A thread about why you should always check to see who is funding the podcasts, tweets, and other media you consume. Even the apparently apolitical stuff. 1/

There’s a podcast/twitter feed I enjoyed once. They look at how technologies that are now commonplace were greeted when they were new, and they often come up with funny stories. Bicycles will destroy the family. Comic books turn kids into criminals. That sort of thing. 2/

This was fun for a while. But it soon got stale. Because that is all they do: Dig up a fear expressed long ago that looks silly today, mock, repeat. 3/

I found it strange that the show was so one-sided. I’m pretty familiar with the history of technology and there’s so much more to how people perceived new tech. Sometimes fears expressed about new technologies were reasonable, if later shown to be unfounded. Sometimes ... 4/

...they were right. And sometimes people happily embraced new technologies that were later shown to be seriously harmful (think cigarettes, leaded gasoline, and radium girls). None of this was ever mentioned. 5/

The only message, pounded over and over and over again, is that concerns about new technologies are silly. That isn’t history. It’s not even all that entertaining, given how repetitive it is. So why were they so relentlessly one-sided?
6/

I checked the website, clicked on “about,” and scrolled down to the bottom of the page and found a small listing for “sponsors.” Three were listed. One is an app. Another is an AI software company. The third is “the Charles Koch Foundation.” 7/

Now I’m not one of those people who thinks Charles Koch is the high priest of the Illuminati. But no tinfoil hate is required to think that the multi-billionaire owner of a vast industrial conglomerate has a stake in how people perceive new technologies. And... 8/

... dismissing all concerns about technologies as silly is very much in line with that self-interest. 9/

The point is underscored by the Cato Institute. It’s one of Washington’s best-funded think tanks and it has a large and sophisticated project (see http://humanprogress.org ) promoting a roughly similar message. 10/

NB I do not have a contrary ideological axe to grind. Quite the opposite. As I've written many, many times, I believe we are the safest, healthiest, wealthiest humans who ever lived and we should be grateful to be, in the immortal words of Jesus Jones, right here, right now. 11/

I also believe that many modern fears of new technologies are unfounded or overblown — mostly for reasons I wrote about in Risk — and we need to restrain them if we are to continue the wonderful trend of human progress.
12/

But those are sweeping generalizations that don’t capture the immense complexity of reality. Just as there were, in the past, fears that were reasonable but later disproven, and there were things we should have feared but did not, the reality we face today is much more... 13/

... multi-faceted than “everything is great so don’t worry about technology, you silly people.” 14/

So I’m actually somewhat on-side with Charles & Co. But I don’t care for gross simplifications of reality. And I think people deserve to know — up front, not buried in fine print — when ostensibly apolitical information sources are funded by powerful vested interests. 15/

Thus endeth my sermon. (And no, I’m not going to name the podcast because 1) you can easily figure it out if you wish, 2) the point is general, not particular to that one source, and 3) I don’t want to give them oxygen.) 16/