The rich will always have heavier hammers
Just read this - ‘I want to help humans genetically modify themselves’
So a guy is obsessed with a certain technology, feels he can be a pioneer to a brave new world and justifies it to himself in bad faith by thinking - "This technology that I’m trying to do is for all of us. Whether you’re a big corporation or somebody in their basement, you have access to this stuff – everybody does. People respond very positively to that."
This, I believe is a dangerous belief - that tech can 'level the playing field' in a sense. It never does.
Internet was supposed to be the great leveler. And for a while with Yahoo anonymous chat and early days of mushrooming internet cafes, it really did feel that way. But soon enough, the powerful people have turned it into a tool that is more advantageous to their interest at the expense of common people's. Governments use it for surveillance and propaganda. Companies use it to brainwash people into buying things they don't need. The powerful rich interests use it to obfuscate matters of national importance and keep people busy with false emergencies of internecine hatred - divide and rule.
Internet made the world a bit more open for a while, but now it is firmly on course to making the world 'less open'. Look at what China is doing to its Uighur population or India with its Aadhar card fuckup. Look at Hungary, Poland and even US. Powerful people are consolidating power by inciting hatred against 'others' everywhere.
The new technologies being introduced at breathtaking speeds are creating newer anxieties and vulnerabilities for the common people while creating bigger payoffs and opportunities to build monopolies for the richer corporates.
Any technology is always amenable to greater leverage by the rich and the powerful.
Now with Crispr, we are creating newer opportunities for corporations to create demands for certain kinds of human beings. In a deeply unequal world, the corporates will decide what kind of humans it wants. And the large mass of commoners will be forced to engineer those changes in themselves to stay relevant.
This is a terrible burden to impose on anyone. The future is not like Blade runner, it is Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New world'.
So a guy is obsessed with a certain technology, feels he can be a pioneer to a brave new world and justifies it to himself in bad faith by thinking - "This technology that I’m trying to do is for all of us. Whether you’re a big corporation or somebody in their basement, you have access to this stuff – everybody does. People respond very positively to that."
This, I believe is a dangerous belief - that tech can 'level the playing field' in a sense. It never does.
Internet was supposed to be the great leveler. And for a while with Yahoo anonymous chat and early days of mushrooming internet cafes, it really did feel that way. But soon enough, the powerful people have turned it into a tool that is more advantageous to their interest at the expense of common people's. Governments use it for surveillance and propaganda. Companies use it to brainwash people into buying things they don't need. The powerful rich interests use it to obfuscate matters of national importance and keep people busy with false emergencies of internecine hatred - divide and rule.
Internet made the world a bit more open for a while, but now it is firmly on course to making the world 'less open'. Look at what China is doing to its Uighur population or India with its Aadhar card fuckup. Look at Hungary, Poland and even US. Powerful people are consolidating power by inciting hatred against 'others' everywhere.
The new technologies being introduced at breathtaking speeds are creating newer anxieties and vulnerabilities for the common people while creating bigger payoffs and opportunities to build monopolies for the richer corporates.
Any technology is always amenable to greater leverage by the rich and the powerful.
Now with Crispr, we are creating newer opportunities for corporations to create demands for certain kinds of human beings. In a deeply unequal world, the corporates will decide what kind of humans it wants. And the large mass of commoners will be forced to engineer those changes in themselves to stay relevant.
This is a terrible burden to impose on anyone. The future is not like Blade runner, it is Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New world'.
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