What I like about this interview is that it demonstrates the absurd, thought-terminating clichés that modern elites use…and Acemoğlu just steamrolls them. Like this:
DER SPIEGEL: But it is true that humankind has indeed benefited a lot from new technologies.
Acemoğlu: That is the reason we have to go so far back in history. The argument that you just gave is wrong. In the past, we’ve always had struggles over the uses of innovation and who benefits from them. Very often, control was in the hands of a narrow elite. Innovation often did not benefit the broad swaths of the population.
There was no argument. A sentence does not an argument make. But regular people trying to argue from a similar perspective would say “…well, yes, but…” whereas Acemoğlu is just like “Nope. You’re wrong.”
PoopSpiderman@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Our present is pretty dystopian to be fair.
saucyloggins@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Trump is almost 1:1 a character straight from Transmetropolitan.
Then you have people like Elon that are straight from any cyberpunk media corporate heads.
The parallels between the themes of a cyberpunk dystopia and the present are drawing pretty close.
We just don’t get any of the cool shit like cybernetic implants.
Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 1 year ago
We will but they’ll be owned by Musk et al
Kodemystic@lemmy.kodemystic.dev 1 year ago
I agree, but sometimes I think, imagine you were in the middleages and your village just gets raded by a Ghengis Khan battalion or a Viking tribe or something, your wife and daughter get raped and killed in feont of you, your frinds killed, you get chosen for blood eagle for later on in the day. Wtv middleages scenario, or any other ancient lawless period of time you choose, these events were not that much unlikely to happen. What word do we use for that? Not dystopian but what? Were things ever better than what they are now? Maybe democracy was an interesting experience, convenient for times when the beer flows easy out of the barril, and everyone’s happy. Now, the tide is changing, ressources are scarce, environment is changing, we’re now 8 billion and counting. Maybe dystopian times were always inevitable. I will resist it sure, but, thinking rationally, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of hope honestly. Unless Aliens show up to straighten us up or something wild like that.
pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
This has nothing to do with the Middle Ages. Stop bringing up shit that doesn’t matter.