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>The solution isn't to halt technological progress

Technological progress is not a linear deterministic progression. We decide how to progress every step of the way. The problem is that we are making dogshit decisions for some reason

Maybe we lack the creativity to envision alternative futures. How does a society become so uncreative I wonder




> We decide how to progress every step of the way.

I think the wheels are turning. It's just a resultant movement from thousands of small movements, but nobody is controlling it. If you take a look not even wars dent the steady progress of science and technology.


But do you know what reducing the progress of generative modeling will do? Because there seems to be this confusion that generative modeling is about art/music/text.


You'll find its nearly impossible to imagine a world without capitalism.

Capitalism is particularly good at weaponizing our own ideas against us. See large corporations co-opting anti-capitalist movements for sales and PR.

Pepsi-co was probably mad that they couldn't co-op "defund the police", "fuck 12", and "ACAB" like they could with "black lives matter".

Anything near and dear to us will be manipulated into a scientific formula to make a profit, and anything that cannot is rejected by any kind of mainstream media.

See: Capitalist Realism and Manufactured Consent(for how advertising effects freedom of speech in any media platform).


Perhaps it would be better to say you can't imagine "the future" without capitalism, as history prior to maybe the 1600s offers a less technologically advanced illustration.


Yes thanks.

A lot used to escape the market logic. And I hope we go back to some of that. Not everything has to be profitable / a market.

Example: commons infrastructure, common grazing place for cattle, the woods.

What I wish would be pulled of the markets : School, hospital, energy infra


The escape from a pure profit driven world would go so far.

Imagine all the good things that aren't done because they just don't make any money. Instead we put resources towards things that make our lives worse because they're profitable.


This is part of the reason why I am disappointed, but not surprised, by all the flippant response to the concerns voiced here.

So AI puts artists out of a job and in some utopian vision, one day puts programmers out of a job, and nobody has jobs and that's what we should want, right, so why are you complaining about your personal suffering on the inevitable march of progress?

There is little to no worthwhile discussion from those same people about if the Puritanical worldview of work-to-live will be addressed, or how billionaires/capitalists/holders-of-the-resources respond to a world where no one has jobs, an income stream, and thus money to buy their products. Because Capitalist Realism has permeated, and we can no longer imagine a plausibly possible future that isn't increasingly technofeudalist. Welcome back to Dune?


It’s pretty easy to imagine a world without capitalism. It’s the one where the government declares you a counterrevolutionary hedonist for wanting to do art and forces you to work for the state owned lithium mine.

Mixed social-democratic economies are nice and better than plutocracies, but they have capitalism; they just have other economic forms alongside it.

(Needing to profit isn’t exclusive to capitalism either. Socialist societies also need productivity and profit, because they need to reinvest.)


Or a world where the gouvernement runs hospitals & schools and pay for it, no matter the cost. Effectively pulling those out of the market.

It’s not a fantasy idea. I grow up there and it’s still working.

It’s not out of beautiful idea either. But sheer pragmatism.

A country will always need those things and those are important things. We might as well invest in them for the long run.

Clearly those are not hip idea anymore. Oh well.




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