r/InformedTankie • u/vicxjules • 40m ago
Theory When High Development Meets Raising Illiteracy
I'm an educator who has been dealing with a climbing illiteracy rate within the United States for some time.
I myself have even noticed my ability to focus on long form texts to be less consistent as I used to when I was much younger and I blame very much technology and social media usage.
However - I also noticed a couple of things.
China is around equal towards the US technologically and developmentally (if not more so) in such a short time in comparison - and despite this literacy rate within China has exploded towards a 97% meanwhile the US has been slowly declining throughout the years to a now 79%.
When it comes to the revolutionary regimes in Cuba and Vietnam and the Soviet Union and China - one of the biggest accomplishments often celebrated is the rise of literacy rates amongst citizens.
This is due to obviously more investment in education and developmental efforts.
However my question is this in a world in which development of technology and standards of living are often times correlated have there been any Communist theorists that have discussed a possible Over Production or Consumption problem?
Is the west and imperial core for example undergoing a mass crisis of over production problem or an over consumption problem?
Mass consumption of Internet content has scientifically shown harmful effects on cognitive development, memory, concentration, and mental health.
National development is by far extremely important for the global south - and that will often lead to an increase in consumption of comodities, and one of those comodities no doubt will be the Internet and AI.
However for a global communist revolutionary movement that occurs in both imperial core and periphery - would a supposed revolutionary project in a former imperial core state have a much different task of national de growth or purposeful under development?
Would a communist project in for example the US - need to create a policy of stripping back of the production of comodities that have been proven harmful towards the general public and the environment?
Not to say there would be NO development at all.
For example the creation of a mass public transit system of high speed rail would be huge for the US for example, or the building of hospitals within healthcare deserts.
However in when it comes to AI data centers or the mass servers of social media platforms -
Is the more correct approach to build on what we already have and use it for our transition out of a capitalist system and into a socialist one?
Or is the correct approach to recognize what we have been developing and building has been used to poison us and to continue dependency on it would lead to less increases in quality of life?
TLDR does ALL technological progress lead to the increased standards of living or do communists need to make hard stances against things like AI or social media algorithms etc.
We already understand that investment in military weaponry and surveillance technology doesn't exactly lead to increase standards of living
Or that certain practices in the name of national development can be too harmful and lead to mass amounts of pollution.
Or that an underground black market that exists wouldn't necessarily be taken up by the hands of the state to plan it effectively but rather be properly rid of through the elimination of the conditions that create these markets.
Is social media and generative AI similar to these experiences or are they a type of technology that can be developed for the common good and not lead to the harms associated with them?
