
‘Capitalism generates a lot of wealth depending on the situation’ - ajaviaad
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/15/capitalism-generates-a-lot-of-wealth-depending-on-the-situation/
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dj_gitmo
I have starting looking for software engineering jobs for the first time in a
few years, and I'm looking at it through a more socially conscious lens than I
did a few years ago.

I'm not opposed to commerce or people making money, but so many of the startup
I see are based on business plans that just seem dystopian.

Software can solve real problems, but right now capital seems to be choosing
some really unsettling applications. Things like using ML to inform
"behavioral nudges" for asset manager, many of the healthcare tech startups,
and all of the surveillance and spying tech.

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geofft
This article is a paywalled interview with Ben Tarnoff, but the preface links
this non-paywalled opinion piece from him which is interesting:
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/17/tech-
clim...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/17/tech-climate-
change-luddites-data)

I agree that "Luddite" is a label we shouldn't be afraid of - at the very
least, it should be within the Overton window of acceptable, debatable ideas.
It is not an impractical and kneejerk opposition to technology; it is a
principled belief that some particular technology, while it might make other
people rich, hurts me and others like me, and we have the right to defend
ourselves. It is certainly not a mere fear of unfamiliar technology.

One thing I'm noticing from the world around me is the extent to which
political campaigning is a zero-sum game. We've poured billions of dollars
into the US presidential campaigns, funding everything from microtargeted
advertising to (probably) machine learning to figure out who to microtarget,
and the effect is that _each candidate_ spends tons of money on it, fighting
each other. It's not clear that overall outcomes have improved (e.g., "does
the elected president more accurately represent what the people actually want,
because they're better informed about positions and issues"), and it certainly
seems like if you could magically prevent everyone from spending piles of
money, we wouldn't be any worse for it - but it's very hard to do that in any
meaningful sense (there's enough ways to spend money on influence, on get-out-
the-vote campaigns targeting specific neighborhoods, etc.), so it's irrational
for anyone to voluntarily back down. And a huge chunk of this money, in turn,
is spent on computers (and electricity and emissions) and not on human jobs.

> _Decomputerization doesn’t mean no computers. It means that not all spheres
> of life should be rendered into data and computed upon. Ubiquitous
> “smartness” largely serves to enrich and empower the few at the expense of
> the many, while inflicting ecological harm that will threaten the survival
> and flourishing of billions of people._

~~~
mojuba
> the effect is that each candidate spends tons of money on it, fighting each
> other

I've been following Brexit since 2016 and my impression from the
materials/research available is that microtargeting via social networks is in
fact cheaper than the "analog" campaigning. Let alone money spent on political
ads are easier to dodge and thus not even report as campaign spending. But in
any case microtargeting being cheaper _is_ the reason it's being increasingly
used in politics.

Now taking the price into account, I'm not so sure energy consumption is
greater for digital campaigns compared to the "analog" ones: consider rallies,
talks other events that have a similar impact to microtargeting.

That is not to say digital campaigning is better in any sense of the word, it
is scary because it can be far more manipulative (take Brexit as an example),
just that the carbon footprint argument is not very convincing to me in this
case.

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oxymoran
This is why we need to evolve to a more human centered capitalism. We need to
put stakeholders back ahead of shareholders. We need to realize that growth is
not limitless and to stop worshiping it. And we need to stop measuring our
success as a nation based on macroeconomic metrics like GDP and focus more on
metrics that indicate the wellbeing of our citizens. We can not abandon
capitalism but we cannot stagnate either.

~~~
dragonwriter
> This is why we need to evolve to a more human centered capitalism

If it's human-centered, it's not capitalism. If it's capitalism, it's not
human-centered. You can't have a “more four-sided triangle”.

~~~
mojuba
Human-centered capitalism is perfectly possible with some of the alternative
forms of stock ownership and company governance. You can start and build a
company that's employee-governed through elections, optionally also employee-
owned in the economic sense, though the latter is optional. There are many
examples of various types of ownership among some famous companies too, from
Ikea to Bosch and Zeiss. What they have in common is, there are no absentee
owners and therefore no pressure of profit maximization at all costs on the
company.

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dj_gitmo
I'm guessing the actual interview is behind a paywall, but it can't really
tell. It just seems like the article ends abruptly.

~~~
geofft
Your ad blocker might be saving you from seeing " _You 've landed on an Extra
Crunch exclusive. Select a plan to continue reading. Already a member? Sign
in._" where it cuts off.

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crimsonalucard
> Capitalism generates a lot of wealth depending on the situation

Isn't communism in the same "depending on the situation" boat?

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SQueeeeeL
Sure but in capitalism, the wealth goes to individual value holders (landlords
and rent seekers are derogatory terms for this). In true communism, the wealth
goes to the state.

The difference to most employees is honestly pretty small, working for
McDonald's versus being a janitor for the post office are functionally the
same, no one really cares who the guy at the top of the chain is.

The main benefit of capitalism is the dream of being the wealthy person, if
you're a janitor it's almost impossible, but the dream is there

~~~
geofft
> _The main benefit of capitalism is the dream of being the wealthy person, if
> you 're a janitor it's almost impossible, but the dream is there_

Would you prefer to be a poverty-line worker with a realistic but unlikely
dream of being wealthy, or a worker who can support a 4-person family
comfortably and retire at age 60 but has no chance of ever making any more
money?

(This is not a rhetorical question, I think there are genuinely lots of
possible answers there.)

~~~
SQueeeeeL
How realistic are we talking here?

~~~
geofft
Let's say a 1% chance, and no amount of trying hard can change that
percentage, it's a pure dice roll.

(This is proxy for limited opportunity, tough facts like "you have a family
that relies on you so you cannot spend 5 years trying and failing at
startups," discrimination, economic downturns, the fact that the world cannot
sustain more than a few Bill Gateses, and all sorts of other things that are
beyond your control even in a capitalist society. On the other hand, I think
1% is significantly _above_ the number of actual janitors who actually strike
it rich in real capitalist societies.)

