In the last year, I’ve spent about 200,000 words on a kind of personal journey where I’ve tried again and again to work out why everything digital feels so broken, and why it seems to keep getting worse, despite what tech’s “brightest” minds might promise. More

Pretty convincing explanation of why we should hold Silicon Valley morally accountable for their shitty management. As usual, Ed could have stood to be a little more Marxist; in particular, there is a reason why enshittification and rot naturally happens to companies as they age, and it’s precisely the tendency for profits to decline over time!

Bonus sneer: it got double-secret-shadow-banned on HN; here is the submission. Cowards.

  • gerikson@awful.systemsEnglish
    8·
    7 days ago

    I honestly had no idea of the original Russian meaning of the gloss. To me “refusenik” implies some sort of hard-left hippie.

    Edit finally went and read the linked article.

    Schneier and Sanders:

    We agree with Morozov that the “refuseniks,” as he calls them, are wrong to see AI as “irreparably tainted” by its origins.

    Morozov:

    Meanwhile, a small but growing group of scholars and activists are taking aim at the deeper, systemic issues woven into AI’s foundations, particularly its origins in Cold War–era computing. For these refuseniks, AI is more than just a flawed technology; it’s a colonialist, chauvinist, racist, and even eugenicist project, irreparably tainted at its core.

    But the original term was not for people refusing to take an action - it was the state refusing to allow their actions! It’s done a 180, but considering no-one now remembers the plight of Soviet Jews attempting to emigrate to Israel it’s not that strange.