We haven't had anything like a "classical" economy since the second
world war. It's not "dystopian" it's just a tragic waste of human
and natural resources.
""" Forget the idea that "spontaneous utilitarian consumer demand"
drives markets. That mid 20th century 'pull model' passed into the
era of cynical manufacture where successful businesses care not
about what people want (let alone need, or just what might sell) so
much as about what people can be made to want. Genuinely new
inventions able to create wild, fresh markets, like in the golden
age of nonlinear physics between 1940 and 1980, no longer
happen. We've been in an incremental push economy for about 50 years
now. Western capital economies manufacture demand by influence. We
once used market research, but surveillance data now fills that need
to shape markets. """ - from Chindogu [0]
""" Indeed we know in our hearts that they appeal to the weakest parts of human psychology, selfish, voyeuristic fantasies of omnipotence and omniscience. Yet they offer virtually no societal utility. """
Looks like the new toys my children want every day, but driven by their curiosity to explore the world.
> tragic waste of human and natural resources
People have solved major problems with technology: 5% of farmers can feed the world. There are no real visible challenges now. All problems are made to keep people on their toes to keep them moving. Otherwise, the heat death of the universe will come for humanity.
Interesting. I'd read Ed Zitron's take at https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them/ and he's zeroing in on the tech companies doing this: 'Every app we use is intentionally built to “growth hack” — a term that means “moving things around in such a way that a user does things that we want them to do”'