A lot of people seem to be realizing that knowledge work is mostly pointless. AI might give us the pleasure of finding out what happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers.
Very well said. Agreed with those material realities or at least fantasies.
I also think there is a more immediate, less existential incentive, that lets individuals pretend like they’re just acting out the (bad) efficiencies of the rational new market while ignoring the awful existential endgame of continuing to enact the will of capital (I won’t say the will of shareholders because many of them would also claim their hands are tied).
They can pretend it’s just one more of their money tricks where they extract more profits or externalise more costs, like with the Metaverse or Web3 or NFTs before it.
I like how Rushkoff puts this: “going meta” as owners’ way to keep the grift rolling, just keep going more meta, more abstract, more virtual.
Until the market is so far removed from the reality of trees and rivers and human bodies and clean air… well anyway I’m on a rant.
But my point is I hate how this fucked over financialized worldview makes it seem like every step along the road to apocalypse is rational and inevitable. Like we’re powerless to stop it.
It’s an economic theory, not an asteroid hurtling towards us. It literally runs on people.
Very well said. Agreed with those material realities or at least fantasies.
I also think there is a more immediate, less existential incentive, that lets individuals pretend like they’re just acting out the (bad) efficiencies of the rational new market while ignoring the awful existential endgame of continuing to enact the will of capital (I won’t say the will of shareholders because many of them would also claim their hands are tied).
They can pretend it’s just one more of their money tricks where they extract more profits or externalise more costs, like with the Metaverse or Web3 or NFTs before it.
I like how Rushkoff puts this: “going meta” as owners’ way to keep the grift rolling, just keep going more meta, more abstract, more virtual. Until the market is so far removed from the reality of trees and rivers and human bodies and clean air… well anyway I’m on a rant.
But my point is I hate how this fucked over financialized worldview makes it seem like every step along the road to apocalypse is rational and inevitable. Like we’re powerless to stop it.
It’s an economic theory, not an asteroid hurtling towards us. It literally runs on people.