tanteOct 28

We keep seeing startups who want to replace something valuable (therapy, counseling, tutoring, artistic expression) with some tech bullshit under the banner of democratization. But why do we need to invest so much in bad tech that doesn't work instead of just giving people access to what they need?

This is a sign for how fucking atrophied our mental muscles are. How limited our space for thinking about how things should be.

You want to democratize "going to therapy"? Make it "free" as in paid by socialized healthcare. You want to democratize "making art"? Give people money and free time to express themselves.

None of these things are meaningfully addressed through tech. It's always about the political struggle to give people what they need and deserve.

Show threadPete / Syllopsium

@tante You already know the answer to this. Don't blame tech for something that is driven by capitalism and/or saving money.

No-one's mental muscles are atrophied here. The populace don't want to pay more tax to fix things, and private enterprise definitely doesn't want to throw money at something with no return to them.

People are expensive. Why spend hundreds or thousands on understanding the personal, social, and environmental issue why someone cannot lose weight or get it up when instead you can give them some drugs and move on. Or if that doesn't work, they can use an LLM to provide therapy instead of multiple trained professionals at a high hourly rate. Sure, 5% of people might throw themselves off a bridge when it goes wrong, but 95% are still alive and not needing to see an expensive human! (*)

Tech is another tool, like medicine. Nothing more, or less.

(*) This is sarcasm, if anyone really can't see that, although sadly other people will want to push exactly this viewpoint with no subtext at all.

Oct 29 at 6:38pmWeb