So...there's an interesting realignment (not really, it's yet another realignment from hell) going on it seems with this second trump term where the left is going in this hardcore tech luddism direction and the right is going in a direction we can call "dark enlightenment" or "dark maga" thinking. Both of these factions are bad in my opinion, and I wanted to give my opinion on both, the spats between them, and why my views are kind of the odd one out here.
So....a lot of lefties these days seem to oppose AI and a lot of modern technology. Businesses don't wanna pay people, and automation basically threatens to throw the working class out of work. AI is being developed that threatens work, and a lot of lefties are opposing it because they wanna preserve jobs. THeir ideologies have been built up over the years around the wage labor system, rather than challenging it, and as they see it, they get their worth from their work. But if their work is no longer useful to the tech overlords or whatever, then they're gonna be thrown to the wolves and allowed to starve to death. So they fear the destruction of jobs instead, pushing narratives about the dignity of work and how works needs to be a thing, and yeah. They oppose new tech.
I always found this mentality to be stupid. Honestly? I HATE the idea of work. I have rejected the protestant work ethic as I've gotten older. I dont romanticize work, I think work is basically slavery with extra steps, and if we no longer need to work, then that's a good thing.
The problem here is capitalism. Capitalism was designed to distribute resources within markets based on work and labor, and most liberals and leftists over the years never challenged this. However, my own brand of progressivism is pro technology and pro automation, and I see the idea that we no longer have to work as a good thing. The bad thing is our social conventions and reliance of the wage labor system to distribute resources. As Scott Santens would say, regarding that typical 'give a man a fish" analogy you hear, if you have a situation where automation ensures that no one needs to fish any more, do all men starve or do all men eat? In our current society and its reliance on work and wage labor, all men starve, because we insist the only valid way to ensure that people meet their needs is through work. I think we should decouple work from income and implement a UBI.
Of course, a lot of liberals and lefties are cynical about UBI. I've expressed my views recently on a forum and was basically told that UBI would never happen and the elites who control everything would rather us starve than to give us a UBI. This may be true. However, that's also why we need an ideology that both advocates for worker liberation AND ALSO restructuring society so that we can afford to live without work, through policies like a UBI. If anything, trying to construct this ideology is my life's work so far, and I'm literally trying to write a book about this very idea. Quite frankly, I dont think we have to worry about the idea of no one being able to work any time soon. Jobist attitudes are so prevalent in our society, even among the working class, that most people still want to work, and also, I don't believe all work can be automated. We saw the limitations of technology during the COVID shutdown and how work is still somewhat necessary for society to function. However, eventually there may come a time where we can automate away all work.
However, let's look at the right, especially under donald trump. In his second term, he's gotten a lot of these really weird...tech bro types on his side. Ya know, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, etc. and a lot of these guys are being driven by this "dark enlightenment" thinking. These guys are basically anti enlightenment. They see themselves as a special breed of men, like these ubermench types who should control the world. And a lot of them hate democracy and enlightenment values. As they see it, they should be in charge, and they should be like feudal lords, controlling everything, while the average person has nothing. And for them, automation is about saving their bottom line. They dont wanna pay workers. They hate unions, they hate labor costs, they want all the money. They wanna control everything. And again, did I mention they hate democracy? Seriously, what sparked this discussion was another vaush video about Palantir, this tech company that wants to gather tons of data on all americans at the behest of the trump administration. And basically, the video goes into a lot of this dark enlightenment crap. About how the future is the corporations owning everything, and us living in a 1984esque dystopia where the corporations are in charge, and basically, yeah, tech feudalism. And how destroying our jobs is a bad thing because these guys will leave us with nothing and how there could be a mass die off in the future as a result.
Now, again, I can understand left wing impulse to resist technology when it is functionally being used to oppress us. But let's be real here. It's not the technology itself that's bad. It's how it's used. In a sane society, we would be having policy makers study and regulate this stuff. Whereas our government is by and for the rich, and is being used to bypass democratic safeguards to do what it wants. And that's the thing. All of this "small government" stuff and pro business crap the right is for, when technology is applied to it, is quite dangerous, but it really does come down to that ideology.
Here's the thing. In a sense, the leftists are right when they say that capitalism has always been oppressive. The entire system was functionally set up to enslave us. We link property to work, from a conflict perspective, to justify the rich having wealth and to justify the poor being poor and oppressed. We basically created a perfect system to enslave the populace. And our liberal democracy in the US has always been susceptible to that which I would call the fourth branch of government. That being the private sector, big business, lobbyists, donors, etc. We have this entire fourth branch of our government that isnt technically a branch of government at all, but has always pulled the strings and were the real power brokers of society. Historically, these are the guys who limited how much progress reformism has been able to achieve, because they'd always lobby and buy off politicians to limit progress. Even FDR made a deal with the devil in maintaining the institution of work, and thus, wage slavery. While he did a lot to make average peoples' lives better, he never truly gave them their freedom. He refused to go lower than 40 hours a week on work hours, since the businesses feared a society in which the populace had too much power, and at the end of the new deal era, they decided america was too democratic and that business needed their power back. Reaganism was the trojan horse to make that happen, dismantling new deal protections under the guise of "small government." And now that were at the tail end of the reagan era, or perhaps at the beginning of something else which could be much worse, businesses are trying to exert more control.
Honestly, the principles of our society are sound. We SHOULD have a society in which the people are ultimately in charge. We SHOULD be democratic. We SHOULD have a society that works to enhance the lives of the people, ALL of us, not just some of us, and certainly not just the ultra wealthy. Our society is captured by the ultra wealthy and the special interests. And it has been for quite some time. And it's just getting worse and worse. I understand why lefties would use this as an opportunity to fight technology instead of embracing it, but to me, what it's really about is what I said, "do all men starve or do all men eat?"
The answer to that really depends on who is in charge. If the wealthy are in charge, yeah, we could end up all starving if technology automates the jobs away. We can use AI and technology to create a surveillance state that makes even George Orwell blush. And the ideology of donald trump and his cronies seems to be leaning toward this dystopian future. Trump isn't even the only threat with his administration. I've been sensing that there's something darker behind the scenes. George Orwell, Peter Thiel, JD vance, stuff like that. I believe the oligarchs are lining up to screw us all over as a society and to basically make the future a horrifying dystopia of tech feudalism and a massive surveillance state.
BUT...that doesn't mean the tech is the problem. What the left offers with its luddism is really just...a return to the past. Which, to me, is a society in which we are all slaves, but the oppression is a little less in your face. I dont glorify wage labor, or jobs, or work. I embrace tech and believe that the future is to move toward a society where this tech serves us all.
Honestly, the primary political divide should be democracy vs oligarchy. Should the future be left to only the wealthy who use their power to oppress everyone else for their benefit? or should all of us have a seat at the table? I oppose trump, dark maga, and all of these evil ideologies and sub ideologies associated with this stuff because they lead to a very dystopian outcome for the future. At the same time, I embrace tech because, used correctly, it could lead to a positive future of all of us. It's really just a matter of who is in charge and who wields the power, and for what purpose. Too many people are just accepting that the wealthy will be in charge no matter what and that the best we can do is be good little wage slaves to them. But that is just such a regressive approach to the issue. No. We should have our cake and eat it too. Technology should be used for the betterment of all of humanity, not just serving the ultra wealthy. Sorry, not sorry. Probably an opinion that pisses both sides off, but given both sides are wrong, well, that's the stance I'll take. And hopefully I won't end up in a gulag for it some day.
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