this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2021
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Technology

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 years ago

Under capitalism there are countless iterations of the same technologies. People are driven to seek profit without regard for innovation, diversity in technology, or regard for exploitation of human labor, natural resources, or environmental destruction. The process of research and development of new technologies is a long process and it doesn't generate profit. Under capitalism, this comes at the cost of never exploring entire branches of technology which may have been discovered and benefited us.

If you take a look at a lot of the technology we have today, the foundational technologies were mostly developed with public funding, or by people motivated to build things out of interest, or a desire to help their fellow humans - and not for seeking profits.

In a future anarchist society, there would be far fewer of us needing cars to travel to work every day. We would be working less, many of today's jobs would be obsolete. People would be more free to pursue hobbies, research, or just rest. We would be living in smaller communities and producing more locally. Our communications technology would be open hardware / software, more compatible, repairable, upgrade-able, and there wouldn't be as much incentive to focus on such a narrow field of technology. We could be using communications technology for much longer periods without having to needlessly upgrade the entire device every couple of years. There would be less people addicted to phones, as there won't be a need to disassociate and escape from the hellish cycle that wage labor and private property creates.

Instead of trying to stop the advance of automation, we would be free to automate every kind of job - and there would be great incentive to improve the quality of, and quickly automate the boring, dirty, dangerous tasks. There would also be more incentive to explore niche technologies, branch out, and to focus on technologies to do tasks such as cleaning up the ocean, building vertical farms, bioprinting, Space exploration, developing smart contracts, inventory management, and logistics to ensure our resources are distributed properly, our needs are being met and grievances resolved. A lot of these would need long periods of research and development rather than endless mass production.

So if we're talking about a future anarchist society, it would be a completely different society - if it came at the cost of drastically reducing the production of mobile phones, cars, and personal computers, that's fine. We have plenty already.