Listen now | Alasdair MacIntyre makes the observation that in the west we have replaced the idea of "morality" with that of "effectiveness" in governance. But can our managerial society be effective?
Predicting innovation is especially perverse. The WEF/UN style plans, Agenda 2030 etc, treat technological development like it was the tech tree of a video game, in which each the properties, capabilities, cost, and development time of each technology can be planned out decades in advance. This ends up killing genuine innovation, by sending engineers and scientists on wild goose chases while robbing them of the time necessary to discover the genuinely serendipitous and useful.
For the managers this is an absolute necessity. Technology has a tendency to upset social orders, which could lead to their displacement. Thus technological developments must be carefully managed, to ensure that they only strengthen the existing social order and, therefore, never threaten the managers.
But as you say, this is all foolishness. Control is an illusion. One way or the other, theirs will be broken.
And this I why MacIntyre’s argument is so fascinating. In many ways, it is similar to the argument I make against true AI ever happening. The problem of legibility. MacIntyre argues that bayou cannot make a perfectly rational system because the world is not fully legible, and he gives examples. Even working within the system we work at cross purposes because we mask ourselves out of necessity. The true system of total control is an impossibility. That will render it increasingly fragile and unstable as the contradictions accumulate.
Predicting innovation is especially perverse. The WEF/UN style plans, Agenda 2030 etc, treat technological development like it was the tech tree of a video game, in which each the properties, capabilities, cost, and development time of each technology can be planned out decades in advance. This ends up killing genuine innovation, by sending engineers and scientists on wild goose chases while robbing them of the time necessary to discover the genuinely serendipitous and useful.
For the managers this is an absolute necessity. Technology has a tendency to upset social orders, which could lead to their displacement. Thus technological developments must be carefully managed, to ensure that they only strengthen the existing social order and, therefore, never threaten the managers.
But as you say, this is all foolishness. Control is an illusion. One way or the other, theirs will be broken.
And this I why MacIntyre’s argument is so fascinating. In many ways, it is similar to the argument I make against true AI ever happening. The problem of legibility. MacIntyre argues that bayou cannot make a perfectly rational system because the world is not fully legible, and he gives examples. Even working within the system we work at cross purposes because we mask ourselves out of necessity. The true system of total control is an impossibility. That will render it increasingly fragile and unstable as the contradictions accumulate.