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http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19760725.htm

really good interview with Noam Chomsky, ya'll should definitely read this. I don't agree with him a hundred percent but that's mostly because he's more of a technophile than me and likes industry a whole lot more.

After reading that, I'd have to agree he sounds like a technophile.
I'm not big on industry, and I see a lot of the stuff that comes from it as un-needed, and that the time spent making those luxery items could be better spent on something else.
But hey, if that's what you want to invest your free time in, go ahead.
talk2hand
*Bookmarks the interview.*

Chomsky always has words to throw at anything and everything.

sometimes he hits the mark and is interesting; often he misses and seems boring and redundant and predictable.

this is from someone who considers herslef an anarcho-syndicalist.

Yeah, those private jets and luxury cars piss me off.
Why get a private jet? Just so you can get on it with people you know?
What a waste of fuel and labor.

I'm starting to think technology is addicting.
I mean, it makes our life easier, so we work hard to make newer things to make our lives easier, and eventually we will all be sitting on our butts, while computers and robots do all the work.
I actually enjoy working, at least when I'm not being forced to do so.
Bah.
Some technology isn't so "horrible", but a lot of it isn't really needed, and it does destroy culture.

wat


did I ever tell you how much I hate you, cause I feel like maybe I hate you




lol jkjk


I am not opposed to technology PER SE/in and of its self/whateva

But I really feel like Chomsky relies far too much on technology to solve his problems. Many of the issues posed could be solved without advanced technological societies, and some just plain wouldn't exist(at the very least on the scale necessary to need industrial solutions)

Course this is where the differences between anarcho-syndicalists and anarchist-communists really come out, it's like the early 1900's all over again, yr getting me all sentimental n s**t.

Really my issue is the level of technology necessary or wanted in society. Certainly for myself it is much lower than Chomsky. I have no issue getting rid of things like cars, tv's, etc. etc. etc. even computers(which have quite the environmental footprint). While obviously technology and perhaps even industrial society aren't necessarily evil or unsustainable. I have qualms about using them as crutches or accepting them as necessities in life. and certainly would have answered differently than chomsky on several points.

Well, Chomsky works at MIT, so it'd be pretty unusual if he didn't display a wee bit of technophilia. 3nodding

For my part, in my personal life I'm a fair bit of a luddite; I don't own a car or cell phone, I prefer vinyl to digital when I can get it, and I'd rather live in a remote cabin than in the suburbs. But I also have a huge interest in science (perhaps making me a rarity amongst eco-minded radicals), so excitement about developments in aerospace, neuroscience and computer technology comes naturally to me, and I'm not too worried about AI or the technological singularity, but would be against them if they did develop because I'm not big on the idea of losing our bodies, and with them our connection to other creatures.

I think that what technology and science need is to be liberated from corporate control. I mean, I stopped reading tech mags because they all suck up to green capitalism and the like. When science and tech are privatized, all developments lean toward consumerism and away from discovery and genuine goodwill; e.g. Big Pharma marketing antidepressents, polluters publishing biased studies about climate, agreements between auto companies and Big Oil to prevent real progress in alternative fuels, etc. (This is the beauty of Linux; you don't need to support some multibillionaire ******** to do anything.) Science and technology seem fine, but the truth is that increasing privatization is a crisis for workers, society, the planet, and discovery as an end in itself.

I don't think that technology is entirely a bad thing. It just needs to be correctly used, like in repair of the natural world that we as humans have damaged.

oh man I got tl;dr-ed! Good thing I didn't post the introduction to Eric Wolf's Europe and the people without history(though it is seriously way interesting and people should read it, maybe I'll go try and find that online now)


it's ok, Chomsky annoys the crap out of me a lot of the time but I thought this was a pretty interesting interview. it's really just a Chomsky answers questions on anarchism thing.