• alcoholicorn
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    64
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    2 months ago

    TBF, for the last 30 years even Cyberpunk authors completely missed the point that capitalism will subvert these amazing technologies to make everything worse if we don’t do something. Neal Stephenson is a crypto shill.

    • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      2 months ago

      Manna got rampant capitalism + AI pretty close, and has predicted McDonalds payment kiosks, Amazon worker abuse, and probably some of the tech layoffs too.

      • ℛ𝒶𝓋ℯ𝓃@pawb.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        2 months ago

        Wow… I’ve worked in the fast food industry for 2 years, and that really hits close to home. With the kitchen display systems and headsets, with modern technology it would be easy to implement that… very easy. We’d still need one manager on the line for de-escalating angry customers but that would end up essentially the same as the book synopsis described. And the subsequent dystopia… I could literally see this occurring tomorrow. Kinda scary.

    • BigFatNips@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      2 months ago

      Damn, that surprises and saddens me. I’ve only ever read one of his books, Diamond Age/A young lady’s illustrated primer, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and also thought there were some great critiques of the upper class