> The myth of Prometheus – in various updated forms like Frankenstein
"if you democratize power, the powerful will hate you for it" and "if you play with powers beyond your ability to control, they may backfire" seem like really different myths to me
> We are told to denounce our birthright – our intelligence, our control over nature, our ability to build a better world.
huh, I don't know that I've ever been told this
> We believe the market economy is a discovery machine, a form of intelligence – an exploratory, evolutionary, adaptive system.
I love how intellectually shallow the power of this reasoning is. Oh, a person who is drowning will pay more for a gulp of air? Wow, what an amazing conclusion, how could we have ever figured that out without the beautiful Divine Glory of The Market?
> Decentralization harnesses complexity for the benefit of everyone; centralization will starve you to death. ... Our enemy is statism, authoritarianism, collectivism, central planning, socialism.
centralization is bad, collectivism is bad, only markets and individuals are good... yeah, this is anarcho-capitalism. Like at no point do they recognize that under this line of thinking, people with a lot of money may be incentivized to cause harm to people without a lot of money, gee I wonder why they might not be so keen to acknowledge that?
> Markets prevent monopolies and cartels.
ah yes that's why the market produced the Sherman act. oh, wait, shoot, that was statist action motivated by collectivist goals.
> We believe there is no conflict between capitalist profits and a social welfare system that protects the vulnerable.
I dunno man, thought experiment here, do you make more money by curing someone of a sickness or by keeping them sick and charging them for treatment forever?
> We believe the ultimate moral defense of markets is that they divert people who otherwise would raise armies and start religions into peacefully productive pursuits.
yeah the idea that everyone wants to be either a murderer, cult leader, or billionaire is ... a totally normal idea that totally normal people have. Beyond being a deeply problematic worldview, the existence of the military-industrial complex challenges the notion that "if if weren't for markets people would do war". Marvelous logic on display here.
> To paraphrase a manifesto of a different time and place: “Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Technology must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.”
he's quoting the Futurist Manifesto here, which ... pretty weird move, my dude. The Futurist Manifesto paved the way for the Fascist Manifesto, and if you're going "that's a reach", the guy that wrote the Futurist Manifesto cowrote the Fascist Manifesto with Mussolini. Yes, THAT Mussolini.
> Techno-Optimism is a material philosophy, not a political philosophy.
brave to make a bunch of sweeping politically-motivated generalizations and then to say it's not a political philosophy. Ok, if you say so!
There is so much fucking wrong with the 'manifesto' but just this made me want to throw up.
> our control over nature
what control.. exactly. Destruction is not control, consumption is not control. Stop any volcanos lately? Prevent any earthquakes? We've been systematically raping nature for hundreds of years and are currently staring down the barrel of extinction because of our inability to control nature.
"if you democratize power, the powerful will hate you for it" and "if you play with powers beyond your ability to control, they may backfire" seem like really different myths to me
> We are told to denounce our birthright – our intelligence, our control over nature, our ability to build a better world.
huh, I don't know that I've ever been told this
> We believe the market economy is a discovery machine, a form of intelligence – an exploratory, evolutionary, adaptive system.
I love how intellectually shallow the power of this reasoning is. Oh, a person who is drowning will pay more for a gulp of air? Wow, what an amazing conclusion, how could we have ever figured that out without the beautiful Divine Glory of The Market?
> Decentralization harnesses complexity for the benefit of everyone; centralization will starve you to death. ... Our enemy is statism, authoritarianism, collectivism, central planning, socialism.
centralization is bad, collectivism is bad, only markets and individuals are good... yeah, this is anarcho-capitalism. Like at no point do they recognize that under this line of thinking, people with a lot of money may be incentivized to cause harm to people without a lot of money, gee I wonder why they might not be so keen to acknowledge that?
> Markets prevent monopolies and cartels.
ah yes that's why the market produced the Sherman act. oh, wait, shoot, that was statist action motivated by collectivist goals.
> We believe there is no conflict between capitalist profits and a social welfare system that protects the vulnerable.
I dunno man, thought experiment here, do you make more money by curing someone of a sickness or by keeping them sick and charging them for treatment forever?
> We believe the ultimate moral defense of markets is that they divert people who otherwise would raise armies and start religions into peacefully productive pursuits.
yeah the idea that everyone wants to be either a murderer, cult leader, or billionaire is ... a totally normal idea that totally normal people have. Beyond being a deeply problematic worldview, the existence of the military-industrial complex challenges the notion that "if if weren't for markets people would do war". Marvelous logic on display here.
> To paraphrase a manifesto of a different time and place: “Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Technology must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.”
he's quoting the Futurist Manifesto here, which ... pretty weird move, my dude. The Futurist Manifesto paved the way for the Fascist Manifesto, and if you're going "that's a reach", the guy that wrote the Futurist Manifesto cowrote the Fascist Manifesto with Mussolini. Yes, THAT Mussolini.
> Techno-Optimism is a material philosophy, not a political philosophy.
brave to make a bunch of sweeping politically-motivated generalizations and then to say it's not a political philosophy. Ok, if you say so!