I don’t have a problem with central organization of effort; mathematician by education; there a real efficiencies in material
use and lack of redundancy.
The real problem is continued deference to old ownership memes; that a minority must be empowered due to past contract none of us were even alive to see signed. How do we know in real terms the truth given a past we can never experience?
Historical trends are one thing; that Bezos specifically is that special is another. This is the first period in history where the elders could hold power this long. It’s tacit ageism and everyone is too scared to say that to old people who would collapse in shock at the slightest whiff of real pushback, they’re so used to being coddled; they’re hardly a real threat.
Start telling your elders their past success does not give them ownership of the future.
Engineers could leverage their economic might via collective action; don’t open your wfh laptop today.
Updating the Upton Sinclair quote without the gender bias; it’s difficult getting a person to understand something when their investment portfolio valuation depends on them not understanding it.
Who are they if they’re not what they are now?
When you all stop posting on corporate forums and working their jobs, shopping their stores, I’ll take you all sincerely and seriously.
Especially in the NFT era of rug pulls. Globalization cannot run on fly by night grifters.
Anarcho-syndicalists that argue for workers councils run by experts basically got that but it comes coupled to outdated story of ownership.
In real terms the logistics and infrastructure are determined by experts but with the extra steps
of getting validation from financiers who have no experience with the engineering methods, but their name is on some paperwork somewhere saying “they own that”.
I am cool with centralization effort to minimize duplication of effort. Not the kowtowing to some financier who lucked into money in the past in unrelated business, picking and choosing what I work on today as an engineer with nearly 30 years experience ranging from hardware design to kernel hacking, onto web app stacks with everyone else.
The ownership story is political double speak and corrupt expropriation of agency; replacing pols has improved economic gains for public and flushed corruption: https://www.nber.org/papers/w29766
Devils advocate; I ditched video games, TV, mindless social media, internet scrolling, but kept the daily 420 and coffee (caffeine is a psychoactive too) and I get more technical work done than ever.
In the end the weed makes what I’m doing feel more interesting. Media is designed to be interesting; together, too much stimulus.
Like remote or in office, it’s too subjective to say what is exactly right or not for others.
That we need to “create” the idea of a “nudge effect” when it’s clear people take on commonly encountered social behaviors is bizarre.
Cognitive experience is a for loop with memory; for time spent in situation X, memory forms at rate Y. Social science solved.
Social science derives all it’s conclusions by studying the same old physical world as physical science. It’s restatement of science customized to cultural tradition. It’s cultural tradition to over hype our specialness selling books and big ideas, when the math is the same everywhere. Creating cultural objects of obvious math is a commodity now.
I can’t help but see social science as humans attempting to modernize memory of imperialism and religious belief embedded by prior experience.
Think of how popular it became as a field in the last 50-100 years as the populace became less religious. The US adult population recently crossed a threshold where <50% believe in higher power now.
No science gives social scientists higher powers of forecasting human future, yet we took the ideas and applied them with the same conviction some believe in gods, in the same way; a network of randos spreading their gossip, wrapping it in technical jargon biased by past ignorance.
Consider how much of this work was being leveraged against an ignorant public with no opt out button, via print and TV. How is that informed consent?
Social media comes along, upends those forms of media, creates a new meta awareness we lived in a society policed by high minded but normal people. That awareness means we can opt out of being influenced by intentional nudges, same as we opt out of believing in intentional nudges to abide higher powers.
Social science “worked” when the masses were unaware it was happening to them. As the public has become more aware of how it works, it’s all Soylent green; just people.
Because you’re using the library’s we have today; they don’t make the unknown you encountered easy.
What about the ripples from “enough people” losing their jobs?
Covid and the logistics whiplash have done nothing to embed in people they’re just one of seven billion. Each still acts like the king of their own mountain. It’s pretty sad.
You have no say over your place in a future society that appears keen to rug pull the masses lives from under them.
It is not their car. They should have no say over the operating parameters.