this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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Your post is arguing (by analogy) that we shouldn't even bother trying. But I guess you don't need a suicide note when you can just leave a copy of Atlas Shrugged by your body.
On the contrary, I'm just saying if you build something and it gets co-opted by a corporation it probably wasnt meant to be.
It's like when people talk about politicians being bought out by corporations. If that's something that can even happen, it's the fault of a broken system that would even allow that to happen.
This is a very computer sciencey view, which is why I leapt past the intermediate logic straight to its conclusion. But I'll spell it out.
There is no rules-based system that will actually stand in the way of determined, clever, malicious actors. To put it in CS-style terms, you'll never cover all the contingencies. To put it in more realistic terms, control systems only work within certain domains of the thing being controlled; partly this is because you start getting feedback and second-order effects, and partly it's because there's a ton of stuff about the world you just don't know.
If a system is used as intended, it can work out fine. If someone is determined to break a system, they will.
This is why the world is not driven by rules-based systems, but by politics. We're capable of rich and dynamic responses to problems, even unanticipated problems. Which is to say, the only actual solution to Exxon and Meta is to fight back, not to bemoan the inadequacy of systems.
Indeed, this belief in technocracy is explicitly encouraged by malicious elites, who are aware that they can subvert a technocracy.
You fight back by fixing the system, or making a new one.