Technology

What I like about this interview is that it demonstrates the absurd, thought-terminating clichés that modern elites use...and Acemoğlu just steamrolls them. Like this:

DER SPIEGEL: But it is true that humankind has indeed benefited a lot from new technologies.

Acemoğlu: That is the reason we have to go so far back in history. The argument that you just gave is wrong. In the past, we’ve always had struggles over the uses of innovation and who benefits from them. Very often, control was in the hands of a narrow elite. Innovation often did not benefit the broad swaths of the population.

There was no argument. A sentence does not an argument make. But regular people trying to argue from a similar perspective would say "...well, yes, but..." whereas Acemoğlu is just like "Nope. You're wrong."

Edit: After a several hours and many responses, it demonstrates that the terminating cliché of "...but humanity has benefited from progress" isn't a counter-argument. What are the premises of the asserted conclusion? Had Der Spiegel been more clear about how he'd arrived at that conclusion in context, the conversation would've been significantly easier to follow. So, remember that: don't just assert shit; explain yourself.