Hi everyone!
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments in the last section. You raised some really good points about the uneven distribution of resources from environmental cleanup to military funding. I wanted to start with Science Under the Scope, because I think it unveils the reality in how our environments (not just natural, think social systems too) shape our reality. It’s much more palatable to believe that science is neutral and that large institutions (academia, government, large corporations) have our best interest in mind, but we see the reality now.
Your classmate Annah raised a very important point about how people might be “drawn to these industries that typically more privileged groups benefit from (ex: consumer electronics, pharmaceutical services)… as a way of getting a share of the pie, especially if we do not have the same privileges of the wealthier groups heavily profiting off our labor…” and also how we “follow the wealthy out of necessity and generational values.”
What if we decided to make a different pie entirely? A pie that was abundant and not deficient? Capitalism and whiteness will always be extractive and create unbalanced hierarchies; that is their function. Is there a way for people to experience abundance outside of these systems? What if we put our energies into crafting that type of world? There are people already working towards a world outside these rotting constructs. We can look to Black women and femmes who have been sharing with us Afrofuturistic dreams forever.
In Octavia Butler’s science fiction, there is room for disable Black femmes, they are often the heroines. This isn’t a literature course, but I highly recommend reading any of Butler’s post-apocalyptic work where the systems that were in place failed and it’s up to the true innovators to create something new.
Okay maybe that was a bit of a tangent from our text, but it’s all connected. I had a friend come over for dinner a few weeks ago, they’re a designer, and they challenged me to think about how much my life is impacted by other people’s decisions. They said “look at your phone, Steve Jobs and his team designed that, would you have done it differently?” Olivia McKayla Ross is doing some very cool work as a “cyber doula” – I didn’t get into the course, but I love this question she poses (ig link) “what if software was made by people who love us?”
For this week, let’s finish up Science Under the Scope sections nine, ten, and eleven. And please respond to any two of the questions I posed to you in this module (lol I posed a lot). I want to hear from you!
Next week we’ll change gears a bit and look at some writing in the field of engineering so that we can practice the form.
Thanks everyone!
Question 1: Capitalism and whiteness will always be extractive and create unbalanced hierarchies; that is their function. Is there a way for people to experience abundance outside of these systems?
Of course there is a way for people to experience abundance outside of capitalism an whiteness but unfourntalety the system is designed to see the working class stay where there.
Despite the fact that the proportion of workers earning poverty wages has decreased over the last three decades, there are still significant racial and ethnic disparities in the proportion of workers earning appropriate pay. Workers of color are considerably more likely than white workers to be given poverty wages. According to David cooper in 2017, 8.6% of white workers were paid poverty wages, which are hourly rates that would put them below the federal poverty threshold for their family size if they were the primary breadwinner, even if they worked full-time all year. In comparison, 19.2 percent of Hispanic workersand 14.3 percent of black workers were given poverty wages.
Question 2: What if software was made by people who love us?
If software was created by people who loved us technology would not be as advanced as it is now. There might be be some benefits of software developers being loved ones but the cons just out weigh the pros. We would only develop software that makes it reliant for family members or relatives which would neglect everyone else.
Answer 1 : In order to obtain abundance outside of capitalism and whiteness ,
Science should evoke research that people of colors or low status people could benefit from and also creating equity through science .
People of color could also conduct their own research in order to beat the system in order to find strategies to take control over how science is using poor people to their benefits
Answer 2 : It would be more reliable and trustful if it was made by the people who loves us because they will add materials throughout the software that will guide us to a better world where there is less violence. it would probably be limited between the love ones and thats also why it would create a barrier between love and hate meaning there will be less hate and violence
1: What if we decided to make a different pie entirely?
As the world currently stands and operates, even in making a different pie, there will be groups who are left out from having a piece of it. This is not to be pessimistic of the pursuit of a new pie,; it is necessary to progress towards a world where every cut of the pie is equal due to the equitable practices that exist. However, making a different pie would be extremely difficult given the societal construct at the moment, which breeds off of the vicious nature of capitalism. For one to thrive, inevitably someone else is brought down, or at least the gap between the two widens. Therefore, making a new pie is idealistic in its nature, but unrealistic without an insurmountable change to how the world progresses and what said ‘progress’ truly means and stems from.
2: Look at your phone, Steve Jobs and his team designed that, would you have done it differently?
The tricky aspect of this question is that humans by nature cannot and will not stay idle, and with time it has become impossible for us as a society to resist progress. While each new model of the iPhone profits off slight upgrades to its mechanisms, one can’t ignore how much resource it has brought to the common man. A device allowing one to engage with peers internationally, film high-resolution videos without the need of an expensive camera, and much more. By itself, I see no harm in the progress of phones. The sole aspect I would do differently is how much information, time, and attention it attracts from us with the use of cookies, lucrative apps, and data tracking. While such information is used to upgrade the phone each time, it’s disheartening to see it happen at the expense of one’s digital security.
Question 1: What if we decided to make a different pie entirely? A pie that was abundant and not deficient?
In order to create a new abundant pie, minorities who often heed to the desires of the more affluent individuals would have to realize the amount of power they could potentially have by working together. In many instances, privileged groups obtain and retain their power by taking advantage of minority groups. However, if minority groups cease to please privileged individuals, then they wouldn’t be as powerful. Although it seems quite easy, there are many obstacles to forming an alignment with this utopian ideal. One of the main ones being employment. A possible solution to this is simultaneously organizing an upheaval by creating our own jobs and once there is a point of profitability, individuals can leave their other jobs.
Question 2: What if software was made by people who love us?
If software was made by people who love us, then the goal would be to mitigate addiction, and maximize health benefits. Most of the time the goal of software is to increase the usage time in order to maximize profit. Usually, advertisements are the main source of profit. However, in order to still have profit while promoting the health of consumers, softwares can find alternative methods of obtaining profit. For example, maybe instead of having profit measured by usage time, it could be measured by the amount of users.