Comments on: No, Automation does NOT lead to Liberation

By: Poor Richard

Poor Richard — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 13:21:22 +0000

“Futurologists really must come to terms with the extent to which they have functioned as relentless defenders of the interests of corporate elites and the status quo all the while pretending to be champions of “accelerating change” and “techno-emancipation” in “The Future.””

I would give the same admonishment to P2P theorists who advocate the perpetuation of non-reciprocal, unpaid peer production and give philosophical cover to the continued corporate exploration of peer produced value.

By: BipedalJoe

BipedalJoe — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 00:14:19 +0000

…why did I just write three comments…? 🙂 Öhm you can erase them if you want… you should have a delete function, automate/crowdsource it 😉 Cheers!

By: BipedalJoe

BipedalJoe — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 00:08:06 +0000

…you should have an edit function 🙂 I meant that political progress is always second to tool innovation, since the tools disrupt/enable alternative social organization, so it´s only natural that “political” progress is slower,

invent the wheel, and everyone suddenly has to change the way they used to transport stuff,
that takes longer then it took to invent the wheel,

a minority invents the technologies, but then the majority has to adopt it and change their habits, “politics”, naturally, that takes more time…

So, it´s sort of natural

See you in “THE FUTURE”, hehe

(P2P-Progressives really must come to terms with the extent to which they have functioned as relentless defenders of the interests of corporate elites and the status quo all the while pretending to be champions of “P2P-models” and “commons” in “The Future.)
Hehe, and to believe I trusted the both the P2Pers and the Futurists, silly me, now I´ll find someone who uses other words to describe stuff that´s happening in the human population..

Damn you P2P-futurists, you propagandists for the corporate-military status quo!!! (irony)

By: BipedalJoe

BipedalJoe — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 23:57:23 +0000

I misunderstood the motive of the article, and agree
political progress is not as liberating as technological/evolution of tools,

But the article and quote:

“Futurologists really must come to terms with the extent to which they have
functioned as relentless defenders of the interests of corporate elites and the
status quo all the while pretending to be champions of “accelerating change”
and “techno-emancipation” in “The Future.”

Is not very motivated,
the adjacent possible has always promised/brought a better life,
fire, language, huts,
…from a personal/human perspective, I´d consider those innovation liberating…

perhaps I misunderstood even more from the article,
I only skimmed it, so if I make no sense then ignore me,
but I´m usually really inspired by P2Pfoundations blogposts,
and this was sort of just BULLSHIT 🙂

By: BipedalJoe

BipedalJoe — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 23:39:04 +0000

I for one am not returning my washing machine any time soon 😉

By: Hudson Luce

Hudson Luce — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 17:03:28 +0000

People who employ wage labor are in business to make money for themselves and their shareholders, if any. One way to do this is to reduce cost of raw materials and processing, the other way is to minimize the cost of labor. All moves to reduce worker benefits, worker pay, the minimum wage, and so forth, are aimed at reducing the cost of labor and thus increasing the bottom line – profit – of the company. People can easily find out how much each employee makes for each company listed on the major stock exchanges: for Morgan Stanley (http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/MS) the figure is: Revenue per Employee $542,012 – and so forth. The employee keeps a very small share of what he or she produces in value for the company, usually less than 30% and sometimes less than 15% for restaurant workers and other minimum wage employees. The amazing thing is that people work hard and spend money and go into debt to enter into such obviously bad deals, such exploitative relationships. Most people focus in on the behavior of their boss, but this should be a minor distraction relative to the fact that 70% or more of what they produce is going to the company and its executives and shareholders, not them.

By: Julia

Julia — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 16:34:42 +0000

I consider technology to be a double-edged sword. I keep hearing political radicals say things like: “3D printing will end capitalism,” and libertarians claiming that such an invention will make regulating commerce “impossible” because “everyone will have a 3D printer in the future”. I find these claims to be highly exaggerated.

The other day, I was watching a series of youtube videos featuring Jacques Ellul, who spoke about the darker side of technological advancement. It was very interesting and got me thinking. In some ways, technology challenges the current power relations, but in other ways it just reinforces them.