Tech for tech's sake helps nobody. Politics is a fact of nearly every facet of life—you can accept this and play the game or accept that you're in the backseat.
The worst people in the world already know this and run our industry. There's no reason we have to accept them.
Probably a true statement, in that those folks made contributions, but also misleading, since technology specifically, usually has a goal or outcome in mind. A problem to solve. Like let's assume one of the first technological innovations on that long arc from banana-gathering to whatever we're doing now, was somebody inventing a better way to gather bananas. Or a substitute for bananas. Or a way to grow your own bananas in a controlled way (which I guess would be agriculture, one of our foundational technologies). All of these are easy to imagine and not far-fetched. So were they done by some poseur/pretender who only cared about bananas, and we should look down on them, or were they nobly doing tech for tech's own sake? I don't think the dichotomy exists.
>since technology specifically, usually has a goal or outcome in mind
sure, all ambitions have a goal. I think the point is that not all goals have some economic goal in mind. The original blogging platform and internet as a structure did not have the goal of monetizing writing. And we're honestly seeing the consequences of attempts and failures to try and monetize such stuff on the net.
Maybe there was prestige, or research grants, or whatnot, but it's clear that there's many pieces of tech who's goals wasn't to sell off to a billionaire and retire in style. I'd call such research "tech for tech's sake".
Art? Yes, of course! I have no clue what you're referring to with tech, though. Throughout history development of tech has almost always driven by seeking economic leverage. I'm sure there are exceptions but I can't think of any.
Not sure what you're referring to with science at all.
> Throughout history development of tech has almost always driven by seeking economic leverage. I'm sure there are exceptions but I can't think of any.
I'm as keen to wax poetic about the non-economic potential of technology as the next person, but I'm not deluding myself into thinking that was why the technology was developed in the first place.
Also, a military advantage is an economic one, there's no real difference between the concepts.
So you’re saying all of technology is the result of saying “we could make money if we had a thing that did X”, and none of it is the result of “we found a way to do X because we thought it would be cool.”
If nothing else, you just dismissed most of mathematics
and basic physics.
This also sort of raises a red flag for the author—short term relationships weren't really a thing in the world of Austen, just prospective long-term relationships and essentially affairs.
I wouldn't be surprised if many pirates are, though.
Look at all the software that exists to help pirate stuff, the dozens of seedbox companies, the hundreds of trackers.
I'm doubtful it would have a big impact. The knowledgeable would slap a VPN on their PC or buy a seedbox. The less technical would wait for Deluge or Transmission to add a VPN panel to their settings screen.
I'm fairly certain things would go back to normal pretty quickly.
This all may be true, but he still has a track record as an expansionist, as nationalist, as islamophobic, and as ethno-nationalist. He may not have presented much of a change in Russia's behavior the way the western press has implied he might have.
To be honest, I wasn't trying to make it a moral issue by writing that sentence. In my view, people are free to go about doing self-harming activities if they want. I just don't enjoy when they do things that also affect others, like smoking in public around others just going about their day. Where I live regularly people just walk around on public sidewalks smoking making everyone they walk past or in front of breath it in. Or for example smoking at bus stops is another common problem. This is equivalent to actively harming others in my opinion.
And as some others have mentioned it may be that there is much more harm done to things like the environment by powers much greater than just those who smoke. So while there are some arguing for that point of view, I do understand those who argue against this one due to there "being much bigger fish to fry"
I think there are perfectly valid reasons to not like cigarette smoke, I just think that constantly harping over the "health" aspect rather than the "resolving the conflict of the smoke itself" aspect is not helpful.
Can we please god stop using AI like it's a meaningful word? This is really interesting technology; it's hamstrung by association with a predatory marketing term.
The worst people in the world already know this and run our industry. There's no reason we have to accept them.