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by bfkwlfkjf 219 days ago
> blinded by the Western patriarchal narrative that technology in itself is not political

I have no idea what this was supposed to mean.

4 comments

Let me break it down for you:

Western: of or pertaining to the part of the world where the dominant culture is European (most of it colonized)

Patriarchal: of or pertaining to male-dominated society

Narrative: a story we tell ourselves to impart meaning to the world

Technology in itself is not political: the false (see "narrative" above) idea that technology is politically "neutral" and that the mere existence or use of a technology does not in and of itself reinforce domination or oppression

Ironic considering it's a "Western patriarchal narrative" that everything is "political," and every space should be used as a platform to air the political grievances of the day.
Is (a given) technology good or bad? Western culture says it's not, that technology is neutral. Others have conflicting opinions.
False. Western culture bans plenty of technologies. For example, guns and drugs.
"Every single last bit of technology is freely available in every single western country" is not a claim I made.
And what does a "patriarchy" have to do with anything?

People that unironically use that word are generally better ignored. And after reading the linked comment thread they're trying to portrait as problematic... I can only say that framework is better off without them. They're not in a healthy mindset and will inevitably drum up controversy for asinine things, worsening the image of Framework

It’s a thought stopping cliche in the form of an ad hominem shotgun whose trigger is tied to the door handle. You can’t disagree with the author’s take on technology or you’re a bigot and probably a misogynist and a fascist.

I hate watching fascism take over, and that’s why I hate this kind of leftist purity culture. It’s a big thing pushing people to the right.

Of course the far right does it too, which pushes people back the other way I guess.

The present day left and right are like having one obnoxious self righteous asshole screaming in each ear. I have never in my life seen the public discourse in worse shape.

Every list of 'thought stopping cliche's must also contain 'thought stopping cliche'.

The right wing fascist culture is the left's fault, sure kiddo.

If you like fascism just be proud and say, "I am a fascist."

Who do you think will actually believe you when you say "I hated fascism until the leftists made me like fascism" anyway?

I can’t tell if this is facetious. The world’s gone mad.
Allow me to explain through an example:

When I protest that LLMs stole the collective creative output of all of humanity and are now trying to sell it back to us to supplant human creative output, or that it is an ecological, or economic, disaster, further consolidating wealth and power in a few narcissistic sociopaths, and defendants reply, "bUt ThE CApAbIlitIEs!!1!"

That’s not a problem with LLMs as a technology. It’s a problem with how LLM companies have been allowed to violate copyright at industrial scale. It’s a political and social problem.

The same indictment can be made about search companies and social media: that they are monetizing others work without compensation.

Or is there something about the tech that requires that it be deployed in this way?

My position is that LLMs trained without proper copyright authorization should not be copyrightable. They should be public domain.

As for the energy use: we either get our energy from polluting sources or we don’t. What we do with it is secondary. If we’re not using it to run AI we’d be using it to get a burrito delivered.

So you identify the problems. I guess they happened out of thin air? The broken copyright has been allowed by someone... someone BAD!

Or maybe the companies broke the law, lobbied as much as possible, broke the law more, then bribed anyone with political power until they got to god emperor himself who said “this is progress”. And everything was just fine.

But that would mean that technology is political issue.

Uhh… that’s what I said. The problem is political.
The substantial political lobbying arms behind the ai bubble, big oil, and big coal thank you for your service.