Saturday, February 11, 2017

It's About Time They Awakened

One wonders, though, if this awakening will be about anything more than just more anti "T" man, or simply more tired reforms; reforms that even the Democratic Party is having a hard time selling itself on any more. And trying to do both, I think, wouldn't be much better.

I have to say in this, from the tech side of things, it has always been a huge disappointment for me that not more of the tech sector hasn't at least asked the same questions I've been asking for quite a while now. I could certainly understand the questions being asked, mind you, and smarter folks than me coming up with better answers. That, in fact, would be a huge relief.... Because this is seriously not something you take up for the sheer, glorious fun of it. And now that I'm closer to 70 than I was to 60, I could use a lot more "sheer, glorious fun" than I'm getting now, I can assure you.

Anyways... It has been a disappointment; especially as it was Marshall McLuhan who got me started down this path.

I mean, come on! That guy is supposed to be Wired's patron saint for Christs sakes. And if you were into the guy, it's hard for me to see how you couldn't see the trifecta of social, political, and economic implications in the interplay of his ideas. And don't even get me started on how the rest of tech missed the whole "Capitalism is just another complicated operating system" argument! Honestly. Who in tech doesn't understand the lifetime limits of operating systems? Would you still be running original Windows if you did?

Well... The past is the past, as they say. Time to concentrate on looking forward, right? And in doing that we have to ask those questions I've been asking: Can Capitalism continue in an electrified information environment (assuming we still value Democracy, and the rule of law)? Can Capitalism get around the re-evaluation of what work has become? Can wage work possibly remain a viable human commodity? Wasn't Capitalism, in large part, the result of the mind set brought about by "repeatable type?" If it was, and we have social organization by the factory mindset, don't the sense modalities brought on by a, now, oral type culture demand that we move away from the segmented, linear, and overly rational, mentality that came with repeatable type? Doesn't a great deal of the supposed inevitability of the onset of AI; the AI that is supposed to replace us; come from the obvious competitive economics that such machines give an edge to?

That's what I get off the top of my head right now. There's probably more, but hell, I'm only on my second cup of coffee this morning, and my memory is certainly not what it used to be. Be that as it may, however, those are just some of the things the tech crowd needs to be asking itself, now that it's taking its, figurative, first cup a joe on waking up. Time will tell I guess.