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Open original source ↗How did the left go from pro-tech communists to anti-tech primitivists? Three theses.
(1) Tech redecentralized. Communism replaces G-o-d with G-o-v, putting the centralized state above all. And 20th century tech was centralized, while 21st century tech is centralized. Think mass production and mass media vs smartphone/cryptocurrency/internet. And because the centralized state has less power over the decentralized network, the statist far left hates the network, and by extension tech.
(2) Tech remarried capitalism. In the Soviet Union, thought control extended to all areas of life except science, engineering, and mathematics. Logical reasoning was forbidden except in STEM. So, the very best Soviets poured all their energies into math and science, which were individual accomplishments, as opposed to capitalism and business, which were managerial accomplishments. Tech and capitalism were separated in the USSR.
Meanwhile, the postwar America had 90% marginal tax rates and it was very challenging to start a business during the period of William Whyte's Organization Man. In the US, tech talent went into academia thanks to the Vannevar Bush centralization of STEM. So, tech and capitalism were also partially separated in the USA. That era's Elon would have been compelled to join NASA, and been unable to start SpaceX.
However, the peak of centralized government tech created the transistor, and then Fairchild Semiconductor and DEC. And thus did decentralization begin, and the remarriage of tech with capitalism.
(3) Tech became associated with an enemy tribe. In the 1960s, parts of the Western left swapped out the working class for the wokest class. The white working man they used to hold up as the noble victim of the evil capitalists turned overnight into the rayyycist Archie Bunker. This was much like the Sino-Soviet split, but unannounced.
It was a complicated dynamic where the Western left started to go in a more deconstructionist direction, as a way to get creative independence from the Soviet left, much like the Chinese communists went in an agrarian direction to get away from the Marxism of the Soviet communists. It's been reported that this was partially CIA-sponsored, as the decentralized left of abstract expressionism and Jackson Pollock was preferred to the centralized left of the Soviets.
Anyway, as a consequence, for the Western left tech became gradually associated with their enemy tribe of whites/males. That was different from the enemy tribe of the Soviet left. The Soviets thought math would help them triumph over the capitalists, while the wokes think math is itself white and male.
More on the evolution from communism to wokism here:
https://t.co/6PDJuGFK42 https://t.co/uLiTuW2Mmx
Yes. Thanks. Typo. Can't edit, but that's what I meant.
https://t.co/0aKVTDyqTP
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@balajis boss - just checking - "And 20th century tech was centralized, while 21st century tech is (de)centralized"?
RaiNausherwan ↗
20th century leftism was largely pro-tech (USSR, China, etc.); since 1960s it becomes vehemently anti-tech. Why?
stephwakefield_ ↗