Dune is not anti-tech… | technology under capitalism
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
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When you talked about our data being used against us, i was so ready to hear a North VPD sponsor plug 😭😭
you have been conditioned by YT to accept your own slavery, so use an @d blocker hehehe
Me too😂
Nord VPN you mean 😭
Same
@@charmedprince maybe he did not want to do an upaid plug?
Futurists have always been imagining the future in a way that always seems more humanistic, socialistic and environmentally friendly, but their ideas never go anywhere because corporations see no profits in that vision of the world. I remember as a kid I was into something called the Venus Project, which was a futurists idea of designing cities, self sustainable housing etc. Nothing came of it
I thought futurists tended to be nerds turned on by modernity, minimalist chrome aesthetic, and new, abstract ideas of high tech.
@@caiden3396For sure. But sometimes, high tech also means self sustainable, environmentally friendly structures, that would mean shifting our energy production away from our primitive current state, that happens to make trillions of dollars for certain corporations
It's a marketing tactic, and though futurists don't have nefarious intentions, the elite is more than happy to encourage a utopian view to meet their goals.
@ville__ You forgot Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein
@@jayzee4097How does that supposedly work..?
People need to remember, the original Luddites weren't Primitivists, they were organized labor resistance.
Yeah I’ve honestly been sold on the idea of neo-Luddism. Sure technology can be great for progress, but certain technologies in our current system only serve to make things a lot worse. We need to change the social relations in our society so that technology can work for the people and the environment instead of destroying them
@@code8825 Yeah, take the internet for example. It's made people more socially distant, damages social development and is a huge contributor to mass radicalization. I imagine if you did the brass tax you'd find out that overall it contributes more harm to society than good.
@@code8825 I don't agree with either the luddites nor the neo-luddites, of course technology should work for ppl and for the environment, and the simplistic discarding of the luddites as nonsensical is also problematic. Where this is wrong is that technology is always the manipulation and experimentation with and of nature, but what needs to happen is the understand and reconciliation of experimentation at differing levels of scarcity and scale. So take the Dune example of the Fremen, there society developed technology in the advent of water scarcity, but the societies dream is to have a lush plant where they no longer need to live in these harsh conditions. Thus, in the end the Fremen develop to a scale where they have the means to terraform the planet and turn it into a lush paradise reconciling their austere technological beginnings with large scale developmentalism of the empire. This actually ends up being the antithesis to an ideology such as luddism or neo-luddism, because they refuse to break the machines and rather continuously reinvent themselves in the face of new challenges.
Now, when it comes to the books commitment to luddism within the framework of information technology, the Dune universe shows how this becomes a problem, information is horded by a radical religious sect (the Bene Gesserit) who function the same way as the prior system run by robots, thus the solution is not better than the initial problem, in fact it maybe worse.
So like the pre modern Union workers association 🤔🤔🤔u mean???
@@AG-vh3lxmost of them would have had no problems with powerlooms if it they did not loose income. Instead the income went to the factory owners.
The most important command in the “Orange Catholic Bible” reads: “Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind”. It was imposed after the Butlerian Jihad.
Yeah but thats not a good thing. The butlerian jihad isnt framed as correct, it was a crime that wiped out an entire people.
Its like when people take for granted that the bene gesserit are correct in their ideas and methods and its just like... no, you do realize theyre bad right?
Like if a story has a crusade to wipe out all non believers in a faith, you dont read that story and say "that story was pro murdering everyone who wont convert".
That bit from the orange catholic bible is framed as wrong, despite being tacitly believed in and approved of by the populace.
@ville__ that seems like bullshit
And in book 4, Leto explains that he kept it in place and even expanded it after his own jihad because it made people easier to control
If you actually read what happens at the very end of the whole Dune saga, Duncan Idaho becomes the leader of the human race as a ghoul and combines himself with the AI robot called Erasmus and then Duncan leads the human race to a new era where humans and computers respect eachother and neither one wants to enslave the other. Erasmus was one of the robots that they fought during the butlerian jihad but erasmus ultimately just wanted to understand humans and at the end they thought that they now knew everything there is to know and wanted to give their knowledge to duncan who has the ultimate human in their eyes
@@karigrandii Ibelieve that was Brian Herbert's addition to the Saga. It wasn't written by Frank Herbert to my knowledge.
This reminds me of the saying that, "humans are a part of nature not apart from"
I agree and disagree. We are a part of nature and we are animals, but we're also sentient and extremely intelligent. Our intelligence and self-awareness can mean we are separate from technollogy. After all, we're already doing things to our genes and bodies that our evolution didn't intend for us. I feel like that's the end state of any sentient species in the universe - they abandon their natural evolution once they attain advanced scientific knowledge.
@@stephengrant4841evolution intends nothing!
Try to look beyond genetics when you're thinking about nature, thought is part of nature.
Thought is a way for evolution to occur beyond the speed of birth and death, with thought a creature can adapt to it's environment mid-generation.
Humans mastered that niche, and pushed the boundaries by creating language and technology to speed up adaptation even more, so even our abstract concepts like philosophy are still part of nature.
We are not as self controlled as we think we are: just as our genes determine our bodies, our thoughts too are products of our environment and are passed onto us, determining our potential.
It is not possible for us to abandon our evolution, we can only shift it's medium.
We are no longer adapting to the jungle ecosystem, but to the social ecosystem.
I'm a computer scientist who loves technology, but hates the way we made everything digital heroin.
I'm going to research next year the next step (although I don't think I can do much), thank God dune exists and it really opened my eyes.
This is one of my favorite videos you have ever uploaded Alice. This is a topic that no one is really talking about in my opinion, and when I try to bring up this topic it almost seems taboo. People are just too comfortable with where capitalism has led us to. It makes me so worried for the future but your suggested readings at the end give me hope.
Its just when I read comments like yours that I realize I'm not alone in this world (in regard to worldview)!
I think that a lot of the "functions" and "power" of our current domestic technology can easily be scaled back in a non capitalist world. For instance, computers are full of bloatware and unnessecary propriety apps to collect data and try to get you to buy adjacent services. likewise, the software made for computers is poorly optimised and again seeks to collect data and advertise to you. Another good example is the growing gaming industry, where games are purposely made to run poorly to push people to buy new hardware and then new hardware is made to get people to buy new games.
In a non capitalist society, a lot of software would be made redundant as the social poverty it seeks to fill is alleviated - e.g dating apps and meditation apps, e-books, a lot of TV shows.
Also, data servers, advertisements, AI, all of these things that are designed to exploit you will be gone.
From a non-computer standpoint, think of fridges. A sustainable future is going to be a future with much reduced animal agriculture (which will be a difficult transition but seems to be one speeding towards us), and so fridges will be able to be less powerful to begin with. furthermore as new sustainable methods of architecture and design are adopted, we will likely see a shift back to icehouse style larders to store food.
Or think of cars, how they are full of plastics and computers and are utterly overdesigned - micromobility solutions area already growing and small sustinable personal transport for short distances does not need half as much "comfort" as a car has.
I think that our current technology is not making us comfortable but rather a desperate attempt to fix the discomfort from living in a society designed to make you uncomfortable to sell things to you. After capitalism, technology will be less important and will simplify greatly.
@@inspirednamehere6166This technology is being incubated in the Capitalist system. It could either entrench global capitalism into some kind of techno-feudalism or it could destroy capitalism from within as widespread, cheap AI will fundamentally alter markets. The stakes are quite high.
You had me on edge for the whole video by building it up towards solarpunk but not mentioning it until the end. Bringing-forth is an excellent addition to solarpunk vocabulary! It goes for all modern technology that it should empower us by synergizing with our strengths rather than replacing us with lower quality items.
What fresh hell is _solarpunk?_
@@DreamFearlessthe channel @Andrewism has a great primer on that
you're taking a word from a nazi ?
The thing that strikes me about “solarpunk” (indeed, all eco futurist scenarios) is that these utopias require a very small population, or at least, sparse population densities. The more I look into this hippie dippie stuff, the more I get a Malthusian “Thanos was right” vibe or a certain Austrian mustache man ranting about “living space”.
@@archer1949 the aesthetic reflects its best examples in those small communities, but it is not the only way to be Solarpunk. It would be a mistake to conflate "eco futurist scenarios" and "very small population" with Thanos or the Austrian fellow.
There are examples and discussion about big city being solarpunk too, if designed well, if urbanism focuses around nature, the people and their relationship. It might be true that a hyper dense city / megalopolis might be more difficult to design for a solarpunk society, but big cities can be solarpunk if they don't destroy nature and biodiversity, and allow human to thrive.
But anyways, not the place for this discussion.
This is so important! Even before big data, social media, and AI, the terms by which software and hardware were licensed and produced made our current technofeudal reality inevitable. Ownership of the means of production must go beyond the physical in the digital age, yet this is almost never discussed outside of certain tech subcultures. A wider public understanding of this is vital to our future.
Frank Herbert wrote Dune in the 60thies. He said he realized he could not imagine how this new technology would develop . So he created a world that had banned computers .This made him able to ficus on the people without being bothered by computers. . Pretty smart thinking for someone in the 60thies.
Small correction: its either sixties or '60s
😁
@@TheHungryRomanianuhm ackshuallay 🤓☝️
Source? Where did Frank said this?
@@ragingtomato04 One of his interviews. And it's : ' can you give me the source please. Not' :Source ? ' .
@@spiritualanarchist8162What specific interview are you talking about? Coz I listened recently to Frank's interviews and I don't remember him saying any of that.
And also "Uhm Ackchyually ☝️🤓 you should have said this longer way of saying the same thing instead of a straightforward one word question" 😂
I find interesting how Medieval times are seen as "dark" when in fact it was just the expansion of Roman technology to be used in everyday life, which was vital for modernity to surge.
Technology does not grow only up, but also must grow sideways, by becoming of common use and making work easier.
It's called Dark Ages because surprisingly little is known about that time period versus its neighboring historical ages. It has nothing to do with lack of tech, or knowledge and more to do with historians finding less information.
@@josephreynolds2401 Usually the term "dark ages" was used by the enlightenment, but the original term of dark ages were used for the fall of Bronze Civilization, when even writing was lost in some cases. Medieval Ages gave Germanic people literature and allowed them to prosper.. it was a golden age for them.
@@josepheridu3322 Medieval "Dark Age", as I understand it is just a lack of interest/popularity by the writers of that time to write down current events.
Thanks for highlighting the misunderstanding. It's a bit of a misnomer to call Medieval period a "Dark age", what you said makes a lot of sense.
@josephreynolds2401 Wasn't there also a mini ice age during the Middle Ages as well?
@@jamesmunn576 Nope, the middle ice age was in the 19th century. In medieval times there actually was a super warm time, at least in parts of the world like Europe. That lead to increased agriculture and trade.
the problem was never tech per se, but for what purpose the tech was developed and deployed. Currently, every piece of tech's ultimate purpose is profit for the few, regardless of the tech's actual use-function.
Open Source Software :)
Naive view of world
Spot on! Open Source software is the way to go against planned obsolescence and technology being oriented for the profit of the few. I always chose it when possible.
Every piece of tech is invented because people think others may want it enough to pay for it. Every bit of profit is gathered from people who willingly gave their money in exchange for it, making the entire world better and more productive.
That massively oversimplified. Profit for the few isn't (with the usual exceptions) the purpose of the tech, but a side-effect of complex development requiring a lot of resources that have to be invested beforehand, without any guarantee of return. Open source software also isn't an argument against this, as only part of it is really purely community driven (which has its own issues, as we saw in the recent incident with xz), while the development of an ever growing part is financed by companies with the goal to make profit - for example by offering services around said software. On the other side there is a lot of really good software that is neither open source, not made by huge companies, but by smaller teams who put a lot of effort and dedication into creating great products, because that's what allows them to pay their bills.
It isn't mentioned in the original series, but the "robot rebellion" that caused them to outlaw thinking machines was not actually a robot rebellion. People used computers to enhance their intelligence and then some of those people used computers to control the rest of humanity. That was what people were rebelling against, a handful of people with greatly augmented intelligence with an army of robots.
Yeah the first Dune book implies this. Unfortunately, when Brian Herbert took over, he just made it evil AI which is less interesting and even back then was an overused trope.
The brilliance of saying in the future we don't have computers/AI/androids is allowed Herbert to make a sci fi novel without having to talk about tech. The author can focus on the characters and the story more than the gadgets and what they do.
Dune is low tech
Dune : has suits able to recicle water , spaceships , shields able to make guns usless , and floating devices ...
Yeah low tech
Recycle*
Lol sorry
there's something about the ideas you pressent and the ways you construct your arguments that is so unique. Allof your videos surprise me with where they go- it's like a build up into an epiphany.
I got a laugh once when I described the iron spear as "cutting edge technology" at its time. It's amazing what was once considered groundbreaking tech. Great video as always, Alice--hope you had a great Easter weekend! 🙂My oldest daughter is in France this week on a school trip and loving it.
The cutting-edge tech is in the metallurgy more than the spear, no?
As an Indigenous person whose ancestors have lived on the land that is known as America now for thousands of years, I really appreciate you talking about this. For countless generations the myth that native peoples were "primitive" or "unintelligent", because we didn't build ideas & constructs towards conquering the world. Now, people are coming back to the sustainable technologies honed and mastered by Indigenous people around the world. It's just unfortunate that because of capitalism, a strict level of ownership is applied, and more than likely it's non-Native People who prosper and advance from our wisdom, while our people continue to be marginalized and our cultures appropriated.
Paul in the books used the Fremen people, and their spiritual beliefs / technology, to further his agenda and the agenda of his familial revenge plot. He is not supposed to be seen as a good person, but rather a Machiavellian (Ayn Rand ) personification of doing whatever it takes to reach one's goal. Including, but not limited to genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, manipulation and exploitation. Dune is sorta becoming the Fight Club of sci-fi, in that its message and themes are whitewashed in order to make a visually compelling story to get behinds in theater seats. However, in the end it misses the point of the text. What people walk away from the Dune films, especially those who have never read the books, is off course from what the text is trying to tell the reader: Cute Timmy Chalamet isn't the good guy.
I always say that the indigenous were *more advanced* than contemporary society. Advancement is not how many redundant electronic components you can jam pack into a device to conduct a simple task; advancement is how much control you have over the task being done, how simply it can be done, and how sustainable it is.
Contemporary social organization is vastly less advanced than indigenous communal structures, and this is demonstrated clearly across multiple statistics (suicide rate, divorce rate, excess mortality, shootings, etc) which indicate deep social decay. Indigenous food production was also far more advanced than contemporary settler colonial agriculture, which, on its current trajectory, is about to lead to unprecedented global famine. The grasp many (of course not all - turtle island is not a monolith) indigenous peoples had on horticulture, ecosystem dynamics and food production including agiculture, agroforestry, species (ie. diversity of flora and fauna) consumed were FAR more advance than the handful of unsustainability + unjustly derived, pesticide/herbicide ridden, infertility and cancer inducing, nutritionally deficient foods we consume today.
As a person from the global south practicing Ramadan on this night of power, I extend my solidarity to you, and pray for a decolonized Turtle Island, and for the world to be emancipated once and for all, from the clutches of imperialism
@@af8828i disagree here, and your definition of advancements seems quite tailored to say the least.
Take trains for example created by a british mining engineer. They were a significant advancement and allowed for mass transportation and thus much better logisitcs but they were not sustainable and to the originial comment nor were they a weapon of war.
Unless you want to say it was because it helped with logistics which is true, but so is a horse drawn carrige, and on this point european advancement wasnt all tailored for war, penecilin was an advancements so was blood transfusion, neither of these are explicitly tools of war.
Acaully alot of medical technologies that save thousands every day was forged in the fires of war, you should really look into medical advancements made in ww1 and ww2 and how they also helped the mass production of medicine like penecillin which was obviously undertaken by america.
Getting back to trains, during colonisation, this advancement of trains was used every where to help logisitcs and transportation. This was a tool that freatly helped the imperialist powers during colonisation.
They arent sustainable (they were a main driving force in the mass killing of buffaloes in america) , they arent exactly simple machines.
Furthermore, settler food production was simply miss guided taking the systems of agriculture from a foreign land then amplying that to that enviroment isnt efficient but what did they know they were settlers they did it what they knew to do. This isnt them being less advanced per se.
Furthermore, the beginning of this when tou talk about jamming redundant electronics into a device i would agree with tou because thats not how you advance "contemporarily" as you put it. Simply just use the thought process of captilist no need for engineers here.
With more redundant electronics in my device im going to be paying for more exspensive parts that arent needed, that the customer doesnt need. That means more money spent of exstrcation refinemant transport, i could widen my net profit by dimply getting rid of it. Thus it simoly doesnt make any economic sense to have redunant electronics in a device.
Unless you make up the profit elsewhere like a smartphone do we need all these features, not really. But profit is made selling an image, that smoothness.
This itslef acatully drives advancements just see how advanced but small our tech is how fast we can communicate, its driven by that need.
Thus instead of that exception that redundant electronics line doesnt really make that much sense.
Furthermore when you say imperialist powers are you old or new age, i know you mean france, uk and america and the other european powers who had empires. But do you also mean Turkey and there exspansions recently? And russai and china with whats its doing in the south china sea?
The phrases "holy war" and "fundamentalists" are plainly stated multiple times throughout the film. Unless one is living under a rock, no remotely sane person with adequate media literacy came out of the theatre cheering Paul on at the end.
So what is this "whitewashing" accusation?
How is indigenous technology going to solve modern problems like climate change and epidemics?
@@af8828everything you just said is false.
Great video, as always!
One thing that has stood out to me about technology under capitalism is that capitalism undermines the purpose of technology. A lot of technology is designed to make people's lives easier by reducing the amount of work needed to produce things, but under the profit motive of capitalism technology is used as an excuse to produce more, rather than a means of reducing people's workload.
Even in cases where automation of a workplace reduces the work needed from some people to zero, there's still the capitalistic expectation that they'll work elsewhere. Instead there should probably be more discussion on how sustainable a socioeconomic structure where people are expected to work to afford survival is, as it is in conflict with technology.
This video feels so fortuitous! I'm preparing to defend my thesis tomorrow morning which discusses how the aesthetic of solarpunk acts as a creative alternative to the instances of ressentiment in environmental movements! Your videos have been an enormous influence on my work, and this one in particular has given me a lot to think about while I'm preparing! As always, I appreciate the insight and hard work that goes into each of your videos!
Scavengers Reign explores the idea of merging with nature as a path to peace pretty well while also contrasting the different perspectives of humanity.💚🍄
Mentioned "privacy tools" and didn't transition immediately into an ad read, thank you.
The Butlerian Jihad might have removed the thinking machines, but the humans who oppressed through the machines remain.
Cool video
Herbert is kind of writing a (sci-)fantasy story set in the usual late medieval period (with some eco-vibes in a similar way to Tolkien) and makes it work with a few bits of sci-fi tech shoehorned into the setting to explain that lack of guns/blasters, how the armies travel between the start systems, the spice providing the magic and as you said the Butlerian Jihad explaining he lack of computers ( GOT is almost direct lift)
In Dune, the lack of computers limits communication and freedom of movement, enabling the aristocracy to control vast populations of serfs.
Now, apply this thinking on the recent "moratory" on AI development...
Ive always felt it was so offputting when people are aggressively against technology but this helped me understand why. New tech replacing workers has always been something I couldnt reconcile with even though its undeniable how much it could benefit society as whole.
the issue surely isnt replacing the workers, but what happens afterwards, are workers replaced so they are liberated from the need to labor, from scarcity, so they become free to live however they please, or are they replaced so more profit can be extracted from the machines that replace them, to endlessly enrich a select few who open the machines
I do think we should replace workers with machines when machines become more productive, but we should take care of the workers then. By giving them new jobs, paying for courses, so they can get new qualifications, and so on.
Loved the video! I've been looking for media (podcasts, video, articles) that use Dune to discuss philosophy, ideas, and themes beyond movie reviews since watching both parts this past weekend, so excellent timing 😁
our problem with wages is not due to technology replacing repetitive labor. Out problem is with the company owner replacing US with technology.
the problem is not the machine. it is who it obeys (its owner)
What I took from this is that Herbert is not saying computers are bad. The quote from the book if taken as written sounds anti-computer/AI. But when you think about it, the banning of computers just means that the rich and powerful develop an alternative that the masses can't use - mentats and the BG. This entrenches the ruling class. If computers weren't banned, everyone could develop and use them and the power of information and prediction could be in the hands of the masses.
You are almost there...
Entangled Life is a wonderful recommendation. It's a satisfying book, and a good time. Neither too dense nor oversimplified..
I feel like discussions around this sort of thing get heavily swamped in Aesthetics, ideas around nebulously "respecting" nature and not "exploiting" nature, used as a vague aesthetic proxy for the part-related things that actually impact peoples lives that actually matter, like they're doing Literary criticisms of the Themes of it rather than literal criticism of the actual situation.
People get such a negative association towards concepts like Efficiency, Cheapness, Productivity because of the things they are often taken as a trade-off for, or what they are used as euphemisms for, to the point that people treat Efficiency, Cheapness and Productivity as, like, inherently bad and evil things.
It's easy to take for granted, but you can't underestimate how important Efficiency and Productivity are - it's a really big deal that massively effects quality of life!
An interesting detail about the Fremen, which is in the movie (I can't recall if it was in the book or not) is that they developed their technologies in response to climate change, and they are trying to geoengineer Arrakis to be more habitable. Whether or not this geoengineering becomes a "challenging forth" is a major plot point later in the series.
Hey! "Without me you're nothing" is exactly the book why my grandfather bought the Commodore VIC-20 computer that I inherited in 1986 at age 5 upon his death! 3 whole kilobytes of usable random access memory! I used them all every day until 1988 when I switched to the 80x86 side of the Evil Empire (Intel)
Thank you for saying something intelligent about Dune. I'm beyond exhausted by people calling it a white savior film. It's just such a boring take. And uneducated/uninteresting.
Dune is the First Cold War, Paul is JFK, Vlad is a mix of Hitler and Stalin. It's very much a colonial fantasy in the tradition of Rudyard Kipling, with a libertarian spin.
Liberal imperialism is bad but it's still better than socialism. We're all better off in neolithic circumstances being "close to the earth" and so forth, but brown people can't help themselves and they need a white guy to step in and show them how it's done.
The movies take some great steps to complicate this narrative, but once you look at Herbert's comments in interviews and read about his life it's impossible not to see how reactionary his fiction is.
I say this as someone who has read all six books and seen the new movies in theaters twice each.
@@rsavage-r2v still after writing all that using 2 words to describe it is.....just lame. That all I'm saying. Sure it can bee seen that way but that's simplifying the story A LOT. that's all I'm trying to say, and I was Happy to see a video not talking about Dune from that one over used point of view. Do. You. See. My. Point? If not, I shan't be responding again. It was a simple point and you responded with an essay🤣🤦♀️🤷♀️
@@TrippyKitty08 That doesn't change the fact that it is a white savior narrative.
But the point of art is that it's subjective, and Cappelle's reading is good and thoughtful and interesting and I share many of her sentiments.
@@rsavage-r2v Nope. Guess you read all six books and didn't get the message.
"Liberal imperialism is bad but it's still better than socialism. We're all better off in neolithic circumstances being "close to the earth" and so forth, but brown people can't help themselves and they need a white guy to step in and show them how it's done."
You forget that the manipulation of the Fremen began way, way, way long before the events of the books and the films. So no, they didn't need a white guy to step in, they were already indoctrinated by white colonials FOR the white guy to step in.
And the white people in the Dune series weren't framed as saviors, they're framed as tyrants, manipulators, eugenicists and mass murderers.
So yes, "the white savior" reading, is the shallowest of readings.
@@rsavage-r2v yeah though personally I read it more as white man's burden trying to be a Greek tragedy/ cautionary tale but well trapped by the assumptions of whiteness and colonialism ( the story operates under the framework that genocide is a necessary evil or at the least the characters think they are trapped in doing the terrible to prevent greater harm)which is a flavor of the same troupe or close enough. Love the books but seeing a bunch of articles saying the movie wasn't anti-colonial as the books is wild. The text are very much unquestioning or uninterested in the legitimacy of empire (though it does point out the inevitable flaws in empire as a way of organizing people) It's interested in leadership but both individually or on the grand human scale (while leaning into logic of eugenics or at least fantasy equivalent). Plumb the books for critiques but the new crop of surface critiques are puzzling.
yeaaah finally someone talking about solarpunk!
People shouldn't blame tech and AI for the "bad stuff" they should blame our economic system
How do you think AI companies got all of their training data? It wasn't through acts of benevolence.
It's really dystopian that people earnestly believe that humanity being too good at making things is a threat because it will cause jobs to disappear. Having too much food and shelter with less work is not a problem. An irrational system of property and production is the problem.
@@rsavage-r2vBut we wont get a fair system in the current one, and the asset class is trying their hardest to keep it that way.
@@jayzee4097I honestly don't really see it wrong for a company to take data from me to offer a superior service or product, ideally I would be compensated for this according to the economic value of my output but in return I'm provided a free service so I suppose one could argue that is compensation. I 100% agree that people should have more rights over their data and to determine what is extracted and how it is used however.
@@jayzee4097 I completely agree with you. That's why I think we, the overwhelming majority, need to get together and make it so an asset class no longer exists. A fair system is impossible as long as the asset class controls society and the state.
I recommend the Ghibli movies, specially the Hayao Miyazaki one's. Princes Mononoke, Nausicaa and Laputa have a really good take in this topic, where technology can be a problem if not concidering how it affects nature and humans
Frank was right to warn us about the computer nerds.
The technological advances are moving much faster than the average citizen is allowed to adapt or to process those changes.
Hardly
@@royalecrafts6252 it's true. This phenomenon is known as 'cultural lag'.
@@SGC90-t5y tech is not advancing
@@royalecrafts6252 ?
@@royalecrafts6252 It absolutely is. Look at the mass growth of conspiracy theorists. It's caused completely by the internet. It allows us to post whatever we want, and people by and large, overall, are stupid. Our inability to research and think critically causes too many of us to believe baseless conspiracies. We weren't ready for mass internet misinformation.
Techno Feudalism is probably very apt in this case. Our current late capitalism stage with powerful private companies with massive amount of money and influence (but not omnipotent) is perhaps not at the stage of the Dune Universe (where religious and quasi religious power brokers vie for command).
It's interesting as well because it shows that stopping the production of thinking machines only entrenched the power of the elite. Now the peoples of the universe don't have access to the tech needed to destroy the great houses, and it seems like internal rebellion has been made impossible.
Dune condemns this point either, for a neo-feudal system is politicaly fragile and anti-scientific.
A good response to Heidegger’s view of technology is Bernard Stiegler’s idea of technics, where technology is both an extension of humanity and what structures our lives. For example, a hammer only exists so that a person can use it, yet having the technology of hammers lets us build houses more quickly, which creates a new kind of society
The reactionary pattern of thinking the answer is a rejection of tech altogether in my opinion reveals a severe flaw in the way of thinking of an individual and a very common flaw at that. They are utilizing idealism. Acting as if the tech was a bad idea which can simply be canned rather than using materialist lense to understand where the idea even came from. One key thing about dune is that it really holds to the saying "necessity is the mother of all invention" fremen at first get portrayed as savages meanwhile they end up subverting that notion by being literally the best equipped for the job. Very early in the first book it's highlighted how fremen stillsuits for example are much much better than those from so called advanced space orgs. The whole implication is that the idea for invention comes not from enlightens thought but is actually a computation of sorts that happens in our brains who are subjected to certain hardships. For example we invented the wheel but the wheel doesn't work on ground that gives away like sand. The need for transportation with the struggle of the common tech not working in combination with the understanding of physics led to the invention of the sled. Dune is definitely not anti science it actually does a great job at reframing science not as something that simply springs from the mind but as something that is part of a process that perpetuates itself in our minds.
Perhaps the reactionary knows they are maladaptive to the changing world. Technology fundamentally changes environments and thus new Darwinian selection criteria occur which selects for people with different traits. The stupid but strong man was very well adapted to the preindustrial past but now offers nothing a machine cannot do better. The intelligent but weak man of the past was useless because thoughts can’t pull a plow but now is the top of society due to finance and technology. The luddites of the past were made poor and brought down as factory workers took their place.
I love how by minute 12 my mind was already drifting towards Solarpunk and then you went there 💚 5 minutes earlier on the video I thought you would eventually make a video about it and then bam, immediately manifested :)
Entangled life I remember reading that a few years ago. As for technology I think the key phrase/concept is that there is a difference between the tool and how it is used.
As for the topic on hand about technology I think a key point is that the various tools of capital such as markets and social media don't have to be used the way capitalists use them.
In particular I feel that the technologies behind big data and social media may be the tools which enable a scalable direct democracy as you can communicate and complete the preferences and beliefs of millions and billions of people and then grounding those inputs using factual evidence, suggest and iterate on appropriate policies to achieve maximum satisfaction rather than stupid likes or engagement time.
great, another essay about a movie! Love it
Something about fremen depiction and their unique technology made me really admire that and what they represent. This video gave voice to why i had that admiration. Excellent video!
I love that your alluded to the fact that Paul is sort of Mentat Duke. If you haven't already. I highly recommend you read the book. The audio book in French is actually significantly better than the English version.
He's a nobleman, a mentat, and a bene gesserit wickerman. The first ubermensch.
That multiple omnicides follow is the deepest insight Herbert had. Maybe his only good one.
@@caffetiel as usual, NO ONE HERE UNDERSTAND THE BOOKS!
Okay the portion of heidegger's philosophical article is explaining the concepts much better than my university lectures.
They never discussed his association with nazism
TIL Frank Herbert looks like Slavoj Zizek
Let’s go, two of my favorite things: Alice Cappelle and Dune
I love listening to videos from people who understand Dune. On the flipside, it's amusing seeing a lot of Conservative Media figures completely get Dune wrong. Not saying Conservatives can't understand Dune, many do, I'm talking more about the kind of media figures like Ben Shapiro, Tim Pool, the Quartering and on TV stations such as GB News who effectively misunderstand almost all forms of media and literature and usually reduce every single criticism to either 'it's woke, therefore bad' or 'here are things that promote our ideology'.
Ideologues are the same, left and right. This video and its comments section is a good example of people viewing dune, capitalism, technology, ecology etc through a leftist lens and therefor getting everything wrong.
@@Alex.Holland So your argument is everything left-wing is automatically wrong because you say so?
@@lloroshastar6347 no, I am making the same argument you are, "Not saying Conservatives can't understand Dune, many do, I'm talking more about the kind of media figures like Ben Shapiro, Tim Pool, the Quartering and on TV stations such as GB News who effectively misunderstand almost all forms of media and literature" The same is true of leftists. being so ideologically captured that you can only view things through 1 lens makes you wrong very often.
I feel like this quote from God-Emperor of Dune really encapsulates what Frank Herbert was trying to say:
"The target of the Jihad was a machine-attitude as much as it was the machines."
"What do such machines do? They increase the amount of things we can do without thinking. Things we do without thinking - There's the real danger"
0:59 "I find it confusing that an author would separate his opinions from that of his characters."
DEI has achieved critical mass.
Neil Postman's books well worth reading also 'Technopoly' IIRC.
this is a dope video, and very affirming to see our positions on technology overlapping. I'm very interested in how to create the material conditions for proliferation of this kind of technology. I assume that it requires quite a substantial socio-cultural shift.
Its like when people in cyberpunk groups saying robots are bad because they are in cyberpunk movies. The technology in cyberpunk isn't bad. Its misuse by corporations is
two questions:
1. as shields aren’t usable in the desert, why don’t the Harkonnens escorting the spice harvesters, or the Fremen attacking them, use projectile weapons for person-to-person combat?
2. why don’t the Fremen have tables or chairs in the Sietch cafeteria?
I think they do not use projectile weapons for pvp combat because the rest of the galaxy as long forgotten it and the fremen ambush them and fight without those weapons then they would not make a big difference, regarding the second question probably that comes from Sufra (a carpet or short table on which food is present while eating) common in arab countries
1 - the Harkonnens are simply ARROGANT - they believe that the Fremen are just "primitive savages from the desert" - and spice harvesting demand a coordinated effort to protect the harvester so the spice load cannot be lost to sandworms. It would take too long and too much resources to employ such action;
2 - why would they need of stuff that they cannot carry whenever they need?
I appreciate that despite Heidegger’s reactionary optimism about Hitler in the 1930s, you do not throw the baby out with the bath water. While he wasn’t so interested in “Capitalism” in his life, the type of super financial Capitalism of today is ripe for a criticism with big ideas from Heidegger’s philosophy. BCH does it a lot in his work, as you’ve shown elsewhere. You’ve shown this well using his concept of how the essence of technology is this challenging forth that exploits us and the earth. There are other ways to use his philosophy for radical ideas, especially regarding our engagement with the natural world in the face of climate change.
Excellent video. I agree that the future of tech could be completely different and much better for everyone. Unfortunately, I'm living in a country that considers legal entities like corporations to be real people, and money is officially speech. I hope humanity grows beyond this, but for now, the money's in charge. And it has decided to make my hometown ground zero for Skynet. Yay, progress!
Thinking Machines themselves filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 1994. That's rather sad, as it was a beast of a name for a computer firm. Those were the days they had lots of flashing light on them and looked pretty sci fi.
If you haven't purchased "Collapse Feminism" go do it!! Just finished it and I'm about to start reading it for the second time through. Alice - it's been such a grounding and energizing companion to me. Thank you for your works!
I'm a returning viewer as well as a 'Dune' fan trying to make sense of my relationship to technology, so I'd love to hear how your thoughts about this develop. No discussion of 'Dune' is complete without 'Dune Messiah'.
Humanity overthrew thinking machines, but they are still subject to the desires that the machines represent/enable. So there is still a lot of exploitation in the caste system in which civilians, soldiers, Bene Gesserit, mentats, and such are arranged. Rather than enslave others with tools, people are bred then conditioned to be tools and thus enslaved. This becomes more extreme as the series goes on, especially when it comes to sexual dimorphism, but even in the first book Jessica resents how the Bene Gesserit use their (mostly female) recruits -- in their ironic goal of overcoming all barriers to human potential.
I knew about Heidegger as a philosopher without knowing a single thing about his life. My bad; non-fiction or fiction written to say something about the real world deserves to be understood within context.
Time to re-read DM.
Entangled life is a great book!Read it a couple of years ago and it totally opened my mind to a whole world under our feet that I hadn’t even considered before
The desert mouse Muaddib does not use its body fluids to survive it uses condensation (which is the technology Fremen mimick with their wind traps).
1:33 That's not what I undersrand from the quote.
What I understood is that if people around you have computers and you don't you will be disadvantaged (by lacking a powerful tool) so you should get one.
If he said that corporation will take advantage of their user quting it would have been nice.
They got personal energy shields, homing daggers (small autonomous, somehow self programming reusable kinetic kill vehicles)
They got a lot of things, their socail hierarchies are primitive, especially for a world in which things the size of handheld devices or household appliances can create nuclear explosions, ortnithopers dont tear or flutter apart from regular flight and can literally go to low orbit of earthlike planets.
The level of force and sophistication in even simple appliances in that world are more high tech than most things seen in Star Trek
The problem that I see in commentaries of Dune from the Left it is that they, somehow, are always POOR in understanding the lore of the books - they are ALWAYS left wanting...
Just started reading entangled life. Thank you for recommendation
"A lesson from past over-machined societies which you appear not to have learned. The devices themsleves condition the users to employ each other the way they employ machines." - God Emperor of Dune
I believe our hyperextension of machinery made to perform the tasks of humans only solves the problems of our current lifestyle. Imagine if we were to create general AI in the dark ages of Europe; the plague would be adressed, food production would be perfected. Feudalism would be mediated and perhaps homogenised. but those who control the machines are the ones who control the people. They instill stagnancy in our current beliefs. Humanity needs chaos.
The Mentats were likely based off of the example of John von Neumann, one of the Manhattan Project scientists whose mental math skills were unbelievably sophisticated and allowed him to do calculations at a speed most people would only associate with an electronic computer.
Nope - they were a NECESSITY developed in the scenario to COMPENSATE the lack of computers.
In fact, ALL of the "superhuman" institutions of Dune were developed to COMPENSATE the lack of computers:
- the Bene Tleilax are Bioengineers, who can make gholas (ressucited individuals from small amounts of DNA) and veritable "personalized living dolls" that are used as slaves and other utilities;
- the Navigators are individuals who, by having their bodies saturated with the spice melange, suffer severe physical mutations, but have the ability to predict the future - more specifically, the movement of celestial bodies, but this can be applied in other ways but not so profficiently - with pure mathemathics;
- the Mentats are not simply "living calculators", but veritable LIVING DATA ANALYSIS SUPERCOMPUTERS - they can analyze, collate and remember with perfection absurd amounts of data of any kind, with their skill being applied in various areas, SPECIALLY assassination;
- the Bene Gesserit are political operators, diplomats, matchmakers, masters of manipulation, adepts in the control of bodily physiological, hormonal and autonomous functions (they even have a secret martial art, called "The Weirding Way", which demand a conscious control of EVERY SINGLE muscle, tendon and nerve of their bodies, but in action, it is described in making the BG Sisters looking like they are ghosts moving in impossible speeds and possessing superhuman strength) and have the incredible ability to access genetic memories (only through the female side), can practically know if you were lying by sheer observation and control people by the Voice, which is the "power" of commanding and controlling others by the modulation of one's tone of voice;
- the Ixians are the craftsman and technological builders of the universe of Dune, but they are always kept under heavy oversight to guarantee that they do not break the commandment of the Orange Catholic Bible that forbid "thinking machines";
It is all about COMPENSATION - remember, many of the standard sci-fi tropes DO NOT exist in Dune because of the lack of computers.
Why is no one taking about the title. Wtf does capitalism have to do with ant ai in a feudalistic future 😭
did you watch the video? i use dune as a metaphor
@@AliceCappelle Or you have a mental disease where everything is Capitalism or Patriarchy.
Frank Herbert was not anti tech in anyways. His focus was on the permanence of the human condition despite extreme advances of tech like the feudal structure of the galaxy even 1000s of years later, religious fundamentalism, wicked statecraft, over whelming influence of oligarchs and above all the tenacity of the human spirit in contrast to A.I.
Herbert was actually quite a bit of romantic despite his nihilistic statements & was constantly warning the world to not buy into the Messiah trope and maintain one's sovereignty which is definitely lacking in ur socialist utopia 😂
Your use of Dune is in fact deceiving like OP's comment and ur false parallels to justify ur superficial critique of the world is laughable. At least do some research bfore posting such blabber 😮💨
@@masterroshi690 Exactly. She doesn't actually like anything except the sound of her own irritating voice.
Embrace Technology, let it replace all jobs so humans can spend all efforts on art and fun
I think people think of the societies in Dune being low-tech, because - what wasn't foreseeable when Dune was written, at least not to that extent - virtually every piece of technology contains a computer nowadays. Microcontrollers are absolutely everywhere. We literally have computers inside the cables we use to connect other computers to each other. Those are no thinking machines by any means, but are so fundamental that it is hard to imagine that any future society would fall back to building advanced technology using only non-programmable circuitry.
I connected to this video, very personally. I appreciate finding new, smart creators, that help me navigate some of my own thoughts and ideas. sending much love your way!
Solarpunk seems very utopian because if you studied some stuff on energy, matter and thermodynamics, fossil fuel energy density beats batteries and green energy by a mile. We use mining techniques and technology that utilizes high pressure water and CO2 to get the mining deposits in the first place (from oil) and the technology is manufactured with machines that are powered by a grid burning fossil fuels.
6000 tons of oil is WAY more powerful than 6000 tons of batteries charged using solar or any other "green" technology.
The point is to push further austerity by deindustrialization and converting to an energy source that's less powerful than the prior and refusing to utilize techniques and technology that could trap methane, CO2 and other greenhouse gases back underground, tightening leaks and maybe using aerosal to dissolve green House gases where they are unable to trap heat in the atmosphere (acid rains). Nuclear power, which is the only power source more powerful than oil and coal, is the energy source we should be mass producing
Solar panels and other "green" alternatives require the burning of fossil fuels to even create en mass and carbon capture is powered by fossil fuels. Nuclear power plants would require oil and coal at first but we could seriously snowball and 6000 tons of enriched nuclear fuel is immensely more powerful than 6000 tons of petrol. Alas, capitalism requires artificial scarcity, hence why nuclear power is highly stigmatized and marginalized while they constantly advertise green technology, which is step below oil and coal actually
Problem is not the Technology and Machines. Problem is who owns the technology and the machine. We own our PC and cellphones. But depends on servers owned by giant tech companies. They are the ones who enslave us.
The OG Luddites were skilled artisans who were being sidelined by factory owners who owned the machines in the factories and only needed unskilled laborer to work for them
In the universe, technology wasn't banned, but ai was. Due to ai opressing humanity and causing numerous wars and deaths, humanity rebelled back and defeated the ai overlords. To prevent something like this from happening, ai or "thinking machines" were banned and this law was heavily enforced. To compensate for functions that only ai could do, mentats were created to be able to process information quickly and become organic computers while others evolved to have incredible intelligence and the ability to predict the future in the short term.
The creation of ai was also considered taboo and many didn't have a reason to risk their reputation or lives to build on. In the movies, even the vehicles and technology don't seem as advanced and as futuristic as many would expect. For example, the ornithopters still look like vehicles that are based on modern helicopters rather than something out of star wars and the ships look like christmas ornaments or modern day carriers despite the franchise being set 20,000 years into the future.
This is one of the problems I had with the films and the books. They only use melee weapons because their personal shields make ranged combat obsolete, however the fremen must be manufacturing shields and weapons somewhere. We see Fremen communities, but never Fremen factories. Do Fremen factories exist?
We never see the Fremen manufacturing, but there are enough Fremen that we can assume they do. No one in the desert uses shields because they attract the worms, so the Fremen have guns and find Paul's original way of fighting uncanny.
They have factories, but they are small - they only build what they can carry, and even their factories must be portable.
Also, Fremen don't use shield because the shield drive the sandworms crazy - they literaly attack the wielder ON THE SPOT.
You did really good reaserch with this video, I learned a lot thank you
Was that "OLO" on "technology" watching me all the time?
Great video!
If you have time, I'd love to hear your take on kids media. There's a french one, Miraculous 🐞🇫🇷🐈⬛️ The messages in kids shows are good but also tame. Does not being able to talk about death or harder social issues do more harm? People always act like kids can't learn certain things, under even the lightest of circumstances.
When writing computer programs, there are genres of ... I guess it could be called "execution style" that occur with user-facing programs being a major and visible genre and automated "daemons" or background processes working automatically on their own programming. Both of these groups splay out: user facing programs can present interfaces on a command-line, with a text screen, with graphics, with speech to text and speech recognition and so on. Daemons perform important functions that (generally) need to be maintained for network access, clock sync, operating system monitoring, and plenty of other functions. Zooming out a little more, free and open source software enables programmers to learn and collaborate on programs that meet needs. However, is there a problem of a lack of popular programs that synergise with their users?
Assimov did something similar. He is known for his work about robots, but his most famous series, The Foundation describes the history of humanity after they forbid the use of robotics. Though in his books it was not because technology would enslave humans, but because he feared, that with use of robots, humans would loose their willingness to risk and their need for adventure, which drive their exploration of space
I already have zero willingness to risk, i just want one static roadmap to follow
@@maksimfedoryak See? It is already happening
@@jankom.7783 i will say even more - we must stop to procreate until we find way to get rid of negative physical feelings. Because i see no point to bring more ppl into world, where pleasure exist only for moments, but pain, discomfort and anxiety can be felt for decades
Anyone interested in a deeper understanding of this subject, listen to the audio book “Post-Scarcity Anarchism” by Murray Bookchin. And the Ecology of Freedom. It’s a serious attempt at looking at the reformation of society into an Ecological one.
This reminds me of all the discussions about ChatGPT and AI generated art. There is nothing wrong with these technologies. I would even say that they are great tools but the way artists and writers are also used as "just tools" means that their fear of replacement is justified. The problem was never the tech, though. The problem is capitalism and the "free market", turning art into mere consumables. Wishing for a future were artists don't have to appeal to the needs of the economy and can freely do what they can do best, make art (even If this art just means something to themselves).
this is awesome; thank you for kindly uploading this. I appreciate everything you have created. My only concern is that i may never see another Alice Cappelle video. Thank you again for reading this
Have you guys read “the culture” series by banks? Its almost an opposite take from dune, how thinking machines save us from humanitys faults
The funniest part of the series is the "ship names"...
I'd be interested in your take around Fritz Schumacher's thinking, as it does dovetail somewhat with this.
I love how the Dune universe focused on increasing cognitive abilities to replace the power of machines. Showing how machines can make us dependent and lazy.
The Dune universe takes place in a feudal society.
Excellent video essay! I'm glad _Dune_ brought me here!
Murray Bookchin would’ve been a great addition to this video.
I feel it would have been useful to also point out the tragic failing of the fremen in this context. Their way of being and living, while perfectly adapted to their barren desert home, was later exported to the rest of the universe via a massive crusade. They who were inspired by colonized and indigenous peoples, became themselves colonizers and genociders.
There is no one-size-fits-all human culture. Everything must be adapted to conditions and needs
Wow. Thank you. Finally something philosophical that actually challenges my brain and interests me. This is extremely interesting. You’ve earned a subscriber.
The Freman were not collaborating with the environment of Dune. They were executing tactical and strategic strategies against superior force. Without the oppressive constraints of the Empire, the Freman would have Terraformed the planet. The beaver does not work in cooperation with the environment, he uses the technology of the dam to re-organize an environment of his choosing. Why are the sandworms tunnels natural?
Once again our erudite and beautiful analyst takes us right to the heart of these important topics.
Alice, again you’ve made a beautiful video, i love the way you make your point and explain your perspective, by the way, i was wondering what do you study (i dont know if youve said it srry if you have lol).
Really glad you brought up the Luddites! I annoy my friends constantly with rants about how the Luddites would have seen the technology as a way to free themselves if they had owned the business they worked for. They could have collectively decided to use the increased productivity to pay themselves more for every hour they worked or work much less for the exact same pay. Instead they were fired and completely displaced because they had no decision making power in their workplace.
Basically socialism
I wouldn't call it ironic that he wrote how necessary computers will be, while at the same time described an AI free society.
In "short" term, you will NEED computers and their benefits to thrive! But in the long long term, he thought that humanity is not mature enough to handle the highly advanced AI that is yet to come, so it becomes a problem. Which doesn't mean that AI is inherently bad, but that trauma of the first catastrophe was great enough that it totally halted the interaction with AI.
It is simply a consequence of how he imagined things play out, not a statement!
I don't remember, reading the books, so many fire arms used in DUNE like they do in the movie.
The most important thing as to why machines replace humans is that machines dont strike.
I didn't think about it fully until watching your video but it did standout to me during the second film when I noticed how advanced the Fremen's water-harvesting technology was. They are subtly way ahead of us technologically in a lot of ways yet there are no smart-phones or people texting away or staring at screens. They're as present and in tune with their surroundings as Bedouins yet in a Scifi future. You put it very well. _They use their technology, it doesn't use them._
You still don't get it...
@@Jamhael1 I'm obviously not going into everything she went into like a deeper analysis of modern society, capitalism, the Luddites and what they represented or the angle that it's ultimately humans using technology to dominate other humans and yada yada. What I noted is just the part that mainly resonated with me. That they have a sort of pre-modern way of going about life even though they're technologically more advanced than people today. It's something I'd like to emulate so it clicked with. What's not to get about that? It's right there in the film regarding Fremen life; it's simply a fact. Stop being a pretentious prick.
@@-AwaleAbdi- the Fremen (in the books) are EXTREMELY techinically and technologically advanced - the stillsuits, the water-saving technologies, the usage of spice for EVERYTHING, from paper, to coffee, to fuel, to plastics, etc, the knowledge of the effect of shields and walking in unrhythmic manner on the behaviour of sandworms, the understanding of the different types of sand, their terraformation effort using dew-catching technology, their easy to dismantle and transport factories, their effective educational system, their militaristic lifestyle, and even their interest and proficiency in the usage of artillery in battle!
The Fremen are not "idillic" - the deserts of Arrakis are more brutal then any desert on Earth, with Coriolis storms capable to reach speeds of almost 1000kph - much less "pre-technological". Just a people who adapted to, and was molded by, the local enviroment in which they lived while being a target of Harkonen cruelty.
And that is what the movies unfortunately cannot translate from the books - the long mental talks the characters have with themselves when analyzing those things.