Tech Bros Won't Save Us

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Tech Bros: Our New Messiahs?
In tough times, it's natural to look to technology to save us: from disease, from inconvenience, from tedium. But can we really count on the tech industry to solve society's biggest problems? And if not, what does it mean that there's an almost religious discourse about the potential of things like AI or microchips for our brains? Let's find out in this video: Technology + Capitalism = Our New Religion?
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=== Watch More Episodes! ===
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Written by Amanda Scherker
Hosted by Michael Burns
Directed by Michael Luxemburg
Edited by Mark Potts
Produced by Olivia Redden
Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound
#technology #capitalism #culture
© 2024 Wisecrack / Omnia Media, Inc. / Enthusiast Gaming

[@WisecrackEDU]

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[@TheDSasterX]

Speaking of men dominating nature... seems kind of odd given how much those masculine patriarchal hierarchies wax appeals to nature when challenged. Like, are we here to dominate nature or is it just in our nature? If dominating nature is in our nature, that's not very domineering, is it? Seems kinda beta to give into one's nature if we're supposed to be dominant. #hypocrisy#catch-22

[@sisyphus_strives5463]

can you please tell me the name of the philosophers in the video, if not the sources of the quotes? I'd really like the research them on my own, I can't quite make out what names you're saying.

[@BrandonStokes]

​@@sisyphus_strives5463 Paul Virilio

[@jxun4l3ht10]

Ground News just seems like Reddit with extra steps

[@raminolta]

THESE BUBBLE SOUNDS ARE NOT CUTE: THEY ARE USELESS, DISTRACTING AND ANNOYING. THEY SERVE NO PURPOSE: THEY DO NOT HELP THE AUDIENCE TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE SPEAKER AND EVEN IF THEY DID, THAT AUDIENCE WHOSE FOCUS BREAKS DOWN WITHOUT THE HELP OF THESE BUBBLE SOUNDS ARE PRACTICALLY HELPLESS. JUST STOP USING THEM, PLEASE.

[@jacoporegini8841]

We invented robots that paint and write so that more of us can focus on cleaning toilets and doing laundry.

[@alexanderwood5999]

Daaamn this comment hit me really, really hard.

[@BlakeWrobbel]

Good job you stole this from a recent meme but reworded it WORSE. But yeah we all feel that

[@jacoporegini8841]

@@BlakeWrobbel never seen the meme but I am not surprised that someone else feels the same

[@liambowne8184]

I think ideally it should be the other way around

[@TheRonnieaj]

@@liambowne8184Allegedly it was supposed to be the other way around. Robots do grunt work so we can do creative. Instead they take everyone’s creativity and smash it together, pretend it’s original, while we keep slugging away at the grunt work.

[@vebdaklu]

Sooo...Zuck can imagine a future soooo far that teleportation is possible...but it is still a society where you MUST go to the office. 😂 Tells you all you need to know about the man and his views on humanity.

[@emmanuelhtrevino]

It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

[@DrizzyB]

​@@emmanuelhtrevino the dude that came up with that quote was using 100% of his brain because that's the realest quote of the century

[@alliauyeung3004]

Rip mark fisher

[@TheManinBlack9054]

@@DrizzyB I mean its very easy to imagine the death of the world, with all the advances in AI, nuclear power and biological research.

[@devonwilliams5738]

Offices are a figment of the liberal media to scare you into buying useless suits and ties.

[@RileyMcGreevy]

“If there are 10s of thousands of automobile deaths a year, well maybe the answer isn’t self driving cars, maybe it’s massive government investment in safe accessible public transit.”

[@TheManinBlack9054]

Public transport is good, but it's not panacea. Cars are still needed. Public transport isnt like cars which are point-to-point, everytime, everywhere at your convenience. They are still needed and necessary. "Just replace them" is not a good strategy, cars are not busses or trains, they have their own upsides that are critical for many people.

[@kpatelv607]

​@TheManinBlack9054 no one said replace cars. If reliable public transport is available then a majority of people would give up their cars because of the sheer amount of economic freedom the elimination of car payments, insurance, maintenance, fuel would have for them. It's better to have electric public transport that is used by most and electric personal and commercial vehicles for the few, that is the ideal mix.

[@CaptainUrielVentris7]

​@@TheManinBlack9054we're not saying ban cars, we're saying actually give people an alternative.

[@NWPaul72]

That's commie talk. Next you'll be advocating for free medical care based on it being the right thing to do.

[@chocodawwg]

​@TheManinBlack9054 you misunderstand what people are saying about cars. Ambulances, Stock merchandisers, and Law enforcement aren't going to be on bikes. We know cars are needed

[@sandhillfarmer1]

Governance as a service is the worst phrase I’ve ever heard in my life. It gives me GaaS

[@CynthiaMcG]

You get a thumbs up just for the acronym. Nothing else.

[@mikesully110]

looks like we are starting down that route already, those who can pay more get better plans

[@idontwantahandlethough]

govern me daddy

[@velocirapture89]

I see what u did there 😂

[@FictionHubZA]

Isn't that what taxes are for?

[@LokiBeckonswow]

we need a digital bill of rights asap - we need data ownership asap - for too long the tech industry has stolen and monetised our data against us, we need a digital bill of rights asap!

[@CynthiaMcG]

We never even got an Equal Rights Amendment. How in sweet baby Jebus will we manage that miracle?

[@NWPaul72]

When did you want that?

[@gapsule2326]

Im sure itll be as usefull a deterrent against Capitalists and industry as the regular Bill of Rights... Oh wait

[@trinityassata7754]

I totally agree! A Digital Bill of Rights to Protect us Humans but I also believe we must either copyright, trademark or Patent our intellectual property for protection too

[@VikingRul3s]

We already have that in EU and if you're in USA... Well, sad to be the one to tell you the truth, but there money matter more than anything els and guess which industry has grown most in the last 2 decades (now the 2nd biggest industry in the world)

[@steven2183]

zuckerberg looks like a corporate sponsored merger between lovecraft and a hapsburg....

[@idontwantahandlethough]

you mean ź̶͎͇̬̦͓̞̤͓̀̈̒͝ũ̸̢̠͇̼͉̥͔̫͗͛̇̈́̀͌̆̌̃̽̄͘̚ͅc̷͕̳͒̊̄͌͂̈͂̕͠͠ǩ̴̬̬̰̲͖͇̔̅̊̃͝ȩ̸̛̻̜̖̘̭̫̼̩̒̓̍̓̓̈́̄̚͘̚̚͝r̶̳͙̰͗̽̌̏̓̄̐̿͂̾͊̽burg?

[@adamiotime]

Can't be unseen now

[@averageprogrammingenjoyer2059]

Zuckerberg is a reversed metamorphosis where a cockroach is turned into a human

[@Anon-te6uq]

3rd degree burn

[@liangflrs02]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 he's definitely got the lip

[@number1sun]

Amazon also uses 4 different subcontractor in each warehouse that they pit against each other and the most productive gets assigned more routes etc. This also separates Amazon from any form of legal liabilities involving the drivers. So when you see a delivery driver for Amazon remember they dont really work FOR Amazon. They also expect the drivers to work through breaks and lunches by having more drivers than routes and rewarding those who do so without being told because they aren't allowed to say it out loud. It's totally messed up.

[@spacewad8745]

Mythinformation sounds like Mike Tyson trying to pronounce Misinformation

[@pleaseandthankyou708]

My brain got my-thin-formation seeing this. The hyphen helps: myth-information

[@idontwantahandlethough]

@@pleaseandthankyou708 _My Thin Formation_ sounds like a lo-fi goth band that shoots album art exclusively in graveyards

[@SamWilkinsonn]

⁠@@idontwantahandlethoughor the name of an anorexia support group

[@trevorhannan5113]

We love to mythologize the "Great Man" in every industry. That's why we credit Rockefeler and Edison and Jobs and Musk but not the public interest and funding that helped them. That sort of thinking makes people want to believe that public regulation stifles innovation and leads to almost every innovation serving the good of those "Great Men" rather then your "fellow men." Also if I dropped out of an Engineering college, can I still be like a "Cultural Cool Guy?"

[@roneyandrade6287]

No, unless you suffered through pain inducing math like vector calculus, linear algebra or whatever else engineers do I'm a physicists

[@Ajv516]

Yeah, we really need to start reminding people how much they owe a lot of what they currently enjoy to DARPA and other government research programs. Tech billionaires are standing on the shoulders of large groups of intelligence people on government payrolls.

[@josejaimes-ramos1546]

A big insight I gleaned from reading ' Empire of cotton ' is that industrial capitalism was born out of strict protectionism and govt support in things like investment and labor discipline.

[@SageWon-1aussie]

Depends on how much money you've accumulated.

[@Videomorgue]

Makes you way cooler in my book.

[@rfak7696]

I'm a former AI researcher. Left the field and found a real job. When people ask me why I tell them I left a cult. I used to believe in all of this but there was always something bothering me, I couldn't really explain what. I think that the straw that broke the camel back was generative AI. As someone who is also an (amateur) artist and believes in hard work, GenAI was against everything I stand for. Being forced to face your bias and irrational beliefs and leaving a cult is hard. Cognitive dissonance is a b*tch. In the end, this video explains exactly what I feel about the field of AI. It's a doomsday cult crested by greedy snake oil salesmen pretending to be engineers and scientists.

[@misterprickly]

Agreed!

[@lakdav]

Feels like any equation with "+Capitalism" in it is doomed to equal a negative. It sure encourages technological progress, but also erodes what technology is supposed to make better.

[@SageWon-1aussie]

Replacing religion with capitalism leads to deification of the lucky. Luck always runs out.

[@1503010]

Capitalism only encourages technological progress if there is monetary profit to be gained. When the technology threatens existing profit models, patents are bought and locked in a safe. If it weren’t for the Russians, the USA would have never gone to space. Technological and scientific progress stems from individuals seeing possible material improvements and understanding, capitalism just applies a (bad) filter. Aside of that, capitalism is solely based on egotistical reasoning and will therefore always have negative results to the non-self. Capitalists rather rule over a dying world than give up control and let humanity blossom.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

That's because definitionally capitalism is a system that prioritizes the wants and whims of specific individuals at the harm of everyone else. By its very nature, it will mathematically always be a net negative.

[@Aedi]

adding capitalism to a concept generally means "and make it benefit a few people at the expense of the many"

[@alexlewis5365]

Does it really encourage technological progress? A lot, if not all of the groundbreaking techs in the modern world were invented without any care of making money. And it has a habit of taking existing techs and making them worse.

[@JoeSims1776]

The amount of Sam Walton pictures in the Walmart backroom confirms to me that capitalism is a religion

[@MrInthefriendzone]

Praise be to Mr Sam!

[@Nostripe361]

This is extra weird. Not only cause religious capitalism but cause the guy was super Christian and would probably hate this veneration

[@steven2183]

As a US navy veteran who regularly walked passed pictures of george bush in every foyer and barrack.....it's definitely cult stuff....

[@Bojoschannel]

Always has been 🔫

[@CynthiaMcG]

More like a cult, right? No? Just me?

[@donovanwaggoner6790]

I haven't used ChatGPT to write a paper- it sucks at writing anything substantive. Large Language Models have a writing style that flows so perfectly that my eyes actually frequently glaze over what I'm reading. For context, I work for an AI-training company that has people manually rank alternative prompt responses against each other, so I've gotten very good at recognizing AI-generated text, and therefore, its flaws. But even *before* this job, I ended up peer-reviewing an AI-written paper for my writing class. Now, I didn't immediately realize it was AI-generated. But when I got to the conclusion, I recognized the vague nothing-sandwich conclusion style that ChatGPT is notorious for. I double-checked the sources cited in the paper- while they were real sources, they didn't match my classmate's works cited page. I encouraged her not to submit anything like it to the professor. Bottom line, AI writing still sucks for anything except boilerplate stuff. If you want to write something good, do it yourself.

[@pokelover02]

As a professional copywriter who was chosen to be part of the AI research group in my company, I 100% agree. AI can’t write for shit. Math, though… 🤔

[@smeghead60]

Electronic engineer here, veteran across the street broke his hearing aid. Took some spare parts and made him a new one.

[@AngelaRamirez-dd4hd]

I can't say you're a cultural hero, but for that man and his family, you're a hero

[@sempiro]

You are a hero!

[@sempiro]

You are a hero!

[@TheEDBShow]

Quick thing. Masons use "Great Architect of the Universe" as a way to refer to God without prioritizing a single religion. Part of being a Freemason is that you have to believe in a Supreme Being of some kind, but the specific religion doesn't matter.

[@mikesully110]

I could never get on with NA for the same thing, they have that Greater Power or Supreme Being woo as well

[@aby110]

That's for traditional freemasonry

[@dojohansen123]

In other words, you have to be an idiot to qualify to be a Freemason. I am glad I can be a free individual instead of joining a group of "free" folks who have to believe particular things.

[@brookejon3695]

​@@mikesully110every 12-step plan program like Alcoholics Anonymous is the same way. Not encouraging for us atheist alcoholics.

[@ObsceneSuperMatt]

@@mikesully110 Narcotics Anonymous?

[@eriknephrongfr8847]

I am the engineer of my own misery.

[@justharry2190]

Ah an true cultural hero.

[@toyotaprius79]

Mood

[@runningwithSaul]

Congratulations 👏 you deserve to be recognized! It's people like you that make the world go round...

[@armundojones]

You are... an antihero?

[@ImJustAnOnion]

Same ❤

[@IAmNumber4000]

I used to be a techno-optimist. Learning how to program made me the opposite.

[@alexiahurley2250]

Same

[@realnowheregirl]

Is this because going behind the curtain helped you recognize how messy people can be setting up programs?

[@alexiahurley2250]

@@realnowheregirl it's all held together with toothpicks and bubblegum

[@animerage1862]

​@@realnowheregirland no one knows how any of it works, you just hit run and if it didn't break, that's that.

[@realnowheregirl]

@@animerage1862 Oh wow, I hadn't considered that.

[@noahrenken3773]

I’m an audio engineer, hear to represent 😮

[@Kittra.kaibyo]

I like what you did there! 😂🧡

[@ronoc9]

You're a cultural hero!

[@jasonschneider7224]

Ah, a cultural hear-o! Ba dum, tiss! (dodges rotten fruit)

[@TheChrisLeone]

Sorry for throwing that at you, I just wanted to be cool ​@@jasonschneider7224

[@zhouyongkang5331]

Do audio engineers count?

[@jrmorales86]

tech + capitalism = our extinction

[@1us7_MaT1jx]

So true

[@PatronemExChao]

Real

[@FizzleFX]

Tech ain't the problem GREED IS

[@TheStarSquid]

Good

[@jrmorales86]

@@FizzleFX tech created by capitalism is greed

[@Croot_Music]

Weapons of Life has to be the most Orwellian thing ever

[@BlakeWrobbel]

“LIFE IS A ZERO SUM GAME” on the wall randomly

[@rokhamler3352]

Nuclear power is a double edged sword - it can majorly power civilization and it can almost utterly destroy it.

[@abhishekbhandari6362]

I am engineer. lol. Specialization: Power electronics (electrical engineering). I am 2 years into my 1st job at a semiconductor company and I often find myself questioning if I have what it takes to catch up in knowledge, experience and execution to principal engineers at my company. I am no cultural hero, but more power to all the older engineers who have accomplished feats by constantly grinding it out.

[@diyaeroastro]

Man you have taken words from my mouth. Today everyone in tech is trying to sound like they are nerd but in reality they are pretending even musk himself. He has not given credit to people who deserved most.

[@abhishekbhandari6362]

@@diyaeroastro I agree completely. I remember Musk saying in an interview that he knows more about manufacturing cars than anyone else on the planet! What an absurd statement that is not even grounded in reality. Honda and Toyota's cars work even after 20 years if maintained properly. That is an engineering feat accomplished by the documented contributions of a series of engineers over a span of decades who shared their knowledge with those who came after so that they could build on that knowledge base. Tesla's own cars have a lot of variation in their build with things like the lining of their doors and so on. A lot of Tech billionaires claim credit for all the work their engineers have done, when in reality, some people summarized the work as a powerpoint or so and they just absorbed that info. If their knowledge would be tested, people will quickly realize that it is shallow. Exceptionally gifted engineers (possibly, Nvidia's CEO) are rarely the ones running the show .

[@diyaeroastro]

@@abhishekbhandari6362 totally agree with you. Being in intellectual atmosphere any CEO from tech background can start pretending like know it all & that personification is amplified by today's media like they have contacted the possible uber intelligence being. Today anyone get alienated & get lost in. Today's engineers have no chance of solving problems which impacts civilization on long run. God like traits can't be expected from tech giant bcz they are not paying their own employees how you can expect more from them it's totally absurd

[@AlejandroDiazadiaz201]

I write cyberpunk fiction about this. And the description stays "High tech. Low life"

[@sillyswiss2800]

On some days i feel like that statement resonates with me

[@RoyJERaiy]

I used to love tech as I loved the opportunities new technology gave me while I worked in repairs. It sobered me quickly after 2018~ just how awful the repair business was, due to companies trying to kill our little shops. Now years later as I put thousands of hours into a fantasy book of my own creation, with a handful of ardent supporters... chat gpt comes to knock to threaten that very dream. At this point, I am writing simply to spit in the eye of the tech gods and because I want my books out there so whoever sees it can enjoy the book.

[@dormitivevirtue]

Don't worry. AI is nowhere close to writing anything compelling. It most likely never will.

[@RoyJERaiy]

@@dormitivevirtue That is true for now. But for industry giants, they could just hire less scrupulous editors who'd edit AI shlock to work later on down the line and sell it. I should add that I don't want to downplay your message and wish to thank you for the encouragement regardless. AI is far from good at this for now, but we can't say for how long that'll be. So cheers in hopes we (writers and fellow wannabe authors) won't have to deal with that nightmare in the near future.

[@kamilkowalski1349]

@@dormitivevirtue Strong disagree, there's such a strong demand for easily-digestible slop that authentically great works might not matter soon. I suspect that in the future it'd be enough to feed a writing assistant like NovelAI with keywords and make some underpaid guy supervise it, correcting it so that it doesn't stray too far from marketable ideal.

[@venus_riotous5295]

I Hope you get it published 😀 Can you tell me the name so that I can buy it when it comes out?

[@RoyJERaiy]

@@venus_riotous5295 Yeah certainly! The Crimson Serpent - Shadow of War (I do have a discord server where I post updates about it but adding links to comments doesn't work very well.)

[@alex_lll]

Tech bros in 80s-90s (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs): we will build you computers, phones, music players Result: done. Changed the world. Tech bros in 2010s: we will solve all problems Result: crypto scams, hyperfarts, misinformation everywhere

[@jeffersonhassan4558]

With every tech comes problems, do you think phones and computers don't have their own fair share of baggage that they come with?

[@alex_lll]

@@jeffersonhassan4558 there's a big difference between "fair share of baggage" brought by phones and computers and only baggage brought in by crypto and hyperloop

[@CalamityCannon]

Whoah that part about Luddites should be a short I mean this genuinely but also deeply appreciate the irony in those words

[@tabsterg]

11:56 jesus fucking christ are we really gonna sit there and explain to our grandchildren how we had these people say these things and decided not to jail them for life? that is insane

[@andrewcolliver2642]

Yep, reckon they all should be in jail - we’re infatuated and addicted, so we don’t pay attention either to what they really believe about their fellow humans (who for them are only other billionaires) or how they’re happy to plunder/destroy our biological substrate. And by the way, the “apex predator” BS is not the way evolution or nature work. Or not for long, anyway…

[@platonicexorcism5077]

As a software engineer and a massive continental philosophy and cultural theory reader, I do think there are specific parts of the web that are genuinely really cool and emancipatory. BitTorrenting as well as open source, community supported software are two examples. There's a great XKCD panel about this subject, like the internet literally relies on the free labor of random people who love geeking out over hyperspecific parts of operating systems and basic hardware drivers. Apple and Windows rely on these things to this day, and don't let their new ARM chips distract from that. Anyways, while I strongly agree with someone like Benjamin and some of the other thinkers you cite that probably all 'technology' serves the bourgeoisie, that doesn't mean it's all terrible! Clean operating rooms and similar technologies are so awesome and should be more accessible! Novel thinkers and collaborative, communalized engineers will be a massive part of our collective liberation.

[@waronaemmanuelgaregope9441]

African engineer checking in (from Botswana 🇧🇼)

[@DetectiveTrupo203]

I went to a park, in BOTSWANA. You are a hero Warona

[@ElectricFaeries]

You're a cultural hero

[@Dan-ud8hz]

“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” ― Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History

[@Virjunior01]

Wow. Came to that conclusion years ago on my own... It was brought about by people talking IQ, to which is mused: is it not only possible but LIKELY that a person capable of curing cancer is simply working fields somewhere, due to the conditions they were born into?

[@quickfrog57]

Electrical engineer here! Heap praise on me so that I feel validated for having student debt still

[@erictarkowski5141]

Hazaaa!

[@johng4609]

Transcend by chanting 'Ohm'; resistance is futile

[@AarmOZ84]

You put yourself in debt so that we can still have a future. Your sacrifice is messiah like in nature.

[@whatisrokosbasilisk80]

Where's my supergrid, bro?

[@jennyanydots2389]

I manage the night shift at Taco Bell, no debt brugh. I'm totes loaded. Discounts, free leftover taco bell taco meat, interesting people.

[@ryan_of_marshall986]

@wisecrack i was asked by a colloquium professor of my "fermi paradox" class to write a paper on the Drake Equation (8 page, double space, etc.) Using ai as much as possible. When reading the essay it makes sense, unless you are firmilliar with the topic. The equations are incorrect, the main points are close but wrong, and the citatiins are complete hallucinations all the way down to the publications pressence in reality. Grant it this was gpt3, but i find that the informatiin given, including simple promps are bellow the average internet user. Wikjpedia is more accurate and even that isn't an academic source. I even researched a comparative history paper on the predicted effect of AI in art when compared to the printing press and camera. Fellow artists: we're gonna be fine, ai isnt going to replace you. Thanks for coming to my ted talk. Have a great afternoon!

[@benismann]

out of my group at the university, i, probably, was the only one who actually read wtf chatgpt shat out for my fellow students. It was.... an experience. Never used it myself, since i would rather try to write it myself than work as a redactor for whatever it shits out

[@zachybeats]

Imagine how powerful a global union of engineers would be. Tech CEOs and executives are nothing without the workers who power the systems and products that they take credit for.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

Nobody with wealth has real power. They have the illusion of power afforded by people not realizing that they have the power to just destroy society by doing nothing. If every worker refused to work, the people who we believe to have power would be shown to have none, and the people who believe that have no power would notice they have ALL the power.

[@zachybeats]

@@dontmisunderstand6041 so true, very well said

[@rpgden4553]

Platform billionaireBros are absolutely heading us towards technofeudalism. Hate all of it.

[@xero409]

Only one minute in and my first thought is "of course we would work out teleportation enough to get all of humanity to work, but haven't figured out how to pay a living wage in the meantime".

[@jamesbarry5508]

Lenin would literally throw up if he heard himself being referred to as a savior

[@truthhertz10]

There's no irony, that's like those "tech bros" who say shit like "you're complaining about capitalism while holding an iPhone". The truth is there is currently no alternative, we're complaining however because we know a better alternative is possible.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

There is an alternative, we know what it is, we know how to make it happen, but the people who don't want it to happen are extremely few in number but somehow have more power to prevent it from happening than everyone else has to make it happen.

[@piccalillipit9211]

*I BOUGHT A MECHANICAL TYPEWRITER* a few months ago - an Olympia SG-1 made in 1958, its in perfect condition and works flawlessly. My writing productivity has soared...!!! It NEVER corrects my spelling or challenges my grammar whilst interrupting my train of thought. It never tells me an email has arrived or a pop up telling me a thing.

[@greywolf845]

Reject Word doc, Return to Dark Academia

[@damianarvizu1095]

You are not wrong. The promise of technology has largely failed “the common person”

[@stravvman]

And yet, "the common person" uses dozens of technologies every day and has no intention of giving up those he grew up with.

[@noahrenken3773]

Love the new sponsor guys! Moving up from Better Help 🔥

[@WarrenPeaceOG]

Fully Automated Luxury Communism. A social change, an economic change, a political change

[@PeepTheHues]

I wrote a research paper called The Religion of Progress that makes similar points about this a few years ago

[@cindydorantes10]

could u share?

[@PeepTheHues]

@@cindydorantes10 Sure. It seems like sharing the link directly gets filtered out by KZbin. You can find it by searching the following in Google “the religion of progress transhumanism academia.edu”. It should be the first result. I’d also recommend looking at the similar papers on tranhumanism and religious frameworks. I was pretty young when I wrote this paper so there’s likely things that can be improved. Also, this seems to the draft instead of the final paper but I’m not sure I have the final draft of the paper anywhere. The main thing I’d probably update here would adding examples surrounding current AI progress , the lack of regulation and reliable safeguards, and exploring AI accelerationism more in depth.

[@bigsnap5]

Honestly, I would really like to read this. I am a writer and this strain thought is something I am researching.

[@deadhead4077]

Killing it with the ad segue again! I barely noticed LOL what an excellent topic.

[@elemental-zweihander]

I am a software engineer - I "push" the world in direction my managers and clients ask.

[@velocirapture89]

Yep…so long as I get a paycheck!

[@ertymexx]

Maybe that is the problem?

[@rav3style]

I’ve never met anyone more in need of the humanities than engineering and business majors.

[@afreaknamedallie1707]

LITERALLY THIS. As an anthropologist, as someone who has spent way too many years through college and as a professional doing a side hustle delivering food to those people, omg yes. Especially engineers. Most of them don't seem to fully have theory of mind, I swear to dog.

[@rav3style]

@@afreaknamedallie1707 I read somewhere that this woman had to keep explaining to engineers at her work that reinventing eugenics is not a good idea

[@jorgerangel2390]

I've been in tech and startups for almost a decade now, let me tell you the founders talk like priests of every "new" tech, they always hipe up thinks that are not actually that useful, there are sure some things that are useful in some niche cases but nothing exceptional. Progressing as humans and making things better for everyone won’t come from capitalism, we have proof of that, no extreme is good dudes

[@seltzerbot8730]

Technology could’ve given us such a nice future, where many fewer people would have to work to survive. We could’ve let housing be a human right. Instead, we’ve chosen the Blade Runner route. IRIIIIii HIIiii KATAAAAAAAaaaMMMMMmmmmMUUUUUUuuuu

[@jwolf4444]

Technology still can give us a better future 🫡

[@arthurdefreitaseprecht2648]

​@@jwolf4444this is what I hope, so sad that the bulk of technology is not being used for the benefit of humanity, but only at the benefit of some humans 😢

[@kamilkowalski1349]

Correction: Blade Runner, but boring

[@seltzerbot8730]

@@kamilkowalski1349 yep!

[@GetGwapThisYear]

Interlinked

[@HardCodedGaming]

Appreciate the shoutout to the channel's relative-youth-sustaining blood donors, but can we at least get some of the patreon benefits?

[@friendlynotfriends9262]

The background music felt like I was in the light tunnel at Detroit’s McNamara terminal

[@marcbernat9625]

It be feeling like Mage the Ascension the way the Technocrats wanna make sure the future comes, but only through their control

[@brunojalles7174]

That's an awesome reference, you may have won the comment section

[@daniele36140]

I'm an engineer and worked for years on the software used to do robocalls. you're all welcome! No need to call me a cultural hero

[@keywolf23]

How do you break it (or cause the most amount of inconvenience) from a recipient side?

[@carultch]

Congratulations. You wasted your career making life worse for people.

[@MarkZielonko]

​@@carultchclearly she recognizes and identifies it's detriments. Rubbing it in probably isn't helping

[@daniele36140]

@@carultch it was my first job, i graduated very late and with average grades. I needed something on my cv and decided to sell a bit of soul for it. Job was super alienating and I did way too much overtime btw

[@daniele36140]

@@keywolf23 interestingly enough, I'm not aware of the possibility of deleting your number from the database, there's no functionality for it, the only way is to manually enter the command but needs to be done by someone that understands database, it is not done with clicks on the UI. There's a checkbox to disable calls to a certain number, but who's responsible for clicking it I don't know... and I guess there's some bureaucracy involved, you need human intervention you can't unsubscribe via internet for example (I'm from Europe, everything is bureaucratic here) As to cause disturbance to this "service", in theory the longer the calls the more resources are needed in terms of bandwidth and memory and such, there's a fixed amount of concurrent calls that they can handle... so the longer the calls the less people they can bother even if it's pre-recorded voices. But let's face it: you alone are powerless

[@TheAllSeeingEye2468]

The tech boom is already collapsing

[@MinusMedley]

Peaking, big difference.

[@danielsantiagourtado3430]

Amazing thumbnail guys! 👏👏👏👏

[@danielsantiagourtado3430]

That disk scratching was perfect 😂😂😂😂😂

[@im36degrees]

"Can't we just vibe with nature" is a very hippy statement

[@BelzebubAt]

So...? Maybe respecting nature might not be the worst idea looking at the state our planet is drifting into atm.

[@1503010]

This is the exact arrogance that is going to kill us all (or at least most of us). We are part of nature, not the masters over it.

[@Werewolf.with.Internet.Access]

Saying something that’s true and balanced is “hippy” is pretty fat cat of you bro

[@baoquoc3710]

says the absolute hypocrite of a corporation ass sniffing buffon.

[@misusatriyo]

25:14 "i get the irony here" pretty much sums it up.

[@Afreelunch85]

I think we may soon find that profit-driven layered technology (the internet, cellphones, self-driving cars, smart homes, AI, etc.) is a dangerous pedestal on which to place our dependance. It will become clear at a future point in the development in our species that all we ever truly have is each other, even though our many degrees of systemically imposed social separation work to convince us otherwise.

[@awesomesauce1157]

i found it absolutely fascinating how project 2025 claimed that environmentalism is "pseudo-religious." What does that even mean, and why would it discredit it?

[@disky01]

My take is that religion is a defining feature of many of their voters' lives and if being conscious of environmetal issues doesn't factor into Christianity (or their twisted version of it) then they can use it as a method of othering people on the left. They can say "this is THEIR religion, not OUR religion, which is obviously better" which might not only more deeply drive those people into the clutches of right-wing extremists, but also keep the idea of environmental sustainability as a positive thing out of their minds. Great for investors and captains of industry.

[@SageWon-1aussie]

I'm fairly sure that the desire to protect the environment has been positioned as paganism since the 70's or perhaps earlier. Gaianism and all that. It's an attempt to keep "scientific" superiority on the side of capitalism.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

It lets them argue both ways. To their religious followers, the pseudo- part is the alarm bell, wrong because not religious. And to the others, the religious part is the alarm bell, because it suggests a set of opinions that definitionally cannot be a correct answer to anything.

[@gabrielgarcia7554]

I am an engineer and I work at a big tech company so I am essentially the biggest cultural hero. @9:07

[@hibuddy1473]

You are a cultural hero!

[@TheDanishGuyReviews]

Tech Bros will save themselves. Unless they built their stuff themselves, then they're screwed.

[@suimeingwong2043]

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." [Remarks on the first anniversary of the Alliance for Progress, 13 March 1962]” ― John F. Kennedy

[@jerrys.9895]

The things I could make if I didn't have to spend so much of my time feeding an endless productivity cycle..... They'd still be bad because I'm talentless, but man I would make so much stuff!

[@RileyMcGreevy]

I bet eventually they’d become good. No one starts out good at something. It takes time and you haven’t had the time yet because capitalism sucks.

[@LayZKimochi420BlazeIt]

Talent isn't real

[@NWPaul72]

​@@LayZKimochi420BlazeItsinging disagrees with this statement.

[@bridgerparker4275]

​@NWPaul72 talent takes hard work, some people can learn quicker than others but nobody is born with it

[@iseeu-fp9po]

I still think people who cheer on AI in all forms are naive.

[@stomodino5443]

Trust in technology? Ok. Trust in tech companies and CEO's? No.

[@sethsmith8638]

I'm a pharmaceutical engineer. ChatGPT isn't good enough yet.

[@MaakaSakuranbo]

I mean, it's plenty good for a lot of daily life uses. It doesn't have to be the answer to literally everything

[@DetectiveTrupo203]

Youre a cultural hero

[@e08destroyer]

Are they hiring? Lol, I have a B.S. in computer engineering looking to work as an MES engineer.

[@Amorfati2000]

Henry Ford paid the workers enough that they can buy the cars they build and afford a family with a single income. Today as an engineer at GM i cannot afford to buy pricey vehicles we help design and afford a family or housing. We all wonder who is able to buy these cars we design and why are we in such crappy situation? Don’t recommend engineering as a career

[@afrikasmith1049]

Now I'm thinking that our future might be a combination of I Robot and Demolition Man only more depressing and there's no action hero to save us.

[@hemidas]

More like a mix of Robocop and Akira.

[@afrikasmith1049]

@@hemidas I'll believe that when we have people with crazy psychic abilities.

[@alarex8204]

Our cities are built in such a way to make us dependent on cars. Lots of places in Europe you can walk or take a bus for anything essential, trains if you want to go farther. Builds a stronger community as well, but I don't think they want that as much as making a profit on suffering. College not being free for the benefit of society and instead being a way for the elite rich families to stay ahead says everything you need to know about our society. All of this should've been done by now. Thought our kids would laugh about how we used to pay for college and healthcare, and driving metal death machines for fun. Instead no one can even afford a home. What the crap?

[@josecipriano3048]

"Elon's fans donating their brains..." What an oxymoronic statement.

[@94ejackAYTUser]

The words "bullshit" and "shitty" are bleeped out. At least the word "suicide" wasn't bleeped out.

[@alexanderw.5200]

I'm a disabled veteran with a "UBI" technically, and making art and living on a farm WITH the planet rather than consuming it is the way to go. Tech should help us achieve these goals, not be making our movies, paintings and tv shows. Finance ruined it.

[@Azaurus1]

A cult around cutting edge tech will inevitably fade as new tech become old tech. Technology hyper fixation is no replacement for running society effectively.

[@crepooscul]

These clowns think that they can manifest things into existence just because sci-fi writers wrote about it.

[@johng4609]

As a sometime engineer, FWIW here is one of my favorite design principles: "The most important thing is to know what is the most important thing." -- Shunryu Suzuki

[@alexandrecolautoneto7374]

The problem is that capitalism needs those problems for profit. >No house= higher rents. >High unemployment = lower wages. > Hunger = extremely cheap workforce >No time for leisure = more opioids sold Technology will never come to improve our life, but to deteriorate it.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

You start with the premise that capitalism is the problem, why would your conclusion be unrelated to capitalism?

[@alexandrecolautoneto7374]

@@dontmisunderstand6041 I start with a observation about reality. Then I explain the logic behind my observation. only then I make my premise, that in a capitalist society, the capital decide de direction of the technology. Hence the capital profit more from people with poor life quality, the technology will come to satisfy the needs of its creator: i.e. deteriorate the life of the workforce.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

@@alexandrecolautoneto7374 Not to be pedantic, but premise literally refers to the ideas sent before. The first idea presented is that capitalism demands profit. That's the premise that both your observations and logic center around. Though, I would still like to know why you first acknowledge that capitalism is the source of the problem and then reject addressing the problem that is capitalism, and instead reject technology just to spite capitalism.

[@alexandrecolautoneto7374]

@@dontmisunderstand6041 oh I don't rejected technology, I'm texting you from an smart phone. I'm questioning the purpose of technology on a capitalist world. You cannot separate the technology from the means that it is conceived. Technology isn't an abstract concept that floats above reality. Technology is made by people for a specific purpose, and in a society where profit is the only objective the goal of that creation will not necessarily be good for the majority of people.

[@alexandrecolautoneto7374]

@@dontmisunderstand6041 but that doesn't mean that all technology are bad.

[@easygreasy3989]

World doesn't need saving, we do, from the ones that are trying to save us.

[@meatwax]

Humans yelling about freedom so ready to obey, follow, and suplucate themselves. Is Orewellian dystopian double speak. I remember when "selling out" was something to be mocked. Now its all anyone wants to do

[@DinoCism]

Anytime you hear a politician or a CEO in the West say the word "freedom," what they really mean is capitalism.

[@hafeezahbashir2516]

I've never used chat GPT to write an entire paper. Only to help me phrase certain ideas in a more "formal sounding way" and sometimes hide the fact that I'm literally lifting a whole paragraph from the source material 😢

[@EuCoruja]

I would argue, but I'm honestly tired, so I'll just say this: There's only one solution ☭

[@RavagerLink]

The techs and the people who have the money manipulate and control the government at the same time they said to us that the problem is the government. It’s win win to them.

[@ddzwiedziu]

I'm an engineer here to tell you that's a missed opportunity to invite Paris Marx.

[@jakoblarok]

Thank you very much for your service.

[@auto117666]

5:00 I really thought your Patreon subscription type was a joke, but I’m glad it’s working out. You look great for a 100 year old!

[@nonefvnfvnjnjnjevjenjvonej3384]

"hey computer discover all of physics" lmaoo... man the amount of sheer bs these guys smoke and sell.. no wonder they are so hated.

[@ryanbrink4390]

Big Mike coming in with some real "last day of work before vacation" energy, and it's great to see. Or I guess it could be from an accidental double dose of some medicinal YES PLZ coffee. They're both the same kind of energy and either way it's wonderful.

[@dustypants9326]

I just added "Techno Feudalism What Killed Capitalism" by Yanis Varoufakis to my audiobook list. Weird coincidence

[@aggieraz]

I'm a structural engineer 🙂; I design buildings, industrial and power generation structures. I'm licensed in multiple states and have to adhere to a code of ethics that is expected of all classical engineering professions (programmers, robotics, audio etc. are not classical), that holds public safety as paramount to all activities. Because of folks like me, society works; you are welcome.

[@Sardonicus]

Preaching to the choir. I've been screeching this since forever about everything. It's an idea nobody brings up when talking about others that did the same like Nietzsche or Schopenhauer or even Hume. Nothing and nobody is coming to save you, collectively, we all need to stop relying on outside forces to fix stuff... it has never happened before and will likely never happen in the future. We, as individuals, need to be more self-reliant and learn to live-and-let-live as long as whatever someone else is doing isn't harming us.

[@randomtinypotatocried]

So basically give up

[@frohnatur9806]

Sounds like that stuff about climate change being every single person's private responsibility, which just lets corpos off the hook. I think we need to organize and educate, to be less gullible towards such self-serving messiahs. Wisecrack is doing good on the education part

[@bobbarrysbailbonds9777]

@Wisecrack, could you cite the books/articles/authors via text during videos? I like the ideas so much that I want to explore them further!

[@jamesonmcmullan5722]

The only goal of science should be to better the lives of everyone. Emphasis on everyone.

[@johnners911]

Wisecrack pops up on my feed every few months. I'm always pleasantly surprised that they consistently hit the mark and acknowledge the zeitgeist.

[@patricklynch9574]

Where is Dr. Sweet? I have a literature class coming up and I need his wisdom and analysis.😂

[@afreaknamedallie1707]

"Governance as a service" is the single most dystopian thing I've ever heard

[@Saarth_]

Seems like a byproduct of the spectacle economy.

[@pacolemus2938]

I love all your videos, but I wanna ask something. Would it be possible for tu to write the bibliography on the description? Thanks, you're great

[@WisecrackEDU]

yes we need to do this.

[@Godonstilts]

Firstly, Elon Musk can take a short walk off an even shorter pier. However, I fully believe that Technology *could* save humanity, if it were not for the sheer greed of capitalism holding it back to ensure every dime of profits can be scraped along the way. Just imagine if we stopped hamstringing one another for the sake of profit, and actually worked together to solve common issues, and make our lives better?

[@SonicRyan1992]

Technology **can** be used for good, but tech bros undermine the potential because all they care for is selling an idea at all cost for their own self aggrandizement

[@snuffybox]

love you wisecrack ️❤

[@chamberlincobb8250]

I've never used Chat GPT to actually write a paper, but I will use it to do certain paper writing tasks like adding a summary or giving me ideas if I'm struggling with how to phrase a certain thought. It's great for that. One of my classmates used Chat GPT to organize/analyze her research data, and she got an A on her project, so it must have worked. My advice would be to make sure you ALWAYS double-check its work before turning it in.

[@ethancoster1324]

Tech that is driven solely for the endless profit of the few will never profit the many. Tech advancement should be driven by the moral and ethical concerns of the world and not by the material desires of the greedy.

[@stravvman]

Which is no less dangerous

[@ethancoster1324]

@@stravvman How?

[@stravvman]

​@@ethancoster1324 Altruistic intentions do not guarantee a better outcome, just as selfish intentions do not guarantee a worse outcome. In fact, some would argue that moral motivation is the worst motivation in public affairs, since it breeds not only inefficiency, but also intolerance as the subject begins to regard himself as morally infallible.

[@ethancoster1324]

@@stravvman So you're saying that we need to be greedy in order not to be complacent and prideful? People really do need to be content and fulfilled with less and not driving to no end for more. Fulfil the basics and necessities without treating their production as a bloody competition. Could you imagine what could be achieved through industry collaboration? We cannot afford to continue to treat the world like a basket case to be plundered for endless individual gain.

[@hairypotter259]

Related book recs: Breaking Things at Work by Gavin Mueller and Road to Nowhere by Paris Marx