What can web developers learn from the industrialisation of farming?
2022-03-27 12:30:00 +07:00 by Mark Smith
Stuff You Should Know published an interesting episode all about the chicken farming industry. It’s a really great piece, I encourage you to go and listen to it.
The truth between Cage-free and Free-range (Stuff You Should Know Podcast)
I was appalled to learn about how horrendous the conditions are for those animals. It’s shocking to learn about some of the practices that we have developed while industrialising farming, that are normal in our societies. It’s good that people are reconsidering some of these norms.
It also got me thinking about our future with the forward march of technological innovation. We are building ever more complex technologies. Here’s the thought process I can’t seem to shake:
Anyone can write software
We can build virtual environments
There exist people that have industrialised extremely cruel animal farming
Those people will use similar techniques on other people, it’s going to happen, it’s just a matter of time
It might not be as visually obvious as chicken cages, in fact it’s likely that it would be designed to fit in our societies and appear normal.
How would we detect instances of people being raised using battery farming techniques?
How would we get out of such a situation if we were already in such a situation?
What about related concepts like bullying? How will that be in the future?
Very relevant and really worth listening to, especially if you are into psychology:
The Dangers of Concept Creep (The Art of Manliness Podcast)
I think it's worth trying to imagine this sort of thing because ultimately the thing we are farming with the world wide web and the metaverse is ourselves.
Let's imagine a better future for everyone.