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Well, AI made our search unusable dogshit. But AI also made us miss our climate goals, so (apnews.com)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

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[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 33 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This is why philosophy should be mandatory in college (and possibly high school). Die Frage nach der Technik by Heidegger discusses this misconception that technology can solve all of our problems. He was thinking about this issue in 1954.

Music and art are also important to study. In “Faith Alone” by Bad Religion, the lyrics include these lines:

Watched the scientists throw up their hands conceding, "Progress will resolve it all"

Saw the manufacturers of earth's debris ignore another Green Peace call

Greg Graffin was discussing this in 1990.

[–] maol@awful.systems 18 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

I think it was Upton Sinclair who said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it". I've never studied history or philosophy, but I think it's clear that if someone's class interests require burning the world down, they will do it. They are doing it - we are doing it - with regret, with sympathy, with an appreciation of the ironies. We don't need a greater appreciation of Heidegger, we need real-world social restraints on the behaviour of the powerful.

[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

… We don't need a greater appreciation of Heidegger, we need real-world social restraints on the behaviour of the powerful.

One would lead more people to agree with the other, and make it more likely to happen. And I agree those restraints are necessary.

[–] aio@awful.systems 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Wasn't Heidegger a Nazi, and his works famously avoid any mention of the Holocaust?

[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Hey, somebody did study history! Yet another subject that everyone asks “How will this help me in real life?” and is under attack in the U.S.

Pretty good summary about Martin Heidegger and Nazism on Wikipedia.

I’m open to anyone else who wrote about technology and the issues involved, so I can reference them instead—if you’ve got suggestions. It does suck that some important ideas came from a lousy guy.

[–] mountainriver@awful.systems 8 points 4 months ago

Oh yes, very much so.

The British Empire had its colonial administrators curriculum consisting of Latin and history and such. A rich 19th century heir that went into physics or mathematics were considered to be wasting the chance of a political career.

It made their colonial administrators write about their crimes in a nice prose, but it didn't stop the genocides. If anything it made them aware of what paper trails to burn after the fact, in order to obfuscate the crimes when future historians came looking.