"always has been" meme but with Linus' "The kernel project has been and will continue to be about the technology."
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"the kernel project is about the technology" is a horrible condemnation of the kernel devs tbh
CC: @mntmn@mastodon.social
"Hurt" is now playing in my head after reading > This is *NOT* some kind of "social warrior" project
and you could have it all, my empire of slop
@mntmn can someone tell linus that technology is not neutral? Too many people don't get that...
Am I just too far gone?
It's worse than that. Technology is neutral, people are adversarial.
CC: @mntmn@mastodon.social @OliviaVespera@spacey.space
@ori @mntmn No as in technology is actually not neutral. https://londonpublishingpartnership.co.uk/books/technology-is-not-neutral-a-short-guide-to-technology-ethics/
I've (in the distant past) taken multiple courses on the ethics of technology, so I've definitely been exposed to this viewpoint. I disagree with it.
I admit, I haven't read the specific book you pointed at, but I would imagine that it mirrors Ursula Franklin, and to a lesser extent, Neil Postman.
Rejecting the idea that technology has inherent ethical value isn't the same as absolving it of harm. Remove the people, and technology is just a very intricate pile of rocks and metal. Deciding that technology has inherent moral value outside of how people chose to use it makes it too easy to avoid reckoning with the social context of technology. Rejecting that forces you to reckon with the full interaction of technology and humanity. The harms and benefits technology cause are intricately intertwined with social structure, ideology, politics and human behavior.
Accepting technology's neutrality, though, means that you need to reckon with the complexity of social interaction. You need to defend not just against the things you label as "bad", but also the things you label as "good". Moral neutrality is not the same as having no social impacts. And while some, er, ballistic impact, translates pretty directly to social impact, a huge amount of indirect impact is far more ambiguous. Even if we can use it for huge good, we need to be careful to defend against downsides.
Trying to label technology outside of social structures is too dangerous for me to accept.
CC: @mntmn@mastodon.social @OliviaVespera@spacey.space
I see. I could share the original 1970s paper if it helps. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27106634
As you know this is an area of continued research and recognition.
"Deciding that technology has inherent moral value outside of how people chose to use it makes it too easy to avoid reckoning with the social context of technology."
This doesn't make sense to me or what I think is meant by neutrality. It is because technology is made in the context of society that it can't be neutral.
