[liberationtech] Deep Divers, there is no such thing as liberation tech

[Steve Phillips]

> Technology is but an agnostic tool.
> There is no such thing as a liberation tech, ...
>

Empirically, your claims are objectively false.

Each technology has its own unique set of pros and cons for humanity, and
its own unique balance of helpful and hurtful usage instances since its
inception.

Signal and Tor are each an overwhelmingly net positive contribution to the
world. That is why authoritarians and those misaligned with humanity tend
to despise them -- a great sign that a technology is net-liberatory.

The same is true of virtually all medical technology, housing technology,
and most other things.

What about landmines? Clear net negative.

Technology in aggregate has been an extreme net-positive, and each
individual technology is almost always quite positive or, occasionally,
quite negative, and quite rarely in between; it would be difficult for a
technology to be exactly net-neutral in its uses, either theoretical or
actual.

Boring and benign technologies that one may think of as candidates for
"neutral" technologies (e.g., light bulbs or garden hoses) are almost
always very (net-)positive because they are used to help many and hurt no
one or almost no one.

Occasionally it is not clear and will depend on how a given technology is
used and by whom, as with facial recognition, Twitter bots, and pain meds.

We must be careful when designing technologies to ensure to maximize the
upsides while minimizing the downsides, especially opportunities for abuse.

As we can see, "technology is neutral" is not true in any useful sense of
the phrase. I encourage all of us here to continue defending the
net-liberatory technology that we are so rightfully enthusiastic about!

And let us make more of it. Email me if you want a bunch of ideas for what
to build, or to help contribute to my projects. Regarding the former, here
is a great list from Dymaxion of clear needs not currently being met:
https://dymaxion.org/essays/pleasestop.html .

--Steve Phillips / @elimisteve
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