David Graeber: On Bureaucratic Technologies and the Future as Dream-Time

The twentieth century produced a very clear sense of what the future was to be, but we now seem unable to imagine any sort of redemptive future. How did this happen? One reason is the replacement of what might be called poetic technologies with bureaucratic ones. Another is the terminal perturbations of capitalism, which is increasingly unable to envision any future at all. (01/19/2012)

[@sidremus]

One thing I really don't miss about university is that people, instead of asking a question, give a barely coherent monologue as a comment.

[@cornerstore_d]

So true! We do not teach listening and asking questions that's for sure

[@Kid_Ikaris]

so true! although you always learn a lot about the speaker on how the reply to those nonsense discursions

[@BigAussieDonkey]

So true! People sometimes say things that are not appropriate to their situation

[@adriaanvanbrugge1960]

My thoughts exactly. As well I was wondering about the degree of narcissim and self-importance of individuals while they do exactly what you have described, and in a way try to lecture a vastly more knowledgable speaker instead of humbly asking for clarifications (which is a real purpose of Q&A).

[@sidremus]

@@adriaanvanbrugge1960 "hey you "professional" who only spent his entire life and career on the topic, I just read the wikipedia article and it says here under criticism that..."

[@Theo.M1989]

David's comparison of an Iphone to a stupid toy was the most lovely, sincere and ideology-smashing phrase of his entire talk. His will be missed

[@seankelly1291]

People still say that the iPhone is proof of capitalism's superiority, while I say it's proof of corporate socialism. But at the end of the day, it's just a precursor to what's to come.

[@cornerstore_d]

This is a summation of a wonderful essay in "The Utopia of Rules". I never met David, but still I miss him terribly. RIP

[@davidotness6199]

An anecdotal aside: the Somali pirates weren't a 'thing' until foreign factory fishing fleets wiped out their coastal fishery resources.

[@mark3xxy94]

in the merchant marine there were tales of pirates in that area in the late 1940s and early 50s.

[@newagain9964]

@@mark3xxy94 perhaps a small number. Some criminals/bandits/etc are rational actors. They will always exist.

[@ishumaeruharaorda217]

Somali pirates are all a pastoral people they are camel and sheep herders and not fishermen, piracy is just profitable and culturally acceptable like cattle rustling

[@ChannelMath]

things like that are basically the entire history, not just of capitalism, but of human expansion, no?

[@AbeldeBetancourt]

Unbelievably dim Q&A question section. The idea that modern capitalist re-organization is making us dumb holds a lot of water.

[@8xster8]

Their system and purpose got dismantled and they needed to be defensive to justify Stockholm syndrome

[@1398go]

I still can't believe he has passed away, just devastating! :(

[@kevintewey1157]

Lightbulb lightbulb they thought it was such a great invention but do you remember who invented the recording device? Now we can hear people who are dead Edison also?

[@Dude0000]

@@kevintewey1157 I’m not sure Edison invented the lightbulb.

[@esindirik4447]

oh my I didn't know! he was so young, what happened!?

[@sonnyobrien]

@@esindirik4447wow you are so cute

[@jojo-gy9pp]

I love the way he giggles out of pure joy. It seems like he is amazed he can even have these discussions.

[@voltcorp]

it's one of the things that makes me relate so much to him (not at all comparing my knowledge or insight). I've always felt genuine joy from deep conversations, and with overwork and pandemic isolation I see myself often giggling with excitement whenever I have an opportunity to engage in them.

[@kyivstuff]

Just finished The Dawn of Everything. The world lost so much.

[@pipster1891]

We play this game with a Graeber lecture - try to guess when he'll actually take a drink from his cup or how many times he'll pick up the cup.

[@theangryginger7582]

His staunch refusal to, at any point in his career, take a sip from one of the coffee cups he so often used as makeshift batons is truly awe-inspiring.

[@funkbungus137]

like Parenti's eternal struggle with microphones lol.

[@ChromaticTroubadour]

👌

[@LaLasta]

I miss David graeber

[@leezowers3964]

Legend. Just read the hist of everything and it is gona help reframe my whole PhD in more hopeful light.

[@ClarkPotter]

What is "hist"?

[@Andrew-yq4gu]

@@ClarkPotter History. I think he’s referring to Graeber’s last book “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity.”

[@kingmu1]

I'm reading it now. It is definitely changing how my book on capitalism will start.

[@6Diego1Diego9]

is it boring though? is so long

[@kingmu1]

@@6Diego1Diego9 It depends on the reader. I thought it was pretty interesting.

[@mizztotal]

1:12:38 "So this has nothing to do with human need. It has to do of maintaining a system of radical inequality." Graeber's point is the only reason we don't have technological advances that replace work is because the Elite decided it would undermine their means of social control. So they've stymied growth. Yet no one is really challenging them on it because Americans have been dumbed down enough to believe a new iPhone version with slight changes is somehow progress. Sidenote: I was disappointed with the Q&A session in which no one seemed to grasp his idea and people kept asking irrelevant questions. What a waste. Now sadly he's no longer here to ask...rest his soul.

[@charleswarren1901]

First, we're asked in "The Dawn of's" broad theses to accept that all human learning, experiences, beliefs and, indeed, all human history didn't evolve along a linear path from ancient to modern times. Fine. Let's disregard "everything" to hear them out, because these two scholars have landed on something that's never been postulated before. Wrong: it has been thrown out there many times, always in nineteenth-century thought, always by romantics who sought to believe we had something to learn from the "noble savage." It was wrong then, and it's wrong, now. Let's recall, "nasty, brutish and short," and let's let it go at that. Second: "Everything" asks that we subscribe not only to the NBS ideal, wherein we're drawn into another nineteenth-century ideal of communal living, but can be modernized and modified according to socio-philosophical concepts centered on "equality." And here's the essential flaw, because if the first Helter-Skelterism wasn't bad enough, then its out, now. Third, lastly, the authors argue that we need to devolve to a primitive state (which never existed, mind you), one devoid of "hierarchies," in order that we work toward achievement of "equality" for all persons, regardless of sex, race, age, et cetera. In short, and if they understood the history of human civilization, then they'd look to the model of the Western European heterosexual male.

[@vvendetta721]

@@charleswarren1901 ignorance so well written is madness by any other name.

[@charleswarren1901]

@@vvendetta721 If you have something to say, which I think you do, then say it. I mean, why hold back? I've been waiting for someone to offer a substantiative response to my criticisms, but all I get in return is rude snubs and baseless ad hom attacks. Please try again.

[@dimeloloco]

@@charleswarren1901 sounds like you’re going through a midlife crisis huh

[@Soemrjruur]

@@charleswarren1901 well, if you are going to be a stubborn rationalist positivist about something like an imagined conception of early history and a simply formal conception of his interpretation of historical facts, i suppose you will go no where. and graeber does make positive claims, you can extrapolate many linear paths, but the point of the book is indeed to present a more accurate understanding of the meandering ebb and flow path of knowledge. I am surprised and amused with your objection. It is a pretty silly one, and to insist on linearity simply because of a false historicist bastard philosophical pedigree is stupid.

[@jonathanmerritt8712]

Great talk! This makes me think of Richard Battin: the guy who led the development of the Apollo Guidance System. Battin was an amazing engineer; if you read the Space Guidance Analysis (SGA) Memos, and his astrodynamics textbook, you can see just *how* technically involved he was. He *personally* contributed techniques and methods that were actually used during the missions. Often working by himself. If you compare Battin with modern-day "leaders" (actually "managers") of large engineering projects; he's totally different! Modern managers have nowhere near the kind of technical expertise and raw mathematical talent that Battin had... like, not even close. In today's world, a quirky, super-intelligent, hands-on guy like Battin would never make it to a leadership position... he'd be skipped over for some pushy go-getter who "delivers" (what they deliver isn't to be questioned, of course). Battin is someone from that idealisitic age of technology, when the leaders were truly THE LEADERS, and not the "people leaders" of today.

[@CynicalBastard]

Needs more funding.

[@therach7841]

You're wrong. Science got ruined by the #MeToo. Battin got cancelled for calling a Houston waitress, "toots". He died of a broken heart and the space shuttle Challenger exploded the very next day.

[@jazpaz5688]

@@therach7841 Battin died in 2014, and Challenger exploded in 1986. Try again kiddo

[@Tasmantor]

The definition of "go-getter" is the shaky part of what you say. If you mean a "yes man" who will do what the company wants to maximise profits in the short term, then yeah. Actual experts always run the company a risk of saying no and spending money on doing things better not necessarily more profitably, an actual expert might tell an Elon Musk to stfu and go away. Workers telling owners what's up is verboten and that's what kills this sort of leadership.

[@Stret173]

thanks, this upload is a great pretext to relistening to this years after - and so much of it is still so relevant

[@lidu6363]

Ah, why do the Q&A sections of every interesting talk always turn into a line of people just wanting to share their opinion?

[@jthadcast]

yeah, don't they know that's why we get youtube?

[@tescheurich]

Hoomans. We like that

[@jonathanedwardgibson]

We share our stories. It’s what we do. We are denied the eve fire to gather and talk. Go with that flow.

[@TheFlyingBrain.]

@@jonathanedwardgibson Or don't go with it, if that's your preference. There's a difference between "sharing our story" as a means of self-reflection and closure, leading to an opportunity to move on and become more than we were, and "sharing" as a demand that others honor your particular sacred cow by demanding they demonstrate that their ideas conform to yours. It's not just that people do what they do, so just go with it. It's also WHY people are doing what they do, and what can we learn from that, which will teach us something about how to be better, kinder, happier, smarter, freer, more creative human beings.

[@Soemrjruur]

That’s a good thing. I like hearing opinions

[@crackfox3613]

Thanks for sharing this, his insights are like a breath of fresh air.

[@kippie80]

Here here. Thank-you! "Technology emphasis on social control" is absolutely right.

[@TommyLikeTom]

The algorithm by which this fellow decides when to take a sip of coffee is so complex that youtube engineers are even stumped

[@Jacoblue]

You genuinely made me laugh. Thank you.

[@mntnwzrd66]

1930's: Cars, Machine Guns. 2020's: Faster Cars, Faster Machine Guns.

[@bpatrickhoburg]

Thank god this man existed

[@lefthooklansing]

obviously a lay person

[@harminon1280]

RIP. We miss you. Thanks for the new book.

[@harminon1280]

We miss you David

[@tribebuddha]

"Soviet Union... if nothing actually worked, they wouldn't have been there for seventy years." We hear ya, David. Rest in peace.

[@alexcarter8807]

First in space and the US has been playing catch-up ever since. Won WWII (US got to help). Provided the *average* worker a better life than in the US. I really hope Putin can bring the USSR back.

[@SuperTonyony]

@@alexcarter8807 Putin is a gangster, not a socialist.

[@tylergooden2183]

Psychotic.

[@digitalspecter]

@@SuperTonyony And that's something I wish more people understood.

[@jdorritie]

And all it took was total thought-control and special priveleges for the upper classes while claiming that all were equal.

[@dinnerwithfranklin2451]

What a beautiful mind.

[@lefthooklansing]

are you dreaming?

[@ChannelMath]

Love his vision, but a few things I think he gets wrong. First, factories actually are much more automated (though not completely automated as we might have thought), and profits are way up (People do more work but not in the factory). It's not that anyone stopped that on purpose, it's just that it's not worth further automation, given the huge profits and low wages. Also, I feel like information and medical technology is way more socially disruptive than transportation. There were a few other things but generally about scifi technology: Coming from a science background, I don't think the failure of those dreams is due to politics, or economics. Partially because I think there are always plenty of people that will at least show us what is possible, if it is possible. Those things really just happened to be a lot harder than we thought (although I actually think the all-purpose menial robots will be here soon, but again: wages are so low, there's not a great need for them). Things like the Concorde and quite magical chemicals were killed for good, grass-roots, environmental reasons (aka "it's harder than we thought to do these things in a good way"). Sometimes our dreams are realized, like in the 19th century, sometimes not. It doesn't need to be explained in terms of Marx. Look at physics: Almost all the useful basic physics we know was already known by 1920, so is it really surprising that we haven't invented the stuff that we imagined but couldn't yet produce in the 1970s? More and more we are bumping up against new physical limits of our basic methods, often methods we've not changed fundamentally since the 19th century, we've only added precision. We can imagine a lot of stuff, but we failed to imagine the *limits* of what is possible, but maybe that counts as discovery

[@kippie80]

Thank you Thank-you! People conspire. this is true. One person's conspiracy is another person's business plan. Some work, many fail.

[@Syncopator]

We do have "killer robots" now. They're not *giant* but that's because giant robots make an unnecessarily big target and they don't need to be giant to ikill. And we have flying killer robots too.

[@Gunni1972]

The good thing is, you only must keep them from reaching their charging point, to get a "reprogrammable soldier". It's a great way to hack, or insert a virus into the enemy's system.

[@user123abc4]

Legal bureaucracy and central control of the web that is casted over all lives are a threatening happening. Democracy is dead or silenced

[@thenormalyears]

I miss the occupy movement it was the last time I felt like a better world was even possible. Now I can see things are just getting worse. Even the internet is goin to be ruined by NFTs and cryptobros in their quest to monetize every aspect of our existence.

[@rubentala4762]

Great talk and mediocre Q&A. I was wondering if capitalism's turn away from poetic technology wasn't a conscious counter-revolutionary choice made by the elites. Something else happened at the end of the sixties that David didn't mention here: a dangerous alliance of autonomous working class and radical students. This alliance led to upheavals in France (1968) and Argentina (1969) that I know of. Spain and Italy at the end of the 1970s also had very radical working class movements influenced by council communism. The Soviet ruling class also had to repress the workers and students alliance in East Germany (1953), Hungary (1956), and the Prague Spring (1968). All those movements took communist ideals to heart and wanted to do away with the Party (that is the ruling class who exploited them). So the Soviet Union elite also had reasons to counter-revolutionary action beyond repression. Silvia Federici has a thesis that European elites at the 14th century made a conscious counter-revolutionary push for patriarchy to divide the revolutionary movements and the people in general. So modern patriarchy wasn't something inherited from the middle ages, but created through new laws and customs and enforced through religion. Maybe there is something of this here. Neoliberalism looks like a counter-revolution and not only a "natural development" of capitalism. And this turn away from that dream future (of automation, abundance, end of poverty, flying cars and space exploration) to this mediocre consumerism (where they keep burning fossil fuels and pushing dystopia as the only alternative) is part of that neoliberal counter-revolution.

[@gekkobear1650]

Of course it's conscious. It's been conscious for a long time. And those who build empires do not start from scratch each time. There is knowledge about how to control humans passed through hundreds of generations. This knowledge is what we call "occult" or hidden ("esoteric" or relating to inner processes) . It is mostly very simple and obvious. Those megalomaniac empire builders have used their knowledge of psychology against humans for thousands of years, creating Homo domesticus. It has been useful for me to learn this knowledge so I am aware when others try to use it against me. Silvia Federici is a great start but she's just the beginning. The "counter-(r)evolutionary push towards patriarchy (the domination and subjugation of feminine ways of knowing and being)" you speak of is beyond the 14th century with hunts. It is part of a 10 thousand year sacrificial murder of the Goddess. For some reason, maybe to stay academically accepted, Graeber always tiptoed widely around archetypal and conspiratorial thinking. But it's out there and makes a helluva lotta sense. Check this out if your interested www.google.com/amp/s/godsandradicals.org/2017/04/07/the-world-without-forms/amp/

[@voltcorp]

there was no Q&A because there were no Qs

[@LexiH36]

RIP. He left as soon as we needed him

[@usecode___7453]

His theory about how we imagine the future kind of explains (at least in my own mind) why Elon Musk is so popular. He sells the people a utopia wich they are allowed to believe in (because it is based on neoliberal values).

[@elfappo9330]

You posted this comment a year ago and it keeps getting proven right again and again. Great job.

[@user-tc5qc4ql8m]

very confused about the first question he received about foxconn laying off workers due to automation. the whole idea graeber was conveying was that people expected revolutionary technology to bring about a corresponding social revolution of some kind, and specifically how that hope is absurd.

[@tietscho]

I like his thoughts on future expectations

[@thomaskeeler912]

Suppressed technology or humanity just gave up? Which is more likely? There are engineers who come up with brilliant new things, only to have a visit from the men in black telling them that "Seriously, you thought you were the first?" And "So off you go to the Caribbean with a nice little set up for life courtesy of the taxpayer, or... The proverbial else!"

[@vikrantvijit1436]

Great enlightening inspired talk about state of the prior art, present craft and futures technology singularity that liberates digital humanities from landscape locked legal loopholes, by corrupting culture, language and nature of social political economical psychological operations versus observations controlled science and technology policy study, inquiry and industry specific strategy.

[@dimalien]

absolutely bang on .

[@janespright]

Very good!

[@lauralucio314]

He was so insightful and creative. I would have loved to have seen him reach old age.

[@janespright]

@@lauralucio314 yes, respect, he left too early

[@gg3675]

*Friend pointing to a gadget:* "What does this thing do?" *Questioner at **1:11**:* "It's not a person. It doesn't do anything!"

[@bistrovogna]

A happier time when coffee sips still had an above 1% chance of taking place

[@aichujohnson8444]

What do ye mean by that?

[@bistrovogna]

@@aichujohnson8444 if you watch Graeber's later presentations or interviews you will see the coffee almost never being drunk.

[@vvendetta721]

All coffee was sipped by Arabs.

[@aichujohnson8444]

It's an astute observation. Bravo! Does he actually have any coffee in the cup, or did he just bring the cup for aesthetic purposes?

[@bistrovogna]

@@aichujohnson8444 he had coffee in the cup.

[@hakikatyolureyahaqiqati]

David Graeber.... ❤‍🩹❤🧡💛💚💙💜🤎👋🙏💐🌸🏵🌹🥀🌺🌻🌼🌷☀🌝🌞🌈💯

[@sharoncurran6622]

thank you

[@dabrupro]

Self-surrender is the surrender of all self-concern. It cannot be done, it happens when you realize your true nature. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

[@davitchaganava9622]

this talk is a precise representation of what it tries to detect as a problem

[@elfappo9330]

I don't think you understand the purpose of critical theory

[@davitchaganava9622]

​@@elfappo9330 might very well be true... from your perspective. my perspective is a bit different... in my culture(Georgian republic) we tend to read desert fathers and pay a close attention to mystical tradition of the Orthodox Christian church. we do not have bad consciousness about 20 century and instead of deconstructing, tend to reconstruct... with respect.

[@alinebaruchi1936]

Lá vamos nós.

[@Gwest555]

“As long as necessity is socially dreamed, dreaming will be necessary”

[@kippie80]

No kidding, Americans are known for their legalize, another form of bureaucracy. And their battles are all about not How do you do? but How do you sue?

[@emoprep24]

So close to taking a sip

[@dabrupro]

Circumstances and conditions rule the ignorant. The knower of reality is not compelled. The only law he obeys is that of love. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

[@guillll]

I'm a big Graeber fan but I have to disagree with him here. I don't think we should see the technological progress of the 20th century as a success in any way. Yes, we did get airplanes and cars and stuff, but the insane levels of pollution they caused is destroying the world and burning up natural ressources so fast that we probably won't have them anymore by the end of this century (if we're lucky and mankind isn't already wiped out by then). I think we should see all these technologies more as a failed experiment, that always was going to fail, but that we're grown so used to that we can't see how crazy they are. So I don't think it's strange in any way that we had to stop going in this absurd direction. We just got to natural limits. Although I'm sure that the capitalist fear of what the workers would do with their free time also played a role, but flying cars and interplanetary travel wasn't going to happen anyway, because modern technology already creates much more pollution that the ecosystem can handle. We can't go to Mars and keep the Earth livable at the same time, actually we can't even have cars and keep the Earth livable at the same time.

[@danielmeixner7125]

I was very surprised that the existential threats of nuclear war and climate change were only glazed over in this talk. Aren't they a much better explanation for the seeming impossibility of a future, than disappointment in the specific directions that technological progress ended up taking?

[@ludviglidstrom6924]

Great talk. Just a small comment: he says at some point that it would have been natural in the 60’s or 70’s that we would get to other galaxies in a couple of centuries. That comment really shows his (and I think a lot of other people’s) total lack of understanding of just how insanely large the universe actually is. Our CLOSEST galactic neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy, is 2,5 MILLION lightyears away from us - that means it would take 2,5 million years to reach it AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT. The universe is large.

[@fionaottley4976]

Yeah, that bit really stung. Also his dismissal of smart phones. We all walk around with a powerful computer in our pockets, but he thinks that's nothing.

[@tedeliason3483]

That explains the labor market. It has been technologically bureaucratized.

[@michaelschneider2874]

But how about those wonderful advances in weaponry ?

[@JaredAllaway]

We're asking why hasn't technology helped workers of the world like robots replace workers and workers get to relax, and someone in the audience asks what if we make progress along these other lines? Progress along those other lines is a good thing, but our main concern should always be workers of the world working less, relaxing more, spending more time with family and friends, etc. We should all want better lives for workers. We should all organize and push for better lives for workers. How does technology fit in? How do our predictions about technology fit in?

[@IanZainea1990]

I've been wondering if we need a sort of Justinian code, where the whole system gets rewritten to eliminate a bunch of bureaucracy

[@jthadcast]

a great reset

[@anm2945]

How many people can catch up with DG?

[@ChangeHandle1]

Very late to ask this question, but I'd appreciate if anyone could explain. As I understand it, he theorizes that automation of labor is potentially dangerous to capitalists because it may lead to some class consciousness, so they instead turned to outsourcing manufacturing jobs to developing nations with a lower cost of labor. How does this not effectively have the same result to the American worker has lost their job? If we are to (crudely) follow his analogy of human technology to build ancient monuments, might we say that this outsourcing is akin to automation but with "human technology"? How does this choice deflect the development of class consciousness that might arise from displaced labor?

[@alexcarter8807]

Why have anti-gravity boots etc. when we could have homeless camps and visits to the doctor that make you bankrupt?

[@Dan.50]

Yep.

[@thelement3363]

I love it.

[@kerryfry1857]

How does his brain not be disappointed with humanity? Because i am.

[@jojo-gy9pp]

It is the pure joy he has in being alive in discussing these things and them being popular.

[@ThePronchias]

Love Graeber but I am surprised he got the attribution of PoMo wrong: it was Lyotard in '79. But of course Jameson ran with it.

[@jimlampshady]

Anyone got a link to content where he refutes agricultural revolution as massive loss of freedoms?

[@gekkobear1650]

Doesn't exist. He tried to in his new book. But he does not consider trees nor animals nor prairies nor rivers nor forests free beings who can lose freedom. And so he points to proto-agrarian settlements that were relatively anarchic among the humans and declares this to be evidence that agriculture can be fine and dandy. The Entropy Law itself makes it clear annual agriculture requires ecocide and the domestication of free human and nonhuman beings.

[@SampaJasli]

drinking game: every time he picks up his drink but doesn't drink, you drink. god speed.

[@darthclide]

The maddening thing is hearing that "but sci-fi is hard" student blabber on with extreme examples of flying cars. Here is a short list of mundane and realistic sci-fi dreams that should have come true barring the rich and powerful holding it back: 1. Fusion power 2. Cleaner nuclear power 3. Having a small city on the moon 4. 1,000,000 Mbps internet for every home in the world 5. Self driving cars 6. Robots that can do 90% of human jobs. All it would take is the USA government spending $300 billion on any of these listed instead of on wars, and we would have it by the end of the decade.

[@markschoenberger7825]

Fusion is being worked on, same with self driving cars - but these are VERY difficult technical problems. Not sure #6 is a good idea to begin with. What would an average person DO without work?

[@darthclide]

@@markschoenberger7825 "Fusion is being worked on" means nothing without massive government funding and worldwide cooperation. "Working on self driving cars" means nothing without massive government funding and worldwide cooperation. As for your concerns about #6, I encourage you to read David's book "Bullshit Jobs: A Theory" and "The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy" by Stephanie Kelton. Both in conjunction help you answer the more important question which is "what WOULD a person be doing if they no longer had to worry about having food or a home to live in?" It is time to let go of our obsession with work giving meaning. It is literally killing our planet.

[@ChromaticTroubadour]

3:00 start

[@tescheurich]

Ohhhh David, the only thing I don't miss about you is the too close to the mic mouth sounds. Fuuuuck do I wish I could hear those sounds again.

[@vvendetta721]

Hear meaning and all sound vanishes.

[@wyleong4326]

Oh my, what a tease that cup is getting.

[@EyeLean5280]

Okay, they posted this 6 months ago but the original video must be a decade old.

[@aichujohnson8444]

Description says "2012".

[@ArifBasri]

56:30 certain type of technology can only exists because egalitarian needs it.

[@questioneryusef8264]

Basically its transportation tech should be focused first. Theres already too much debt on real estate. Remove the first big one which is transpo.

[@melissawolf9128]

Tyhh

[@adk.lokesh]

isn't that fredric jameson

[@bundleofperceptions1397]

Flying cars would be a nightmare -- imagine traffic where everyone is zipping around every which way. And getting into a traffic accident at an altitude of 155 ft. is not likely to be a pleasant encounter. Why don't we have the things of Star Trek? It turns out that when the governments and oligarchic corporations behave like an organized crime syndicate, they tend not to make the most sensible decisions . . . . . . who would have figured?

[@nescius2]

do you mean the killing and cloning devices called _teleporters?_

[@DrLimbic]

Flying cars don't have to crash. They can continue to float

[@YOliver]

All this technology existed then in secret programs but was suppressed.

[@damonkowarsky]

You’ve got way too many ads for a university 😤😤😤

[@brendenhamilton]

1:19:21 true on every level

[@richardouvrier3078]

versus "emancipatory" techs.

[@StephenNicoletti]

Spirulina cultivation for food and carbon sequestration is not a crazy idea.

[@JAMAICADOCK]

Technological progress slowed down because progress in general slowed down. E.g. take the emergence of printing, was it really a product of the invention of the printing press, or rather was the printing press a product of the Protestant revolution, as in more people desiring to read the Bible in their own language? The demand creating the supply? As labour became cheaper from the 70s onward, the need for labour saving devices became less. The exploitation of third world labour, the suppression of Western trade unions, the end of the Cold War, the growing price of energy, the mass influx of migrants and refugees all played a part in the cancellation of the future in terms of radically new technological developments. Capitalism and globalization in that sense, becoming victims of their own success, as the competition with communism faded, and vast new streams of exploitable labour came on tap - the need for new labour saving devices faded too.

[@dev9619]

Idk who this is but KZbin has been trying to shove his content down my throat for weeks now. Please make it stop. 😭

[@sarahkelly2350]

on a relative side note, it might be asked what role the hegelian dialectic plays in our estimation of social progress...? more of us are free to work at someone else's goal, buy overpriced crap we have been cornered in to needing, to what extent have many social injustices, the solutions to which will profit some, been the fabricated byproduct of some racket that profited some( others), which has nearly enough exhausted its believability...?

[@michaelschneider2874]

Robots will not need to support us human beings? Just the Royal Few !?

[@The.world.has.gone.crazy...]

10 years later nothing changed on the contrairy

[@richardouvrier3078]

controlling" ict techs BC wealth is based upon labour, not engineering/tech.

[@quantumfineartsandfossils2152]

fuck yes my point exactly

[@zulfikarali8096]

Real need to create robotic leaders, programmed to never be corrupt, to never be controlled by a select few, to never work against the best interest of the people, and occasionally eacort certain poeple off the planet. any other laws?

[@markschoenberger7825]

But programmed according to whom? Who would you trust with that much power? And if they had AI, what is stopping the robots from instituting their version of human values upon us?

[@benjaminjiin8432]

1:16:00 Concerning the sinking ship of state and what's next, and if we don't come up with a good idea, the Idea that the ruling who ever class will produce a worse idea: One possible design: Direct Restrained Democratic system via a smart phone with a gradient vote/opinion, a printable receipt and a narrow AI to facilitate a conversation in mass. Direct: representatives are 100% optional. Cities will still need city managers, police chief, water authority, waste disposal authority educational authority, judges, military officials etc...public may still want a mayor, governor and president and on some deep social level we may have need of these continued positions. I'm not sure if Congress and the Senate will continue to exist. I would like a system like this to slowly displace our representative body. Please continue to read on as to why I'm thinking this. Restraint 1: the system would have a bill of rights programmed in, any law that violates the bill of rights past, present and future would be flagged for reevaluation. Restraint 2: You have a vote on what you know. If you are not an expert on a subject you have an opinion. What you know is based on a University degree, Certifications, current field of work or physical proximity to action being taken or 5+ years of past work experience ie, how you pay your taxes all of this will decide whether or not one has a vote vs an opinion. Restrained 3: If the public opinion is 2/3 against the vote the vote is put on hold for at least a year or vetoed. Public education or a greater informed public is necessary, this will enforce this restraint while maintaining the direct democracy. Smart phone enabled 1: as a security feature a receipt is printed by you and the state, the state's copy must be printed on in archival ink on archival paper. The public is compelled to check their vote/opinion via paper receipt once every 3 years. Smart Phone enabled 2: I, we can discuss in mass any idea up for a vote/opinion. A narrow AI facilitates the conversation. For instance if a voter or expert of a subject says something well that something will go to the top of the thread and stay at the top of the thread. Often Liked opinions/voters will likewise go to the top of the thread. Comments that violate the bill of rights will be flagged and able to be searchable. This may enable a bill to be built by the masses and experts overtime. An AI will enable this mass conversation in a constructive way. That way WE are still making the decisions, we are leveraging the power of an AI/social media/smartphones while still maintaining human control, even if we have a lesser resolution it will still be our choice in our hands. Smart phone enabled 3: a gradient vote/opinion will enable the public and the experts to give a more accurate view of their stance. Thoughts? Concerns? How might this system be Hacked? The paper receipt would help with some forms of hacking. Could this system could be hacked by a powerful government or corporation via propaganda and a number of certifiable experts with an agenda? Our current system has already been hacked this way and is normally hacked this way ie a standardized hacking method. The idea I'm proposing would very likely be more difficult to hack in this particular way.

[@markschoenberger7825]

Restraint #1 is just not possible. We have an entire legal system to figure out things like that, and it sometimes takes them years.

[@zoofeather]

Fill out form - are you experienced.?

[@jramnes]

I love David Graeber but every time he smacks his lips my body shivers, so hard to listen to because of this.

[@SuperTonyony]

A correction: Star Trek's government is a representative democracy. Numerous episodes and movies state this fact quite explicitly.

[@vvendetta721]

A Federation

[@Time_Is_Left]

@@vvendetta721 Not sure if your comment was intended to support or counter the OP’s, but in the case of the latter, a federation can be a representative democracy

[@h4ck3rd4wg]

Point well taken but the show's emphasis on Starfleet is telling. Obviously it's a convenient frame for a weekly serialized narrative, but I thought his comparison of Starfleet to an ideal Soviet institution was interesting

[@vvendetta721]

@@h4ck3rd4wg as a work of fiction they had to come up with a Utopia type of governance, which is strange considering Thomas More book Utopia was directly responsible for Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels communist ideology and the foundation of Mao Zedong understanding and only real version of communism today which is terrifying. Let not mention the Borg.

[@alexandramolitorisova2407]

RIP

[@peterjol]

I am getting bored with saying it but it should be like a eureka moment for anyone who THINKS about it.......just make it financially worthwhile for people to share the jobs we would agree we NEED people to do and work much less....and there would be no more bullshit pointless jobs...it would actually solve most world problems.

[@darrellroberson8339]

Oyibo Grand Unified Theorem

[@Agarwaen00]

Interestingly the Chinese still dream of making those Solar Satellites that bean energy to earth real.

[@michaelschneider2874]

The US Army has Robo Dogs !

[@m_ots]

based af

[@michaelschneider2874]

We are busy disassembling the internal parts of the atom and it's sub parts .

[@vvendetta721]

Zero has been built from it.

[@JJ-fr2ki]

@@vvendetta721 I’m not sure if you are a troll or interested in learning and reasonable debate. The Standard Model is new and science is an end in itself, like poetry or music, but already it has produced valuable, life savoring technology. Most critically muon tomography or muon imaging which allows us to X-ray miles deep, and recently not just “CAT” scan a volcano but predict an eruption days and weeks in advance. This will save lives. The same tech also allows the scanning of cargo for nuclear weapons, since heavy atoms produce signatures. This scanning is implemented on borders around the world. Check it out. It is very cool tech. See July Quanta or videos for comprehensible and beautiful new representations of the Standard Model.

[@jthadcast]

as David Graeber suspects, advanced technology machines will never come to pass, humans are always cheaper. tesla discovered that without human nannies to fill in the gaps of flawed technology the robots produced absolute crap. semiconductor factories, most highly advanced application of robotics are so costly that today they're all but impossible to fund without trillions in state investment, never mind the toxic waste dump they require.

[@tomikexboii5403]

Advanced Technology Machines will never come to pass under Capitalism and System Inequality, you mean?

[@aichujohnson8444]

There is cost to automation. At times, in the interest of time, the pragmatic approach is to employ a hybrid approach. That is, to only automate those tasks that are repeated very frequently.

[@aichujohnson8444]

It's not the Capitalism that's the issue, but bureaucracy. Managers sometimes lack the technical insight. As a result, those managers take a nearsighted approach which perpetuates the cycle of manual drudgery.

[@jthadcast]

@@aichujohnson8444 not with our technology, full automation is still beyond reason even without the waste that is mandatory under capitalism and that IS the issue. there will never be a capitalist solution. automation hit a dead end.

[@SkyRiver1]

The most advanced chip "machine" is made by one company ASMl in the Netherlands. It costs about 150 million dollars. The company that has purchased the most of them is TSMC in Taiwan. Today to build a brand new, advanced chip fab in the USA is estimated by TSMC to cost 37 billion USD. If the US government were to fund this project with the amount of money you claim is necessary "trillions" (lets say two trillion, since you did use the plural which I suppose you understand means more than one) If the government were to give TSMC two trillion dollars they could build 54 of the most highly advanced fabs on earth. One for ever state and five in California. So you see, your idea of how much these things cost is so far off that it is funny, well maybe not funny but most certainly ridiculous. But then when has not knowing WTF your talking about ever stopped any one from expressing a monumentally incorrect opinion as fact. Just as if they really had some real notion of what they were talking about. Other than that, the rest of your statement is equally reliable in as far as reality is concerned. Nice fake narrative though, perhaps you could have a future at Fox News.

[@waterkingdavid]

31:05

[@BruceWaynesaysLandBack]

Ppl who don’t know politics shouldn’t get to ask questions🙄

[@darthclide]

1:05:34 Sigh... There just had to be one of THOSE types of people in the audience. Yes lady, we want to ditch all social progress in favor of flying cars. Do people like that ever think before they speak? And even IF we did ditch social progress. Has it ever occurred to you that many of these equality issues you fight so hard for, are actually just mind games created by the rich and powerful to keep you fighting over meaningless minutia, while they keep robbing you blind?

[@futureofmoney3527]

Well said. A lot of brainwashed people out there.

[@woodennecktie]

have you being living under a stone the last 75 years ?

[@jayblummer146]

14:26