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by varvar 1966 days ago
Democracy + Capitalism was supposed to bring freedom to the world.. instead it bought domination, and realization, that it all comes down to who holds the power. The typical classical reality fundamentals.

Techno-utopianism was supposed to bring freedom to the world... instead it bought domination by the Big Tech, and realization that it all comes down to who holds the power. The classical reality fundamentals.

There are a few more cases.. it's Faust all over again, that turns into kind of a half-scam along the way to attract VC money or your money, then culminates into a power grab.

"The next revolution in X"!, blah, blah.. blahblah.. blah.

"We're no better than believing in or living in a Harry Potter novel sometimes" is more like his message - but it's a fact that societies like to look at the least of all facts. After all, that might prevent the next high-yield psychotic mass scam from occurring.

I don't know - I'm not a westerner, so perhaps it's "normal" for high IQ individuals to create or mis-use abstract mini-ideologies, mini-religions really, dress them as a New world, a Revolution really, to exploit individuals like workhorses over the span of many decades, until they realize that this was an illusion.

Btw we can't spin it like "Ooh, but if it wasn't for this silliness, we wouldn't have computers or the internet now". I disagree. You can't know that. Perhaps the ideology wasn't needed at all for technological development. Maybe it made for inspiration here and there, but that's it.

So.. I don't think that "try again" is his message at all. Watch more of his documentaries and it will become clear.

3 comments

I see a lot of complaints about the dominance of big tech etc., but can you honestly say you’re less free in 2021 than in 2001? I’d say there’s a few things that could be done better but technology has really elevated all our lives. I think the biggest problem is the people that are left behind or don’t know how to use it all properly rather than the technology itself ... and at root these are sociopolitical ... and we’ve always had those problems but at least now we have many many good (as well as bad) platforms to discuss this stuff and promote change. And yes I do realise that some of this “discussion” is counterproductive at least recently but I think it’s important that these things get aired rather than fester, and the decision to dismiss these people from popular discussion is also a sociopolitical failure. Hopefully we are seeing the beginnings of a more unified approach in the last few weeks.
Techno utopianism can't really work under capitalism, because the machines will always be owned by a fraction of people who use them to enrich themselves.
>Democracy + Capitalism was supposed to bring freedom to the world.. instead it bought domination

I would say Democracy + Capitalism was supposed to bring freedom to the world.. instead it was used to bring domination. I don't think it had to happen that way because of some endemic property of Democracy and Capitalism. The same goes for other ideologies as well. And who is to say they were used to bring more domination than any other timeline which used other ideological frameworks?