- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
Am wondering that how politics have the power to manipulate society as they need. Oncw they said tiktok put privacy and security at risk and take too much time to decide to delete the app. Then within days they unblocked the app.
Are we in a simulation ? Controlled by some tech companies and political parties ?
You must log in or register to comment.
Are we in a simulation ? Controlled by some tech companies and political parties ?
A simulation will always consume more energy than a real-life situation at the same level of granularity. So the answer is almost certainly no. This is real life. I’m sorry to have to tell you that, because yeah, it sucks.
😔
Black box algorithms should be banned.
Social media algorithms affect society deeply.
Why the fuck are they allowed to be black boxes instead of forced open for the scrutiny of legislators, the courts, and the public?
Nah, instead of doing anything fucking reasonable like regulating the algorithms, we’re just gonna ban ones we don’t like.
Are we in a simulation ? Controlled by some tech companies and political parties ?
No we are not. I recall Marshall McLuhan telling a story about early Egypt. Originally, the power in society was with the Priest caste, because they could write (heiroglyphics). Eventually though, papyrus was invented, and the Military caste began to use it to do things like document stores, send short messages, and so on. The language on papyrus was used in every day life, the heiroglyphics were not. So, over time the power in society moved from the Priest caste to the Military caste because they were in charge of the useful communication tools.
In the modern era, software code is quite literally language made manifest. Only a relatively small number of knowledge workers speak these lagnauges fluently, and it does give them deeper control over the world because now everything runs on computers and software code. We have handed control in society over to the techbros accidentally by centering software so much they essentially can put a gun to the head of society and say “Hey, without us, all this stuff stops working. Do as we say.”
Traditional media/communications was our Priest caste, and the tech community is the now the new Military caste, having developed and are in control of the dominant and important communications infrastructure/language.
software code is quite literally language made manifest
Not natural language in any meaningful way. Not even close.
Also, I’m not at all convinced about the whole caste analysis, since historically there has been huge variation in the details of what one caste does and another doesn’t, even if you can find enough parallels that you can label them as military, priestly or mercantile.
In addition, even if you buy the caste analysis, those called tech bros are really just members of the owner caste who happen to own tech-intensive businesses. Though even that is hard to make stick, since almost all kinds of businesses are now tech-intensive. And if you look at a tech bro such as Musk, much of his portfolio isn’t pure-play tech. Cars, for example. Tech is an intrinsic component in nearly all enterprises, just as the phone or written word used to be. “Phone-intensive” only made sense to characterize early adopters when phones were emerging. But at some point in the adoption curve, it becomes essentially everyone, and no longer has meaning. The same could be said now for tech.
The more meaningful distinction now is between those who make money by doing things, versus those who make money by owning things. The latter have disproportionate power right now, and it’s become toxic to the rest of us.
