Computers are an inherently oppressive technology (2022)

If computers and machines are inherently oppressive for the reasons stated, then so is all of existence. The cosmic machinery that governs these computers is really at the root, and that machinery’s “ruthlessness” extends beyond modern technology.

The “sinister ruthlessness” the author projects is also observed on a much broader scale in nature and isn’t limited to human-made machines.

I think there’s a very important conversation to be had about the role of technology in our lives and the ways that it can be harmful. But I don’t believe that anthropomorphizing it, assigning terms like “sinister”/“ruthless” or viewing it as “inherently oppressive” moves that conversation in a useful direction.

I think the author (Hugh Landau) is making a point about the nature of machines. I accept this point, and the related one that humans can use machines to enforce ruthlessness, and that the machine interface means that there's no human who can readily be blamed for the ruthlessness.

However, the point is a little bit undermined by Landau's erroneous assumption about slam-door railway stock in the UK. It absolutely was not abandoned to improve schedule-keeping; on the contrary, it was abandoned because it was unsafe as hell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slam-door_train

The title really is the thesis. But the author backs it up with opinion.

Like many of these articles, the author seems to apply all these adjectives that impute intent. No technology is "inherently oppressive" nor is any technology "ruthless" because machines themselves have no intent. I believe this anthropomorphic sleight of hand is deliberate because the author does get around to changing the topic to "machine-assisted ruthlessness."

He might as well say that "tools are inherently oppressive" because any tool can be used by oppressing humans to enforce their own oppression or ruthlessness. This is the same as opining that knives are inherently violent. The argument is illogical, and an appeal to emotion.

According to Flusser, these things are not machines, they are apparatus. Machines process things, apparatus process information. They accept inputs and return outputs. They emulate theories and thoughts - like rules in games, differentiating them from toys, these theories/rules are one thing that make them what they are - to achieve some output, certain inputs have to be provided.

Ruthless? They are far from unpredictable, how can something like that be ruthless, if you know how it will respond to specific inputs?

Eh? Tools and machines are just accelerants. Computers are generic tools so they accelerate anything and everything including oppression.