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by rdiddly
848 days ago
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Probably a true statement, in that those folks made contributions, but also misleading, since technology specifically, usually has a goal or outcome in mind. A problem to solve. Like let's assume one of the first technological innovations on that long arc from banana-gathering to whatever we're doing now, was somebody inventing a better way to gather bananas. Or a substitute for bananas. Or a way to grow your own bananas in a controlled way (which I guess would be agriculture, one of our foundational technologies). All of these are easy to imagine and not far-fetched. So were they done by some poseur/pretender who only cared about bananas, and we should look down on them, or were they nobly doing tech for tech's own sake? I don't think the dichotomy exists. |
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sure, all ambitions have a goal. I think the point is that not all goals have some economic goal in mind. The original blogging platform and internet as a structure did not have the goal of monetizing writing. And we're honestly seeing the consequences of attempts and failures to try and monetize such stuff on the net.
Maybe there was prestige, or research grants, or whatnot, but it's clear that there's many pieces of tech who's goals wasn't to sell off to a billionaire and retire in style. I'd call such research "tech for tech's sake".