[drb91]

Not everyone believes that giving non-privileged people access to technology is a panacea to a better life for them, or for a better world. As a result it comes off to me a lot like justifying capitalist motives with (highly unrealistic) humanitarian ideals.

For a good example of how this type of rhetoric fails to persuade people, look for criticism of Steven Pinker. I'm not trying to discard his work so much as to point out that the values he takes for granted as being desirable are not universal.

[ryanwaggoner]

That doesn't make it tone deaf. That just makes it representative of a (widely held) perspective that you disagree with.

EDIT: for backup to my "widely held" claim, here's a poll on what people think has improved life the most in the last 50 years, as well as what they expect to improve it the most in the future. Technology and medicine / health (which is technology-related, of course) hold the top two spots in both results: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/12/four-in-ten-...

Also, just by way of info, Africa is now one of the world's fastest growing economic regions, thanks to capitalism: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/middle-east-and-a....

I genuinely don't get it. We just watched Asia lift literally billions of people out of abject poverty through capitalism, and now that Africa is on track to do the same, people are full of criticism. Unreal.

[drb91]

Well, an appeal to common belief has never held much water.

In any case, there are more things to measure with effects of technology than poverty, which is far from an objective measure and implies many things about the values of the person measuring it. You need to compare and contrast multiple views of the world to meaningfully conclude one is better. Steven Pinker has only made a readable argument for one perspective. Merely accepting that argument will not necessarily provide you with a better model. This viewpoint is inevaluable by itself; a pleasant bit of secular faith.

Anyway, it’s tone deaf because children are also mining our computer components, working in effectively slave labor factories, recycling our technology at great cost to their communities, likely because the power dynamics between nations are so skewed to wealth. This “progress” is paid for in the blood of children.... so, by producing such a simple view of the universe, you are implying your values and marginal life improvement completely justify the pain people go through producing your phone, sneakers, tv, all of which are designed to rapidly deteriorate and continue the cycle.