Varoufakis’ ‘Technofeudalism’

Wasn’t sure where to put this. Has anyone read this? Popular economics, I guess, if such a genre exists. I started this thread after wondering if anyone knows of any such books that, for lack of a better word, inspire optimism once finished? As this one certainly does not, though I thought it was framed in an interesting way, and I’m glad that kind of thing exists (though I’d still rather read raw Marx).

The new Coppola movie Megalopolis is optimistic about the future. I felt upbeat after watching it. It is also a bit of a mishegoss. I liked the big party scene in which Adam Driver stumbles around drunk and Vesta sings a beautiful harmony with multiple versions of herself. The rest is kind of hit or miss.

I wouldn't call the movie "hit or miss" by any means. It's an entirely experimental film, and I think kind of the point is showing how ossified film syntax has become over the last 100 years.

I get that not everyone will see it with that perspective, but imho it's the only way to truly fully appreciate what Coppola has accomplished here.

A: People can dislike it while still having an appreciation for experimental filmmaking.

B: WE KNOW YOU WOULDN'T CALL IT HIT OR MISS. We heard you twenty years before the movie came out.

Exactly. Interesting failures are still failures, and talking about why something audacious doesn't entirely work is a big part of why audacity is valuable in the first place.

That's when it can be called a hot mess. Experimentalism is a genre, and every genre has successes and failures. If the experimentation doesn't hold together, it's just random nothingness and pretentiousness.

Which parts of Megalopolis didn't work for you?

If your goal is to challenge specific parts that he might not like, then it's not gonna work. I don't know whether or not he's seen it yet, but if your reply is "don't judge something you haven't seen," he's not. He, like me, is judging the way you defend the film.

Besides, shouldn't all this be moved to the Megalopolis thread, anyway?

Out of respect for the OP, I would respectfully suggest we take the convo about Megalopolis to the thread for that.

Getting back to the OP, I found something interesting about "techno feudalism":

I know that may be just a small aspect of it, but it jumps out because I think a lot of people may in fact be falling to this kind of feedback loop, at last when it comes to suggestions for what to "watch next" on your favorite streamer.

I avoid any and all algorithm-based suggestions asidiously - I would recommend the same to others.

Okay, so not economics, but the non-fiction book Traffic is very inspiring in showing that people can work together to create systems that work and are overall beneficial for the people operating inside of them.

Do you mean this?



If so, I'll second that. Very good book, with some really interesting social concepts that have applications well beyond the titular. The most interesting, for me, was the idea that people don't just have a ceiling for risk tolerance, but a floor as well.

Oh, that’s entirely fair, and I’m not even getting into any discussion of techno feudalism per se (personally, I’m very analogue/old school, I have a list of books I’ve been compiling manually for years and pick my reading from there, same with films, my music is my own, pirated in mp3s).

Actually, having spent many years thinking about the perplexing phenomenon of streaming and how it’s all only ever just rent, that’s the aspect that stands out to me the most (hence we can now engineer non-pc scenes of old out of existence and one no longer has an ‘original’ hard copy to even go back to and compare, make sure that pre-airbrushing version wasn’t a hallucination).

I read a lot of news for work and am aware that my news feed is for sure entirely manufactured, though I understand the sector well enough that by using different logins, VPNs and whatnot, I can usually observe the news cycle from many different perspectives/have it tailored to a persona that’s not me, inasmuch as that’s possible.

I have also noticed the recent additions in Google when I research a film/screening times — out of all the times Google said ‘based on your preferences, you’ll LOVE this’, it hasn’t been right once. Literally not once. But hey, perhaps it will evolve. Overall, though, as I don’t use social media at all (apart from LinkedIn), I only experience a very limited degree of that. There was a hilarious article in The Atlantic a few months ago where the writer kept coming across the same ad offering to help treat dog piles; he doesn’t have a dog and, to his knowledge, has never researched anything that would suggest he did. I kind of feel like I’m in the same category in the sense that when things are suggested to me, I find them baffling. But yes, I’m with you in that one should avoid algorithm-based suggestions.

P.S. I don’t mind the Megalopolis talk here, but I haven’t managed to watch this yet (stressful few weeks, I kept trying and failing, business trip and all, and I thought watching Megalopolis in Dutch is a bit much). But yes, I meant books of a similar genre that instil a sense of optimism, so the film does feel a bit left field here.

Thank you for the rec, @Takoma11— on my list now.

There are many reasons why Google has become really problematic in recent years - haven't used it in ages. I think there are much better search engines out there, and it's fairly easy to replace it in places where it is embedded.

That’s fair — I do use others too, DuckDuckGo etc., but as far as work is concerned, Google is fine and it keeps things nicely separated for me.

I only recommended Megalopolis because “futuristic” and “sense of optimism”. I haven’t read a book in years because of technologically induced adhd.

I think that would be a fascinating subject all on its own - can/does technology help or hurt the neurodivergent?

(Not saying that needs to be discussed in this thread, in particular)

Makes sense — I do get that. I had a few years when I wasn’t really reading, though even then I believe I managed to get through Huckleberry Finn, of all things. But it did feel like I could only handle classics.

I did start reading a lot again last year and ****, it feels glorious. I’m actually prepared to be more selective with what I watch if it means I get to read more.

When you do get to reading a book, do you prefer print or reading apps?

I am very analogue here, too. I have never in my life read a book on an app or a kindle. I do read an awful lot on my phone (full back-to-back issues of The Atlantic, which I adore, WSJ, the New Yorker, all that jazz). But I only ever read physical paperback books, and as I said elsewhere, I adore long books, lugging them around to coffee shops, buying special page markers, etc.