9 votes

The real trouble with Silicon Valley: The toxicity of the web is peanuts compared with Big Tech’s failure to remake the physical world

12 comments

  1. [8]
    skybrian
    (edited )
    Link
    From the article: This seems rather too focused on how things look and feel. A large percentage of the lights were replaced with LED's, with more to come. (Making them look like Edison bulbs seems...

    From the article:

    The physical world of the city—the glow of electric-powered lights, the rumble of automobiles, the roar of airplanes overhead and subways below—is a product of late-19th-century and early-20th-century invention. The physical environment feels depressingly finished.

    This seems rather too focused on how things look and feel. A large percentage of the lights were replaced with LED's, with more to come. (Making them look like Edison bulbs seems to be a trend, though.) The cars are much safer and reliable than they used to be, pollute the air far less, and no longer cause lead poisoning. Airplanes are so safe that two crashes (and none in the US) caused a huge scandal.

    So I think we need to avoid focusing too much on how things seem to consumers when considering what progress has been made. Big industrial changes (like the adoption of shipping containers) might not have obvious effects on the user experience in non-industrial areas? Medical advances aren't apparent in the physical environment.

    Also, pointing at large, vague groupings like Silicon Valley or Big Tech seem like a poor way to start an analysis? Companies are not all the same. Criticism should be more specific than that.

    9 votes
    1. [7]
      NaraVara
      Link Parent
      None of this is Silicon Valley innovation though. They're pitching a very specific changing of the world centered around automation and computerization and smart grids and stuff, but these...

      This seems rather too focused on how things look and feel. A large percentage of the lights were replaced with LED's, with more to come. (Making them look like Edison bulbs seems to be a trend, though.) The cars are much safer and reliable than they used to be, pollute the air far less, and no longer cause lead poisoning. Airplanes are so safe that two crashes (and none in the US) caused a huge scandal.

      None of this is Silicon Valley innovation though. They're pitching a very specific changing of the world centered around automation and computerization and smart grids and stuff, but these promises don't seem to materialize. The only truly big change in getting around lately has been ride-share services, but that's functionally just a bootleg taxi system. If we're talking remaking the physical world, I think the innovations in "last mile" transit through rentable scooters and e-bikes is probably the last truly big change to how we do things. Contactless payments and cards (metro passes, loyalty cards, etc.) will probably be fairly transformative in the near term as well, but they're still going to take a minute to get off the ground.

      Aside from that, what am I missing besides innovations in repressive surveillance, which seems to be the only thing anyone is doing with gusto? (Also note, I don't actually think driver-less cars will ever happen in any way that people are promising. They will be, at best, driverless dedicated bus/streetcar lanes.)

      Edit: Hit submit too soon.

      The big problem is, the world-changing impacts this technology could have depends on governance. Like, actual authoritative buy in from communities to set standards and create frameworks for interoperability and communication. But the companies building this stuff are focused on vendor lock-in and monopoly economics, which inherently limits how ubiquitous the technology can be. The government is too technologically inept at implementation to invent this stuff, and the tech industry is too profit focused and megalomaniacal to actually enable broad or ubiquitous adoption of this technology at a scope that could actually be transformative. So we go nowhere.

      3 votes
      1. [6]
        skybrian
        Link Parent
        It seems like we are, again, focused on consumer perception? Consumers are at the top of a complicated supply chain and there may be a lot of hidden changes that don't make headlines. Tech...

        It seems like we are, again, focused on consumer perception? Consumers are at the top of a complicated supply chain and there may be a lot of hidden changes that don't make headlines. Tech companies that are working on business or industrial change might be having more impact? (I'll point out 3D printing which seems like a dud from a consumer perspective, but I keep reading things about its impact on prototyping in industry.)

        I'm no expert and I'm not saying we know this one way or another; I'm saying we should remain curious.

        companies building this stuff are focused on vendor lock-in and monopoly economics

        This seems like another example of painting with too broad a brush. I don't think we can lump all tech companies together and say they're all out for vendor-lock-in and monopoly profits, even though that seems true of some of the bigger companies making the news? If there are companies that don't do these things, would we hear about them? We are all so cynical that I'm not sure anyone would upvote them.

        2 votes
        1. [5]
          NaraVara
          Link Parent
          None of that is actually "remaking the physical world" though, which was the actual promise and premise of much of this technology. It's saving money here and there, it's improving logistics and...

          None of that is actually "remaking the physical world" though, which was the actual promise and premise of much of this technology. It's saving money here and there, it's improving logistics and stuff. But this is all just routinized innovation, it's not the kinds of transformative creative destruction that's immediately tangible. Of course we take a consumer's view of it, because that's where you'd actually notice a real transformation going on. Everything else is just minor improvements to people's day-to-day jobs, not fundamental alterations to their lifestyles and worldviews. A person from the 1970s could navigate the modern world and be astounded by the internet and phones, but literally everything about how we get around and do things is perfectly intelligible.

          1. [3]
            Greg
            Link Parent
            What kind of physical world examples are you thinking of that happened in the 50 years prior to 1970? I feel like it's equally reasonable to say that the citizen of the 1920s would find the 70s...

            What kind of physical world examples are you thinking of that happened in the 50 years prior to 1970? I feel like it's equally reasonable to say that the citizen of the 1920s would find the 70s perfectly intelligible.

            As for more recent progress, the things that spring to my mind are definitely less visible: lithium batteries, GPS, medical technology, and of course smartphones and the internet. I'm quite a fan of the logic behind John Barrow's extension to the Kardashev Scale. Big, visible things are comparatively simple (not easy, but simple), so we've had the ability to build them for millennia; the more we progress, the further the technology moves beyond the limits of our senses.

            Phones are small, but they are immensely more complex than, say, the great pyramid. GPS covers the entire planet while being totally invisible. A personalised anti-Cancer drug engineered using your own DNA may look no different to an aspirin. Our increasing mastery of the microscopic, of the various EM spectra, and of the biological are harder to spot precisely because of their advancement.

            All of that is without touching on the advances in both information theory and applied communication infrastructure that have transformed logistics, manufacturing, and retail. Those reach into the physical world, but I can see the argument that they are too much of a stretch to be relevant here.

            5 votes
            1. NaraVara
              Link Parent
              Not at all. Cities in the 1920s ran on trains and streetcars. A city like LA back then would have been inconceivable. Personal car ownership was still a bit of a luxury until after the WWII era....

              I feel like it's equally reasonable to say that the citizen of the 1920s would find the 70s perfectly intelligible.

              Not at all. Cities in the 1920s ran on trains and streetcars. A city like LA back then would have been inconceivable. Personal car ownership was still a bit of a luxury until after the WWII era. Cities were fundamentally transformed by the urban planning choices made at the time. Urban planning today, however, is characterized largely by the smallness of the politics around it. We can't even build adequate levels of housing. We spend our time arguing about parking minimums and fight tooth and nail for each city block of bike lanes. Ambitious transit projects are few and far between.

              Phones are small, but they are immensely more complex than, say, the great pyramid. GPS covers the entire planet while being totally invisible.

              GPS was launched in the 80s. Right about when we decided to get out of the game of embarking on ambitious societal projects and expecting private entities to magically solve collective action problems by themselves. Whatever is good and useful about phones (and the internet) is based on public infrastructure and mutually agreed upon societal standards. It is specifically the lack of these things that makes our current bout of innovation so bad at actually realizing its potential.

              3 votes
            2. hhh
              Link Parent
              not really important but chip fabs are basically sci-fi technology.

              not really important but chip fabs are basically sci-fi technology.

              2 votes
          2. skybrian
            Link Parent
            It seems like you're saying that the consumer's view is essentially what matters, and I'm not sure I agree. Like, the consumer's view is that it doesn't matter where electricity comes from....

            It seems like you're saying that the consumer's view is essentially what matters, and I'm not sure I agree. Like, the consumer's view is that it doesn't matter where electricity comes from. Windmills and solar panels only matter if you can see them.

            I don't think you really believe that, since we do talk a lot about things that are invisible to us like CO2 concentrations, but it's what a person from the 1970's would see.

            Maybe someone who understood industrial plants in the 1970's would be impressed by what we have now?

            1 vote
  2. [4]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. [3]
      Deimos
      Link Parent
      Another aspect that I think doesn't get enough attention or scrutiny is how many of the real "success stories" in tech actually just come down to being a new way of abusing cheap labor/workers....

      Another aspect that I think doesn't get enough attention or scrutiny is how many of the real "success stories" in tech actually just come down to being a new way of abusing cheap labor/workers.

      Amazon relies on treating their warehouse workers horribly and armies of low-paid delivery workers. Uber, Lyft, Doordash, Instacart, and so many others rely on "gig workers" killing themselves to make low amounts of money. Facebook and YouTube have tens of thousands of contractors (many in third-world countries) getting paid low wages and ending up with mental health issues like PTSD from sorting through horrifying and violent content all day.

      There was a good quote about this in a post Ethan Marcotte made a couple days ago:

      I’ve worked in tech for over twenty years. It’s struck me, over and over, how so much of our industry’s “innovation” is often about coercing additional, unhealthy labor out of its workforce. That’s not innovative or groundbreaking at all, it’s just the age-old capitalist playbook — hidden behind better branding and marketing communications.

      8 votes
      1. stu2b50
        Link Parent
        That's somewhat unfair. While they certainly have not improved situations, I wouldn't say they're all based off of abusing workers. Before Amazon, warehouse workers were still working in god-awful...

        real "success stories" in tech actually just come down to being a new way of abusing cheap labor/workers.

        That's somewhat unfair. While they certainly have not improved situations, I wouldn't say they're all based off of abusing workers. Before Amazon, warehouse workers were still working in god-awful conditions. And they still are. If you go to a Walmart, or Target, or any other online retailer warehouse, their conditions are roughly the same as Amazon. Some of them even pay less.

        Amazon had their competitive advantage from a greater emphasis on online shopping before other large retailers did the same, better tech (comparatively), and very importantly the success of Prime. While that could be said to be built off of worker abuse, it's not new worker abuse. They didn't get rich because they figured out new ways to abuse workers. They just didn't improve them either.

        The same could be said for the gig companies. Taxi driving was not exactly a utopian career--part of the "disruption" was the ridiculous "regulations" and medal systems in NYC that were obviously lobbied for by taxi companies to keep their monopoly--and in fact, it was strictly impossible in most of the US.

        Their competitive advantage was primarily the fact that Taxi companies still wanted you to fucking call them, with a phone, in like 2010, to order a ride in advance + the jank ass payment structure.

        5 votes
      2. joplin
        Link Parent
        I don't disagree about Uber, Lyft, Doordash, etc. However, keep in mind that in some of these countries, what we consider low wages put people who would otherwise be well below the poverty line...

        I don't disagree about Uber, Lyft, Doordash, etc. However, keep in mind that in some of these countries, what we consider low wages put people who would otherwise be well below the poverty line into middle class, much as manufacturing did in the United States in the last century. There are definitely improvements to be made in terms of hours worked and work conditions. But it does seem like there has been progress in millions of people's lives from the work we've shipped overseas. (And it goes without saying that there has also been exploitation.)

        2 votes
  3. joplin
    Link
    Does 3D printing count as something that's affecting the physical world? It's just starting to take off, but it's already affected laws, home building, and even food. The CRISPR technology is...

    Does 3D printing count as something that's affecting the physical world? It's just starting to take off, but it's already affected laws, home building, and even food.

    The CRISPR technology is physically changing cells in plants, animals (including humans), and bacteria.

    2 votes