The post talks about today, about the bubble bursting now with AI. And it's so clear why, there is so much absolutely no effort shit shovelling nonsense happening, such a continued expectation that those titans up above keep dictating down.
But too: the bubble of tech being a force for progress, for unchaining humanity? That burst a while ago.
Cambridge Analytica scandal really distinguished, remains a a clear point on what was nebulously known & felt. It crystalized the realization of how and by whom our data, what we were being used for. CA indicated what the cloud really meant.
And until recently little news has been good news. It's been almost all more of the same. A never ending year after year series of press conferences where companies get up and say how they can intermediate their lives if you let their product in to do its thing.
And AI, more many people, will be yet more control technology. More things that mechanize humans, soulless systems that leach off our energies and steer us, order us to do things. That allow some of the controlling class to not have to deal with us even more than ever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Franklin#Holistic_and_p...
But too: this is the first time humanity at large, in my view, stands any chance against that which was already deeply in progress. We don't have to accept the world as it is anymore. We couldn't even see the world, were rebuffed from the technological systems all around us. And DMCA violation that it may be, no one cares. Our moral spiritual saintly right to see the world is triumphing over the systems of technological control, as we reverse engineer tvs, video game consoles, flock cameras. We aren't stuck accepting the swill the corporate world produces and streams downhill at us. As a work technology, as a means to be Franklin's holstic in our capability, we have plumbed the matrixes and happened upon a universality of means and understanding that finally swings wide the doors of tech, that makes it possible for those of will to reclaim a spot, from a world that has forced its anti-will upon us for decades. What any of us can do is unimaginably bigger than two years ago, giving us access to the world around us, taking everything electronic out of the lockbox and stealing the electron back from titans.
I could not be more excited. And no, I don't think silicon valley is right now in a position to establish itself as a strong part of this, even as openai and anthropic swell, even as they are crucial. It's a back to the garage moment in the world, the nerds working fervently quietly to help give humanity back the world that is its, in my view, a birthright. If our human liberty, our culture of science and peer ship and understanding and permission.
> for the record I think it's wonderful that non-programmers can now build software, and furthermore I think programmers should be ashamed that this is what it took to make computing accessible
https://bsky.app/profile/garrison.corporate.fm/post/3mzlijew...
It's unclear what role the titans can make for themselves in this new world, those few who have like Saturn devoured all their children thereby obstructing innovation and change and competition. Their glamor is not there, and it's unclear what they would become if they decided to stop hording the electron from mankind. But perhaps they can grow up. Perhaps they can wisen up. Perhaps they can find a way to still be relevant and useful and helpful to the small little souls of humanity, us meek, that are about to inherit their earth.