I think you misunderstood my comment. My point was not that the only thing that exists is cold ruthlessness, but that the claim that technology is inherently oppressive does not make sense. Doesn’t make sense for the reasons you state: it brings both good and bad. And doesn’t make sense because the same factors are in play as you zoom out beyond specific technologies and observe the broader machinery at work.
The cold ruthlessness of the universe is what makes the sunset so beautiful.
The beauty of the sunset is what makes the universe so cold and ruthless.
These are not statements about causality, but rather about the spectrum of possible phenomena and how we experience it. The highest highs are balanced by the lowest lows. Beauty and ugliness are interdependent concepts that co-emerge.
> Yes bad things happen, but the Universe can be good to us and bad to us
The universe doesn’t have agency as far as we know. It is not bestowing good and bad on us.
Things happen based on the laws of nature. We interpret them and assign them labels like good and bad based on our individual experience of what we see. I’m picking this nit because I think the primary error in the original piece was to assign intrinsic properties/essence to objects of technology (or all of existence) when in reality these are mental phenomena layered on top of whatever is actually happening.
The cold ruthlessness of the universe is what makes the sunset so beautiful.
The beauty of the sunset is what makes the universe so cold and ruthless.
These are not statements about causality, but rather about the spectrum of possible phenomena and how we experience it. The highest highs are balanced by the lowest lows. Beauty and ugliness are interdependent concepts that co-emerge.
> Yes bad things happen, but the Universe can be good to us and bad to us
The universe doesn’t have agency as far as we know. It is not bestowing good and bad on us.
Things happen based on the laws of nature. We interpret them and assign them labels like good and bad based on our individual experience of what we see. I’m picking this nit because I think the primary error in the original piece was to assign intrinsic properties/essence to objects of technology (or all of existence) when in reality these are mental phenomena layered on top of whatever is actually happening.