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Comment on Brian Eno: “The biggest problem about AI is not intrinsic to AI. It’s to do with the fact that it’s owned by the same few people”

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nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

Techno-Feudalism

I’ll say it, yet again. It’s just feudalism. “Techno-Feudalism” has nothing different enough to it to differentiate it as even a sub-type of feudalism. It’s just the same thing all over again, using technological advances to improve the ability to monitor and impose control over the populace. Historical feudalists also leveraged technology to cement their rule (plate armor, cavalry, crossbows, cannon, mills, control of literacy, etc).

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conicalscientist@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Attaching “tech” to everything makes it more palatable. Desirable even. It masks the fact that feudal lords are reinventing everything but with “tech”.

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- nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Exactly. And it makes it seem more special or at least a new idea. It’s not. We already have historical knowledge of what has worked in throwing off the shackles of monarchy and what hasn’t.
  
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DarkCloud@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Techno-Feudalism is a specific idea from Yanis Varifakous, about places like Amazon, Ebay, AliExpress, Steam, Facebook, even YouTube to some extent. It has to do with the Market Place controlling which prices are promoted to buyers and sellers, and is about price fixing and capturing industries that the bulk of the population required to do commerce.

This is a very important concept to note and understand because it relates to the end of two party Capitalism (where buyers and sellers negotiate prices with each other).

So no, the use of fuedalism isn’t to indicate something about old school mechanisms of crowd control, brutality and repression. It’s a reference to the serfdom and economic aspects.

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- nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I’ve read Varifakous and don’t find his claim that it’s anything new beyond the technologies used to be at all compelling.
  
  So no, the use of fuedalism isn’t to indicate something about old school mechanisms of war, weaponry, brutality, or repression. It’s a reference to the role of economic serfdom and the economic aspects of fuedalism.
  
  Teotihuacan was the center on an empire but it had no military.
  
  What I’m saying is that they even go with divine mandate at this point. Just because their not jousting and are using abstractions that are enabled by modern technology instead of castles doesn’t make it fundamentally a different, new thing. Commerce and who could engage in it was heavily regulated by feudal lords and organizations that they ran or allowed to run.
  
  It’s literally just the same shit with better technology. The far-right isn’t that creative.
  
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  - DarkCloud@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Oh it’s the same shit as Feudalism, but with technology… Thanks for letting me know that’s what Techno-Feudalism means. So glad we had this enlightening conversation to figure out those two words.
    
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    nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    Oh it’s the same shit as feudalism, but with technology… Thanks for letting me know that’s what Techno-Feudalism means.
    
    Understanding the meaning and context of terms is very important.
    
    … I guess we could add “global” to the front of it so you know it’s not just happening in a castle in 14th century Europe, but all across the planet.
    
    I find “neo-feudalism” more appropriate. The previous incarnation already spanned the known world at the time.
    
    Like, how many castles were in Europe? Okay, compare that to how many Amazon’s there are? It’s not the same thing at all
    
    That’s really a comparison that makes me think that, perhaps, learning more about feudal history would do us all good. A more apt comparison would be “how many Vaticans were there?” (depending on the time period, two).
    
    Rome was the seat of power through much of feudalism in the Common Era in Europe. Castles were extensions of the theocratic empire centered there, providing physical and visual/psychological enforcement of that power. Despite all of the war and megalomaniacal bickering, the feudal lords and kings all had the same boss.
    
    There’s less difference than you apparently think.
    
    Sorry, I don’t have time for this mind dulling discussion.
    
    I’m sorry that you don’t know enough about history to understand how nearly identical the two are and didn’t mean to cause distress, not knowing how attached to the term you were.
    
    G’luck.
    
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