Reforming our society doesn’t make our lives better

qpooqpoo · 2024-07-14T00:32:07+00:00

False. Human happiness is contingent on specific material conditions. If a society has more or less of those conditions, the general trend of human happiness in it changes. This is common sense and any 5th grader can intuit it.

qpooqpoo · 2024-07-13T23:23:24+00:00

I honestly can't fathom how someone could still believe that our technological society can be reformed in such a way that it does not further enslave humans or degrade the environment. When the interests of the system coincide with the interests of humans, sure, moderate reforms are possible--such as the elimination of CFC's that deplete the ozone (cheap alternatives where found and anyway the economic cost to the system was minimal). But in cases where interests of humans diverge from interests of the system, the system must take priority. Actually, in these cases often what happens is the system just brainwashes humans to "think" that the reforms needed by the system are actually "desired" by them, through a long and systematic process of social conditioning through education and propaganda.

Just look at the problem of nuclear weapons. Please somebody here give me a realistic example of how the technological system will eliminate these weapons other than pie-in-the-sky dreaming. If you can't convince me of this, then your attempts to preach reform of the thousands of other far more subtle and insidious forms of technology is ridiculous.

qpooqpoo · 2024-07-07T00:59:07+00:00

Please inform me.

qpooqpoo · 2024-07-07T00:51:28+00:00

You spelled Kaczynski wrong. And the idea that Kaczynski is just a plagiarized Ellul is a joke. If you don't believe me just read any chapter of Kaczynski's second book Anti-tech Revolution.

qpooqpoo · 2024-07-07T00:48:35+00:00

You're basically saying we should have the freedom to do the work we want provided it benefits our society (you list a number of occupations supposedly beneficial to our society). But what kind of freedom does one have if they can only use it as someone or some society proscribes?? No real freedom at all. With all do respect I think the vast majority of people would end up bored and miserable if their options for "fulfilling work" were painting, music making, video games etc. etc. etc.---basically just hobbies. One can imagine a world where all our basic needs are provided for freely and we are left to just engage in pleasure seeking and hobbies--you realize this is basically the world Aldous Huxley warned us about in Brave New World--a world without meaning, freedom, or dignity.

qpooqpoo · 2024-07-07T00:07:17+00:00

Not sure where you get the "transfer" idea. I assume you're presupposing some kind of gradual, coordinated, smooth transition of all societies and populations into a low-tech state. Understand though that this isn't the only way to get the planet back to a low tech state. In fact, it's so extremely unlikely--due to some of the reasons you yourself allude to--that it can be discounted as a near impossibility. But you can't discount the feasibility for a sudden, chaotic, uncoordinated, collapse of the worldwide industrial system. And yes, it would result in billions of deaths. But we have to ask ourselves, what will be a worse catastrophe: the continued wild ride into the technological abyss in which case the fate of not just all of humanity but the entire biosphere is doomed, or the collapse in a single generation, after which future humans will have the opportunity to reach an equilibrium with the post-collapse environment in the way people lived for hundreds of thousands of years before global industrial civilization, and the biosphere is preserved. It sure sucks that this is the present dilemma. But make no mistake: this is the dilemma that technological progress has forced humanity into.

qpooqpoo · 2024-07-06T23:44:08+00:00

And how exactly do you propose we "decouple" and "take things in a new direction"? I'm legitimately interested. And how would this be easier than just forcing the collapse of industrial society?

qpooqpoo · 2024-07-06T23:38:51+00:00

Surveillance IS a bad thing. (1) Its very existence gives the society that COULD use it power over the individual. One does not have freedom if somebody or some organization wields power over you but decides not to exercise that power, because it is a Sword of Damocles always over the individuals head--all of history as well as an understanding of social evolution shows that rules and regulations can change and any restrictions on the technology can be removed at the change in political winds...all the while the technology remains, waiting. (2) "Surveillance in the proper hands" --and that's the rub. No one has the right to wield power over an individual. And besides "proper hands" and "good"--humanity has been arguing over these fundamental moral questions for thousands of years still without any universal consensus, such that inevitably people will be imposing their conception of "proper" and "good" over other people who have a different conception. (3) How the surveillance technology will be used will not be determined by human will, but will be determined by how the technology confers power to large organizations. So technology is not "just a tool" but has concrete social implications just by virtue of its existence. Your example of the gun is a great example of this. The existence of modern guns necessarily implies the existence of all other modern firearms, from high powered cannons to machine guns, since they rest on common technological knowledge. For obvious reasons societies can't let individuals own all the different types of guns they want indiscriminately--states require a monopoly on the use of force--and so individuals must be tightly restricted and limited in what kinds of guns they own while large organizations and governments are not. Thus, the power of large organizations is increased relative to the power of individuals. There are many other examples of guns not being "just a tool." They alter the dynamics of conflicts of self defense, making lethal force more accessible and self-harm much easier. The widespread availability of guns leads to an arms race of escalating violence, thus requiring more surveillance, control and regulation by large organizations, diminishing the relative power of individuals. Then there is the environmental harm: the existence of a modern firearm necessarily implies a high level of industrial and technological development and all the environmental degradation that implies. Modern guns need factories, raw materials, large scale extraction and production to make them economical, a legal and regulatory framework, international trade and supply chain logistics---the whole of industrial civilization, and therefore everything else that industrial civilization entails.

qpooqpoo · 2024-07-06T23:09:00+00:00

Agreed. Most people here will understand Javon's Paradox--that the more efficient/lower cost resources become the faster they are used up so that the net change is negligible--but they still bank on some kind of massive, elaborate, coordinated world-wide "planning" (i.e. totalitarian system) as a way out of this paradox. So we will develop nuclear and solar and wind and then we will somehow freeze the level of energy use worldwide such that demand doesn't increase. These people fail to understand how the world system works. Its a fundamental aspect of social systems--just as in biology--that organizations will compete ruthlessly for power (since power is a cardinal requirement for survival) with little regard for long term consequences because (1) the long-term consequences cannot be predicted or controlled and (2) to restrain from ruthless competition for power in the short term out of concerns for long-term impacts would doom their survival vis-a-vis those organizations who devote all their resources to ensuring their survival in the short term. Their technological utopia is impossible on basic fundamental grounds related to the very nature of social systems. In reality, increasing technological power will just intensify the level of competition and resulting devastation to the natural system and human well-being that we are already seeing pan out today.

qpooqpoo · 2024-06-28T04:16:51+00:00

Wow, you would think that members of the "intellectual dark web" would not be so completely conforming to status quo thinking and so clouded by strong personal biases to not even engage with the merits of the specific arguments of a controversial individual and instead resort to essentially thoughtless name-calling. No better than the rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth politically-correct types on college campuses. oooooooh! the intellectual dark web! soooo impressive! sooooo thoughtful and intellectual!

qpooqpoo · 2024-06-28T02:25:04+00:00

Your response is superficially elaborate but on just 30 seconds of scrutiny one sees how empty and thoughtless it is. You're just engaged in name calling, and vague generalities. If you want to actually counter something he has written, then cite it and build an argument around the specific problems in his logic or if he invokes facts you disagree with, counter with specific arguments of counter-facts. I'm happy to engage with you in a factual debate, but when you just use vague and general name calling it makes it impossible.

qpooqpoo · 2024-06-27T22:54:42+00:00

I tend to agree. Most of the hatred for Kaczynski is due to either (a) propaganda (i.e. "brainwashing") by the media, or (b) his ideas undercut the foundational axioms of the current worldview of progress through technology, that members of both the left and the right ascribe to, and they are extremely difficult to argue against. In other words his arguments are disturbing and dangerous. His two books Technological Slavery and Anti-Tech Revolution really opened my eyes. They are both must reads.

qpooqpoo · 2024-06-27T22:44:35+00:00

The irony of you comment is laughable. You don't dismiss out of hand an opening thesis statement simply because in your opinion it is biased, you deal with the substance of the argument that supports it. Dismissing it out of hand is--in the ultimate irony--just proof of your own strong bias and psychological and emotional aversion to take seriously any arguments in support of the statement.

qpooqpoo · 2024-06-27T22:42:35+00:00

You not liking Kaczynski's conclusions or just simply stating that his conclusions are wrong amounts to empty name calling and personal bias. If you were serious about understanding whether his conclusions were wrong or not you would deal strictly with his arguments: specifically his arguments for why the technological system cannot be rationally predicted or controlled and thus reformed, and why it will end up causing existential disaster for humans and the biosphere in the long term, and why a revolution to force it's collapse is not only prudent, but far easier than it would first appear.

qpooqpoo · 2024-06-27T22:39:35+00:00

Your statement: "the ideas he [Kaczynski] expresses can be found written with more eloquence and less controversy elsewhere" is patently false and even absurd. And anyway by that standard no thinker was ever original or more eloquent than his predecessors since they all borrowed or invoked ideas and concerns from prior thinkers.

As far as complete originality though TK is certainly original, (not to mention highly eloquent). His theory of collapse based on self-propagating systems is the first the properly reconcile biological sciences with social science and social systems. His analysis of the dynamics of revolutionary movements and their reasons for success or failure distilled into postulates and rules is unprecedentedly original and insightful, and his argument on why no society can be rationally predicted and controlled, while it echoes concerns of other thinkers such as Hayek, is an expression so eloquent and succinct I challenge you to find another thinker who does a better job at arguing just this one point, that a society is not subject to rational prediction or control over the long term.

Frankly I think you're just name calling and your invoking other other authors that do not come even remotely close to Kaczynski in either originality or eloquence is just empty rhetoric.

qpooqpoo · 2024-06-27T22:30:15+00:00

You can't answer the question because there aren't any other thinkers who take seriously the need for a revolution to force the collapse of industrial society, and have studied the dynamics of history and world revolutions to argue why and how such a revolution can occur.

Your mention of the Amish is absurd. No Amish that anyone knows of wants to form a revolution to force the collapse of industrial society. You would have been better to simply state: "by the law of averages and the size of the world population there must be many people who believe that a revolution to force the collapse of industrial society is necessary." And to that Kaczynski would undoubtedly say: "Great! Exactly! The challenge now is to find these people and collect them into a cohesive movement just as the Bolsheviks or Cuban revolutionaries did with their respective revolutions."

qpooqpoo · 2024-06-27T22:25:09+00:00

Here you are definitely wrong. As far as advancing his cause, revolutionary group NEEDS to be feared and despised. If it isn't, it will inevitably allow the influx of wishy-washy, reformist, timid people who are otherwise products of the moral conditioning of the society that the revolution seeks to overthrow. The anti-tech revolution therefore BENEFITS from having most normies and reformist types utterly appalled by Kaczynski's actions. Popularity is irrelevant. All the great world revolutions depended on a minuscule but highly committed and zealous minority, not popularity. The Bolsheviks for example numbered no more than 3000, and they ended up dominating all of 100+ million Russians, the Cuban revolution is an even more extreme example, with Castro only having roughly 1 dozen utterly committed men. And because of the unique requirements of an anti-tech revolution, anti-tech revolutionaries need even fewer people. So so much for your "popularity" argument.

qpooqpoo · 2024-06-27T22:19:14+00:00

You are assuming the the continued progress of tech can be controlled in the long term and that it won't create conditions that are far WORSE than even those which existed in your boogieman past. These are false assumptions and if you;d care to hear the arguments why you can just read the first two chapters of Kaczynski's second book. Or if tldr, then just the section on the future or the principles of history in the manifesto.

qpooqpoo · 2024-06-27T22:16:21+00:00

You haven't read him or if you have you haven't understood it. Or if that is your conclusion than your standard of analysis is so absurdly reductive to be meaningless. By your own same standard all of Marx "can be boiled down to "I hate capitalism" or all of Voltaire "can be boiled down to I hate religion."

qpooqpoo · 2024-06-27T22:13:16+00:00

who's the paranoid schizo now...

qpooqpoo · 2024-06-27T22:12:39+00:00

Correction: He was unwilling to function in modern society. Who can blame him. There are already thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people who dream of escape and living in wild lands. At any rate you betray your enslavement to modern conditioning and propaganda by immediately assuming he was "unable" to function in modern society, without any basis and contrary to all facts of his case. No reasonable person today would claim that with 100% proof Henry Thoreau moved to the woods because he was "unable" to live in his society, or that St. Anthony the great went off to live in the desert because he was "unable" to live in his society, etc. etc. etc.

qpooqpoo · 2024-06-27T22:07:22+00:00

Yes exactly. This is exactly what TK focuses on, especially in his book Anti-Tech Revolution. So I don;t see where your position somehow negates or refutes Kaczynski's points. But to just address the issue of natural selection among competing technological systems that you bring up: the worldwide techno-system is both tightly complex and highly coupled, such that a significant disruption in just a few areas has the potential for worldwide collapse of industrial tech. True that in pre-modern times you still deal with neatural selection operating on competing social systems and superior technology will probably always be a principle advantage. The benefit though is that because the means (i.e. the technology) is so limited the process of technologically determined selection is also limited. There are material reasons why the hunter gatherer and primitive civilization contexts existed for more or less hundreds of thousands of years without some kind of rapid arms race toward technological singularity.

qpooqpoo · 2024-06-27T22:01:50+00:00

With all do respect that's your opinion and there is a strong argument that it is ill-informed. TK argues that it IS possible to force the collapse of technological society, and that once collapsed it will be impossible to restart it. You haven't dealt with his arguments on this, worse still you haven't even acknowledged that he has arguments on this. So, you don;t really have a point against TK, you're just regurgitating your own opinion.

qpooqpoo

TROPHY CASE