Reddit reviews To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism

Thanks for posting this. I've been so desensitised by the waves of TED-worthy solutionism way of thinking. Locally, the Yale-NUS kids are especially notorious for such ideas because THIS is the way they gain prestige among their circles. Doesn't matter if the ideas actually work, just need that notch on their CV and they're ready to ride it all the way to an upper management level in McKinsey.

Unfortunately, this will be the norm among the upper-middle and upper classes for a long time to come. Here are some books for those interested to learn more.

Winners Take All

To Solve Everything, Click Here

Geek Heresy

Not to say that people shouldn't strive for social change, etc. But real change requires real grind and understanding. The people doing so aren't usually in the media limelight either.

To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism has a chapter dedicated to the Quantified Self movement. His argument is that quantification itself conceals moral decisions, and forces people into easily identifiable pigeonholes that rob them of what it really means to be human.

>That we may inhabit several moral and ethical worlds simultaneously, that those worlds might be governed by different commitments and principles, that it would be naive to expect us to be high achievers in all those worlds-none of this occurs to Bell, who thinks that here can be some universal standard, a common benchmark of sorts, to measure and compare your behavior as a parent with your behavior as a friend or a colleague.

For example, it's a common question on r/loseit if someone should eat a large meal as their family or SO expects even though they're trying to lose weight. No number is going to inform that person of what to do in this situation, and the LoseIt! app or My Fitness Pal can't provide a moral solution to the problem of eating in the various social situations we find ourselves.

Quantification is a means to an end, but it's important to understand that it's not going to solve the problems of being human. Some have asked what the solution is...but I think that's the wrong question. There's no one solution. Rather, there are approaches to life, some ancient like classic Greek philosophy and Buddhism and Christianity, and some are more modern, rationalism and humanism and universal unitarianism. The approach, or approaches, you decide to use is "the" solution, while ensuring that you're not using quantification of self to "better" yourself.

To be better requires judgement of quality, which quantity, while it may inform, will not judge for you alone.

> because of ads. omfg. I am jacks complete lack of surprise. everytime secret money comes up its ads. which cash already does, as you point out. and anyone is free to pay in cash. go for it. noone cares.

Yes because privacy is important. Why is that hard to understand? Thats why the entire premise of cryptocurrency (the decentralized immutable public ledger) is a bad idea. It's not because of ads try reading my post or read the news once in a while like right now where cambridge analytica is again in the news. Or try reading a book once in a while like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Save-Everything-Click-Here-Technological/dp/1610393708/

> but thats not what butters are talking about. they are talking about international, anonymous movement of any sum of money. untraceable. thats what they want. can you give me a reason for that? and can you possibly maybe rack your brains for the downsides of that?

I never said that was good and I explicitly explained why their ideas are bad click the links. I can't give you a reason why what the butters want is good because I don't agree, if you had read my comment you would understand that.

I don't known what your experience was like in NYC, but each of the different startup regions do have their own flavor. Austin isn't like NYC, which isn't like Seattle or San Francisco. I wonder how many people in NYC that you knew went to Burning Man. In the Bay, it is fairly common. Flashy shows of wealth aren't really a thing in SF like they are in NYC either. Pissing matches between the two scenes are actually fairly common. See this and this.

This is something I drafted a while back, which was edited and put into some piece or another, but basically highlights my point:
>
> From its earliest precursors, the Internet has had its evangelists. And the Silicon Valley offered a unique crucible. Deliberate and unintentional interactions among military researchers, academics, and corporate scientists helped to form the technical features of the medium.

> Meanwhile, the region was the center of the countercultural movement in the 1960s, the failings of which, wrapped into a technological optimism for the power of the networked computer. Along side its topological and programmatic development, discussions of its social, cultural, political and economic potential formed the ethical undergirding. Internet policy, especially the network neutrality debate, is made in the shadows of ideals set in this early era. Prime among those ideals is a profound faith in the technology’s emancipatory potential to boost democratic participation, trigger a renaissance of moribund communities, and strengthen associational life.

Maybe this is too much for your project, but I would look at doing a rhetoric construction of the concept of Silicon Valley. I know there is enough online to do this well. And perhaps this is just my distaste from some of the work I had to grade in grad school, but I always found this work far more intriguing.

This also reminds me. You might be looking in the wrong place for this. I would suggest going into the discipline of rhetoric/communication. Check out this, this, this this, and this. You should also check out Evgeny Morozov.