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Technology Is Making the World More Unequal; Only Technology Can Fix This (theguardian.com) 145

mspohr shares an excerpt from an article written by Cory Doctorow via The Guardian: The inequality of badly-run or corrupt states is boosted by the power of technology -- but it's also easier than ever to destabilize these states, thanks to technology. The question is: which future will prevail?" [The article discusses two sides to the issue:] Here's the bad news: technology -- specifically, surveillance technology -- makes it easier to police disaffected populations, and that gives badly run, corrupt states enough stability to get themselves into real trouble. Here's the good news: technology -- specifically, networked technology -- makes it easier for opposition movements to form and mobilize, even under conditions of surveillance, and to topple badly run, corrupt states. Long before the internet radically transformed the way we organize ourselves, theorists were predicting we'd use computers to achieve ambitious goals without traditional hierarchies -- but it was a rare pundit who predicted that the first really successful example of this would be an operating system (GNU/Linux), and then an encyclopedia (Wikipedia). [Cory also has a new novel, Walkaway , which explores these ideas further.] The future will see a monotonic increase in the ambitions that loose-knit groups can achieve. My new novel, Walkaway, tries to signpost a territory in our future in which the catastrophes of the super-rich are transformed into something like triumphs by bohemian, anti-authoritarian "walkaways" who build housing and space programs the way we make encyclopedias today: substituting (sometimes acrimonious) discussion and (sometimes vulnerable) networks for submission to the authority of the ruling elites.
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Technology Is Making the World More Unequal; Only Technology Can Fix This

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  • by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Wednesday May 31, 2017 @10:42PM (#54523033)

    Here's to technology: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Naa, that would be alcohol! Technology only becomes important when the beer/wine runs out.

      • by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

        Naa, that would be alcohol! Technology only becomes important when the beer/wine runs out.

        People might think you're silly for stating such a thing but there may be a lot of truth to it. In the documentary How Beer Saved The World, there is a case being made that the demand for alcohol after we accidentally discovered it may have put pressure on improving agriculture technology. For those that don't know, (and this sounds just like humans) some human accidentally left a couple sacks of barley or wheat (can't remember) out in the rain. It fermented. When they rediscovered it, they weren't sure

    • No, no, dig up stupid!
    • Ominpresent cameras are bad because they aid in a panopticon. On the other hand, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and the corruption and dictatorships should start drying up as their bad behaviors are documented. This include everything from the top down to the local DMV guy who wants a $200 backhand donation or you can wait 5 years for your driver's license.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31, 2017 @11:04PM (#54523097)

    Cory Doctrow is not a soothsayer but a two-bit charlatan hack riding on the coat tails of others like Linux or Richard Stallman and passes it off as his own insight.

    The facts of the matter are that socialists have been using the same techniques for years in modern media and in traditional (brick and mortar sense) ways and merely expanded the same techniques from letter writing into on board commentary systems.

    The ONLY thing that makes social media even work is Facebook's omnipresent existence on the internet that you CANNOT avoid and intentionally used to sway public opinion for the highest dollar or power.

    That Cory Doctrow calls this "progressive" is an entirely (and dangerously) clueless misunderstanding of the concept. This way leads to fascism and dictatorship (witness Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter censoring content they dislike based on their "rules" but surreptitiously ignoring similarly ignoring content that breaks the same rules they like...because...)

    Thought control is not progression. Firing people for wrongthink is not progression and all of these are used to increase government control of the populace in increasingly bolder moves.

    Bad times for all - But hey Cory's getting paid... buy his book to get his thoughts on it!

    • Cory Doctrow is not a soothsayer but a two-bit charlatan hack riding on the coat tails of others like Linux or Richard Stallman and passes it off as his own insight.

      Why do you expect someone who writes about what others are doing to be original? Where is he passing it off as his own insight instead of something that he has observed others doing?
      As for his fiction - is he supposed to actually invent the things he writes about instead of just loosely describing them?

    • by mspohr ( 589790 )

      I believe that Cory is looking to the use of social media to organize groups of people around an idea for action. This is different than the propaganda such as the fake news posted by Russian and alt-right operatives who use this to promote their fascist ideals.

  • Taxes also help (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jader3rd ( 2222716 ) on Wednesday May 31, 2017 @11:07PM (#54523105)
    A broad base, low rate, progressive tax structure also helps fight inequality.
    • by mspohr ( 589790 )

      The greatest reason for inequality in the US is that our tax structure has become less progressive. During the time of Eisenhower up to Reagan, the highest tax rate was 90% and there were fewer loopholes. Regan started the tear down this progressive tax structure and as a result, we have had steadily rising inequality. The current GOP administration is poised for another large tax break for those at the top so inequality will get worse.

  • by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Wednesday May 31, 2017 @11:16PM (#54523119)

    The lesson to be learned here is that tools empower people be they good or evil. The more you understand the tools the more powerful and dangerous you are to established systems of power.

    • Possible exception being vaccines. I don't really see a downside there.

      (and no, overpopulation is not a downside. We have enough resources and are not at overpopulation, the population is showing signs of stabilizing, and the diseases being vaccinated against generally weren't killing enough people to keep the numbers down).
      • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        Possible exception being vaccines. I don't really see a downside there.

        One possible downside is that the human species could gradually become weaker by not allowing the most susceptible to die off, and one day a superbug could kill us all. This is, of course, purely hypothetical (and will likely continue to be hypothetical unless and until it isn't), but antibiotic resistance could very easily just be the first salvo in the rise of the contagions.

        That said, this isn't a valid reason to stop vaccinate peop

        • No. Smallpox, flu, chicken pox... all the viruses we vaccinate against don't kill genetically "weaker" people, they kill off the elderly, infants, and a few immunocompromised individuals, and make anyone else mildly to seriously sick.

          If superflu or ebola is coming, it won't be because we have let such "weaker" individuals live. The elderly die off on their own, and infants of course grow out of susceptibility. Getting rid of them wouldn't have strengthened the human population any. Quite the opposite, it
          • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            No. Smallpox, flu, chicken pox... all the viruses we vaccinate against don't kill genetically "weaker" people, they kill off the elderly, infants, and a few immunocompromised individuals, and make anyone else mildly to seriously sick.

            We also vaccinate against influenza, and some forms of that disproportionately kill certain groups of people based on how their immune system responds; people whose immune systems exhibit a sufficiently severe cytokine storm die, whereas people with a less aggressive immune sys

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Vaccines can be used as a weapon and as medical experiments.

        • How exactly do you weaponize a vaccine? Even the medical experiments are mostly limited to "does this vaccine work" and "what are the side effects?"

          Now, *fake* vaccines are something else entirely, and there have been enough eugenics programs administered in the developing world (especially Africa) under the guise of vaccinations that it's hardly surprising that many of the locals no longer trust them. That might even be a contributing factor to do the anti-vaxxer movement in the developed world - nothing

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            That is the point: "mostly limited to". That is a statement about use, not about what _can_ be done with it. Also, fact of the matter is that it is extremely expensive to kill people with a real vaccine and you need some specific illness that is actually beneficial and saves their life. There are examples for that, but due to the price-tag and the difficulties to achieve the outcome I do not think that has been done.

      • >We have enough resources and are not at overpopulation

        How do you figure? Global consumption is currently estimated at roughly 150% of the sustainable ecological carrying capacity - i.e. we're "spending the capital" and reducing the carrying capacity every year.

        Now, if we eliminated the rampant waste we'd be fine, even have enough headroom to keep growing (though maybe not all the way to the 11 billion or so people that estimates are expecting us to peak at), but that's a hypothetical situation that has

      • Not vaccines themselves, but the technology that produces vaccines is very useful for biological warfare.

        • Disagree. Virology as a field must progress if we want to avoid global pandemics. Manufacturing techniques for viruses aren't that different from biological research in general. Weaponizing them is the difficult part and has nothing to do with vaccination tech. Terrorist use of biological warfare doesn't require such technology either, all they'd need to do is find a smallpox or other pathogen sample and walk into an airport.
    • by fermion ( 181285 ) on Thursday June 01, 2017 @12:11AM (#54523285) Homepage Journal
      It is not that complicated. Long before it was predicted that computers would make the a world into a theorized utopia, it was predicted that computer would clean the house while astronavigation was done by hand by smart men, thus reinforcing the bigotry of the 1950's society.

      One imagines that the oppressive government was empowered by cheap paper and writing utensil so they could more easily keep files on citizens, but also that the printing press made the distribution of information related to the corruption in government equally easy.

      It is said that one of the major advantages of the Europeans that committed the genocide on the Americas was their ability to read and write, and therefore an ability to store, retain, and transfer large amounts of information.

      Today many of us consider a person who cannot write a sentence or speak in coherent thoughts an idiot. It is a marker of a education, culture, and basic ability to be a human. While this is not necessarily fair, someone can be born significantly differently abled, we realize that the inability to retain and communicate information still usually limits their position of power.

      What is, and always has, been a problem is the access to information, culture, and skills. PBS is hated by some because no matter how the family, no matter what color the family, Sesame Street teaches them basic facts, Lamb Chop(RIP) teaches them basic social skills, and a variety of cultural programs exposes them to art from around the world, creating the basis for a well rounded citizen.

      TV, fundamentally evil, provides a potential to maximize equity, but that potential is not realized if all one every watches is Fox News and ESPN.

      What we are seeing now is so many kids actively not being taught how to utilize technology to maximize their own goals. Too many teachers, brought up in the oppressive hierarchy, just teach safe social networking and video games, afraid of what students might be able to do if they knew how to use the computer as tool. God forbid they might learn how to code. Just look at how people around react when we suggest that every kids should learn how to code. Many people hear seem deathly afraid that everyone might know how to use a computer. It is like we are suggesting that every kid be sent to sex worker when they turn 13 so they can learn to do sex right.

      Back in the late 70's my parents spent scant resources so I was sat in front of a teletype machine and learn to code. In the mid 80's we spent a great deal of money buying me my first computer. Everyone laughed at us, happily spending their scant money on Atari video games.

      The thing is that I have mad skills, so I am not the one who can't get a job. The kids today are up shit creek because most teachers are simply too afraid, or can't, teach computers in the class room. Sure kids will waste time, but you know, no matter the technology we figured out how to waste time.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Not generally, but tools that anybody can manufacture (here: software) have that nature.

  • The inequality of badly-run or corrupt states is boosted by the power of technology
    I call B.S. on that. Technology is the only thing keeping the poor man in the game. Technology is the only thing keeping inflation from running out of control.

    These things boost the corrupt states and increase the gap between the rich and the poor:
    1. Apathetic populaces.
    2. Fiat money payment requirements.
    3. Central banks that can inflate at will (that also loan money).
    4. The ability of corrupt nations and dictators t
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You don't get out much, do you?

      Apathetic populaces arise from wealth. It's a positive feedback loop.

      Minum wage laws are an attempt to establish gross salary inequities, not its cause.

      Corrupt dictators and their fiscal abuses are unavoidable in general. Preventing them requires consistent policies by their political and fiscal sponsors, which is incredibly difficult to avoid.

      Local banks inflate at will, too.

      Laws that make investing money difficult are balances against potlach, and founded in attempts to take

  • Humanity was unequal for the vast majority of its history. The current fad for equality is, for the most part, a historical blip. What ever happened to "respecting other cultures and their preference for inequality?"

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Nice to know you aren't starving. Myself I only eat one meal per day. The truth is I can't even afford to eat, but when the alternative is dying, I have no choice. Tell me again when Trump is going to MAGA so I can find work anywhere.

      • by epyT-R ( 613989 )

        if you only eat one meal a day how can you afford to post on slashdot? Perhaps you should cancel your network access and buy some more food.

    • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Thursday June 01, 2017 @12:13AM (#54523293)

      Humanity was unequal for the vast majority of its history. The current fad for equality is, for the most part, a historical blip.

      Catastrophes tend to improve equality, because the rich have lot more to lose than the poor. One of the biggest levelers in history was the Black Death of the 14th century. The elite had most of their wealth in land, which collapsed in value because there was no one left to till it, while the poor saw their incomes soar since labor was scarce and valued.

      The 20th century had 3 catastrophes in row: WW1, the Great Depression, and WW2. These all served as levelers, and by 1945, Western society was more level than ever. So people that grew up during the decades that followed, came to view the prevailing equality as "normal". Things are now regressing to the mean.

      • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The 20th century had 3 catastrophes in row: WW1, the Great Depression, and WW2. These all served as levelers, and by 1945, Western society was more level than ever. So people that grew up during the decades that followed, came to view the prevailing equality as "normal". Things are now regressing to the mean.

        You ignore the Cold War, which leveled the top off of the rich by making them pay for military and scientific competition between superpowers. Catastrophe was not enough. It was nationalistic competition which created equality through high taxes. A decade after the Cold War ended, tax cuts to the rich caused a regression toward inequality and the inevitable Great Recession.

    • by mspohr ( 589790 )

      Only those at the top have a preference for inequality.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    1) 3rd world dictator uses technology to oppress and slaughter millions of dissidents
    2) Terrorists/Freedom Fighters (depending on whose side America is on) use snapchat to organize a revolution.
    3) Country erupts into civil war, killing millions.
    4) Terrorists/Freedom Fighters install their own oppressive dictator, perhaps with the masquerade of a rigged election.
    5) If new dictator is smarter than the old one and bans or heavily restricts private internet use, then break; else goto 1;

    All that's really change

  • by InfiniteZero ( 587028 ) on Wednesday May 31, 2017 @11:41PM (#54523191)

    There is no escape from the human condition. Technology merely amplifies it.

    The internet was supposed to break down barriers and make the world a global village. But instead, for better or worse, we now have virtual enclaves of like-minded people who would never have found each other without the internet and social media.

    The future is uncertain. Will it turns out to be an utopia, or dystopia? Your answer reflects your own worldview.

    • by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Thursday June 01, 2017 @05:23AM (#54524033) Homepage

      Bullshit. The global poverty rate has plummeted over the last 40 years. It's increasingly possible for poor citizens in Third World countries to own a cell phone that is more powerful than the fastest PCs from 20 years ago. Most of the developed world is dealing with the problem of having too much food rather than not enough.

      There will be limitations and conflicts as long as we are Homo sapiens, but for the most part, we're doing pretty well at escaping what people 50 or 100 years ago thought was the inevitable "human condition".

    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      For me, it was better since I have disabilities. I can't talk, hear, drive, etc. Internet made my communications much better like this post. ;)

  • by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Thursday June 01, 2017 @12:00AM (#54523251) Homepage Journal

    The problems of wealth inequality come from economics, not technology.

    Allocate an array of reasonably large size, say a million entries, and fill each cell with the value 1.0

    Next, choose any cell at random using a probability based on it's normalized value: Add all the cells together (the total) and make the probability of choosing any cell equal to it's cell value divided by the total.

    Increment that chosen cell by a portion of its value; for example, increase the chosen cell value by 1%.

    Repeat this process (select, increment) many times.

    What you will find is that inevitably some cell values will increase exponentially, outstripping all other cells. Eventually one cell will become largest, outstripping all other cells.

    Reset the simulation and rerun it, and the same thing will happen, only to different cells.

    This is the model of our economic system. Compound interest is exactly this type of exponential increase, and will cause this same behaviour in simulation by itself. Other factors, such as getting better rates the more money you have, paying less in taxes the more money you have, will amplify this effect.

    And which cell values get amplified is simply due to chance. In the beginning, it's being in the right place at the right time.

    It's a math problem and easy to prove.

    The human inability to identify, understand and control exponential increase is what leads to wealth inequality.

    Not technology.

    • by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Thursday June 01, 2017 @12:31AM (#54523355)

      Modify the algorithm so that the larger the disparity between the largest cell and the others becomes, the greater the chances that the surrounding cells will join together to loot and destroy it. I'm guessing the endgame of that is that a backstabbing nobility class surrounds the old warlord's corpse, and a new 'king' comes into being where the warlord was; the wealth is distributed just barely enough (i.e. to the nobility class) that the cells surrounding the nobles won't be able to gather enough power to destroy all of the nobles at once. Sure you get minor skirmishes at the fringes but not organized enough to upend the nobles. The nobles still gradually drain the serfs of wealth, and the king gets assassinated every now and then.

      Add in a rule that cells can use some wealth to reduce the likelihood that neighbors will attack them, and you've coded in propaganda and danegeld.

      • by ezdiy ( 2717051 ) on Thursday June 01, 2017 @07:18AM (#54524325)
        Btw, posts above me talk about Sugarscape [wikipedia.org]. One interesting thing about sugarscape is that no matter how complex the social rules, you always end up with pereto distribution (popularly known as rich get richer, poor stay the same at best, get poorer at worst).

        Fancy rules can only slightly vary the skew of the curve, because winner-takes-all and win-lose point accumulation law is universal - as long you design the system as darwinist and competetive that is.
  • Techno-Adhocracy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Thursday June 01, 2017 @12:20AM (#54523313)

    The Soviet Union was notorious for paying or otherwise turning huge swathes of the population into agents and informants; social media flagged posts being forwarded directly to the Secret Police can make any movement stillborn. There's an old Russian saying: "When three men sit down to discuss revolution, two are government agents, and the third is a fool." No new surveillance tech is needed for agents and informants to kill uprisings, although the internet makes casually passing info along to the Powers That Be much easier. The internet can make organizing easier, flash mobs for example; I seem to recall some of this happened during the Arab Spring, however look at what happened afterward: how good a job is internet organization doing at stopping ISIS militants in the middle east? So much for toppling badly-run states.

    'Open source will create a shadow economy, routing around the existing corruption' is a fancy as well. Sure, if everyone had their own universal constructor and people were downloading pirate designs with cracked DRM, this might be possible. However, barring that, the incumbents can simply lobby for laws to be passed that restrict usage of open source/shadow economy tools. Look at laws that prohibit municipal wifi/fiber, or mandate govt. usage of MS Office/Oracle, or restrict or ban usage of Bitcoin. Doctorow's ideas here remind me of the phrase "The solution to the problems of Democracy, is more Democracy." As in, direct democracy can route around the corruption in a representative democracy. However, with propaganda, and how willingly people will sell their vote, this is arguably not as conclusive a solution as one would think, just a temporary rerouting of the problem. Imagine how many millions of poverty-level people would vote for the USA SAVE PUPPIES Act, because they love puppies right? And because the sponsor loves puppies SO MUCH, they're paying $100 to ensure they make the right choice and don't give in to the immoral temptations of the Act's opponents. Doing the right thing should feel good, ya know? And the act is being fast-tracked through referendum and is 900 pages long and noone has time to pore over it to find the evils it hides; and it's log-rolled so that individual clauses can't be stricken later once discovered without undoing the entire law which contains a myriad of other, actually-desirable things. Propaganda can get people to oppose net neutrality or countless other things that would be to their own benefit, thinking doing so will help them more (indirectly, once it trickles down... any day now...) and thus democracy dies to thunderous applause.

    Sure we can get Wikipedia and Linux, but there was LOTS of hubbub at one time about how unreliable Wikipedia is, because it can be edited by anyone, until several studies found it to be as or more reliable on average than respected encyclopedias. Remember the Get The Facts campaign by MS about Linux, and FUD about backdoors being hidden in the Linux source because, again, anyone can edit it, and corporations using Linux being liable to be sued by SCO etc. for patent infringement? Bitcoin has been thoroughly associated with drug trafficking, ransomware, and money laundering in the public eye, not completely unwarranted. The problem is corruption tends to have money, which can buy propaganda, which can fool people into supporting the status quo; about the best I hope for is that principled people will obtain money, then use counter-propaganda. Knowledgeable people who don't fall for the propaganda can use the open-source stuff... but only when the sheeple don't go along with the plot to make it illegal. That's what we should really be afraid of here, and no ad-hoc tech group is going to get around that any better than The Pirate Bay has. How many of its operators are in prison now?

    • Your argument seems to rely on the presumption that society will remain as it is. We're going through massive changes now, maybe in 20 years we will have replicators (universal 3d-printers) and be post scarcity.
      • by mentil ( 1748130 )

        Yes, thus why I said "Sure, if everyone had their own universal constructor and people were downloading pirate designs with cracked DRM, this might be possible." I remember the RepRap promising an inexorable technological drive towards this, although AFAIK we still don't have 3d printers that can completely print 100% of their own components. My understanding is that 3d printer technology has been held up due to patent litigation as well, proving my point.

  • by Antiocheian ( 859870 ) on Thursday June 01, 2017 @12:48AM (#54523405) Journal

    Long before the internet radically transformed the way we organize ourselves, theorists were predicting we'd use computers to achieve ambitious goals without traditional hierarchies -- but it was a rare pundit who predicted that the first really successful example of this would be an operating system (GNU/Linux), and then an encyclopedia (Wikipedia).

    Wikipedia is a very poor example of a non-traditional hierarchy. It has a very traditional and very solid hierarchy upon which it maintains its desired pro-Western establishment bias. Want an example ? Take a look at the cited sources for en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War and try to find a Syrian source among them. This isn't an accident. They want this bias and enforce this bias through their administrative hierarchy [onlineopinion.com.au] by making sure that any source that doesn't conform to the Reuters, BBC, NYT, WSJ etc point of view should be tough to include.

    As for Linux, I think it became relevant when IBM and Canonical streamlined it for businesses and the general public but I may be entirely wrong here.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      same thing with the isreali military genocide. edit an article to correct the wholesale theft of lands, murder of civilians, historical facts, and/or cultural appropriation, and jewish editors will roll back your edit. even when the article itself, lays the foundation (in their own "selective" cites).

      the world, is about influence, and influence peddling. wikipedia, right or wrong, is the goto for most of the uneducated masses.

      stupid people, rely on stupid resources. smart people, think. there will alw

  • by petes_PoV ( 912422 ) on Thursday June 01, 2017 @01:45AM (#54523541)
    Equality does not measure what people think it does

    We could all be equal by being destitute. By having short, brutish, lives that end violently, in childbirth or starvation. That would be highly "equal", but extremely unpleasant.

    We could also engineer a society where everyone had equal opportunities. But that would still give us people with great wealth and others who had nothing. Simply because some are driven (whether that is healthy, or not - a different issue) to attain power, wealth, knowledge, whatever and others are happy to sit around all day doing the bare minimum. Some people make good decisions - short term vs. long term, while others are impulsive, gullible and easily led.

    We cold also have a society where everyone does the same sort of job and earns the same sort of money. (Since "equality" only seems to be about what you earn.) That would score highly on most measures of equality, like the Gini coefficient. But if a trillionaire moved to that "equal" country, the measure of equality would immediately be skewed and the country would show up as being highly unequal - even though none of the non-trillionaires were any worse off than before.

    What technology has done is given us all more opportunities. Some seize them, others are too lazy or uneducated, or don't recognise it, or are looking the wrong way, or value other things. Some people just happen to be in the right place at the right time and buy into the right startup. Others are unlucky and go bust. But for the average individual, technology gives us all more. Whether you are a high-speed trader making millions (but who will soon be out of a job when an AI takes your seat), or a farmer in Kenya who gets up-to-date produce prices on their phone - you benefit from technology. You might have less equality, but you are better off, healthier, will live longer and be better educated.

    In the end, that is what matters. Not whether the guy next door has a $1m yacht and you don't. That is just greed and envy, not equality.

  • Incorrect title (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MistrX ( 1566617 ) on Thursday June 01, 2017 @02:15AM (#54523633)

    "People are making the world more unequal; Only people can fix this".
    Technology is inherently neutral. It's the person or people that wield it that give it colour.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    We all realize this "article" and discussion is an advertisement for one of these "elites" to sell us his novel, right?

    Social engineering as entertainment is part of the problem, more so than technology development.

  • Shouldn't it be "wash repeatedly with water?"

  • ...can ban the technology that endangers them.

  • Well this is a thinly veiled plug. Surely articles like this should have an advertisement warning
  • "People Are Using Technology to Make the World More Unequal; Only People Can Fix This"

    There, fixed that for you.

    Technology doesn't do anything by itself. It has no animus of it's own (yet). It's a tool...and like any tool, it can be used in good ways, bad ways, stupid ways and ineffective ways. The difference between the choice of ways is, and always has been, a question of people, not of the technology in question. And addressing problems with bad choices remains, as ever, a people problem.

  • As person who remember state forced equality, with was imported to Poland on the bayonets of red army "liberators" I know how hard is to fight to gain right to be unequal. We should be equal under the law, we should have equal right. But, finally - humans are not equal at all. We had different views, imperatives, needs (as long as basic needs are fulfilled - an no, there is nothing like equality of stomach). Progress of entire human race is fueled by personal greed and lust of being "more than average". Wit
  • "I found the root cause of all of our problems. It's people. They're buggy."

    My work here is done. I'll leave this as an exercise for you all: The solution to this problem is ____________.

When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, the plane will fly. -- Donald Douglas

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