- May 2021
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librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com
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But “humane technology” is precisely the sort of pleasant sounding but ultimately meaningless idea that we must be watchful for at all times. To be clear, Harris is hardly the first critic to argue for some alternative type of technology, past critics have argued for: “democratic technics,” “appropriate technology,” “convivial tools,” “liberatory technology,” “holistic technology,” and the list could go on.
A reasonable summary list of alternatives. Note how dreadful and unmemorable most of these names are. Most noticeable in this list is that I don't think that anyone actually built any actual tools that accomplish any of these theoretical things.
It also makes more noticeable that the Center for Humane Technology seems to be theoretically arguing against something instead of "for" something.
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- Mar 2021
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en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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I've come across about 20 reference for Ivan Illitch over the past month. Not sure what is driving it. Some mentions are coming out of educator circles, others from programmers, some from what I might describe as "knowledge workers" (digital gardeners/Roam Cult/Obsidian crowds). One tangential one was from someone in the hyperlink.academy crowd.
Here's a recent one from today that popped up within a thread shared in IndieWeb chat:
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>Ivan Illich continues to be even more more relevant than he was at the height of his New Left popularity. Conviviality in the digital tools we use has continued to wither https://t.co/D88V6KL7Ez pic.twitter.com/OFDYTjXyCn
— Count Bla (@123456789blaaa) March 15, 2021Deschooling Society and Tools for Conviviality look very interesting. Perhaps they've distilled enough that their ideas are having a resurgence?
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He wrote that "[e]lite professional groups ... have come to exert a 'radical monopoly' on such basic human activities as health, agriculture, home-building, and learning, leading to a 'war on subsistence' that robs peasant societies of their vital skills and know-how. The result of much economic development is very often not human flourishing but 'modernized poverty', dependency, and an out-of-control system in which the humans become worn-down mechanical parts."[13] Illich proposed that we should "invert the present deep structure of tools" in order to "give people tools that guarantee their right to work with independent efficiency."[34]
Amazon anyone?
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the need to develop new instruments for the reconquest of practical knowledge by the average citizen.
This fits into the idea of older knowledge and memory systems of indigenous peoples
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