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   Liam :fnord: (liamvhogan@aus.social)'s status on Wednesday, 10-Jul-2024 07:59:07 JST Liam :fnord:

   A half-formed thought: the common prevailing ideology of developed countries through the whole of the 20thC was that the energies of very large numbers of skilled people could be harnessed somehow (markets, central planning, some combination) to produce better and better things. And that had to be accompanied by better and better systems, and learning in common, which is why all spent so much on education, training, universities.

   The modern emphasis on ‘hacking’ and individualised technical skill is almost the opposite of that dream. For better and worse

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     Liam :fnord: (liamvhogan@aus.social)'s status on Wednesday, 10-Jul-2024 07:59:06 JST Liam :fnord:

     in reply to

     That’s not to romanticise the 20thC. Being a salaryman or a Company Man might have been secure, but all reports were that it was boring as shit and often degrading, restrictive, and hypocritical, not to mention capital-p Patriarchal in every way that counted. We’re putting a higher value now on individual performance which is just another value. But to be a ‘hacker’ and to put social value on that hacking is a lonely way to be, for all of us.

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     Liam :fnord: (liamvhogan@aus.social)'s status on Wednesday, 10-Jul-2024 07:59:06 JST Liam :fnord:

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     What’s emerged, in my adult lifetime, is the idea—across the political and cultural spectrum—that large groups of people cooperating together is a very difficult, maybe impossible, thing to achieve. You hear it in sad expressions about the past, nostalgia about things like the Apollo program. It’s an assumption so powerful people don’t even realise it’s there! It’s just this new totalising ideology of smallness of efforts.

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     Liam :fnord: (liamvhogan@aus.social)'s status on Wednesday, 10-Jul-2024 07:59:07 JST Liam :fnord:

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     The post-1940s were fascinated by the emergence of Organisational Man (and later, his female counterpart), the skilled worker whose skill was purely in being part of such a large system, understanding and working in it, rather than a profession or technical doing-skill, someone dedicated to the Department or company or firm or whatever. Implied in that is that the organisation is loyal in return; that’s not a notable feature of firms nowadays. To put it mildy.

     The thing people observe around the world is that things aren’t working as well in common, even though our technology is advancing. Seems to me it’s not a tech problem, it’s a loyalty problem, and the emergence of the ideology of ‘hacking’ (improvising, making-do, overcoming) is our response