Oh god. Not Freud again. Required reading: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/freud-was-a-fraud-a-triumph-of-pseudoscience/ I’ve actually conversed with the author, Harriet Hill, on other topics. I trust her review. She used to write for Skeptic magazine (not sure if she does anymore, once Pat Linse passed away, it really went downhill, don’t know how it is now). I know DZM likes to read books, well, perhaps he should read "Freud: The Making of an Illusion" /and/ this review of it. What I like about this review is Harriet Hall writes “Freud’s theories have been widely criticized as unscientific, and treatment of mental disorders has increasingly turned to … effective therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).” Per this comment https://davidzmorris.substack.com/p/sam-bankman-fried-the-sickness-unto/comment/111241859 , I believe CBT deserves more love than DZM gives it. I mean, it’s so ironic to me that Freud seems like /exactly/ the type of fraud that DZM is writing a book about, and yet refers to him as a legitimate source. Read the review and tell me if this isn’t almost exactly the stuff DZM says modern fraudsters do. Too much drugs/stimulants “advocacy of cocaine was irrational.” Believes his own lies “Crews says, “He chose to remain deceived even after having been proven wrong.” " Aims for the rich and vulnerable “treated pampered, rich socialites.” Genetic prejudice (like eugenics loving TESCREALists) “women were biologically inferior.” Critics just “didn’t understand it.” Like, how many of DZM’s fraudster boxes does this dude need to tick?!
“
Tiqqun later describe this as “the shared fantasy of the Universal Automaton, analogous to Hobbes’ fantasy of the State in Leviathan, ‘artificial man.’”
“
Um, I know who Hobbes’ is, I know Leviathan is often used to support strong state (and usually that morphs into fascism), but what is “artificial man?” [Spoiler: No definition is given.]
“
Data is meant to eliminate (that is, not measure) the irrelevancies of the human
“
Cool… How? Because I still don’t know what Cyberneticism is.
“
economic command and control
“
Again… What is that?
“
It dismisses interiority as a myth and along with it the entire psychology of the 19th century, including psychoanalysis.
“
Welp, again, the “forefather” of psychoanalysis seems like a total fraud. That doesn’t mean anyone who also thinks this is /not/ a fraud. The aforementioned “Will MacAskill and Peter Thiel” could be frauds too.
“
The rejection of psychoanalysis - specifically, the rejection of the entire idea of subconscious drives or hidden motives
“
Ah, so here’s the meat. Just as frauds can be in psychoanalysis and "movements" that are dismissive of psychoanalysis, so too can one dismiss Freudian psychoanalysis /and/ still believe in “subconscious drives or hidden motives.” For example, CBT. I suggest that CBT is about bringing the subconscious to the forefront. “Oh wow, I am really putting too much weight on everything being bad.” Perhaps it’s a matter of definitions, and you can call CBT a form of psychoanalysis if you look at the root (analysis of psyche) and not the general understanding of psychoanalysis. Fine. But it’s not Freud. And, yeah, people like Andresseen saying (paraphrasing) “I hate introspection” is not the answer https://davidzmorris.substack.com/p/andreessens-ignorance-agenda .
“
hypertrophy of security operations and functions - preiction, surveillance, repression, incarceration
“
Okay, hypertrophy, that means quickly eroding from disuse. Got it. Security operations and functions. Okay, so a lessening of things we do for security. Got it. “preiction” Uh, probably not a typo, whatever that is. “surveillance” Uh… Wait, that’s often a bad thing, but isn’t that “pro” security? “repression, incarceration” … Wait, what? Is this saying it’s against or for security operations and functions?
“
fetishization of data against knowledge is the root of the self-stupification seen in the bad choices of someone like Sam Bankman-Fried.
“
Okay, so I know SBF a) thought (as a kid or young adult, let’s be fair) the writings of Shakespeare were pretty worthless and b) thought you can do a good-enough risk analysis of just about anything and should act accordingly. But it seems to me that SBF thought /certain/ knowledge (humanities) was worthless and /certain/ data (market prices) were important. But what of a book like Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations?” Is that not "knowledge" that SBF would think important? Or data like when certain folios were created of Shakespeare’s work–which is important data if you want to understand Shakespeare’s work and how they evolved over time, but not important if you don’t care about the works at all, which apparently SBF didn’t. So certain knowledge would be important and certain data would be worthless. If so, then these words would need qualifiers. SBF, to me, is a perfect example of how you could use the subconscious to explain his behavior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance –but that’s psychology, not necessarily psychoanalysis.
“
the falsehood of the world made of numbers.
“
Numbers that represent abstracts based on human analysis often being faulty, sure. Numbers underlying the initial conditions of the universe not being essential, eh, not so sure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_universe . Again, qualifiers needed.
“
the utilitarian idea of a rationality of micro-economic choices is only a fiction.
“
I… guess? This was a sentence emphasized by DZM and I am presuming from the "The Cybernetic Hypothesis." I think what Tiqquun/DZM means is that it is probably impossible to get all the macro knowledge necessary to make utilitarian decisions in the micro that will definitely end up the way the decision makers expect. Which, sure, I can buy. And will probably be true until humanity dies out. Sure. But I'm not even sure this /is/ what it is saying.
“
That is, a fiction that must constantly be reinforced and re-established. This is the pathway from data metrics to Do Kwon faking his “self-correcting” stablecoin.
“
Wait… That’s just fraud. I’m confused again.
“
The mythology of the market’s total balancing powers is in fact buttressed constantly by outside intervention, by active plate-spinning which above all reinforces the fiction of the market’s neutrality, or worst of all its natural inevitability, when in fact it is constantly reinforced by active decisions made from positions of power.
“
Okay, yeah, that I totally agree with. How is that related to cybernetics? I am so confused. Perhaps this substack post needed a preamble like this one by Paul Krugman https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/europe-versus-america-a-response "A note for most readers: This is inside economics [the word baseball stricken out] football, a discussion mostly among professionals — and covers issues that even economists seem to be perplexed by. You have been warned." And yet... I at least kind of understood that one.
DZM is an excellent writer. I am sure he can make this material more accessible if he knows how perplexing it is to some readers. I hope this comment helps.
Okay, the rest of the sentence has words I understand, but what’s a “control scheme?”
“
process of cyberneticization.
“
Uh, dunno what that is, but my guess is that DZM will define it shortly. [Spoiler: He did not.]
“
economic management
“
Like… Managing the economy? Or, like, being economical (parsimonious) in management? What does this mean?
“
dimension
“
"Dimension" makes me afraid I’ll be entering the hypercube of confusion soon.
“
production under neoliberalism.
“
Oo boy, neoliberalism, one of the terms everyone has a different definition for.
“
much like Do Kwon’s Luna
“
Okay… I know what Do Kwon’s Luna is… But I still don’t know what “cybernetecization” is.
“
cybernetic info-harness
“
What is an info harness? Is it a bridle made of data? Is it a mitt for catching factoids? What?
“
“free float” of prices
“
Like… It’s tradable supply? Huh?
“
If you read philosophy
“
Yep, I’m going to be lost, DZM just mentioned philosophy. I find it ironic that he skewers Bankman-Fried’s philosophy parents as being completely wrongheaded, but I can’t follow DZM’s philosophy arguments half the time.
“
the collective Tiqqun
“
Oh, that link will tell me what that is… Oh… It will not.
“
[image of the Cybernetic Loop]
“
I got really confused at decided to checkout the Wikipedia of Cybernetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics by this point. I saw this image there too. /And no explanation what the heck it meant in the beginning of that either./ Sensor? Threshold? Controller? What?
“
This is the cybernetic hypothesis itself summarized by one of its ideologues.
“
Oh, the quote above, which I totally didn’t understand, is a summary of the meaning. I’ll read it again… “It’s conceivable that a society taken as a whole, a State, could be regulated in such a way that it is protected form all future accidents: such that in itself only eternity changes it. This is the ideal of a stable society achieved through objectively controllable social mechanisms.” Yeah, still no f’ing clue.
“
Command and control at the social level
“
Of what? People? Through what? Media? RF waves? What does this mean???
You might be intrigued by these excerpts from Ellul's book, The Technological Society:
Technique cannot be otherwise than totalitarian. It can be truly efficient and scientific only if it absorbs an enormous number of phenomena and brings into play the maximum of data. In order to co-ordinate and exploit synthetically, technique must be brought to bear on the great masses in every area. But the existence of technique in every area leads to monopoly. This is noted by Jacques Driencourt when he declares that the technique of propaganda is totalitarian by its very nature. It is totalitarian in message, methods, field of action, and means. What more could be required?
Technique makes its sociological compost pile where it does not find one already made. And it possesses sufficient power and efficiency today to succeed. Before long, it will produce everywhere that clear technical consciousness which is the easiest of its creations to bring about, and which man falls in with so willingly. The world that technique creates cannot be any other than that which was favorable to it from the very beginning. In spite of all the men of good will, all the optimists, all the doers of history, the civilizations of the world are being ringed about with a band of steel. W e in the West became familiar with this iron constraint in the nineteenth century. Now technique is mechanically reproducing it everywhere as necessary to its existence. What force could prevent technique from so acting, or make it be otherwise than it is?
Also, Nelson wrote about "Technoids" and "Fluffies" in his book, Literary Machines (note that he is shining a light on the worst cognitive tendencies, and so this sounds like a harsh and unfair caricature -- but caricatures can orient us socially, and I interpret this as "Technoids are the nerds, that business people and authority figures actually want; nerds that are somehow as unreflective as themselves."):
C.P. Snow pointed out long ago that there are two educated cultures, the culture of technology and the culture of the humanities, and they don't talk to each other. That was twenty years ago, but it's still true.
Not only is it still true, but the two cultures have united on a false, agreed-upon definition of what computers are. In this polite conspiracy the mem-bers of the two cultures, technical and
literary -- who rarely talk to each other -- have it all figured out.
Their false notion of computers is that they are Inhuman, Oppressive, Cold, Relentless; and that the somehow Reduce Everything to Mathematics.
One camp says "yessir, and I run ‘em", and the other camp says, "I want no part of it."
To throw things in a sharper light, let me refer to those with technical training as the Technoids (or Noids for short), and I will refer to those with a humanistic background, in literature, history, the arts, etc., as the Fluffies.
THE NOIDS
The technoids have an exagger-ated and caricatured notion of what constitutes clear-minded thinking, and never miss a chance to denounce other cognitive styles as "illogi-cal." Or to denounce people who have difficulty learning the compli-cated systems they, the technoids, dream up.
NOIDS' OUTLOOK
The technoids are usually hired guns, interested in the next complex problem they can get into. They generally have an obsession with favorite methods, and a negligible concern for history, art, literature or human freedom.
Indeed, some of them like to oppress (and some of this type get to head computer cen-ters eventually).
In a famous experiment, psy-chologist Stanley Milgram, wearing a white coat, instructed unsuspec-ting subjects, who thought they were merely paid assistants, to push but-
tons that would inflict terrible pain on others. To Milgram's cha-grin, nearly everyone followed in-structions without a qualm.
This in a way characterizes the Technoid mentality. If the govern-ment solicits bids on a Deterrent Weapons System that will selective-ly barbecue only the small children of an Aggressor Nation, the technoid will probably say Yes Sir, Can Do, What Color Do You Want the corpses? While the Fluffy who has read Sopho-cles and/or Tocqueville may be Slightly more likely to say, Wait a Minute...
I hang out on HN (handle is nz), more than any other forum. Clearly "Technoid" is itself a kind of caricature, meant to draw attention to certain deformities of thinking that we (the computer nerds) can fall into when we focus on our economic function without questioning it. The Nelson quote comes off as polemical (to me at least) but I like it nevertheless because it reminds me that most other people, especially those with humanistic/non-stem backgrounds can find our way of thinking alien and off-putting (and — in the limit — for good reason).
"galactic-beyond" / "nz" : I reread your original comment, and I apologize for missing this part:
"
and I interpret this as "Technoids are the nerds, that business people and authority figures actually want; nerds that are somehow as unreflective as themselves."
“
Definitions help so much, and what I complain about in my other comments is a lack of clarity on what the terms mean. What I do not see is a similar definition of “fluffies” because I wonder if they too are “unreflective.” Because to me, that is all that really matters. It could be that “technoids” and “fluffies” are no more than two flavors of cultists. No different than fanatics of sports team.
/All/ of science is suffering from a reproducibility problem. Not just the “fluffier” social sciences. (I use “fluffier” here in the sense that social sciences are “softer” sciences, but that need not be a reason to dismiss them.) It is not because they are about the mind. Definitely not because they are “woke” (an idiotic dog whistle when used pejoratively). It is, I believe, because of a lack of government funding since Reagan for pure scientific studies of any kind–anything big and ambitious and possibly not “profitable.” Honestly, if you need to do a big study with a large sample size and a lot of data points, unless in the end you might have a cash-cow drug you can hold IP to and sell exclusively for 10 years, there just /is no money for it/. I mean, there is nothing different between a compound found extensively in nature that can be extracted extremely cheaply and one you can “create” and synthesize in a lab, except the latter can be readily patented and sold exclusively by you. The reproducibility problem hits the former, just as much as studies about, say, following authority to the point of fascist behavior.
So people hold so tightly Zombardo and Milgram. They have so little else to choose from. In both cases, I feel, the ones running the experiment influenced the results to the point of contamination. I doubt either group wanted to. But it happened. Not a problem if you can reproduce the experiment but be more careful, try again but avoid the same mistakes, etc. But then you have the problem of bigger sample sizes, more data points, more cost, no money.
I mean, I empathize with anyone who has to write about social science experiments. Should they have to put a disclaimer every time they point to one? “Of course, this was a study on twenty grad students over two weeks and one can’t be sure some p-hacking didn't happen because the methodology wasn't published ahead of time…” Honestly? Maybe. But regardless, when controversies come up, and boy does it seem like Freud had a lot of them, I do think you need to at least address them when you refer to their controversial results. Even if it weakens your argument. Because it shows you are not “unreflective.” The same as any AI booster on HN is, I believe, “unreflective” when they dunk on Ed Zitron for his “style” but don't want to debunk his claims or reporting (if they are even being genuine, I personally think astroturfing is happening, even though HN seems to be doing an admirable job compared to any other forum of its size or larger).
And it’s a bit ironic that AI also has a reproducibility problem because you can prompt for the same thing twice and get different answers. But of course, there's a lot more to it. The money today is in AI, the money a hundred years ago was in psychoanalysis. So, I'm more skeptical of the motives of the proponents of the former than the latter.
Cultists will cult. They'll cult about psychoanalysis (less so nowadays). They'll cult about TESCREALism. Otherwise, they're not all that different.
I have a lot of thoughts about cults, but those will have to wait. Reagan and his effect on funding and the economy (and society) is something I touch on in an essay I published a few days ago: https://galacticbeyond.com/two-percent-programmer/ . I basically analyzed degree completion rates from 1970 to 2011, and found a bunch of interesting things, one of which was that CS / informatics, was severely impacted by various government decisions, even though most of the funding for CS / informatics actually comes from industry (Bell Labs, PARC, etc) -- because the government is the biggest whale. Also, physics was permanently crippled by the slow-walk-failure of SSC. Also, if you look at the data, you'll find that since Reagan, both Social Science and Education cratered, while Business replaced both of them as the dominant degree-type. This new regime, where the dominant worldview of college educated people, was the business-worldview, instead of the previous humanistic/educational worldview, has endured for 30 years (as of 2011), and if the data still holds (did not get to it yet), then 45 years. Put differently, we stopped training educators and humanists, in order to train more merchants, and have been doing so for 30 to 45 years. Is it any wonder that people believe that the market can solve everything, if only the government gets out of the way?
I actually wasn't 100% sure that the defunding of big studies for pure science was due to Reagan, but I was pretty sure it was around that time, and blaming Reagan is usually a safer bet than anything you can find on Kalshi or Polymarket.
2/2
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or what Freud would call the death drive.
“
Oh god. Not Freud again. Required reading: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/freud-was-a-fraud-a-triumph-of-pseudoscience/ I’ve actually conversed with the author, Harriet Hill, on other topics. I trust her review. She used to write for Skeptic magazine (not sure if she does anymore, once Pat Linse passed away, it really went downhill, don’t know how it is now). I know DZM likes to read books, well, perhaps he should read "Freud: The Making of an Illusion" /and/ this review of it. What I like about this review is Harriet Hall writes “Freud’s theories have been widely criticized as unscientific, and treatment of mental disorders has increasingly turned to … effective therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).” Per this comment https://davidzmorris.substack.com/p/sam-bankman-fried-the-sickness-unto/comment/111241859 , I believe CBT deserves more love than DZM gives it. I mean, it’s so ironic to me that Freud seems like /exactly/ the type of fraud that DZM is writing a book about, and yet refers to him as a legitimate source. Read the review and tell me if this isn’t almost exactly the stuff DZM says modern fraudsters do. Too much drugs/stimulants “advocacy of cocaine was irrational.” Believes his own lies “Crews says, “He chose to remain deceived even after having been proven wrong.” " Aims for the rich and vulnerable “treated pampered, rich socialites.” Genetic prejudice (like eugenics loving TESCREALists) “women were biologically inferior.” Critics just “didn’t understand it.” Like, how many of DZM’s fraudster boxes does this dude need to tick?!
“
Tiqqun later describe this as “the shared fantasy of the Universal Automaton, analogous to Hobbes’ fantasy of the State in Leviathan, ‘artificial man.’”
“
Um, I know who Hobbes’ is, I know Leviathan is often used to support strong state (and usually that morphs into fascism), but what is “artificial man?” [Spoiler: No definition is given.]
“
Data is meant to eliminate (that is, not measure) the irrelevancies of the human
“
Cool… How? Because I still don’t know what Cyberneticism is.
“
economic command and control
“
Again… What is that?
“
It dismisses interiority as a myth and along with it the entire psychology of the 19th century, including psychoanalysis.
“
Welp, again, the “forefather” of psychoanalysis seems like a total fraud. That doesn’t mean anyone who also thinks this is /not/ a fraud. The aforementioned “Will MacAskill and Peter Thiel” could be frauds too.
“
The rejection of psychoanalysis - specifically, the rejection of the entire idea of subconscious drives or hidden motives
“
Ah, so here’s the meat. Just as frauds can be in psychoanalysis and "movements" that are dismissive of psychoanalysis, so too can one dismiss Freudian psychoanalysis /and/ still believe in “subconscious drives or hidden motives.” For example, CBT. I suggest that CBT is about bringing the subconscious to the forefront. “Oh wow, I am really putting too much weight on everything being bad.” Perhaps it’s a matter of definitions, and you can call CBT a form of psychoanalysis if you look at the root (analysis of psyche) and not the general understanding of psychoanalysis. Fine. But it’s not Freud. And, yeah, people like Andresseen saying (paraphrasing) “I hate introspection” is not the answer https://davidzmorris.substack.com/p/andreessens-ignorance-agenda .
“
hypertrophy of security operations and functions - preiction, surveillance, repression, incarceration
“
Okay, hypertrophy, that means quickly eroding from disuse. Got it. Security operations and functions. Okay, so a lessening of things we do for security. Got it. “preiction” Uh, probably not a typo, whatever that is. “surveillance” Uh… Wait, that’s often a bad thing, but isn’t that “pro” security? “repression, incarceration” … Wait, what? Is this saying it’s against or for security operations and functions?
“
fetishization of data against knowledge is the root of the self-stupification seen in the bad choices of someone like Sam Bankman-Fried.
“
Okay, so I know SBF a) thought (as a kid or young adult, let’s be fair) the writings of Shakespeare were pretty worthless and b) thought you can do a good-enough risk analysis of just about anything and should act accordingly. But it seems to me that SBF thought /certain/ knowledge (humanities) was worthless and /certain/ data (market prices) were important. But what of a book like Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations?” Is that not "knowledge" that SBF would think important? Or data like when certain folios were created of Shakespeare’s work–which is important data if you want to understand Shakespeare’s work and how they evolved over time, but not important if you don’t care about the works at all, which apparently SBF didn’t. So certain knowledge would be important and certain data would be worthless. If so, then these words would need qualifiers. SBF, to me, is a perfect example of how you could use the subconscious to explain his behavior https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance –but that’s psychology, not necessarily psychoanalysis.
“
the falsehood of the world made of numbers.
“
Numbers that represent abstracts based on human analysis often being faulty, sure. Numbers underlying the initial conditions of the universe not being essential, eh, not so sure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_universe . Again, qualifiers needed.
“
the utilitarian idea of a rationality of micro-economic choices is only a fiction.
“
I… guess? This was a sentence emphasized by DZM and I am presuming from the "The Cybernetic Hypothesis." I think what Tiqquun/DZM means is that it is probably impossible to get all the macro knowledge necessary to make utilitarian decisions in the micro that will definitely end up the way the decision makers expect. Which, sure, I can buy. And will probably be true until humanity dies out. Sure. But I'm not even sure this /is/ what it is saying.
“
That is, a fiction that must constantly be reinforced and re-established. This is the pathway from data metrics to Do Kwon faking his “self-correcting” stablecoin.
“
Wait… That’s just fraud. I’m confused again.
“
The mythology of the market’s total balancing powers is in fact buttressed constantly by outside intervention, by active plate-spinning which above all reinforces the fiction of the market’s neutrality, or worst of all its natural inevitability, when in fact it is constantly reinforced by active decisions made from positions of power.
“
Okay, yeah, that I totally agree with. How is that related to cybernetics? I am so confused. Perhaps this substack post needed a preamble like this one by Paul Krugman https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/europe-versus-america-a-response "A note for most readers: This is inside economics [the word baseball stricken out] football, a discussion mostly among professionals — and covers issues that even economists seem to be perplexed by. You have been warned." And yet... I at least kind of understood that one.
DZM is an excellent writer. I am sure he can make this material more accessible if he knows how perplexing it is to some readers. I hope this comment helps.
1/2
At some point, I just couldn't follow this substack piece and just stopped trying.
To help DZM, here's what were my stumbling blocks.
“
transcendence of the cycle of Samsara.
“
Hmm something about humans needing to die, I bet.
“
Baudrillard
“
Uh oh, every time DZM mentions this person, I know I'm going to be confused soon.
“
universal fungibility
“
Huh, dunno what that is, I’ll click the link. Oh yeah, this https://davidzmorris.substack.com/p/nothing-is-true-everything-is-exchangeable ... Which I didn’t understand last time I came across it either.
“
control scheme
“
Okay, the rest of the sentence has words I understand, but what’s a “control scheme?”
“
process of cyberneticization.
“
Uh, dunno what that is, but my guess is that DZM will define it shortly. [Spoiler: He did not.]
“
economic management
“
Like… Managing the economy? Or, like, being economical (parsimonious) in management? What does this mean?
“
dimension
“
"Dimension" makes me afraid I’ll be entering the hypercube of confusion soon.
“
production under neoliberalism.
“
Oo boy, neoliberalism, one of the terms everyone has a different definition for.
“
much like Do Kwon’s Luna
“
Okay… I know what Do Kwon’s Luna is… But I still don’t know what “cybernetecization” is.
“
cybernetic info-harness
“
What is an info harness? Is it a bridle made of data? Is it a mitt for catching factoids? What?
“
“free float” of prices
“
Like… It’s tradable supply? Huh?
“
If you read philosophy
“
Yep, I’m going to be lost, DZM just mentioned philosophy. I find it ironic that he skewers Bankman-Fried’s philosophy parents as being completely wrongheaded, but I can’t follow DZM’s philosophy arguments half the time.
“
the collective Tiqqun
“
Oh, that link will tell me what that is… Oh… It will not.
“
[image of the Cybernetic Loop]
“
I got really confused at decided to checkout the Wikipedia of Cybernetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics by this point. I saw this image there too. /And no explanation what the heck it meant in the beginning of that either./ Sensor? Threshold? Controller? What?
“
This is the cybernetic hypothesis itself summarized by one of its ideologues.
“
Oh, the quote above, which I totally didn’t understand, is a summary of the meaning. I’ll read it again… “It’s conceivable that a society taken as a whole, a State, could be regulated in such a way that it is protected form all future accidents: such that in itself only eternity changes it. This is the ideal of a stable society achieved through objectively controllable social mechanisms.” Yeah, still no f’ing clue.
“
Command and control at the social level
“
Of what? People? Through what? Media? RF waves? What does this mean???
You might be intrigued by these excerpts from Ellul's book, The Technological Society:
Technique cannot be otherwise than totalitarian. It can be truly efficient and scientific only if it absorbs an enormous number of phenomena and brings into play the maximum of data. In order to co-ordinate and exploit synthetically, technique must be brought to bear on the great masses in every area. But the existence of technique in every area leads to monopoly. This is noted by Jacques Driencourt when he declares that the technique of propaganda is totalitarian by its very nature. It is totalitarian in message, methods, field of action, and means. What more could be required?
Technique makes its sociological compost pile where it does not find one already made. And it possesses sufficient power and efficiency today to succeed. Before long, it will produce everywhere that clear technical consciousness which is the easiest of its creations to bring about, and which man falls in with so willingly. The world that technique creates cannot be any other than that which was favorable to it from the very beginning. In spite of all the men of good will, all the optimists, all the doers of history, the civilizations of the world are being ringed about with a band of steel. W e in the West became familiar with this iron constraint in the nineteenth century. Now technique is mechanically reproducing it everywhere as necessary to its existence. What force could prevent technique from so acting, or make it be otherwise than it is?
Also, Nelson wrote about "Technoids" and "Fluffies" in his book, Literary Machines (note that he is shining a light on the worst cognitive tendencies, and so this sounds like a harsh and unfair caricature -- but caricatures can orient us socially, and I interpret this as "Technoids are the nerds, that business people and authority figures actually want; nerds that are somehow as unreflective as themselves."):
C.P. Snow pointed out long ago that there are two educated cultures, the culture of technology and the culture of the humanities, and they don't talk to each other. That was twenty years ago, but it's still true.
Not only is it still true, but the two cultures have united on a false, agreed-upon definition of what computers are. In this polite conspiracy the mem-bers of the two cultures, technical and
literary -- who rarely talk to each other -- have it all figured out.
Their false notion of computers is that they are Inhuman, Oppressive, Cold, Relentless; and that the somehow Reduce Everything to Mathematics.
One camp says "yessir, and I run ‘em", and the other camp says, "I want no part of it."
To throw things in a sharper light, let me refer to those with technical training as the Technoids (or Noids for short), and I will refer to those with a humanistic background, in literature, history, the arts, etc., as the Fluffies.
THE NOIDS
The technoids have an exagger-ated and caricatured notion of what constitutes clear-minded thinking, and never miss a chance to denounce other cognitive styles as "illogi-cal." Or to denounce people who have difficulty learning the compli-cated systems they, the technoids, dream up.
NOIDS' OUTLOOK
The technoids are usually hired guns, interested in the next complex problem they can get into. They generally have an obsession with favorite methods, and a negligible concern for history, art, literature or human freedom.
Indeed, some of them like to oppress (and some of this type get to head computer cen-ters eventually).
In a famous experiment, psy-chologist Stanley Milgram, wearing a white coat, instructed unsuspec-ting subjects, who thought they were merely paid assistants, to push but-
tons that would inflict terrible pain on others. To Milgram's cha-grin, nearly everyone followed in-structions without a qualm.
This in a way characterizes the Technoid mentality. If the govern-ment solicits bids on a Deterrent Weapons System that will selective-ly barbecue only the small children of an Aggressor Nation, the technoid will probably say Yes Sir, Can Do, What Color Do You Want the corpses? While the Fluffy who has read Sopho-cles and/or Tocqueville may be Slightly more likely to say, Wait a Minute...
"To Milgram's cha-grin, nearly everyone followed in-structions without a qualm." You may want to read https://www.psypost.org/audio-tapes-reveal-mass-rule-breaking-in-milgram-s-obedience-experiments-2026-03-26/ I found that via this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47555273 , and it may be worth reading the comments. Are these comments by "technoids" who have "exagger-ated and caricatured notion of what constitutes clear-minded thinking"?
I hang out on HN (handle is nz), more than any other forum. Clearly "Technoid" is itself a kind of caricature, meant to draw attention to certain deformities of thinking that we (the computer nerds) can fall into when we focus on our economic function without questioning it. The Nelson quote comes off as polemical (to me at least) but I like it nevertheless because it reminds me that most other people, especially those with humanistic/non-stem backgrounds can find our way of thinking alien and off-putting (and — in the limit — for good reason).
"galactic-beyond" / "nz" : I reread your original comment, and I apologize for missing this part:
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and I interpret this as "Technoids are the nerds, that business people and authority figures actually want; nerds that are somehow as unreflective as themselves."
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Definitions help so much, and what I complain about in my other comments is a lack of clarity on what the terms mean. What I do not see is a similar definition of “fluffies” because I wonder if they too are “unreflective.” Because to me, that is all that really matters. It could be that “technoids” and “fluffies” are no more than two flavors of cultists. No different than fanatics of sports team.
I brought up Milgram to you and Freud to DZM because so often we just assume we know the entire story, which is often more nuanced, and new parts of the story come to light all the time. Milgram is totted out just like Zombardo (which DZM does here https://davidzmorris.substack.com/p/the-rationalist-madness-of-sam-bankman ) and both are problematic (another HN link https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38648883 ).
/All/ of science is suffering from a reproducibility problem. Not just the “fluffier” social sciences. (I use “fluffier” here in the sense that social sciences are “softer” sciences, but that need not be a reason to dismiss them.) It is not because they are about the mind. Definitely not because they are “woke” (an idiotic dog whistle when used pejoratively). It is, I believe, because of a lack of government funding since Reagan for pure scientific studies of any kind–anything big and ambitious and possibly not “profitable.” Honestly, if you need to do a big study with a large sample size and a lot of data points, unless in the end you might have a cash-cow drug you can hold IP to and sell exclusively for 10 years, there just /is no money for it/. I mean, there is nothing different between a compound found extensively in nature that can be extracted extremely cheaply and one you can “create” and synthesize in a lab, except the latter can be readily patented and sold exclusively by you. The reproducibility problem hits the former, just as much as studies about, say, following authority to the point of fascist behavior.
So people hold so tightly Zombardo and Milgram. They have so little else to choose from. In both cases, I feel, the ones running the experiment influenced the results to the point of contamination. I doubt either group wanted to. But it happened. Not a problem if you can reproduce the experiment but be more careful, try again but avoid the same mistakes, etc. But then you have the problem of bigger sample sizes, more data points, more cost, no money.
I mean, I empathize with anyone who has to write about social science experiments. Should they have to put a disclaimer every time they point to one? “Of course, this was a study on twenty grad students over two weeks and one can’t be sure some p-hacking didn't happen because the methodology wasn't published ahead of time…” Honestly? Maybe. But regardless, when controversies come up, and boy does it seem like Freud had a lot of them, I do think you need to at least address them when you refer to their controversial results. Even if it weakens your argument. Because it shows you are not “unreflective.” The same as any AI booster on HN is, I believe, “unreflective” when they dunk on Ed Zitron for his “style” but don't want to debunk his claims or reporting (if they are even being genuine, I personally think astroturfing is happening, even though HN seems to be doing an admirable job compared to any other forum of its size or larger).
And it’s a bit ironic that AI also has a reproducibility problem because you can prompt for the same thing twice and get different answers. But of course, there's a lot more to it. The money today is in AI, the money a hundred years ago was in psychoanalysis. So, I'm more skeptical of the motives of the proponents of the former than the latter.
Cultists will cult. They'll cult about psychoanalysis (less so nowadays). They'll cult about TESCREALism. Otherwise, they're not all that different.
I have a lot of thoughts about cults, but those will have to wait. Reagan and his effect on funding and the economy (and society) is something I touch on in an essay I published a few days ago: https://galacticbeyond.com/two-percent-programmer/ . I basically analyzed degree completion rates from 1970 to 2011, and found a bunch of interesting things, one of which was that CS / informatics, was severely impacted by various government decisions, even though most of the funding for CS / informatics actually comes from industry (Bell Labs, PARC, etc) -- because the government is the biggest whale. Also, physics was permanently crippled by the slow-walk-failure of SSC. Also, if you look at the data, you'll find that since Reagan, both Social Science and Education cratered, while Business replaced both of them as the dominant degree-type. This new regime, where the dominant worldview of college educated people, was the business-worldview, instead of the previous humanistic/educational worldview, has endured for 30 years (as of 2011), and if the data still holds (did not get to it yet), then 45 years. Put differently, we stopped training educators and humanists, in order to train more merchants, and have been doing so for 30 to 45 years. Is it any wonder that people believe that the market can solve everything, if only the government gets out of the way?
Regarding unreflectiveness see this comment: https://davidzmorris.substack.com/p/andreessens-ignorance-agenda/comment/277477197
PS: The definitions are in his book, and I do not have it on hand at the moment.
I actually wasn't 100% sure that the defunding of big studies for pure science was due to Reagan, but I was pretty sure it was around that time, and blaming Reagan is usually a safer bet than anything you can find on Kalshi or Polymarket.