Computers are tools at the end of the day, that can be configured to suit your desired purpose.
Many businesses claim to adopt digital technology in order to make things easier for their employees, but often times that is a secondary aim.
The true aim for most business (big ones in particular) is to optimize the amount of money they earn. At the expense of their workers, at the expense of their clients/customers, at the expense of the environment, that doesn’t matter.
Computers have no morals, ethics or human principles on their own, their judgement and actions are basee on how they are programmed to act. So it’s very easy for firms to blame computers for processes they create with no morals, ethics or any empathic tolerance in mind. Empathy, morals, ethics, being a good person makes some money but it doesn’t make all the money possible. See where the problem is?
I’d like to counter your argument and say that computers (and broadly speaking modern technology) are in their design and nature penchant for injustice and un-ethicality. They were afterall designed under a capitalist mode of production that emphasizes efficiency and profitability. Perhaps if we decontextualize technology, like you did up there, it might seem as neutral but if we take into consideration its history and its long-term prospects it will certainly show up in a negative light since it was designed to be used (and not abused) for the exploitation of the people.
I understand, however, what you’re saying concerning big firms exonerating themselves from their shady activities. I am not simply repeating the “technology bad” boomer argument, instead the technology is as bad as its creators and exploiters.
You make an interesting argument and I agree that optimization and computers have been used to capitalistic ends and to exploit people for the profit of the few, with many historical examples available.
I object to the notion that any invention produced in a capitalist society must be designed to serve the unjust and unethical goals of that society.
Take insulin for example. Its discoverers released their patent cheaply in order for the world and common people to have unrestricted access. Despite this, American Medical Firms have intentionally restricted production and availability within that nation’s borders, ensuring they can profit grossly off of people’s need of it. It is clear that insulin itself is not the purveyor of unethical profiteering but the medical and insurance companies that have taken advantage of it, unlike the University of Toronto biologists who willed to bring health and longevity to humanity.
Similarly, I argue that computers and optimization are not inherently unjust, but such technological and mathematical principles are coopted by corporate interests in harmful ways to the common person.
The insulin example does not refute my thesis in particular.
Its discoverers released their patent cheaply in order for the world and common people to have unrestricted access.
This is technology in its decontextualized form…
American Medical Firms have intentionally restricted production and availability within that nation’s borders, ensuring they can profit grossly off of people’s need of it.
… And this is its long-term implications.
Even the conception of insulin is the product of modern medicine which concentrates on eliminating the side effects only temporarily. It is an artificial and unsustainable solution by my standards that will inevitably lead to exploiting it for “wrong” objectives.
And mathematics are only objective and universal in appearance, but in fact they are (predominantly eurocentric) constructs.
Maybe my theory requires refinement and a bit more nuance, but I still stand by the general idea.
Again, while your theory is thought-provoking and I appreciate that. However I do fundamentally disagree with your theory even if we agree on conclusions.
I bring up insulin in particular, because the unaffordability and exorbitant pricing is a uniquely American problem, where unchecked capitalism is rampant. In countries with a properly functional healthcare system which is most of the developed world, insulin is widely available without having to extort people financially.
So no, it’s not a long term implication of insulin, it is the American for-profit healthcare system that has caused problems with access to its citizens. It may be an inevitability or context of late-stage capitalism, but I want to reiterate it is not of the insulin itself.
You appear to misunderstand what insulin is used for, it’s not pain relief. When a diabetic person cannot produce their own insulin, they can’t regulate their own blood sugar. It’s great that lifestyle changes can cure Type 2 (induced by unhealthy diets) diabetes but there’s no known cure for Type 1 (hereditary) diabetes, so symptom treatment is the best than can be done for that, Eastern and alternative medicine included.
Math, science, technology you portray as “eurocentric”, which has elements of truth in that during the enlightenment and industrial revolution there were major advances whose paces surpassed the rest of the world. It is also true that the roots of these subjects are drawn from India, China, the Middle East, Rome, Greece and others.
I will refrain from debating our initial topic (including the insulin example) any further since nothing of worth can progress the conversation. I thank you nontheless for taking interest.
As for the eurocentrism of mathematics, there is an article that I’d recommend if it is of interest for you, “Western mathematics: the secret weapon ofcultural imperialism” by Alan Bishop.
“Surpassed” isn’t an accurate term; it implies that there exists an objective linearity in human development, which itself is a Western, modernist conception. The divergence in the values of different cultures leads also, more or less, to divergence in development.
The amount of inaccuracies, you are aware that the soviet union invented the water integrator https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_integrator an analog computer that used water for computation, yes computers dates back to Charles babage from the industrial revolution, but computers are just machines that run mathematical operations, the Chinese abacus can be defined as a very basic computer and that dates back thousands of years. No computers are not penchant to injustice or unethical, that’s like saying doing 1 + 1 is evil because your doing a calculation, it’s completely irrational.
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