How should the Dissident Right handle technology?

submitted by YJaewedwqewqClerical Fascist from self.debatealtright

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[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The most important equation for the next few hundred years is: life-span = health-span + grim-span.

Medical advances are adding 3 years to the grim-span for every year that they add to the health-span. Maybe I need a citation for that three to one ratio. On the other hand think about the new Alzheimer's drug Aducanumab. Maybe it does nothing at all, but we can see the trend; drugs for Alzheimer's will make dying take longer, adding years to the grim-span only. 3 to 1, 4 to 1, it is only going to get worse.

Gradually all of human life will be directed to making dying take a really long time, by "caring" for the frail elderly. To counter this, my government would redirect medical research towards cures and rejuvenation.

Talking of technology more generally, I notice that people make a two way split. Either common ownership of the means of production, or private ownership of the means of production. But the key question is whether to have fragmented private ownership of the means of production, or concentrated private ownership of the means of production.

That looks like a three way split. But what "common ownership of the means of production" means in practice is rule by the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Planning, under the direction of the political elite. It ends up as a euphemism for oligarchy. Meanwhile, concentrated private ownership of the means of production puts so much political power in the hands of a few super-rich owners, that it too is a version of oligarchy.

In the end there are two competing options: one is fragmented private ownership of the means of production. The other is oligarchy (with a choice of two paint jobs). If government (somehow) blocks and undoes the consolidation of industry, that combats the problem of tech giants. A direct policy on technology might not be necessary.

[–]EthnocratArcheofuturist 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

counter this, my government would redirect medical research towards cures and rejuvenation.

Utopian much?

[–]Alan_Crowe 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Half and half. There is a utopian aspect in hoping that cures and rejuvenation therapies might be found. But the other half is simply anti-dystopian. We are very slowly sliding into a dystopia in which half the population lives to over one hundred years old, but medicine is all about dragging out the process of dying, and nobody enjoys being that old and frail. Meanwhile, "care" becomes most of the economy and sucks the life out of civilisation. The anti-dystopian aspect merely involves saying "No!" to the bad kind of medical advances. It is still valuable, even in the absence of the good kind of medical advances.