
The myth of inevitable technological progress - laurex
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/10/1/20887003/tech-technology-evolution-natural-inevitable-ethics
======
AbrahamParangi
It's funny because I think exactly the opposite: that evolution is self-
similar with technology.

I think adaptations are best understood as a kind of technology, learned with
our genes rather than our minds. The nerve cell is a technology, enabling
rapid communication across communities of trillions of other cells. Hemoglobin
is a technology. Multicellularity is a technology.

The mistake is maybe in assuming technological advance is monotonic. In the
Polynesian diaspora, the bow and arrow was lost (probably due to island
bottleneck effects). To appropriate a quote: "The arc of the moral universe is
long, but it bends toward justice".

In both evolution and human technology, the arc is long and winding but it
_empirically_ bends towards greater complexity & capacity. You basically have
to cover your eyes to claim otherwise.

~~~
gumby
> In both evolution and human technology, the arc is long and winding but it
> _empirically_ bends towards greater complexity & capacity. You basically
> have to cover your eyes to claim otherwise.

Does it? The cockroach is more highly evolved than the human (many more
iterations) and is quite well adapted, but does it exhibit "greater complexity
& capacity"?

The human hair louse can only live on humans and is a different species from
the human pubic louse (which can also only live on humans): do you consider
this increased complexity and capacity?

That arc bends towards increased fitness in a given ecological/economic niche,
but no more than that.

~~~
leftyted
> That arc bends towards increased fitness in a given ecological/economic
> niche, but no more than that.

We went from single-cell -> multi-cell. Has the reverse ever happened? Maybe
"fitness in a given ecological niche" is linked to complexity in some deep
way.

I'm not sure how to define complexity. It isn't obvious that humans are "more
complex" than cockroaches but it does seem obvious that humans and cockroaches
are more complex than viruses and that life has become more complex over the
last few billion years.

~~~
TSiege
Actually yes, the reverse does occur in nature. There are viruses that
scientists believe originated from more complex life forms into "simpler"
ones.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_virus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_virus)

~~~
leftyted
Thanks, that's fascinating. Relevant part from wikipedia:

> Their discovery and subsequent characterization has triggered some debate
> concerning the evolutionary origins of giant viruses. The two main
> hypotheses for their origin are that either they evolved from small viruses,
> picking up DNA from host organisms, or that they evolved from very
> complicated organisms into the current form which is not self-sufficient for
> reproduction. What sort of complicated organism giant viruses might have
> diverged from is also a topic of debate. One proposal is that the origin
> point actually represents a fourth domain of life, but this is not
> universally accepted

------
dlivingston
> Those who run small businesses find it nearly impossible to walk away from
> Facebook, Instagram, Yelp, Etsy, even Amazon. Employers often mandate that
> their workers use certain apps or systems like Zoom, Slack, and Google Docs.
> “It is only the hyper-privileged who are now saying, ‘I’m not going to give
> my kids this,’ or, ‘I’m not on social media,’” says Rumman Chowdhury, a data
> scientist at Accenture. “You actually have to be so comfortable in your
> privilege that you can opt out of things.”

What an absolutely absurd thing to say.

In the context of small business owners, your Facebook/Instagram/Yelp presence
is no different than that of a "hyper-privileged" company, sans the
advertising budget and amount of staffers who work on it.

In the context of your employer, enterprise software like Google Docs and
Slack are (ostensibly) different than their consumer counterparts, in terms of
analytics, data collection, and advertising. Further, the "hyper-privileged"
middle- and upper-managers at tech companies are far more likely to use these
forms of enterprise software than the under-privileged classes in America.

In the context of personal life, you are under absolutely no obligation,
regardless of social caste, to join Instagram or Facebook and it's
disingenuous to claim otherwise.

There is a certain class of media, of which I count Vox as a preeminent
example, which constantly use hyperbole and socially-charged arguments in
contexts where it doesn't fit or make sense.

~~~
blotter_paper
> In the context of personal life, you are under absolutely no obligation,
> regardless of social caste, to join Instagram or Facebook and it's
> disingenuous to claim otherwise.

I've had an employer require me to make a facebook account. They let me use a
fake name, but it seems like that decision was made during hiring by my
immediate manager. Upper management only allowed it to continue because it was
agreed upon during hiring. If I were required to use my real name, it would be
impossible to stop actual acquaintances from seeing my profile. You're not
obligated to work for a specific company, of course, but saying "nobody is
obligated to clean toilets regardless of social class" would seem ignorant of
the reality of working class life.

~~~
anovikov
Why would employer require anyone to make a facebook account? Also if you make
one but never post anything on it, how does it help the employer with whatever
their goals may be?

~~~
Impossible
Facebook is an employer that has a legitimate reason to require that you have
a Facebook account.

~~~
jogjayr
It never came up when I interviewed there :-) and I doubt it's why I didn't
get the offer.

------
sebringj
The author wrote: "Evolution is driven by random mutations - mistakes, not
plans." But...plans are often mistaken or go awry and random mutations are not
actually mistakes as there is no plan. But to note, Elon has really been a
driver to push space tech forward so it does take people to decide to do this,
but zooming way back, there does seem to be an overall pattern of building
things on top of other things and so forth, creating an ever increasing
complex solution that enables humans to do more than ever before.

~~~
helpPeople
Elon has contributed to space? I thought he was a military/nasa supplier.

If anyone has insight, I'm interested.

~~~
SuoDuanDao
They provided the funding, but he pushed the cost of manufacture down so low
that new things can be done with the same resources.

------
scottlocklin
I wrote something with a very similar title in 2009:

[https://www.takimag.com/article/the_myth_of_technological_pr...](https://www.takimag.com/article/the_myth_of_technological_progress/)

I've considered turning it into a book, since it is almost self-evidently true
and saying it out loud seems to piss people off.

~~~
zamfi
Frankly, the dismissals you use for insulin (“allow fat people to eat more
sugar without slaughtering horses and pigs”) and smartphones (“can we really
do anything with computers now that we couldn’t have done 30 or even 50 years
ago?”) kind of destroy the legitimacy of your article.

Readily available insulin (along with automated pumps) allows folks with type
1 diabetes (you know, not the “fat people”, but the almost-died autoimmune
people) to live quasi-normal lives.

The point of smartphones isn’t that they’re small versions of regular
computers, the point is that they’re everywhere. Do you not see that as
categorically different? You could not, for example, hail a cab from a
mainframe in 1959. Whereas now you have a device in your pocket that connects
you with a cabbie with a similar device in their pocket. The fact that they’re
computers using radio networks (old tech that makes it “not progress” to you)
is completely irrelevant. That’s to say nothing of the fact that in 1959 cabs
wouldn’t stop for black Americans, or visit gay neighborhoods in the ‘80s,
etc. etc. — smartphones have completely changed the landscape there.

These kinds of dismissals are like sitting in 1959 saying that planes aren’t
that fundamentally different from cars — sure they’re faster, but they’re
still fuel-powered engines that take you from point A to point B! And they’re
more expensive! Radio is just a telegraph with no wires! The smallpox vaccine
is just so that those slummy “urban dwellers” can avoid spending time with
cows while they’re kids!

All technology development is path dependent, and looking at the path and
saying “therefore this isn’t progress” is not a particularly valuable insight
in my humble opinion.

~~~
scottlocklin
Takimag audiences appreciate non politically correct jokes; a man writes for
his audience. If you don't like it, well, I'm sorry you're so sensitive I
guess. I'm not sorry for making jokes. That statement also makes an important
point: diabetics had solutions back in the old days 40 years before 2009, and
there sure were a lot less people with self-inflicted diabetes then.

My dismissals are simply the magnitude of the difference. The comparison class
for nerd dildos is ... the invention of the computer and networking technology
in the first place in the decades before. The invention of the computer and
associated networking technology is a _vast_ increase in human power. Smart
phones are a convenience, and a democratization of old technology; not a
categorically new thing which _insanely_ changes people's way of life. Even in
1969 (now that it's been 50 years), one could put a nickel in a pay phone and
summon a cab. It worked about as well as Uber does in most circumstances. In
cities, where you're most likely to use such services, you could also just
wave at a taxi. I did it for 3 months earlier this year in Lisbon: it worked
just fine, and was often _faster_ than uber!

The sad thing, to me, is people really think their networked electrical dingus
is comparable to something like _computers_ -to say nothing of antibiotics,
the atom bomb, spaceflight and so on. I mean, you're in good company: no less
a personage than Jerry Pournelle made the same argument you are making here.
But it's still wrong!

~~~
scarface74
_Takimag audiences appreciate non politically correct jokes; a man writes for
his audience._

Is your audience filled with intellectually non curious people? Your
description of insulin is factually incorrect, leads to more ignorance. I knew
there was a difference but many don’t.

 _Smart phones are a convenience, and a democratization of old technology; not
a categorically new thing which insanely changes people 's way of life._

Having a phone in everyone's pocket -- especially in developing countries has
led to a completely new economy for the unbanked.

 _In cities, where you 're most likely to use such services, you could also
just wave at a taxi. I did it for 3 months earlier this year in Lisbon:_

Unless you're a person of color and statiscally, cab drivers were less likely
to stop for you....

~~~
scottlocklin
I refuse to engage with your ridiculous virtue signalling. You can do that
somewhere else with someone who will be impressed.

Nobody is denying smart phones have had a large impact on the world. I do deny
they are anywhere near in importance to, say, the invention of the computer,
space flight, the atom bomb or antibiotics. There is absolutely no comparison.

It's like comparing the invention of a specific kind of internal combustion
engine to ... the invention of the heat engine in the first place. The
harnessing of heat into mechanical energy was a cataclysmic event for
humanity. It made possible industrial civilization. The invention, say, of the
diesel engine was an improvement which also had consequences. It's not really
comparable to "heat engines" though!

~~~
scarface74
So it’s “virtue signaling” that a goal for a blog that you hope to turn into a
book should be factually correct?

------
buboard
It's not a myth, it's the default state of humanoids to invent new tools all
the time. What is the article suggesting, that we sit on our chair doing
nothing? Everything humans do is progress forward so that thinking doesnt even
make sense.

> that they are fundamentally different from any other industry. They’re not.

Yes, tech is fundamentally different from all other industries because it's
not regulated. Regulation kills innovation thats why tech is progressing
faster.

Author makes the claim that tech is not random mutation like evolution, but
then goes on to mention 1000 projects like smart diapers which are nothing
than random mutations of existing products, most of them destined to die,
leaving 1 or 2 which will thrive. That sounds a lot like evolution.

~~~
coldtea
> _It 's not a myth, it's the default state of humanoids to invent new tools
> all the time. What is the article suggesting, that we sit on our chair doing
> nothing?_

Sometimes yes, why not? As a great mathematician said, "All of humanity's
problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone".

> _Everything humans do is progress forward so that thinking doesnt even make
> sense._

Well, nuclear warheads, and bio-warfare are not "progress forward". Many
things non-war related aren't either.

People should stop being naive and confuse mere technological innovation with
societal advancement. Or to think that just because some technology is created
and gets widespread it's necessarily more good than bad (nukes got widespread
too).

Technological progress could be the very opposite of societal progress, even
help bring a regression in certain aspects (e.g. make it easier for
governments to be despotic, and eventually kill democracy).

That's not just something for luddites to say either - consider how people
like Kurzweil, Hawking, or Musk warned about an "AI Singularity" that could
enslave us all. Whether you consider that concern overblown, or not, in
principle it shows that not all technological innovation is good.

~~~
buboard
> man's inability

yep. the wise mathematician saw that it's impossible

> are not "progress forward"

nuclear warheads gave us nuclear power and brought a long peace in the world.
They were very beneficial. Nuclear war and biowarfare are terrible, but the
deterrence stalemate it creates is beneficial to the species. It's arguably
the most stable recipe for peace so far

> mere technological innovation with societal advancement

"Societal advancement" is a totally relative term. Advancement towards what?
Individual Freedom? Collectivism? OOps ... politics

Technology is monotonically advancing towards more advanced (complex)
effective tools, always. The two are not related

~~~
coldtea
> _nuclear warheads gave us nuclear power and brought a long peace in the
> world. They were very beneficial._

And tomorrow they could wipe out the whole planet (besides the 250,000 people
they've already wiped out). What would the verdict be at that case? Probably
there wont be one, as there would be noone to make it (or noone who cares to
make it).

> _" Societal advancement" is a totally relative term.

My sentiments exactly. So one can't throw it willy nilly when they merely mean
technological advancement. Nazi Germany was more technologically advanced than
the Weimar republic that preceded it, for example, but few would consider it a
"more advanced" society towards more social harmony in general...

>_Advancement towards what? Individual Freedom? Collectivism? OOps ...
politics*

Yeah, so? You can have technological progress without getting into politics on
whether it's progress, but you can't have "progress" in abstract without
defining towards what.

"Freer markets" for example, or "more democracy" is already talking
politics...

> _Technology is monotonically advancing towards more advanced (complex)
> effective tools, always._

That's also false. Civilizations have lost technology and regressed backwards
at a few points (the "dark ages" after the Roman empire was one of them).

And, magical thinking and wishing aside, there's no guarantee from the
universe that it can't happen again, even in a much more severe state. Either
caused by man (e.g. after a nuclear war or similar) or by forces of nature
(e.g. a meteor or similar).

------
peter303
Progress is fairly recent idea. When you didnt see much difference between
your life and your grandparents, then progress is not obvious.

Plus some histories and myths have humans degenerating from a golden age-
Eden, Atlantis, etc. Other have eternal cycles.

~~~
mbillie1
"Progress is merely a modern idea, which is to say, a false idea."

------
MadWombat
> Technologists’ desire to make a parallel to evolution is flawed at its very
> foundation. Evolution is driven by random mutation — mistakes, not plans

But this is not what the evolution metaphor is alluding to. Nobody in their
right mind would argue that technological progress is driven by random
mutations. But it is driven by market pressure. If something can be invented
and sold, it will be invented and sold, be it invasive surveillance tools for
your kids or Bluetooth enabled condoms. And market pressure is in some sense
akin to evolutionary pressure where if there is a biological niche, some form
of life will evolve to take advantage of it.

That said, the argument about regulation is somewhat sound. Just because the
current market for technological innovations is pretty much unregulated (at
least as far as things like privacy are concerned), doesn't mean it has to
stay that way. Back in the day pharmaceutical companies sold heroin laced
cough drops and radioactive face creams, but then FDA was established and took
control of drug safety. There is no theoretical reason why something similar
cannot happen in the technology market.

The problem, the way I see it, is that regulation is driven by perceived risk.
It is easy to argue that pharmaceutical industry has to be regulated, since
the danger of bad and/or inefficient drugs is fairly obvious to everyone.
Arguing that technology has to be regulated is a lot harder, because the
perceived risk of erosion of privacy is a lot lower and hard to quantify.

~~~
ltbarcly3
> But this is not what the evolution metaphor is alluding to. Nobody in their
> right mind would argue that technological progress is driven by random
> mutations.

I agree and will add that human evolution IS becoming plan driven, we are
learning to fix genetic diseases, and keep people alive to reproduce despite
genetic conditions (genetic diseases via various treatments, susceptibility to
disease via antibiotics and vaccines and basically all of medicine). Soon we
are likely to be making intentional changes to people's dna before they are
born.

So evolution itself is becoming planned.

------
nitwit005
There's been plenty of technological progress in the drug trade despite being
illegal nearly everywhere, and a widespread perception of drugs being a social
ill.

It's inevitable that if there is enough demand for something, someone will
make it. There will be people out there that don't care about the ethics. Some
of those things can be constrained by regulation or social pressure, but only
some of them.

------
4ristotle
> Evolution is a terrible metaphor for technology

If you remove this assertion, the article is unnecessarily alarmist about all
new tech.

------
montalbano
A nice quote from the article:

> ___Evolution doesn’t have meetings about the market, the environment, the
> customer base. Evolution doesn’t patent things or do focus groups. Evolution
> doesn’t spend millions of dollars lobbying Congress to ensure that its plans
> go unfettered._ __

Those making bold claims about a "natural evolution" of technology remind me
of people who like to expound Adam Smith's "invisible hand" whilst ignoring
Smith's warnings on the collusive nature of business and need for government
oversight.

As we acquire more control over our bodies and environment, so we must have
more considered discussion on the direction we want to take as a species.

~~~
themacguffinman
The article's line of reasoning is silly. Sure, technology does not personally
hold meetings or lobby Congress, just like evolution doesn't personally have
sex or eat other creatures; they just effectively kill everything that
doesn't, so what's the difference?

I find it insane that people really think they can directly control the
direction of our species. Congratulations on, for example, having a great
discussion about how surveillance and automated weaponry is bad and wrong and
Americans, for example, should stop making it. Applause all around. Do you
think China is having the same discussion? Do you think this discussion will
somehow prevent China from using its surveillance and AI weaponry to usurp
American dominance, spread and develop its technology unfettered, and render
your neat little discussion completely worthless?

Just like evolution, technology relies on the basic fact that there's always
someone to pick up its mantle. There's actually no practical way to forever
stop everyone from making market-efficient or gene-efficient choices, because
those efficient choices inherently grant the power to surpass people like you
who seek to stop it.

I think the sooner people realize this, the more influence they gain over
their destiny. Technology isn't completely untameable, but don't delude
yourself into thinking you can directly control it or stop it. Feel free to
focus your efforts on ethical and "good" technology, but remember that the
only thing that actually matters in this cold universe is power and the
technology that creates it. Ethical technology is worthless if it creates no
power or efficiency. Decentralized tech is a perfect example of this. A lot of
moral talk and hype - like discussion about what direction we want to take as
a species - but most decentralized tech made so far is simply worse and tries
to appeal to people's morality to adopt it. Is it any surprise that it has
mostly failed?

A "more considered discussion" is not the answer. Instead, make something
that's more or equally efficient while also being better for society. Don't
bring rhetorical or regulatory weapons to a tech fight. You won't win.

------
Finnucane
The article is displaying an ad with the tagline "The Evolution of Watching
Movies in your PJs".

I don't think the author is suggesting that you can stop technological change.
The author is saying that it is fair to recognize the change often comes with
a cost, and you can ask if you want to pay that cost. You can takes steps to
mitigate those costs. Also, that the people who create and deploy these
changes should recognize their own responsibility for it. They're not
operating as blind natural forces, but deliberate human actions, and we can
judge them as such.

------
SuoDuanDao
I don't think the important question is whether Progress is a myth - it has
all the qualities and functions of one - but rather, whether it is a useful
myth. Plenty of myths are highly useful, and I would happily argue the the
myth of Progress has been a strong net positive.

For one thing, it seems to me that rather than the author's sparring partners
having misunderstood technology, she may have misunderstood evolution.

------
throwaway8291
Technology gets better, alright. And there so many things, I can do today, I
could not do just a decade ago.

Hardware is fantastic, it's fast, almost never fails, it's lightweight and
just works.

The software side has been a great disappointment, on the other hand. Software
spies on you, makes you a marionette of a corporation, it's getting more
brittle in many parts. Many people in business do not care about security or
some basic ethics and it's mirrored in the apps and tools we use.

Imagine a world, where software respects every users privacy, most connections
are safe by default and people feel ok about updating things, because things
most of the times get better. It sounds like a utopia today.

I really wanted to like software as a thing, but the current and the next
decade do not look bright to me. On the contrary.

We'll have many more abandoned devices, abandoned software, that some poor guy
will depend on, more chaos, more junior developers who do not understand basic
things, let alone caring about ethics or the consequences of what they are
building. It's sad.

~~~
ARandomerDude
To be clear, the article isn't denying that technology advances and has
advanced.

The author is correcting the subtle, prevalent mindset that views
technological improvement as essentially a Darwinian process of blind
progress. But technology isn't like that. It's inherently teleological.
Somebody (or a group of somebodies) expends enormous effort to create
technology on purpose for a purpose.

TL;DR – just because I can build this doesn't mean I should.

------
jkingsbery
> “What already happened doesn’t really matter. You don’t need to know that
> history to build on what they made. In technology, all that matters is
> tomorrow.”

I think one of the advantages of engineers studying history is that you
understand that while the technology we build has never been done before,
nothing is inevitable about any of this, and there's no reason to think it
should go on forever by itself. Societies have lost literacy (see eg
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Dark_Ages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Dark_Ages)).
There are books that have been lost forever. Technologies have been forgotten
until they were rediscovered. And studying history also shows that while
technology might change, human nature does not.

~~~
dredmorbius
The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Cirve is a thing. Ultimately logarithmic.

It's generally cast as personal/individual, but applies to groups,
organisations, and cultures as well.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting_curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting_curve)

------
wrnr
Most grows is not exponential, rather it is shaped like an S curve. A novel
phenotype/technology flourishes by taking advantage of some free energy, but
after the low hanging fruits have been picket the multitude of offspring has
to compete for smaller returns.

------
gerbilly
I think people are tripping up on the word 'evolution' too much. The more
important word in the article is 'inevitable'.

Sometimes it's good to be reminded that there is nothing inevitable about
everything in our lives becoming a surveillance platform.

------
proc0
"This idea persists in part because Americans cannot resist the allure of
“progress”

i think the UK was a huge part of the information revolution in the 20th
century, not to mention centuries of European technologies that had little to
do with current American culture. I also suspect there will be new countries
jumping in soon and contributing hugely to upcoming IT innovations. I don't
think there's much doubt about technological progress at least in info-tech,
the singularity is a different conversation that actually includes
philosophical questions of consciousness.

------
skybrian
The main point rings true, similar to how people often take for granted things
predicted by economics. But nothing the "invisible hand" does happens by
itself. Opportunities don't get taken advantage of until someone does the
work, and their decisions matter.

Still, there is an evolution-like filtering process partially determining
which companies succeed and which ones fail, and ignoring the effect of a
company's environment (customers, suppliers, competitors, and regulators) on a
product's success is missing something essential.

------
jordanpg
So what's the policy proposal here?

Give some government agency release approval authority on all production
software builds?

There is a _gross_ mismatch between the pace of change and the pace of any
available mechanism for regulation.

If this is indeed a problem, the solution will have to be a cultural one, not
a technocratic one.

In the meantime, this kind of criticism makes me roll my eyes and wonder how
much the author actually knows about how hardware and software are actually
developed in the year 2019.

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
This is Vox, so don't waste breath looking for a policy proposal.

------
PavlovsCat
Yes, the idea of progress as a straight line is silly, it's like a tree that
goes into all directions. All we can do is make progress along a certain route
of branches, at the exclusion of others; for every door opened, countless
doors close.

To be able to gauge how "well" we're doing, how "good" our progress is, we
would have to compare with all other branches we could have ended up on by
now, and that is not possible.

------
beat
Reminds me of the old science fiction trope... "We asked if we can, we never
asked if we should".

The technology will happen, because sensors and AI and IoT are just... stuff.
Stuff that's useful in non-threatening ways. So the question is, when does
society push back? When do we start banning this sort of surveillance? Or will
we?

No, it's not inevitable. But that doesn't mean it won't happen.

------
todipa
An interesting parallelism can be drawn between those communities that
embraced "progress" and those that didn't. Unfortunately or fortunately
(depending on your views), communities that adopted technology thrived and are
mainly in control of writing our history so yes, we do have an ingrained bias
view.

~~~
lm28469
> communities that adopted technology thrived and are mainly in control of
> writing our history so yes

Define "thriving", if you mean maximising profit, consumption and pollution,
then yes. Cancer also thrives right until the host dies, it doesn't mean it's
a good thing

~~~
lostmsu
HDI is one possible measure.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index)

------
acoil
I think evolution is a valid way to look at technology as long as you are open
to the idea that it may not be evolving to better serve us. You are simply a
part of technologies environment- something it uses to reproduce and grow.

------
crimsonalucard
Most technological progress is happening in terms of information processing.
It's sort of abstract and dare I say illusory.

In terms of things like space travel, energy or physical technology it feels
like we hit a slowdown.

------
api
I think there does seem to be a drive toward "progress" in various ways over a
long time span, but as they say in investing: nothing goes straight up and
nothing goes straight down.

------
andrewtbham
This article is a straw man argument that conflates ideas that there is an
inevitable progress in technology, like Moore's law, with a claim that you can
do anything you want with technology because it's inevitable.

This article is anti-technology, pro-regulation propaganda.

------
mikelyons
Evolution is present in all things, it is inevitable. All things evolve
because all things are impermanent. The question is, is evolution of
technology now only driven by profit and military defense? Or can evolution be
driven by the desire for a better future that is more full of Love and less
full of violence and fear.

People are defining evolution too narrowly, look to see it happening all
around you, socially, technically, geologically, comologically.

Consciousness itself is evolving and that is why we are seeing the limits of
Spiral Dynamics stage orange capitalism.

What will our economic system evolve into when society evolves from orange to
green? How will this affect our technological evolution?

(this will be quite painful but necessary for our survival)

------
miki123211
I disagree with almost everything in this article.

1\. The facial recognition on students case. This has been done in physical
schools for decades. Teachers had been telling kids to pay attention forever.
Now, after moving to virtual, a similar solution has been developed.
Personally, I would be happy if I could use something like this for my own
learning. Identifying the moments when I didn't focus, so that I could re-
learn just what I need, is certainly useful and helps a lot.

2\. People don't understand that privacy has a price. If Facebook weren't
serving us targeted ads, it would be asking us money. I prefer seeing ads over
paying money. 99% of people also do. This is evident by Facebook's success.
Some things cannot even be done a different way. We can live without smart
speakers. They're not really an essential thing in your lives yet. Still,
people buy them. They prefer the loss of privacy, that carries almost no real
consequences, over the inability to use a technology that helps them.

3\. Regulation around drugs means drugs are expensive and development is
slowed down. It's very hard to make new, revolutionary drugs, unless you're a
big company. If you're a big company, sometimes you don't want to pursue a
certain direction, as not to disturb the status quo and not to kill your
golden goose. You're also extremely profit-driven, much more so than small
inventors. This will be true about technology. When it gets regulated, any new
developments that might benefit humanity will be slowed down or not pursued at
all. we will also end up with way more monopollies than we have now.

4\. You know, people who never went to america make progress too? Europe has
their fair share of startups too. Sure, America was and is the center of
technology, mostly for geopolitical/legal/historical reasons, but that doesn't
mean anything. I completely don't get this argument.

This article is a perfect example of the anti-big-tech crusade the mainstream
media are pursuing recently, which is very alarming. I'm not saying there are
no issues with the way current technology works. In my opinion, most of them
stem from the fact that law, especially tax law, favors big companies with big
armies of lawyers over small companies or even collectives. Those companies
usually have shareholders and investors breathing on their necks, so they need
to pursue every direction, no matter how unethical, that can bring them more
profit. Corporate lock-in and the "move fast and break things" movement are
also major issues. Privacy isn't one, though. People think of that
surveillance done by machines is equivalent to surveillance done by people. I
disagree. If I don't really get any negative consequences from Facebook having
my data (and I see none), while getting a lot of positive consequences, I'm
all for it.

------
foobar_
Technology has been the only change for the past 40000 years. Human nature not
so much.

~~~
dredmorbius
There was little change over much that time.

Human nature, or at least capabilities and behaviours, have shown several
marked breakout points.

------
pbreit
If I could understand this article I think I would violently disagree.

------
Animats
His criticisms apply to capitalism, not technology. If you accept the Milton
Freedman position that corporations have as their sole duty the enrichment of
their shareholders, this is what you get.

------
ltbarcly3
Why would we expect that any technology we have the ability to develop would
be developed? Just because there are literally no counter examples? Why do we
expect the sun to come up every morning?

The choice is to let society absorb and adjust to technological innovations,
or pretend you can stop them from happening and tilt at windmills while
society adapts and absorbs those changes.

The other option is to leave society and refuse to accept new technologies
(while society adapts and absorbs them) like the Amish or Ted Kaczynski.

------
thorwasdfasdf
I think our idea of what progress is needs to change. In my mind, the
following are not progress: facial recognition, smart diapers, and
surveillance devices. And handheld devices like iphones are a very minor
progress. the problem with these things is they don't really enable anything
new. So what if the diaper tells you that it's full, I could've done that just
by sniffing it: bluetoothing it is NOT progress. Facial recognition on my
door: now I don't need to pull out a key, big deal. Iphones: wow, now I can
get a map on my phone. I used to just print them out and that worked fine, I
could still get to my destination. admittedly having on the phone makes
getting there a little easier - this is minor progress - saves me maybe a few
minutes at most.

Here are examples real progress: (these are all examples that save thousands
of hours of labor, not just a few minutes) \- being able to get to work faster
or more cost effectively

\- lowering the cost of housing and bringing housing prices down.

\- technology to allow remote work (as if you were there in person)

\- lowering the cost of medical insurance and medical costs in general.

\- lowering the cost of education (this can be easily done if we get rid of
the monopoly of the current institutions -> there are a ton of online schools
and programs that would happily teach people at a much lower cost, if not
free.)

~~~
lotsofpulp
Execution matters, and handheld devices like iPhones have great eased
execution. It's ludicrous to claim the ease of video calling and using the
internet via sandboxed apps is not significant. There are huge efficiency
gains made when a person can purchase their own travel, get medical help via
their handheld device, ability to consume media without needing set top boxes
and televisions, etc.

~~~
thorwasdfasdf
It's a second rate device. handheld devices are things you use when you don't
have a computer with you or aren't able to use it. Most things you can do on a
mobile device, you can do on a computer much more quickly and with quicker
more accurate typing, better UI, more screens, etc.

when you're stuck on a train, standing and not able to use a computer, do
mobile devices become useful.

~~~
lotsofpulp
The data says it’s not considered a second rate device for the millions of
people opting to use them over desktops or laptops.

