to produce it and those who don't. Imagine if how we distributed resources was knowing how each item you consumed worked.. No one could consume the item.
Not sure what you mean, but we have produced all the minutia.. The minutia which sustains..
Very true.
I just think there is a huge power differential regarding the people that know the technology and those that just consume it. I think it is this that is the real political-economic power in the world- who understands and can produce the technology. I think the focus on capital is misplaced because it is more about the finance behind something or the resources one is using. It is the knowhow and the means to use the knowhow.. It is I think different than starightup capital.. and perhaps economics should be more rooted in this understanding rather than 19th century uses of the word "capital" which we seem to be stuck in when explaining economic models.
Seems to me that, in a situation like this, the more technology evolves, the larger the deficit grows, the more the world is going to be subject to corrective back-pressures....
Check out the movie "Don't Look Up" if you haven't already seen it. It is a hilarious (and frightening) look at people enslaved by their own tech.
I saw it, and it is good. But that is just the consumer side of it. It is more like, the deficit of those who use and those who produce the technology...It is touched upon a little on the movie between the scientists and the overly-consumed by their technology/media human citizens though and especially the Steve Jobs-like guy and his technology. There is a huge amount of disconnection and deficit between the two.
I can really appreciate this allegory or metaphor, it is a very good one.
Of course, isn't science? Language? Life itself for that matter? Where does one draw the distinction between something you can control and understand and something worth pursuing?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Relying on magic is tricky, it simultaneously gives one a sense of power and of helplessness.
For a conscientious person, not knowing how something works also gives rise for concerns over the safety of it and how to maintain it best (so as to not incur unnecessary expenses). Such a person will also feel a measure of anxiety upon considering that other people might not know how something works and thus act with it in ways that endanger everyone involved.
Take, for example, modern cars and modern drivers. A conscientious old-school driver knows, for example, that if you start a car on an incline, it can first slide back a bit, and that therefore, a greater safety distance toward the car behind is advised. Modern drivers, used to automatic transmissions and atuomatic brake-hold on an incline don't know this, and thus don't maintain sufficient safety distance. So when there is an intersection on a slope, there is greater likelihood of a collision after the car in the front backslides, and possibly this driver's fault.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Being able to produce the technology seems to be what makes the difference.
Merely knowing how something works doesn't seem to give one much advantage over those who don't. In a consumer society, knowledge of how something works is, at best, a "factoid"; by and large, it's not needed, it's irrelevant. By the time some piece of technology breaks down due to wrong or suboptimal use, it's time to replace it with a newer model anyway.
Chances are fairly good that I know a lot more about the practice of law than most others gracing this forum. That gives me an advantage--in practicing law and knowing how the legal system works. Doctors have an advantage over others when it comes to knowledge of and the practice of medicine. Plumbers have an advantage when it comes to plumbing. Do these entirely commonplace, unsurprising forms of power dynamics disturb you as well?
I see no major problem in not knowing how my cell phone, computer, remote, etc. works. Personally, I find the technology interesting and have limited knowledge about the machinery, What is much more dangerous is not understanding how social media (which we access through the hardware) is designed, programmed, and operated.
The owners and operators of Google, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, pinterest, Twitter, game producers, et al understand how our brains' reward systems work better than we do. They know how important it is to elicit a little dopamine out of every interaction. Every successful search on Google, amazon, or YouTube makes us feel a little bit of pleasure. It's not an orgasm-level pleasure, but it counts just enough to make us come back for a little more.
On-line advertising uses the same approach -- clicking on an ad opens a new page with bright shiny pictures, interesting objects, etc. You don't need to know whether the software uses a "mouse-up" or a "mouse-down" click; all you need to know is "click", and voila --more stuff.
Clicks and tiny dopamine pleasures enable media and online corporations to lead us around by the nose, because it isn't obvious to us how this stuff works, or what the consequences are. One consequence is that we spend way to much time messing around, clicking here, clicking there, and before we knowing a couple of hours has disappeared.
Now, sadly, knowing how on-line and social media works doesn't lessen its pleasures. I know, but I still like it. What to do, what to do, what to do?
As with any habituated behavior (smoking, drinking, eating potato chips, mindlessly switching channels, endlessly surfing the net) we have to make a decision to do it less or stop doing it at all. I'm not suggesting people should stop using their phones and computers to access social media and on-line companies, but one can and should reduce the frequency of use.
Why? Your autonomy is at stake. People who are practically addicted to social media (continuously watching their phones whatever else they are doing or spending hours surfing on their computers) have ceded a degree of control to companies that do not have your best interests at heart (they have no hearts, btw).
I'd think "expert knowledge" would be required to know how electricity works, or gravity works. I doubt it's common knowledge. Does knowing how electricity or gravity work create a special kind of "power dynamics" different from that involved in the case of other kinds of expertise or specialized knowledge?
It's the fact that the lords hold the knowledge and means to produce the things we need.. That is real power. There is more power in being the producer than the consumer.
In a way yes. I did relate back to power dynamics. I think there is something about having the means to produce an important item for someone else and then just passively consuming that item.
However, yes the metaphysical not being able to access fully that which sustains us, is something that I am trying to get a better understanding of.
Absolutely.. This is a known insidious outcome of targeted algorithms. It's hard to stop, like a merry-go-round because they know your likes better than you now ha.
But I think there is something to be said about the disparity of those who have the means to produce and those who just consume.. But I don't want to bring in dynamics of simply capitalists vs. proletariat, as I think it is a bit different. It is knowledge-capitalists, technicians, minutia-mongerers.. The finance people are nominal and expendable. They are nothing without the real knowledge-keepers.
The lords hold the power to produce by means of law, coercion, secrecy, deceit, et cetera -- not because they know how to manipulate magic. The economic arrangement can be changed, if the workers decide to collectively act to change it (e.g., revolution).
Don't underestimate the power of consumers. IF even half the recommended health habits were to sweep the nation, some companies would go broke overnight. People didn't like the Edsel. Ford lost money on it. People didn't like the Newton personal assistant (1995, +/-). I thought it was pretty cool, but not enough others did. It used handwriting as the input format -- it could read clear handwriting. (Attractove as t was, I didn't by one --yet another reason for it's failure.). Thousands of retail products are rejected by consumers every year and disappear, a heart break for a company or an executive (que the violins).
How I hate having to deal with minutia and minutia mongers. I am strictly a big picture man. "Don't ask me where that little screw went --the question is, "Will we make it all the way to Mars and back?"
Meanwhile, the little screw gets sucked into the ventilation duct and causes the life support system to fail. We make it Mars, but we are all dead.
I think I agree. But as you say here:
Quoting Bitter Crank
The latter can't happen without the former. We need minutia mongering on all fronts. First, we need thought-based minutia-mongering.. the engineers designing those screws and cranking equations. Then we need machinists mongering the minutia of interlocking parts. Then we need the industrial proletariat to crank out as many parts as possible on mass quantity. We need the service technicians to monger the minutia involved in fixing these small parts.
We don't need the humanity guy pondering life on mars, Bitter.. As much as we like talking to that guy.. we NEED the guy who knows how monitors can work and the knowhow to produce it. Minutia is cold, void of humanness but necessary. It is the little cog, that turns the other thingy for this thingy to cause this doodad to oscillate that widget, and so on and so on.
Oh, yes -- we need this guy very much. Big picture people are needed to decide whether it is WORTH going to Mars. I have decided it is nit economically worthwhile, so fuck all the engineers working on it.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Technology in all its forms is a human invention, remember. The design of little screws is a human activity. The engineers, technologists, lathe operators--even the fucking captains of industry--are all humans, like you, like me. They can escape being guano ["guano" is an example of bad techne -- automatic-spelling-correction guessing that my mistyped "human" should be "guano"] no better than I can.
Your line of rhetoric here (Everything else becomes irrelevant and dissolves away.) reflects the dehumanizing effect of remorseless capital. (I'm distinguishing you from your rhetoric.)
Yes, we absolutely need detail people, and we've needed detail people from the get go, along with big picture people. Knapping stone tools is detail work; determining when it is time to move to a different cave is a pig picture work. Individuals can be both. Some of my personal research has been big picture, and some of it has been minutiae. World War II history is pretty much big-picture. The outcome of particular bombing operations is pretty much minutiae. How many bombs, what size, what composition, from what altitude were they dropped? What was the ratio of explosive and incendiary bombs by weight and by number. How many buildings were partially, largely, or totally destroyed? How many people were killed, how many injured and how badly? How many planes were lost; how much production was disrupted or destroyed in the bombing operation? Think large tables of statistics... details, details details.
We simply have to familiarize ourselves with what something does, its function; the underlying principles and mechanisms be damned!
No doubt someone who lived life in "the wilderness" would have problems surviving in the city as well. I don't see how a city would be less "reality" than the wilderness.
I am a programmer. I can send you my resume if you like, I'm looking for a new job :sweat:
Quoting schopenhauer1
I mean, idk I think there is satisfaction that can be derived from understanding how something works, even if it is a broad, general understanding and not a detailed one. I think the question I'd raise to you is to explain why you think a technological device like a computer is inhuman, but the physical-chemical-biological systems of the natural world are not...unless you think they are inhuman as well?
I'm not disagreeing with you, I just want to know what your thoughts on this are. The vast technological orchestra is frequently nauseating to me too, yet the vast natural orchestra is not (at least sometimes). Why is this?
I think you were getting at it with helplessness and no one having full knowledge. You may know this element but not that element. It becomes a rabbit hole of a rabbit hole of a rabbit hole. Even knowing some things about networking.. you will never know the full extent.. It is this endless feeling of being excluded.. Then you just throw up your hands and watch those insidious self-reinforcing algorithmed videos on social media that @Bitter Crank talks about.. It's like the vastness of the technology lulls you into a stupor that also sort of gives you inertia.. At that point, you just give in to the companies that are providing your needed technology.. And you just consume, work, and don't think too hard again about it. Let the companies dole out your product without any knowledge of all the things that went into what you use. Someone mentioned magic.. it really is no better than medieval mentality.. The ignorance of that which sustains us in our survival, entertainment, comfort and the like.
You see, that's an assumption you make, and I don't. I think Nature, i.e. the "natural world", i.e. the world, includes human beings. Because it includes human beings, it includes all they do. Because it includes all they do, it includes their works.
In other words, we're as much a part of nature as any living organism you may name. If we choose, we can of course claim that the "natural world" doesn't include us or anything that we do or make, or doesn't include particular things we do or make, but these are distinctions I think are misleading.
Yes, I knew this was coming.
But the self-perpetuation of the manufactured portion of the "natural" world consisting of human products is contingent on the transmission of cultural knowledge, which means that the kind of understanding-gap problem which is the theme of the OP then becomes a critical issue.
Only because of technology, though.
Quoting Pantagruel
Hmm. Is this a kind of Terminator or Matrix-inspired fear of manufactured products? It's the "self-perpetuation of" that which we manufacture you refer to that leads me to ask the question.
It seems clear to me that we perpetuate what we manufacture, when we want to do so. Cultural knowledge, if I understand what you mean by that correctly, is something we've always relied on. If there is an "understanding-gap" problem then it's a problem which has existed since we began to make tools which were more than rudimentary. No knight knew how to make a longsword, or armor, though it may be said they were essential to his status and survival.
So, if we're not addressing what's been a common sci-fi topic for decades--machines taking over from humans--is the concern that our tools, now, are too complicated, too sophisticated, and this is bad for other reasons? If so, why is that the case, and what can be done about it? What level of technology may we aspire to without being harmed by it? Should we live as the Amish do?
Here is also more what I am getting at with the power dynamics thing:
Quoting schopenhauer1
It's not that I am anti-technology in the way you think. Rather, it is the consequences of being alienated from that which sustains us. related but perhaps not quite the same as what @Pantagruel is saying, technology is human created, and thus the affront to our alienation is human-created. We are doing this to ourselves, from ourselves. Can the information-distribution problem ever be different? If not, there is a serious problem, to me in terms of our relation to ourselves, one of a sort of alienation.
I understand your point about specialization and people throughout centuries not knowing the basis of the technology they use. I'm not saying now is different.. It does seem to be a part of what it means to use technology- that you are relying on someone else's knowledge and means to produce the technology. The computer programmer, mathematician, engineer, and scientist who often produce minute portions of this vast knowledge, often get where they are because they have a capacity (and probably inherent skill) to work with a lot of rather boring minutia. Their reward is getting first-hand production capacities in the means of our survival and daily living. However, this is exactly the model I am balking at. I am not concerned with the efficiency of how owners use engineer-types to create technologies to sell to the consumer. I understand this, but it is exactly this current model which is alienating in a sense. I know you don't find it to be so, but I do think this to be a problem whereby we can never fully grasp our own means of survival, and that we are basically reduced to doled out workers (on a minute area) and consumer.
I see more clearly what you're getting at now, so thanks. I think concern in this respect is understandable.
I'm uncertain what we can do, though. Virtually all we do is technology. Being what we are, I'd expect that the "distance" between the knowledge of most of us and our technology will continue, unless we place a limit on it, and that would require significant effort, political and legal. I doubt we'll make that effort and am concerned whether it would be worth it if we do. I very much doubt that there will be any such effort merely because most of us know only how to use technology; that's something we've grown used to. In fact, we take it for granted. It would require a kind of agreement that certain technology isn't merely dangerous, but wrong. Something like genetic engineering, perhaps. Regulating that has at least been considered.
I understand and used to share this. But the reality is most of us don't know how anything works - nature, consciousness, reality, a digital watch - whatever. Does it matter? I guess it could if you had to fix something in a crisis. I gave up expecting to understand things many years ago. Knowing things can feel like gaining control in a chaotic world but often it makes absolutely no difference.
What I have noticed is that increasingly people over 50 don't know how to use technology - that may be a larger problem than knowing how it works. I meet many older folk who can't operate a smart phone or use computers and websites (other than in some superficial capacity). This is a problem especially for disadvantaged folk who face barriers trying to access services and information.
Quoting Tom Storm
Why would anyone even want to carry such a radiation emitting device on their person?
6.6 billion people don't seem to care.
I've just been re-reading Foundations of Cognitive Science by Michael Posner, and the chapter on experimental methods kind of concludes directly on point with the OP.
"The history of humankind is one of increasing use of tools for extending our power, expanding or amplifying our physical senses, and more recently for amplifying our intellectual senses, our mental powers."
So, the question really is, to what extent can we effectively use these tools without understanding them?
I've been arguing that lack of understanding of the tools is a serious problem. @Ciceronianus has been arguing the opposite. The chapter I just read tends to support his perspective, citing evidence that experts are generally unaware of the subtle cues and mechanisms whereby they effect their judgments. So I guess the only real problem is when it comes to the creation of the tools themselves. Can we have a healthy and integrated society where there is sharp division between the majority who use the tools, and the minority who understand and develop them?
Yes, that is a good way of rephrasing the question. Apparently, this society we are in is supposed to represent that healthy society by people like @Ciceronianus give or take some regulations or whatnot.
However, I think there is a sort of alienation going on between the consumer and the gap between that which is produced. I don't think that will ever be resolved though. Luckily, I am an antinatalist. I always have a ready solution handy.. don't procreate more alienation and replicate the current condition unto another. Other than that, unless we become AI with our memory and can store millions of units of information, we will always be passive consumers who only produce that which is allotted by our corporate owners so that they can make profit selling to other consumers. We will always be passive consumers in our own living situation as it would be impossible to give you the means to produce this monitor I am looking at, this keyboard, the carpet, the concrete, the metals that go into the structures and the electronics, etc. etc.
In the "Comment on James Mill" (1844), Marx explained alienation thus:
Quoting Marx
Quoting Wikipedia
Quoting Wikipedia
Quoting Wikipedia
Quoting Wikipedia
@Bitter Crank, This last paragraph about "un-alientated state of labour conditions".. What does that really mean in concrete terms? What would "restoring the worker to their human nature" look like, and how would coercion not be a part of making that person do their "duties" as "worker"? That coercion seems to be something kind of left out.. Marx must have thought humans really dedicated to any activity they do.. If left to their own devices without threat, humans tend to wander off and do their own thing.. Having them labor at some project for the "communist collective" doesn't seem like enough of a motivator for most people. Capitalism has the advantage of "You don't get your living needs met if you don't do what we want (you get fired)". Would perhaps the satisfaction in "knowing the means of production" somehow factor into it?
1) a classless society
Not since we were hunter-gatherers, traveling in small bands--probably family groups--have we seen a classless society. Once agriculture was organized, and ever since, there have been classes distinguished by restrictive roles and coercive power. It is difficult to even imagine being "classless".
2) collective management
A classless society MUST be collectively managed, or once again divisive categories of standing would be brought back in. We have some but not much experience with collective management, just as we have fleeting (generally pleasant) experiences of classlessness.
These two elements will be quite difficult to achieve. That is not to say they are impossible, only that it will be difficult -- hard work, ingenuity, persistence, self-discipline, and more will all be needed.
"Alienation" is a term of art: It means severing the relationship between the worker and what he makes. Take this as an example: A skilled cabinet maker works for a large furniture company. The individual pieces of cabinetry and furniture he makes are really masterworks. He pours his heart into the beautiful pieces.
When they are finished, they are picked up, hauled away, and sold under the companies premium brand name. People pay a lot of money for these pieces. The worker who made them receive a fixed wage, no share of the selling price, and no recognition as the producer. He is alienated from his work (think of the term, "alienation of affections" when an outsider interferes with the stability of a marriage.
We use "alienation" to reference a state of anomie, feeling cut off, friendless, etc. That isn't what the 'term of art' means.
Ideally, there would be no exchange of cash between the worker and the consumer for the cabinet.
Why wouldn't the cabinet maker and consumer both starver? You can't eat woodworking. No, and you can't grow a nice chair, either. Farmers produce food; shoemakers produce shoes. One needs a pair of shoes, the other one needs bread. It's obvious how they might exchange goods.
Realistically, a large economy can't work well on barter (as far as I know). Some sort of accounting system for production and consumption would have to be created (not difficult).
Quoting schopenhauer1
Why not? Laboring in the communist collective provides them with what they need, and gives them a fair value from what they produce.
So the sour skeptic steps in and raises all sorts of objects here. Well, some people want a macmansion. If they don't get it, they will turn to theft, murder, cannibalism ... whatever it takes to get what they want. Or, people are lazy and they won't work, so everyone will starve, and so on and so forth.
People vary in how sick, psychopathic, and sociopathic they think other people are. (Of course, people vary in how crazy they actually are, too.). If your opinion of other people's sanity is low, you will tend to expect highly disruptive reactions to any significant social change. if your expectation is that people are flexible and adaptable, you will tend to expect willing cooperation for significant social change.
Remember, a collective communist system isn't going to be built next next to, or on top of this capitalist system. It will be built AFTER capitalism. The revolution will happen before collective communism can be built (and, remember, the USSR is in no way, shape, or manner or form an example of what we are talking about).
Some people are crazy -- between 5% and 10% of the population is holding on to reality by their fingernails. If their candidate for POTUS doesn't win they can't accept that reality. They deny it. They attempt to destroy democracy (such as it is). Some crazy people will decide that COVID-19 is a hoax; others think that the Covid vaccination is another hoax, or worse. Ditto for mask mandates. (This isn't just in the USA; crazy people are everywhere. THORAZINE FOR ALL!)
Albert Einstein, E = mc[sup]2[/sup] = Atomic bomb (Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, many more to come).
When you look at a computer, it's an incredibly complex system. It's an accumulation of many different fields, both in terms of knowledge and labour. Many of these systems will work together to form a fundamental layer, where upon this layer another system is built and so forth.
Now due to the complexity of these systems, you can spend a lifetime gaining knowledge on one layer and still know very little about the other. This is generally true for life. But even among these seemingly connected fields, there is so much to know between the fundamentals of electricity and the various branches of software engineering that it's probably far too much to know in one life time.
It's not inherently bad to not know everything though. As long as you have some expert in that field available to consult and assist you if needed, there is no problem at all. Cooperation has always been key for societies to function - and with increasingly complex societies, the need for cooperation only grows.
I do see one major detriment in our technological advancement though. Something most people are awefully unaware of. In system engineering, there is described the concept of Emergence.
Everything we do and think collectively shapes our society. But in turn, society shapes us. In Hermeticism there is the principle of corrospondence. "As above, so below. As below, so above."
[i]"It ascends from the earth to the heaven and again it descends to the earth
and receives the force of things superior and inferior."[/i]
So presume, someone comes across this new thing to do; you can download an app on your phone and watch random people post videos about their life. Someone tries it out, finds it quite enjoyable and tells their friends about it. They in turn try it too. If enough people take interest in it and make it a part of their life, it will become relevant in society. If society cares about it, that in turn motivates more people to engage with the app. We can witness the same effect with individual people. That's how celebrities are born.
We're already at a point where technology vastly dictates our life. No matter which generation you look at, you'll find people addicted to their phone or their television or computer screen. And it's only going to get more and more relevant. Phones and the media they bring are all across the world now, even in some of the poorest and most remote regions. In fact if you've ever been to Asia, in many parts you'll notice the smartphone being even more important to their culture than to ours.
I think this is the real pitfall here. It's less about not knowing everything about technology and more about being unaware what technology does to us as a whole. And let's not forget that everything comes at a price. In our global society, we're far from equal - and there's certain, in fact quite many, actors that only care about making money in any way possible - because money is so monumentally important to our society and us as individuals. Money gives power and possibility within society. And so the media we consume comes at a price too. Be it a subscription, our data, some subtle manipulation or the cost of our precious time. We get invested. Society gets invested. And the way individuals and society relates, we'll only ever get more invested in our technology, in our media - in the things they are trying to sell.
And ultimately, this pitfall just leads to another one. That is, our first premise failing.
If we fail to cooperate, our technology may very well collapse on itself or cause some other form of disaster. It does happen occasionally as it is - but miraculously, our complex global system seems to be holding out just yet. But the technology and media we consume hardly encourages us to work together more. Rather, it encourages us to spend more and more time in that virtual world. For many it is an alternative to facing their problems. They can isolate themselves here, or find some safe spaces of like-minded individuals. All fair - but ultimately, as we spend time in virtual worlds, we surrender partaking in the real world.
Yes, or I think so.
We might hypothesize a human tendency to project an 'ideal adult status' on this or that figure of the present or the past ( such as a 'visionary' tech billionaire or a long-dead spiritual master.) 'I may be blind, but someone has mastered the darkness.'
[quote=Lacan]
As soon as the subject who is supposed to know exists somewhere there is transference.
[/quote]
Also:
https://nosubject.com/Subject_supposed_to_know
Quoting Outlander
It feels good to overcome resistance, to carry a torch into the darkness and map it out for the tribe. Even if total conquest of the territory looks impossible and every success looks temporary and fragile.
It seems to me you have a deontological position. Something in the family of:
if you use things and especially if you are dependent on using them, you should understand how they work.
That may not be it, but my guess is whatever it is will be hard to prove in most ethical systems. IOW I do not think it can be derived from other moral truths other people hold. Obviously doesn't make it wrong, just feeling my way into the lay of the land.
I don't believe this to be the case. I don't want to mount a general argument, but if I think of some farmer who has a decent knowledge of his soil and seeds and processes, but hasn't the slightest idea how his tractor works and has no interest in that. He has a neighbor who is good with machines and he barters with seeds and they're both happy. The farmer makes food. He feeds his family and brings food to market. I can't see a way to say he SHOULD understand his tractor or cellphone or computer or microwave. He plays his role.
I could, however, possibly imagine finding someone's ignorance of such things problematic if they somehow acted as if they knew. Or as if knowing those things was not important. Then you might get me to be critical. It would be the combination.
There is something of orginal sin about this lack of knowledge sin.
Yes, nice reflective post there. I think this stemmed from a larger issue though, that was touched upon somewhat by a post earlier in this thread:
Quoting _db
But that's only part of it. If we combine this idea of helplessness and power, the problem starts to come into focus. Because of the magnitude of knowledge that is needed to support our daily living, the power rests solely in the dictates, goals, etc. of the business overlords that horde and produce that technology. There is something enfeebling about being the passive recipients of the power that a car company, airliner, electrical company, electronics company, household device manufacturer, ANY of it contains that the individual does not. It bespeaks a bit to the idea of means of production and the information that one has access to. The fact that only a few can source the materials to create the goods and the many are just passively using those finished materials creates an imbalance.
Quite correct, though the barons understand the technology even less than the technicians that create it. Technology has taken on a reality of its own - we serve it, instead of it serving us, barons included. We accommodate ourselves to technology, learn to adapt to it, because it is a new environment as much as it is a fetishistic cult. This has not always been the case, but it has been developing for a couple centuries.
Knowing how our muscles, neurons, and so on work does give you an edge over someone who's in the dark about such matters, but relatively speaking, not as much as if you (say) know how your cell phone works.
Are you still talking about the same thing now? Aren’t the business overlords by and large just as ignorant of the workings of the technology on which their own fortune is based?
Ha! You're a funny guy! You truly make me laugh! :smile:
He's still fightìng with the schematics of his remote control and the physics books explaining them... What if he gets at his computer, not to mention the subway he uses? Sorry Shoppenhauer1, no offense!
:up:
Yes look at the conversation I was having with @dclements for context.