When I first joined Columbia Engineering, in what became my longest job, it was like a quaint small town remarkably untouched by (post)modernity. The rot ravaging the rest of the university felt far away. Bashful nerds toiled at obscure technical problems devoid of politics, and girls’ gatherings still gave advice on meeting Mr. Right, bearing children, and achieving that elusive work/life balance. It was amazingly retro, and charming contrast to the anxious stridency I’d found elsewhere on campus.
Is this really the future? Sounds very bleak. I don’t feel much hope. What I really want to know is why? Why have so many become co-opted? Whose vision are we implementing? Is there the possibility of turning back?
Sadly I think it's pretty well baked into the cake by this point. Idealists will use any means and technologies at their disposal to pursue their utopia because they are the enlightened vanguard on the right side of history, as far as they're concerned. So while we may have passed "peak woke" for now in terms of what most people want to hear, the more relevant fact is that the ideology still defines the institutions in Washington, Silicon Valley etc. -- it doesn't matter what anyone thinks because the assumptions are all embedded in the bureaucracies and algorithms.
Some of the problem has been powerful people like Soros and Schwab, but probably the bigger factor is the systemic logic of technocracy itself, which assumes that humans are malleable and credentialed experts are capable of solving social problems. The persistence of any inequity or disparity is simply because enough money and experts haven't been thrown at the problem yet, so keep giving the managerial class more money, power, titles, prestige, etc. to "get the job done" and if that never happens it's just because of sabotage from bad people and that the solution hasn't been tried hard enough yet.
The situation is indeed rather bleak, but the hopeful thing is that many more people are aware and mobilized and trying to resist now than there were a year ago. Making the discriminatory algorithms, debanking, social credit systems, etc. into live political issues is the best hope for avoiding dystopia, or at least delaying the inevitable.
If you legitimately believe that all, most, or even merely the most important racial, sexual, psychological, and cognitive differences are environmental, tossing aside human freedom in the name of human equality is entirely reasonable behavior.
Pretty naive to believe that all these major problems have a single cause. Lots of hubris to believe that you understand how to fix major human problems and that destruction of a culture and society is the answer.
No changes until it all collapses.... and it will. They will ride it to the end, then maybe a new beginning. The desire for control of others , however will always taint humanity.
Ivy Exile, I suspect you would enjoy a novel titled "Red Plenty" by Francis Spufford. A group of Soviet technocrats in 1962 are trying to use the new science of cybernetics to rationalize the USSR's command economy. One of the characters is a writer who has been asked to write a propaganda puff piece about what Soviet life will be like in 1980. His misgivings about the assignment remind me of the comments of a certain contemporary Ivy League PR writer.
Is this really the future? Sounds very bleak. I don’t feel much hope. What I really want to know is why? Why have so many become co-opted? Whose vision are we implementing? Is there the possibility of turning back?
Sadly I think it's pretty well baked into the cake by this point. Idealists will use any means and technologies at their disposal to pursue their utopia because they are the enlightened vanguard on the right side of history, as far as they're concerned. So while we may have passed "peak woke" for now in terms of what most people want to hear, the more relevant fact is that the ideology still defines the institutions in Washington, Silicon Valley etc. -- it doesn't matter what anyone thinks because the assumptions are all embedded in the bureaucracies and algorithms.
Some of the problem has been powerful people like Soros and Schwab, but probably the bigger factor is the systemic logic of technocracy itself, which assumes that humans are malleable and credentialed experts are capable of solving social problems. The persistence of any inequity or disparity is simply because enough money and experts haven't been thrown at the problem yet, so keep giving the managerial class more money, power, titles, prestige, etc. to "get the job done" and if that never happens it's just because of sabotage from bad people and that the solution hasn't been tried hard enough yet.
The situation is indeed rather bleak, but the hopeful thing is that many more people are aware and mobilized and trying to resist now than there were a year ago. Making the discriminatory algorithms, debanking, social credit systems, etc. into live political issues is the best hope for avoiding dystopia, or at least delaying the inevitable.
If you legitimately believe that all, most, or even merely the most important racial, sexual, psychological, and cognitive differences are environmental, tossing aside human freedom in the name of human equality is entirely reasonable behavior.
Pretty naive to believe that all these major problems have a single cause. Lots of hubris to believe that you understand how to fix major human problems and that destruction of a culture and society is the answer.
No changes until it all collapses.... and it will. They will ride it to the end, then maybe a new beginning. The desire for control of others , however will always taint humanity.
Ivy Exile, I suspect you would enjoy a novel titled "Red Plenty" by Francis Spufford. A group of Soviet technocrats in 1962 are trying to use the new science of cybernetics to rationalize the USSR's command economy. One of the characters is a writer who has been asked to write a propaganda puff piece about what Soviet life will be like in 1980. His misgivings about the assignment remind me of the comments of a certain contemporary Ivy League PR writer.
Thanks, John, that does sound rather apropos! Added to my cart, will check it out!