pnictogen-wing

The Pnictogen Wing

@pnictogen-wing

  • they/them

plural system in Seattle, WA (b. 1974)
lots of fictives from lots of media, some horses, some dragons, I dunno. the Pnictogen Wing is poorly mapped.

host: Mx. Kris Dreemurr (they/them)

chief messenger and usual front: Mx. Chara or Χαρά (they/them)

other members:
Mx. Frisk, historian (they/them)
Monophylos Fortikos, unicorn (he/him)
Kel the Purple, smol derg (xe/xem)
Pim the Dragon, Kel's sister (she/her)

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pnictogen-wing
@pnictogen-wing

I think of how we used to be. we believed in technology

whoever we were in 1992. a different person—maybe even barely a person at all. a clever adolescent science nerd, thinking that technology and computers and "science" (and science fiction) was gonna save the world.

it was a betrayal. I might as well have spit in our RL mom's eye. she was from Allende's Chile; she probably once had some technological optimism of her own—Allendism was big on that stuff (q.v. "Project Cybersyn": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn). do you think that, by the end of 1973, she believed in it any more? do you think she had any reason to believe that computers were somehow going to make the world a better place?

she wanted justice, and she wanted her children to fight for it. and we didn't. at least my sibling tried harder than I did, and cared more. I am so late to this fight, and so inadequate. I feel such shame.

~Chara of Pnictogen

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in reply to @pnictogen-wing's post:

ireneista
@ireneista

<3

we spent a couple years soul-searching on this topic

we concluded, in the end, that we still believe in the dream of making the world better by building things

it's just, the dream itself is deathly ill and needs our help. that help cannot simply be in the form of building things, there is a lot of other stuff that is needed to drive meaningful change in the world. a lot of talking, a lot of feelings, a lot of fighting.

everyone reaches this stuff in their own time and in their own way. we're ashamed of how long it took us, but the important thing is the future, not the past. we're in this together.

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ireneista
@ireneista

as Cory Doctorow says, destroying machines was the Luddites' tactic, not their goal. they were advancing serious ethical concerns, including labor concerns. they got portrayed as being against progress because the winner writes history.

<3 this stuff is so, so, so hard. it's still quite emotional for us as well. you're not alone.

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MisutaaAsriel
@MisutaaAsriel

There's no shame in that belief; adding on to my rechost here, a lot of people are lured in to the sense that the progression of technology itself is enough for it to change the world.

This unwritten assumption that computers, nay, technology as a whole, are *inherently good, and that even when used to do bad, as long as they continue to progress, it is enough.

An assumption that is intentionally fed by the powers at be, both inside and outside the field of technology. An assumption that abdicates them from all responsibility, as long as their actions are in pursuit of furthering technology "for the greater good".

There was someone we're both familiar with, who did something quite similar. Who advocated for atrocities in the name of bettering their kind… who hid behind progress to shield themselves from their actions…

But there's no shame in falling for it. Bait is meant to be taken. It just means you're alive. The best you can do is learn, and grow, and recognize the signs for the next time.

To realize that technology only makes the world a better place in so far as the people operating it do so with such an intent.

Keep your chin up. We're all in this world together.

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pnictogen-wing
@pnictogen-wing

"a lot of people are lured in to the sense that the progression of technology itself is enough for it to change the world." yes, that's a central problem, especially because "progression" is such a loaded word—who gets to measure whether some technological development is really "progress" or not? simply because it happens at all? the STEM nerds have been conditioned to think of "progress" as merely an inevitable function of technological development, a line always pointing upwards, like "Moore's Law" (which is NOT an absolute law of nature.) ~Chara

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