[phorkyas82]

Slightly moving into the other direction, after 17 years of science and tech optimism I see myself turning into a Luddite more and more. First observation was that communication and social aspects of software seems crucial for success and proliferation. And next came: that technology seems inept to solve any socio-econimic problems, but rather aggravates them.

[margalabargala]

You and OP are talking about two different things. OP is talking about being able to build things that do things. You're talking about building things that make money.

[zouhair]

It's not technology that is the problem. It never was. It's Capitalism, always was the problem and always will. It's insane how Capitalism curtails innovation.

[frumplestlatz]

> It's insane how Capitalism curtails innovation.

There is an incredible irony in your typing that out on a device so advanced that it was beyond science fiction when I was growing up 40 years ago.

[stareatgoats]

The problem is that we are still in the pre-history of civilization. We make some basic mistakes, still. Some of them quite costly, others quite dangerous. As history advances we'll learn to fix it, as long as we don't fixate on just one thing. It's never just one thing.

[seanw444]

Capitalism is the worst economic framework, except all the others.

[consumer451]

I've been think about these broad critiques of Capitalism, and while I sometimes find myself nodding in at least partial agreement, I worry that it's far too blunt a critique.

If you look at Soviet or Chinese Communism, they also stifled innovation, and they also destroyed entire ecosystems. They also had extreme concentrations of power, which allowed psychopathic leaders to commit atrocities.

If we want to come up with real long-term solutions, maybe we need to be honest about underlying human traits, and address those via systematic controls. Otherwise, it feels like we are going to keep bouncing from extreme to extreme. That tendency towards extremes seems like another easily exploited human trait that needs to be identified and addressed.

I guess my point here is that maybe it's not entirely specific systems at fault here, as much as it is universal human traits and group dynamics.

Disclaimer: I thought we had already found the beginnings of an answer, and it was Social Democracy with a regulated market economy. However, this system appears not to be extreme enough for many people to get excited about it.