The End of the Internet Dream • Hacker News Board

Re: The End of the Internet Dream

#91

Post by kristofferR » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 9:35 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #52

necessity wrote: post #44

Again with this "there aren't as many women in computing/politics/NASCAR/mining industry as there should be" bullshit. I'll just paste previous comments because it's always the same irrational shit people like to vomit to get an audience. Why are there so few male manicures? Why so few male babysitters? Why so few female NASCAR drivers? Why so few female in the army? Why so few male in the wedding dress business? We…

I decided to ignore that angle in order to not start a gender shitstorm this time and detract from a lot of interesting points made in that talk, but I believe the author basically answers herself but doesn't even notice it: "Many of the most successful security experts never went to college, or even finished high school. A statistically disproportionate number of you are on the autism spectrum." She says there are m…

Yeah, that the patriachy keeps women from being properly socially inept is basically what the author is implying.

Re: The End of the Internet Dream

#92

Post by sevensor » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 9:37 AM UTC

austerity wrote: post #36

Good article. However I don't understand why so many smart people fear decision-making machines. In my experience the decision makers in bureaucracies, government and private alike, never ever show the "humanity" ascribed to them in arguments about this issue. Instead they follow their instruction (which is actually a program written in human language) to the letter and are usually so obtuse and unempathetic it seems…

The dream of decision-making machines has been with us for 70 years, since Wiener wrote Cybernetics in the '40s, but it keeps falling flat. Ultimately, computers remain a tool, no matter how sophisticated, and they will never be capable of reason. Tasked with implementing a policy, they will implement it deterministically, based only on the available input data, without judgment or context. You may implement a very complicated policy by training an artificial neural network, but that doesn't make it any less deterministic or provide it with powers of reason. It just means that you've succeeded in creating a policy you don't understand.

As for bureaucrats, like everyone I've had my share of bad experiences. But it's just not the case that they're uniformly bad. If you've ever had an airline agent find a creative way to get you on a flight, or a doctor prescribe medicine for a needed off-label use, or someone at the motor vehicle department decide you don't need to fill that form out again, you've seen human judgement and context in action. Even bad bureaucracies have good bureaucrats sometimes.

Re: The End of the Internet Dream

#93

Post by shrikant » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 9:44 AM UTC

mdpopescu wrote: post #66

spython wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is great fun, when any previous authority is replaced by the logic of the market. What thrives, they say, deserves to thrive, what fails, deserves to fail. Their argument is, if people really wanted a better world, they would have it already. Which is of course foolish, the market doesn't care about good or evil.

"The market" is people. You just said that people don't care about good or evil. I submit that this is an exaggeration.

In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is a process whereby larger entities, patterns, and regularities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities that themselves do not exhibit such properties.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

Re: The End of the Internet Dream

#94

Post by Decade » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 10:02 AM UTC

As a lawyer, I don't think Granick appreciates just how the Internet has become a realm of haves and have-nots.

She talks about right to tinker and end-to-end communications. Back in the 90s, I played with HTTP and SMTP services on my Mac. It was just install a program and go. No root permissions for special ports. No configuring port forwarding, because even on dial-up I had a global IP address. And HTTP was a simple text protocol. Network protocols these days are so complex, I don't know how kids learn how they work.

One essential component is IPv6. I perceived that centralized control would be a problem as soon as I heard about how NAT works, but short-term costs have kept IPv6 inaccessible. This is an immense frustration.

Re: The End of the Internet Dream

#95

Post by eevilspock » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 10:05 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #82

escherize wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in doing so, you create a larger market for anti newer-shittier-spam ads, with the potential to erase ads for anyone who cares enough.

Which is strictly worse than not creating that market at all. It's just resources going to waste over the pointless zero-sum games, and that's exactly another reason where "satisfying user needs" doesn't cut it as a justification.

I admire your perseverance T. The doctrine that the free market leads to truth is difficult to dispel.

Re: The End of the Internet Dream

#96

Post by simonh » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 10:12 AM UTC

beatpanda wrote: post #72

forrestthewoods wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it not compatible? The profit driven world has lifted more humans out of poverty than any other system by leaps and bounds.

"Poverty" is a relative condition that couldn't exist without Capitalism. There is no objective state of poverty anyone has been lifted out of by Capitalism.

That's complete rubbish. Anthropologists and historians use measures in terms of nutrition, health, life expectancy, child mortality and leisure time that apply regardless of the economic system in operation and track changes over time in order to characterize changes in lifestyle. You can set benchmarks to characterize poverty regardless of whether the population in question live in an agrarian, capitalist, Marxist or whatever system. Arguing that the massive objective improvements in living standards generated in capitalist economies somehow don't count on obscure technical semantic grounds is pure Marxist* sophistry.

* It occurs to me that it's possible you might not be a Marxist, but the argument you're making is one often put forward by Marxists, along the lines that capitalism by establishing monetary systems to measure capital establish scales on which poverty is measured and therefore create that poverty. Of course every Marxist society ever created has also used a monetary system to measure and allocate capital. But then Marx never, in any of his publications or letters, ever described how a communist economy would actually function so obviously building one has proven somewhat problematic.

Re: The End of the Internet Dream

#97

Post by TeMPOraL » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 10:18 AM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #53

zipwitch wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A decent future for humanity is not compatible with a profit-driven world. The solution is to end the profit driven world in a way that will lead to a better future, because like it or not, the profit driven world IS ending.

Why is it not compatible? The profit driven world has lifted more humans out of poverty than any other system by leaps and bounds.

It did. We can't forget that all that wealth we have around is mostly thanks to market economy. It's a powerful driving force.

But just because it's powerful, doesn't mean it goes in the direction we want. It did, mostly, for the better part of the last two centuries. But more and more, we now find ourselves at odds with where the market wants to go. This is the issue we have to deal with - our present economical engine becoming incompatible with a better future.

Re: The End of the Internet Dream

#98

Post by lovemenot » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 10:23 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #58

fx85ms wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YES thanks for this! I've seen too many people justify something that could be considered immoral by invoking this "but it satisfies user needs" pseudo-argument.

I've seen a heck of a lot more people justify things by claiming to have objective moral knowledge. Throughout history, the most atrocious acts imaginable have been justified this way. I am much less worried about invoking the satisfaction of people's needs.

So what? There are so many ways to be wrong, why introduce an entirely different one into this discussion? It's a false dilemma.

Re: The End of the Internet Dream

#99

Post by nekopa » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 10:25 AM UTC

meddlepal wrote: post #50

austerity wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know where those evil profits ultimately come from? People paying to have their needs satisfied. I make a decent living providing people with solutions to some of the problems described in this article (censorship and fragmentation) and I'm not ashamed to say I am driven purely by profit.

I think it's an often forgotten (perhaps purposefully to push an agenda in some circles?) part of these discussions about corporations and business models. They're just driven by demand. It's not some shady nebulous force at work trying to screw everything and everyone. Another problem, idealists often ignore the practical realities of a society when dreaming of their idealist visions for the future. Could the intern…

> They're just driven by demand. It's not some shady nebulous force at work trying to screw everything and everyone.

A great quote I read somewhere:

In marketing, there are those who satisfy needs and those who create wants

Re: The End of the Internet Dream

#100

Post by pspace » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 10:29 AM UTC

The internet dream is almost here! Patents and IP have lost their bite compared to the 80's (continuing to do so) and piracy is easier than ever.

More countries are participating in the global conversation than ever before.

Enhancements in security and privacy are evident and improving (albeit slowly).

The internet is becoming a lot less like TV and will continue to do so. People care more about commenting and creating content. They care about participating more than they ever did and this is increasing. In fact, this is a problem because the quality of participation is diminishing as EVERYONE jumps in.

Existing power structures are not being retained. As the internet enters the equation new laws are being put into place. Look at Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb. The only difference in how they are regulated is basically because they are internet oriented.

Yes we still have work. Infrastructure is still a big issue. If we want to reduce centralization, we need better infrastructure and equal access to it. That one is very political.

We got this ;) Stay vigilant friends.