We need to uncouple the concept of technology from the ideas of progress
February 4, 2025 12:46 AM   Subscribe

The parts of the world that register the most patents are also, coincidentally, the parts of the world that have benefitted the most from patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism. In contrast, the places whose lands and peoples have historically been exploited by the metropolis are accused, today, of lagging behind in technological progress and not producing enough patents. Those who benefitted from slavery, from exploiting colonized territories, and from relegating their care work to women had the resources and time to dedicate to technological innovation, patenting it and reaping its economic profits. In these cases, the technological advances attributed to competition within the capitalist system are actually built on the systemic exploitation and oppression of other people’s bodies and territories—the same people who are later accused of technological backwardness. from Inventing the Commons: On Alternative Technologies by Yásnaya Elena Gil [Guernica]
posted by chavenet (9 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm quite confused by the discussion of patents. I am author on a handful of patents.

Where I come from every one ignores patents and does whatever they want.

The only purpose of patents is if someone sues you, you can pull 2000 relevant patents out of your back pocket and counter sue them.

They're kind of like armor to be used against particularly annoying parasites.

The only people who use patents to stop work are patent trolls, firms set up for the express purpose of suing people.
posted by constraint at 4:43 AM on February 4 [3 favorites]


> I'm quite confused by the discussion of patents
"The importance of ‘fundamental’ patents is emphasized in the literatures on patent law and competition policy, which note the substantial market power, and potential monopoly implications, of such patents in the context of current new technologies, such as biotech, semiconductors and 3D printing" [sciencedirect]

The phrase “intellectual property” is problematic in and of itself—giving little public recognition to the ideas, creations, and discoveries of other people

"IP is usually divided into two branches, namely industrial property [wiki] and copyright" [wipo: pdf, 28 pages]
posted by HearHere at 5:31 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]


non-capitalist technology is a viable possibility.

I'm curious what the author makes of Soviet technological practices.
posted by doctornemo at 7:56 AM on February 4 [2 favorites]


This article reminds me of the excellent LO-TEK book.
posted by doctornemo at 7:57 AM on February 4 [3 favorites]


I was mostly following along thinking this was making interesting points until the bit about "relegating their care work to women" - haven't essentially most peoples of the world done this, whether indigenous or not? I sense an undercurrent of implying some purity to indigenous, agrarian people, which to me takes away from the argument that I think was the thesis of decoupling technology and progress.
posted by blendor at 11:53 AM on February 4 [5 favorites]


Capitalism is totalizing, so any critique of capitalism made within the context of capitalism is going to sound precious and naive and farfetched. Imagine showing a car to a horse-rider, and they complain, "that metal horse doesn't even have a feed-bag!" No, the feed-bag is not essential-- it's just an artifact of the system in which you are embedded. One of the big problems with capitalism is that it uses money as a proxy for value. This mismatch is what allows patent trolls to game the system, for instance. It also causes us to keep making and consuming the latest widgets until we have paperclipped the whole planet. Our survival depends on us finding a viable alternative to capitalism. I don't know what that would be, but I think that this article is a valiant attempt at snapping us out of this capitalist spell that we are all under.
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 4:47 PM on February 4 [5 favorites]


"non-capitalist technology is a viable possibility."
I'm curious what the author makes of Soviet technological practices.

You do understand that the reverse of capitalist is not Soviet yeah?

But we don't have true capitalism. If we did, private profit would pay the appropriate and correctly valued due consideration when making use of public resources. That is patently not the case in the so-called capitalist economies and never has been.
posted by Thella at 11:39 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]


Technological progress by humans doesn't require capitalism to occur. Many representatives of Homo sapiens who lived literally all over the world prior to the European Renaissance would, if they could see our current predicament, gladly disabuse us of that notion. Immense, precisely built pyramids in Mexico, Central America, and what is now Egypt? Check. Astrolabes and algebra from the medieval Muslim world? Check. Medical practices from China? Check. Shall I continue?

But many in the West are so, well, enchanted by / with the capitalist frame for absolutely everything that we can benefit from articles like the one in the FPP that attempt to snap us out of the trance.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 1:19 AM on February 5 [3 favorites]


I feel a little like there's a bait and switch here. Gil starts with what she calls the "iPhone fallacy"--and then never returns to anything like that complexity of technology. Yes, we can call particular farming practices technology, but it doesn't then stand to reason that all technology can be invented outside a resource-aggregating framework.

We don't have any examples of complex technology being built using democratic or communal economics. We have technological feats created by states, by rulers, by the wealthy--essentially groups who are capable of organizing large amounts of labor and resources for a singular goal. We do not see that same self-organization among people past a certain level of complexity.

It makes me feel as though the rest of the piece doesn't know where it's going. Patents are bad? Well, okay. Intellectual property regimes steal from ambient indigenous knowledge? Sure. But that critique doesn't get us very far, and doesn't suggest a path out of capitalism and toward a more equitable economy that features complex technology.
posted by mittens at 3:32 AM on February 5 [3 favorites]


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