Lewis Mumford - Authoritarian and Democratic Technics (1972)

[@Angelina-zu6no]

This is actually a recording from 1963. Even more pertinent today. Mumford was an extremely lucid man. No wonder we never hear much about him.

[@tianyinjia]

You don't hear this level of oratory and deep thought any more in the US or anywhere else. He was prescient and bang on.

[@frankwhite1816]

Always loved Mumford. This is the first time I've heard him talk, though, and I LOVE it! There is definitely a sly humour in his tone. He is so prescient. He nailed all of it. It's funny that no matter how many intelligent people tell us exactly what's wrong and how to fix it we just don't give a flying flux. LOL! Humans . . . . ewwww.

[@C3yl0]

Amazing discourse! As a Philosophy, Economics, and Cognitive Neuroscience student this is a delightful experience and wish one day to have his same magnificent oratory. 👽♥️♥️♥️

[@compegord07]

AI will make this trivial soon enough? Will your (or anyones) admiration mean much after this is, if it becomes so, true?

[@amosstromberg7188]

One of the best speeches I've heard. And even more so, the message - and warning - which Mumford was here conveying becomes more relevant for each passing day. Much is pointing towards the fact that we as a human species are approaching a historical rupture in which life itself risks being thrashed by the 'technium'. We will soon be facing a technological, biological and societal crossroads in which we will have to make a choice: either bet on the (risky) promises offered by the technics of AI (enhancement, radical life extension, etc.) which could backfire and extinguish the human species; or we withdraw from the luminous glow of postcapitalist posthumanism, therein accepting a technological regression and decline in material wealth with the gain of having safeguarded our species. The rise of the transhumanist movement, which I'm certain Mumford would classify as the zenith of authoritarian technics, is now regarded as "the dominant ideology of the fourth industrial revolution" (see Klaus-Gerd Giesen 2018). Transhumanism is the antithesis not only to the human species but to the very phenomenon of biological life. The organic realm of forests, fish, thriving soils, insects, animals and humans, is increasingly being overshadowed by the Silicon Valley technocracy and actually traded in for seemingly technomaniacal visions of cyborg-fetishism and a deafening promise of electronic immortality. As Mumford noted, "the [capitalist] system itself must be expanded, at whatever eventual cost to life" (1964, p. 5). I believe it is a duty of mankind to investigate what I understand as Mumford's main wish: to ask ourselves how much we want technology to dictate over us and our children, instead of the other way around.

[@jonatanpalmblad3328]

I'm about to finish a dissertation on Mumford and I can confirm that he would definitely be against transhumanism, despite having known Julian Huxley. The kernel of this paper is developed in Mumford's two-volume work The Myth of the Machine, which explains how we have created a machine system (which is more than a capitalist system) that limits our human agency and subordinates it to the system itself. In recent years, a very similar theory has been laid out by the earth system scientist Peter Haff, whose papers on the "technosphere" might interest you.

[@amosstromberg7188]

@@jonatanpalmblad3328 Thank you for your reply. I sent an email to you on your arcadia email. Best, Amos

[@CFEusylvania]

Well said.

[@HerbertMarcuse1972]

Majestic Speaker!

[@nelsonolsen1409]

He is talking about the present 🔥

[@oswaldspengler1823]

great upload. keep em coming

[@jasmonoff]

Glad to see you are not stealing content anymorre.

[@tuutuutuuttuutuutuut2244]

the man , the legend

[@evan2173]

6:58 "we are now approaching a point..."

[@TheNoblot]

political views of time & space, perceptions images of the present past, reviving themselves reincarnating as reality, to a dreaming mind.

[@michaelnoonan352]

This, while the Vietnam War was going on

[@Michael-cl9mb]

Anybody listening to this must go to Deep Green Resistance.

[@soulfuzz368]

Deep Green could be exponentially better if Derrick could get over his daddy issues.

[@olliegarkie7958]

Actually deep green sent me here. Derrick's videos on technics really connected a lot of dots for me.

[@stevengallant6363]

So Ted K. wasn't totally crazy after all.

[@dougcl_]

What was unoriginal in Ted K was fine. It was his contribution that was insane.

[@DANIELlaroqustar]

i agree with everything he said exept for the global over-population idea he had to throw out there 😛 however i forgive mumford as hes not the only rich intellectual spreading climate change, over-population crisis propaganda.

[@MikePlugh]

DANIELlaroqustar What makes you think he was rich?

[@mayamachine]

@@MikePlugh white man with elite education... that's a wealthy man.

[@MikePlugh]

@@mayamachine 1. That's a dangerous category error. 2. It doesn't seem like you know very much about Lewis Mumford. There are plenty of reasons to critique the things he says, but Mumford wasn't some sort of silver spoon, ivory tower elitist. "Elite education" implies that he attended prestigious institutions and became an insider. That's not at all how Mumford came to prominence. He did have opportunities in those areas, but mostly he sought his education outside of academic. There's no doubt he benefitted from his race and his network, but he didn't use those things for comfort or to increase his privilege at the expense of others. He remained, until his last days, committed to improving the condition of the world in both the broad and narrow sense. He lived in a little humble cottage in Amenia, NY with his wife. I've seen it.

[@artherladett442]

@@MikePlugh thank you for sharing a little about his history. I quite admire him. I am looking forward to reading more deeply his work

[@mjamesharding]

Uh, what do you do with the now scientific consensus on climate change as a human-generated phenomenon and why are you so hostile to this consensus?

[@letdaseinlive]

Blather.

[@letdaseinlive]

@@remotefaith OK...

[@mjamesharding]

Not that you care, but your ignorance is on display.

[@letdaseinlive]

@@mjamesharding ZZzZzzzz

[@mjamesharding]

@@letdaseinlive lower case zs across the board would have been more passive aggressive.

[@letdaseinlive]

@@mjamesharding Blah.