Silicon valley and “neo-neoplatonism”

In this article by the belgian blogger Ploum, he argues quite strongly against platonism and neoplatonism, philosophies that separate the physical world from the “world of ideas” and placing the latter hierarchicaly above1. Mister Ploum has himself quite the opposite stance: do we shape our thoughts, or are they shaping us? When you think about it (ha), it’s hard to argue that every action is preceded by much thought, if at all. It’s also hard to argue that your thinking is wholly detached from the material world and the experience you have of it. Like, if I’m writing right now it’s not quite only because I decided it; mostly, it’s because my thoughts and the values and principles I hold dear make me do this choice. If I did have a choice2 here, I would probably be doing something else. Something easier and more immediately rewarding, probably.

Anyway, Ploum also elaborates by discussing “neo-neoplatonism”, a philosophy where nothing matters anymore except ideas. And it’s pushed by the Silicon valley more that ever with AI, which is advertised as a means of delegating everything - except having ideas. Just tell the AI what to do, it’ll figure it out by itself! Why would you want to think by yourself, or learn, or work for anything? This is obviously a very dystopian world, because it wouldn’t actually reward the people with the best ideas (everyone has ideas all the time), but the ones with the power - the money - to have those ideas be realised by other people.

https://ploum.net/2025-10-27-outil-va-faire-de-moi.html

Our tools are never neutral

I had actually read this piece a few months ago, but it came to mind again when reading the article above. And I read it again, because even though it had made a great impression on me the first time, I couldn’t quite remember enough about it. It’s author, Frank Elavsky, is also angry, but this time at people who say that “AI is just a tool - it matters how you use it”. By way of philosophy, he argues that tools are, in fact, never “just tools”. That it is always important to think about what are tools do, not just in the immediate sense of the word but, as M. Elavsky puts it, as “highly complex parts of life and culture”. The invention of cars, for exemple, has constrained our city design and much of how we live, and has had numerous consequences3 that we’re trying to undo today.

Even a much more simpler tool that an AI or a car isn’t necessarily neutral. Citing Anna Gyllenklev, the article notes that even chairs communicate an intention to us: not just to sit, but to do it in a certain way.

Anyway, this article is (somewhat) long and complex, which is what I enjoyed about it. So instead of badly rehashing it, I would absolutely recommend that you give it a read.

https://www.frank.computer/blog/2025/05/just-a-tool.html

Why plastic recycling is hard, actually (spoiler : it’s mostly capitalism)

In my mind, plastic recycling efforts has always been hampered by a vague resistance I imagined coming from a Big Plastic of sorts, although I never quite read up on anything related. In my defense, it’s all too easy to find various - sometimes criminal - scandals involving large companies exploiting, polluting, and trying to hide what they’re doing.

So I tried to get up to speed with this part-interview video, where Hank Green explains a few things. Like the fact that there are different types of plastic that don’t recycle the same way, or that it can be pretty difficult to separate plastic from other materials that are used with it. Mostly though, he explains that new plastic is “dirt cheap”, due to the fact that the thing we use to make it is a by-product of natural gas extraction, which the US has a lot of. And given that this thing4 has practicaly no use except in making plastic, well here we are.

Honestly, I always have a hard time with economically-oriented explanations like this: shouldn’t we making rules that favor long-term sustainability instead of short-term gains? Do we need this much plastic? Is this not another point in favor of changing the system instead of endlessly amending it? At least the video then turns into a mostly optimistic dialog about the future of plastic recycling and what is already done in the field. Far from perfect, but a direction we desperately need to take.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=325HdQe4WM4

  1. This is a very crude and probably only somewhat true summary of those philosophies, I know. Sorry philosophers. Will do better next time. ↩︎

  2. “You always have a choice”: sure, you can always make the wrong choice. But if you apply the principle of charity to what people say, I believe you’ll understand that those aren’t usually conceived as “real” choices. ↩︎

  3. Our dependency on oil and gas, a dramatic shrink in public transport, dramatic building and maintenance costs for every infrastructure our cars depend on (roads, garages, parking lots, refineries, boats to transport the oil…), and this is probably just the beginning of it. ↩︎

  4. No I’m not going back to the video to remember what it’s called. Yes I’m lazy. ↩︎