Dan Knauss

@gwcoffey@mastodon.social @strange_new_words@tenforward.social it’s not the machines doing the dehumanization. It’s humans. Always.

@django@social.coop “they took our jobs!” is not an argument, it’s a concession.

@strange_new_words@tenforward.social they haven’t been paying or thanking humans with knowledge of language, history, and literature for a long time. Maths and medicine are useful for dehumanization; the others are not. America has been in its great anti-intellectual, anti-human, fundamentalist leap backward for a long time, all aligned in not thinking, not feeling, child abuse, and educational malpractice. There is no defence against idiocy. It must simply burn itself out.

@django @terry I am doing and planning some explorations of this, would love to chat more about it.

@strange_new_words@tenforward.social @gwcoffey@mastodon.social Computers are reductionist like the alphabetization and mathematization of reality that makes them possible. Centralization of decision-making based on extraction and aggregation of local data is a form of reductionism that precedes computing — it's a feature of states and empires dating back 5000 years. It has more to do with the structure of communication networks, literacy, and bureaucracy since ancient times. Yes, the point is control over nature, people, time.

@strange_new_words@tenforward.social Anything humans have will be used to gain power over others and maximally extract value. It's a very crude, conflict-intensive affair, but there's no real alternative beyond checks/balances/limits. Creating a moral philosophy, religion, or equivalent technology to criticize/restrain others is just another way to play the same game. Cooperative, decentralized communication and organization are not neutral or inherently good or bad either; the scope for their abuse may be less.

@causticmsngo@mastodon.social @django@social.coop Compare Klein's complaint to that of a religious humanist who cuts straight to the core question: What are people? What is their purpose, value, and dignity? Is it intrinsic or conferred by one technocratic, statist, economic regime or another, whether Altman's or Klein's? https://hedgehogreview.com/web-features/thr/posts/should-the-lion-lie-down-with-the-electric-lamb

@paige@masto.canadiancivil.com https://nationalinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/artstation.jpg

@causticmsngo@mastodon.social @django@social.coop the antelope watching the lion eat it is already dead. The sounds he makes are perhaps a protest similar to Klein’s.

@causticmsngo@mastodon.social @django@social.coop it’s a weak argument

@causticmsngo@mastodon.social @django@social.coop Exactly, but it's offered as an argument when it's just an exasperated grunt of resentment. Klein also frames her idea of human value within an idealized and archaic industrial economic contract with labour where our primary purpose is to be a worker. I respect the more libertarian and anarchistic extremes of the left and right for rejecting that as just another form of slavery, not the liberation Klein imagines it is.

@django@social.coop I would guess no, because it is a ceremonial and honorific role — why burn any political capital on it? Roles that don't matter are designed for tokenism.

@strange_new_words@tenforward.social @gwcoffey@mastodon.social the reason that is true is that humans imprint their tools with their intentions. You’re confusing human agency with its secondary effects in tools. Tools are not neutral but cannot be held responsible because they have no agency. Without humans operating them, or even giving them a simulated agency, the machines wouldn’t do anything. Hold humans responsible for the dehumanizing effects and harm done by their machines.

@strange_new_words@tenforward.social @gwcoffey@mastodon.social Actually no, I don't believe technology is value neutral. You made that up as a straw man to attack after a leap of illogic from what I actually said. You are using words like "agency" and "bias" as attributes of tools, as if they have intentions and freely choose to take actions following their own values and perspectives, for which they alone are responsible. Only conscious, autonomous beings (so far just humans, not their tools) have these attributes.