"We can be humble and live a good life with the aid of the machines, or be arrogant and die." - Dr. Norbert Wiener, 1949 newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/the-origin...
Pessimists Archive
@pessimistsarc.bsky.social
We explore and catalog the history of technophobia and moral panic. Our newsletter: http://newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
Unabomber manifesto had AI section Amusingly even Kaczynski couldn’t muster the intellectual arrogance to predict risk to all humankind, calling it unknowable His concern was lack of meaningful work, centralization of power & a ‘soft-liberal’ elite newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/the-unabom...
The Unabomber was an AI Doomer (Obviously)
Ted Kaczynski is dead. In this moment of hysteria about AI And its impact on civilisation, it is inevitable that debates about the merits of the ‘Unabomber Manifesto’ will move from the ideological fr...
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
Fears the Internet could be ruined by autonomous exploit finding software is not new. In 1995 there was a huge debate about whether open source exploit finding software should be allowed. newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/before-myt...
Before MYTHOS, SATAN: a 1990s Software Satanic Panic
In 1995 an app called 'SATAN' could find software vulnerabilities automatically, when its creators announced a public release panic ensued.
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
2026: The New York Times cites seriously academics who say AI might end the world 1881: The New York Times cites seriously academics who say telegraphy might end the world newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/telegraph-...
Telegraph Doomers of the 19th Century - Part 1
Like the web, telegraphy brought rapid changes in society along with very familiar anxieties and criticisms.
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
King Charles jumping on AI doomer bandwagon, he can’t resist a good panic!
This meeting is being organized by the Future of Life Institute TESCREAL doomsday cult. An org that was exposed funding Nazis as a means to an end. They’re dangerous and will do anything to ‘save humanity’ from the end times. expo.se/nyhet/elon-m...
Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 2w agoSteve Bannon and Bernie Sanders unite in AI safety call ft.trib.al/Qd8OU0U
2019: “GPT2 is groundbreaking in two ways. One is its size, says Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s research director. The models “were 12 times bigger, and the dataset was 15 times bigger and much broader” than the previous state-of-the-art AI model”
"The possible consequences of developments in nuclear physics were easier to predict in 1939, than are the possible consequences of gene transfer in 1974." (The Daily Telegraph, 1974)
When elites try to convince you a new technology is a threat to YOU, it is often because it is a threat to THEM
Pessimists Archive@pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 2w ago"The art of printing can be of great service in so far as it furthers the circulation of useful & tested books; but it can bring about serious evils… …it will, therefore, be necessary to maintain full control over the printers” - Pope Alexander VI, 1501
"The art of printing can be of great service in so far as it furthers the circulation of useful & tested books; but it can bring about serious evils… …it will, therefore, be necessary to maintain full control over the printers” - Pope Alexander VI, 1501
I needed some 1920s doomer stuff, naturally came here, and this was right at the top. Thank you for your service.
When a wrong prediction about technological change repeats through history consistently across large groups of people it is a sign a cognitive bias is at play. Example: automation and the lump of labor fallacy newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/robots-hav...
Robots Have Been About to Take All the Jobs for 100 Years
We will be exploring the history of fears about technological unemployment.
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
Happy Labour Day! In 1900 child labourers went on strike, novel reading was blamed: “Literary pabulum” dealing with “the rise from poverty to steam yachts” helped one boy convince others they “were being ground beneath the heels of financial despotism”
Wonder if this observed concern about children reading newspapers has little historical evidence because newspaper generally didn’t write negatively about themselves?
Pessimists Archive@pessimistsarc.bsky.social · last mo.1845: Man defends giving kids newspaper “There's a false opinion.. ..in regard to the influence of newspapers upon minds of children. An objection of the most silly character.” OBJECTION: Kids would "learn too much.. ..they'd become dissatisfied with home & want to go forth in world"
1845: Man defends giving kids newspaper “There's a false opinion.. ..in regard to the influence of newspapers upon minds of children. An objection of the most silly character.” OBJECTION: Kids would "learn too much.. ..they'd become dissatisfied with home & want to go forth in world"
When a new technology creates change in society in a similar way to what is replacing, you are going to see repeating psychological, sociological and political patterns. Many lessons to learn in those patterns!
2026: The Eiffel Tower is a romantic symbol of the good old days 1897: The Eiffel Tower is a techno-dystopian vanity project built by a tech-bro engineer newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/the-eiffel...
The Eiffel Tower was Called Techno-Dystopian
The Eiffel Tower is just as iconic of France as croissants and baguettes, and equally emblematic of Paris, standing alongside landmarks like Notre-Dame or the Arc de Triomphe.
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
2026: The Eiffel Tower is a romantic symbol of the good old days 1897: The Eiffel Tower is a techno-dystopian vanity project built by a tech-bro engineer newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/the-eiffel...
The Eiffel Tower was Called Techno-Dystopian
The Eiffel Tower is just as iconic of France as croissants and baguettes, and equally emblematic of Paris, standing alongside landmarks like Notre-Dame or the Arc de Triomphe.
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
Behold an inverted version of @pessimistsarc.bsky.social (which catalogs foolish statements by technophobes from the past). Here instead we have proclamations that, “If we only get TechnoX, everything will be sublime” — and now we’ve achieved X, but things... ain’t sublime. ordinaryabundance.com
Ordinary Abundance
A walk through a modern apartment, through the eyes of the people for whom everything in it was new.
ordinaryabundance.com
Parents yearn for the good old days of childhood for their kids, not realizing that was a brave new world for their parents.
A snapshot of concerns in first decade of 20th century.
Parents yearn for the good old days of childhood for their kids, not realizing that was a brave new world for their parents.
If you’re not hypervigilant in filtering out self interested, irrational hysteria that greets new technologies it is unlikely you’re going to successfully identify & mitigate any real downsides/risks of those new technologies. Path of least resistance is tropes driven by populists & protectionists
LONDON: All the radio waves in the air are turning women into men and men into women. CHICAGO: We’re gonna pump the air so full of radio waves until he becomes Gal Capone.
Pessimists Archive@pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 7mo ago"Wireless waves are making men more feminine and women more masculine, according to Miss Mary Strachan, a reputable psychologist, who thinks wireless induced etheric disturbances are responsible for some of the vagaries of modern youth" - El Paso Herald, September 15, 1925
Feels like people totally forgot widespread beeper bans in U.S. high schools and in some places age limits on owning them! newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org/p/the-forgot...
The Forgotten War on Beepers
30 years before parents and lawmakers sought to save youth from smartphones via age limits and bans in schools, a similar conversation took place about a pre-cursor to the cellphone: pagers Through th...
newsletter.pessimistsarchive.org
Ah, a simpler time. Effectively a quote post of bsky.app/profile/pess... but I wanted to the ALT text.
Pessimists Archive@pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 3mo ago“The men are spending too much time in looking up two-toed sloths and three-lettered Australian birds or attempting to tune in on Honolulu," - 1924
“The men are spending too much time in looking up two-toed sloths and three-lettered Australian birds or attempting to tune in on Honolulu," - 1924
He probably played too many violent nickelodeons and listened to victrolas. with hidden satanic messages.
Pessimists Archive@pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 3mo ago116 years ago - in 1910 - The New York Times reported on a case involving arson committed by a 12-year-old blamed on moving pictures
When are we finally going to learn and close the picture houses?!
Pessimists Archive@pessimistsarc.bsky.social · 3mo ago116 years ago - in 1910 - The New York Times reported on a case involving arson committed by a 12-year-old blamed on moving pictures
“The men are spending too much time in looking up two-toed sloths and three-lettered Australian birds or attempting to tune in on Honolulu," - 1924