• 0 Posts
  • 5 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 13th, 2023

help-circle


  • I’ve been thinking of the “capitalism breeds innovation” thing a lot lately.

    It may still be true, but the latest innovations are always in money making. There is no incentive to innovate in a way that serves a common good, but there is massive incentive to “innovate” in a way that drives profits up.

    Subscriptions to everything and the erosion of ownership? Innovative.

    Insurance companies taking your money and then denying your claims? Innovative.

    Uncapped campaign finance and buying politicians? Innovative (well, it’s been done before, but not to this scale in a very long time).


  • Exactly this. There was a meme (or maybe many) rolling around long ago about how the intention was not to have humans do all the jobs and AI do all the art: quite the opposite.

    This is related to the growth in productivity we have seen across industries for the last 50 years. It is through the roof, but wages are lower per unit production and aren’t showing any signs of ending their stagnation.

    The problem there is the same with all this new tech enhancing lives and production, while people still have to work as much as before, if not more: the gains, monetary or otherwise, are being pocketed by someone else.

    It’s like wage theft, but “better”: it’s progress theft.