
Technology is making the world more unequal; only technology can fix this - a_w
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/may/31/technology-is-making-the-world-more-unequal-only-technology-can-fix-this-cory-doctorow
======
arjie
Guys. He's saying that while technology made it easy for elites to protect
themselves, it's also begun making it easy for groups undermining those
elites. An example of the former is how easy dragnet surveillance is today. An
example of the latter is how easy cryptographically secure communication is
today. That's the entire essay.

There's some rubbish going on in this comment section about fundamentalist
Islam but it's not an important part of the article. Spare yourself the
discussion.

~~~
aaron-lebo
He mentions Islam twice (he circles back around to it), so it is an important
part of the article. Besides, what is militant Islam but the most effective
harnessing of technology to undermine elites there is? To ignore that is to
ignore a very practical example of this at play.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Militant Islam is very useful to elites. The U.S. particularly constantly
screws around in the Middle East supporting groups that later become terrorist
targets of ours. The biggest offenders have the U.S. governments' hands all
over them before they became that. The U.S. protects Saudi Arabia and gives
military aid despite them harboring top promoters of terrorism. The media and
U.S. government here constantly warn people about terrorism with the defense
contractors making billions from that and powermongers getting all kinds of
laws such as Patriot Act passed when people were afraid. They also like doing
this with threats from drug dealers, kidnappers, and pedophiles. There's even
a meme for it they do it so much on Internet side:

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

------
saosebastiao
Technology improvement: Ranked Choice voting

Political impediment: Dismantles the two party system and its vested
interests.

Technology improvement: Algorithmic redistricting

Political impediment: Eliminates a strategic job security system for already-
elected politicians.

Technology improvement: Cryptography

Political impediment: Eliminates a surveillance and control mechanism of
politicians.

This is why we need some form of limited direct democracy. Politicians will
never vote for something that directly or indirectly contradicts their own
personal self interest. They won't vote for shorter term limits, bans on
insider trading, stronger 4th amendment protections, ranked choice voting,
objectively neutral redistricting, etc. Technology can only help us to the
extent that policy and politics allow it.

~~~
pbadg3r
These are all great points. In some cases, ballot initiatives offer some hope.
Check out Represent.US - they're using ballot initiatives to push for things
voters support but elected leaders often don't.

~~~
groby_b
Check out California to see the sheer lunacy of the ballot system in action.
Voter apathy combined with an incredibly uninformed voting population, and on
top of that the inability to make _any_ political modifications to a prop once
it's passed? Yeah. Brilliant plan for populism, but otherwise not so good.

It gave us prop 8, written deliberately confusing to sway the vote. It gave us
prop 47, which was a truckload of measures, many good, some horrible.
Resulting in a huge increase in property crimes, which was a side effect that
you'd only realize if you actually read the damn thing instead of the summary.
Voters don't have that attention span. It gave us prop 69, essentially a
state-run DNA database - into which you're entered on arrest instead of
conviction. Because "but the children" always sells.

~~~
ahartman00
Or Brexit where people voted as a sign of protest, not because they wanted it.
People who voted for it were surprised it passed.

"The notion that many people who voted "Leave" in the EU referendum now regret
their vote because they didn't think "Leave" would win or they didn't realise
the consequences of leaving the Single Market would be so bad." [1]

I think many of the problems of representative democracy stem from the fact
that people don't read the bills, and they dont check their representatives
voting history. Direct democracy seems much worse in that regard.

1\. [http://www.businessinsider.com/brexit-vote-regret-leave-
marg...](http://www.businessinsider.com/brexit-vote-regret-leave-margin-
victory-2016-10)

Edit: added additional thought

------
ThomPete
In other words, it's the technology stupid.

I wouldn't claim it's making it more unequal though but rather it pushes the
"highlander principle" on any industry or nation that becomes "technologized".

Contrary to locally based businesses or nations like restaurants or several
states in ex. Africa where technology doesn't have access, in a technology
driven groupings there mostly can be one and a few runner ups far far down.

But yeah the way out of the problems of technology is trough technology. I
wonder if not jumping onto the technology bandwagon will render som nations
obsolete in a few years.

------
libeclipse
> While Saudi hydrocarbonism denies humanity to women, American hydrocarbonism
> denies credibility to climate scientists.

Heh, nice word.

------
adventured
The core premise is false. The world is becoming less unequal, not more.
Technology is assisting that. That trend has been - aggressively - ongoing for
decades. The world is the most equal it has been in recorded history, almost
entirely thanks to the rapid spread of technology that began in the developed
world and was quickly adopted down the chain economically. The Gates
Foundation expends a fair bit of effort every year trying to correct this line
of ignorance, it appears to not be making a dent in the problem.

------
perfmode
One cannot omit policy as a driving force.

------
existentialenso
Interesting read. I expected something more focused on post-scarcity societies
and automation.

------
aaron-lebo
Some thoughts cause I'm bored:

* There are a lot of parallels to Acemoglu and Robinson and their Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, which puts a strong emphasis on inequality. This seems like a decent review:

[http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2006/01/book_rev...](http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2006/01/book_review_eco.html)

* "Forming and coordinating groups is the hard problem of the human condition; the reason we have religions and corporations and criminal undergrounds and political parties."

Weirdly contradictory, if forming groups is hard, why are there so many
religions, corporations, etc? Forming groups seems to be exceedingly easy and
it is perhaps human to want to be part of something larger even if its
nonsensical or bad for us.

* "Of course, the power of crypto to organise surveillance-resistant communications lines protects everyone from the coercive power of states: not just nice activist groups that want a fairer society, but also whacked-out white supremacists and Islamophobic conspiracy theorists."

Kind of feels weird to take a shot at "Islamophobic conspiracy theorists" when
Islamic terrorist groups are the very "insurgent groups" he's talking about
and probably as effective as any other group at using this tech.

Finally, just kind of disagree with the premise. If tech made the Saudis rich,
if it is empowering the Zuckerbergs and the Erdogans of the world, then
there's nothing inherently good about it. Technology only gets applied within
a larger social context, which is why it's not the tech that matters but the
civic institutions and social morality which discourages invasions of personal
rights and greed which are what really matter. Robert Putnam has some really
interesting stuff on this.

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

~~~
clock_tower
I also like the part where:

1\. Fundamentalist Islam is a "delusional superstition".

2\. "Modern insurgent groups" \-- the most famous of which all follow the said
"delusional superstition" \-- are the good guys.

3\. Even though fundamentalist Islam is a "delusional superstition,"
"Islamophobic conspiracy theorists" are still "whacked out".

And Doctorow probably sees himself as religiously tolerant, despite all this.
This is why you want to check on your beliefs from time to time, to make sure
they're not contradictory.

(And I forgot to mention the part where Saudi Arabia's wealth comes from
technology; Doctorow's using "technology" to mean Internet technology, high-
bandwidth transmission, and the like, not oil wells and internal-combustion
engines.)

------
dahdum
Am I the only one reading this article as needlessly anti-Islam? I'm not
Muslim, but I certainly wouldn't attack their faith as "delusional
superstitions".

~~~
hyperdunc
Delusion and superstition is a large part of most religions. It's legitimate
to criticize Islam for this, especially considering that morally questionable
applications of Islam - such as Sharia - directly reference superstition.

If we accept that more accurate representations of reality generally lead to
better outcomes, then criticism effectively becomes a moral imperative.

