If the geeks inherit the earth, what happens?
July 21, 2014 11:51 PM Subscribe
Why the world nerds are creating will be awful
Restaurant workers already claim food stamps at twice the rate of the rest of the US population because their wages are so low. Because of this, after they fall prey to the march of the tablets, America's waiters and waitresses could be the subjects of yet another social experiment: in a recent thought-bubble, Google engineer and activist Justine Tunney suggested last month that food stamps should be replaced with Soylent, a grey nutritional slurry mooted as a total meal replacement, to keep poor Americans "healthy and productive".
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People's distaste for Glass isn't primarily about privacy, any more than attacks on Google buses in the Bay Area are about road usage. Nor are they a "neo-luddite" fear of disembodied technological encroachment. The backlash against Glass is the implied rejection of the kind of casual sociopathy which leads a person to become a surveillance camera, to put a computer between themselves and their every interaction with other people. The philosophy of Glass is inward looking. It improves the life of the wearer at the expense of those around them.
Restaurant workers already claim food stamps at twice the rate of the rest of the US population because their wages are so low. Because of this, after they fall prey to the march of the tablets, America's waiters and waitresses could be the subjects of yet another social experiment: in a recent thought-bubble, Google engineer and activist Justine Tunney suggested last month that food stamps should be replaced with Soylent, a grey nutritional slurry mooted as a total meal replacement, to keep poor Americans "healthy and productive".
...
People's distaste for Glass isn't primarily about privacy, any more than attacks on Google buses in the Bay Area are about road usage. Nor are they a "neo-luddite" fear of disembodied technological encroachment. The backlash against Glass is the implied rejection of the kind of casual sociopathy which leads a person to become a surveillance camera, to put a computer between themselves and their every interaction with other people. The philosophy of Glass is inward looking. It improves the life of the wearer at the expense of those around them.
This post was deleted for the following reason: This is a sort of short and lazy op/ed on topics we've covered a *lot* recently (google glass, privacy / surveillance, etc., soylent, SF, tech backlash), and doesn't really bring anything new to the discussion -- taz
Ah, yes, Justine Tunney, the Moldbuggist who brought us the modest proposal that we eliminate the federal government and appoint Eric Schmidt CEO of the US.
I think the neocameralists are a lot louder than they are representative. Then again, I never thought that GOOGLE RON PAUL would go anywhere, either, and look where he is today.
posted by gingerest at 12:24 AM on July 22, 2014
I think the neocameralists are a lot louder than they are representative. Then again, I never thought that GOOGLE RON PAUL would go anywhere, either, and look where he is today.
posted by gingerest at 12:24 AM on July 22, 2014
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Ground covered MUCH better by Jill Lepore here.
posted by StrikeTheViol at 12:09 AM on July 22, 2014 [3 favorites]