Blaming the technology is what's unfair. You can go back in history and see the luddite movement or Marx's theory of alienation to describe exactly the same issues in the industrial revolution, do you think we should have used that to stop technological progress in 1896?

Of course you always want a job that's easy and physical and natural, but you also want all the niceties of modern society.

There are also many choices available if you want to live in a low tech world of the past, you actually have a lot of influence on how much technology you want in your life, work wise as well, it's just that people of course don't want to make any sacrifices on the good things that tech and modern society brings. Just eat the cake and have it too, how hard can it be.

I want all the niceties of modern society to include high quality widely available single-payer health care, sane non-captured media, politicians who are responsible to voters and not to corporations and extremely rich individuals, significant social investment in education and basic research, no forced personal debt, climate stability, and no indirect incentives which reward crime as a workable path out of extreme poverty.

As you say - how hard can it be?

Having a utopia is impossible hard, and those issues you want to solve are literally the same fundamental problems that have existed since the dawn of civilisation, they are not caused by technology, and destroying computers in the office and insisting on only using rubber stamps and fax machines is not going to help in any way.

It's not possible to truly know the counterfactual. However it is clear that technological progress could have been directed toward the utopia. Instead, social inequality in big parts of the Western world is on the rise, with many people getting poorer.

Technology holds the promise of solving fundamental problems, right? And I think it's good to have high expectations for technological progress.

And yes there is at least a hint of technological solutions exacerbating the fundamental problem arising from the human condition. Social media for one seems to be a radically different form or quantity of communication. I find it easy to see that things have gone a little haywire.

> Technology holds the promise of solving fundamental problems, right?

I don't think so, I think it only amplifies the human condition, in a neutral way.

Non-profit organisations are benefitting from technology just the same as profit driven ones.

The free software movement has quite literally put the means of production in the hands of the workers, and it didn't lead to a communist utopia this time either.

The internet can be seen as evil in china because it's used for censorship and propaganda, and good in the west because it's used for freedom and democracy.

> utopia

Or 'Europe' as we call it.

Sure, moving to Europe sounds like a pretty reasonable approach if you want to have more socialism, as opposed to revolting against computers.

Europe is not less efficient and they are not against computers, it's just a different type of redistribution politics, technology is entirely neutral in these matters.

The problem is that the size of both your home and your paycheck will be cut in half, it's always a tradeoff.

It's not so much about more socialism, it's more that the US is wrestling with problems we've completely forgotten about (e.g. decent food).

There are plenty of big homes, and big paychecks in Europe - but, as they say, 'so poor that all they have is money!'

Americans like to believe that social democratic countries just conjure up more stuff for everyone by means of politics, so they can have more benefits, or that they actually take it from the rich.

In reality it's a really tough compromise where it's the working middle class that pays the price for the equality, and then people are not so interested anymore for some reason..