Automate terra forming against climate change. I want big machines and swarms of drones doing 24/7 regreening and planting forests in the desert.
The use of open, decentralized platforms such as the fediverse is one small step in the right direction at least.
And yet this community seems more techno-pessimistic than even /r/technology, which is a challenge.
Well, only techno-pessimistic about mainstream technologies that are used by most people, which is warranted I guess. Most people don’t use the fediverse after all.
FOSS / fediverse is really the only tech stuff that isn’t massively disappointing as of late.
And sodium batteries, or so I hope.
I’ll be optimistic about technology when the last techbro is strangled with the entrails of the last angel investor
Anti-capitalist regulations, I imagine.
Anti monopoly and regulations against anti competitive practices are cornerstones of capitalism ensuring free and fair competition.
So no, what we need is a return back to when these practices weren’t allowed, away from allowing these things more than ever as we do now.
It’s easy to see Russia has become an oligarchy, why can’t we see it’s happening to us too?
But we can’t dismantle capitalism altogether, without creating an even bigger monopoly problem, the monopoly being corrupt governments like the soviet union and their 5 year plan economy, that very obviously wasn’t a very good concept.Maybe that’s what you meant, I’d just not call it anti-capitalism, when regulations are for the purpose of making capitalism work better.
So just “regulation” is better.Regulations only exist because Capitalism would consume itself without guardrails.
I wonder if it’s consuming itself a bit right now.
Late stage capiyalims, Baybee!
That’s why they do regulatory capture to prevent that from happening. It all starts with money being equal to influence. This can temporarily be reset after a big crash of the system but sooner or later they start again.
Let me tell you about the Nordic model
Repubtard: HEY THAT’S SOCIALISM!!!
Except Scandinavians have more freedom, and better free market than USA.
Repubtard: BUT IT’S SOCIALISM!!!
Ehrm, they also have better freedom of speech.
Repubtard: WHAT? ARE YOU A FUCKING COMMIE?
Actually they also rank way higher on democracy.
Repubtard: WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA?
I don’t, but wouldn’t it be nice if everybody had healthcare, free education and social security so you didn’t have to fear to starve if you got ill and lost yopur job?
Repubtard: HEY THAT’S SOCIALISM!!!
…
Ugh, my elderly neighbor was going on about how Harris was going to take away this and that, most of which I’d never heard her say or even read about her plans doing, and I said, “where did you hear that? It was Fox News wasn’t it?” He replied with, “well, what news do you watch?” I said, “it sure isn’t Fox where they lie constantly. Harris hasn’t said any of that crap … you need to get your news from multiple sources.”
We’d be a heck of a lot better off if the news agencies were held accountable for telling lies and making up stories. Yeah, I know it’s a fine line but it’s one I’m willing to walk at this point.
We’d be a heck of a lot better off if the news agencies were held accountable for telling lies
Yes, other countries have that, it’s called responsible journalism.
You can’t just parrot some source, and claim it’s reporting. You need to check your sources.
When they help spread lies, they are part of the problem.What is your elderly neighbor’s view on Republican policies for the elderly compared to the Democrats; and does Fox care more about their elderly viewers half as much as their younger viewers—i.e. the ones who justify more money from advertisers?
In 30 years, Trump will be as cited by Republicans as much as Reagan is today—i.e. rarely if ever—probably less—Reagan at least won twice and in one election he won 49 states—as did Nixon in 1972—and back then, Nixon was about the same age as Harris is now.
Did your elderly neighbour support Ross Perot back in 1992?
a Texan speaks:
Ross Perot [Independent] 1992 Campaign Ad “Snapshot - :60”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naHdnyogJjA
1:02
I wonder if a typical Republican could point out Sweden on a map.
Anti monopoly and regulations against anti competitive practices are cornerstones of capitalism ensuring free and fair competition.
No, that’s the opposite of capitalism.
No unregulated capitalism is super capitalism.
Regulated capitalism is capitalism we actually try to get to work as intended or “normal” capitalism.
Social democracy is “Caring” capitalism. Where free markets and capitalism still exist, but is regulated to prevent exploitation of ordinary people.Normal capitalism has a drive to become super capitalism. You can try to stop it, maybe you’ll succeed, but it will always strive to turn itself into super capitalism.
“AI will make all of your work obsolete, there’s nothing we can do about it. Shame…”
I’m fine with losing my job, it’s tedious anyway. I’m not with losing my income though. Let automation and programs do the work and share the fruit of their labor to the people. Get rid of CEOs.
Then we can talk about optimism.
AI-CEOs should be a thing to work towards.
Who decides their programming? Are they bound to ethics or shareholder wealth? Better get rid of shareholders as well.
Ah yes, like a CEO but for the workers.
I can live with that
When I see technology actively making the world consistently better rather than constantly trashing the ecosystem that literally keeps us alive, I’ll have optimism about it.
Anarcho-transhumanism, or ig more open source innovations unsullied by the profit motive would-be nice.
We stop the acquisitions. We work out ways to foster innovation and protect patents only in the short term.
We need more than a couple phone manufacturers, we need more than a couple of food producers. All of these monolith mega corporations keep smaller upstarts from coming up and competing.
And it’s hard for anyone to say no to multi-millions that will change your family’s life by selling when it’s not even 1% of the corporations profit. Can’t blame them for selling out really. I’d do the same thing and so would you.
We can at least stop crap like this
They actually said in their review of the sale that they’ll be able to do better price fixing even if grocery stores demand price cuts.
Don’t buy Pringles.
Or
Kellogg’s, Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Frosties, Coco Pops, Special K, Krave, Miel Pops, Crunchy Nut, Pringles, Cheez-It, Pop-Tarts, Rice Krispies Treats, Nutri-Grain, RXBAR, Eggo, MorningStar Farms, Mars bars, 3 Musketeers, Milky Way bars, M&M’s, Skittles, Snickers, Twix, Bounty , PEDIGREE, WHISKAS, ROYAL CANIN, AniCura, WISDOM PANEL, VCA, Ben’s Original, Dolmio, Tasty Bite, Seeds of change
I could boycott all of them easily: most I haven’t had, and the rest I have very rarely.
And more than a couple operating systems. We get a lot of horrifyingly bad compatibility issues from Apple, and to a lesser degree, Google.
Unfortunately some things will IMO always remain a natural monopoly. For example good luck trying to convince developers to write their apps for all those different operating systems.
They could still be compatible, though. it’s possible even today, to some degree
Yeah, Java slogan was code once, run everywhere for a reason.
Doesn’t have to be that way
Most of those apps could be replaced by a website that will work anywhere. But a website can’t spy on you as easily… so they push apps instead.
Stop tariffs on new technologies
Round up all MBAs and put them in reeducation camps
The technological innovations of the last fifteen years, from advertising enshittifcation to AI cheating, have largely been a disaster. We are sadly at the point where, as Ted Gioia says, “most so-called innovations are now anti-progress by any honest definition.” I dare say that if we could revert all digital technology to where it was in 2009 – before the invention of the retweet – we’d all be better off.
I’d go back even further (to 2007) before the invention of the iPhone. The smartphone has, arguably, IMO been a bad, or at least premature invention. It created a generation of kids obsessed with their photographies, giving girls eating disorders and creating/spreading unrealistic beauty ideals, etc… Also it has severely disrupted teenagers’ social living, created sleeping disorders, chronic doomscrolling, addiction, and more bad stuff. The iPhone was, IMO, not ready for this world.
I ditched my smartphone spring of 2023. Still use it on WiFi at home, but every time I leave the house, I only carry a fliphone.
Every time a stranger asks me about it, they say something like “I wish I could ditch my smartphone.” Like I get it. It’s not easy. I can’t even go to a baseball game unless my wife has our tickets on her phone. Paying for parking sometimes requires an app.
Yet apparently everyone hates this thing that they are now required to carry around.
How did we get here?
Once capitalism is dead.
Technology is great, it’s just naturally being used to exploit.
That’s for too long a wait—if such ever happens.
DIY. Be your own boss. Not all economic relationships in this world are capitalist.
Yeah but what if I don’t want to starve :-( ?
If we work together and do our part, we can shorten the wait by more than you might think
Starting out with small groups shouldn’t be too difficult.
We cannot even play music from a device without needing some sort of patent license, usually paid by the hardware vendor.
Not an issue when you pirate 🤔
100% capitalism is part of the blame, why isnt there a public option for music? Promoting local artists that are in the public domain and can tour and make a living in public venues. Instead we have ticket master and other such big music. Companies, now this is applied to music but really can be applied to every sector.
Elect local politicians who can make change for the people on the local level.
They didn’t say copyright, they said patent.
Yes you can. I often ignore copyright with impunity. I’ve been doing it since the days of home-taping.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YejbpHA9Yo
2:37
EMI refused to promote the cassingle due to lyrics (“Off the radio I get constant flow/Hit it, pause it, record and play/Turn it, rewind and rub it away”) that promoted home taping[7] during an era when music piracy was a hot-button issue.[8]
I think AAC is the only major music codec that’s still patent encumbered though
Concrete goals, and reasonable steps to achieve them.
I feel like lately we’ve hit a weird speculative investment period in tech, where we have a bunch of tech that’s created because it can be, but not because it’s needed. Do LLMs, crypto currency, or NFTs have actual uses? Very possibly, but nothing concrete enough to satisfy the bubble that formed from them.
We live in an age of unreality. Give us something achievable and genuine, we get excited. It doesn’t have to be complicated, just real. Hell, I’m excited as fuck over solid sodium batteries, and that’s boring as shit.
The tech sector is right now just running in hype and jumping from one hype to the next. It’s a race to keep that investors throwing money at them with providing new targets to keep investors from realizing the stuff isn’t that useful.