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Why Silicon Valley can’t fix itself

theguardian.com

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Re: Why Silicon Valley can’t fix itself

#41

Post by zby »

A note to the readers - the real article starts somewhere after the middle point - the whole first part is just rehashing all the information YC readers know by heart.

The main thesis seems to be that framing the problem as health issue (as the so called Tech Humanists try to do) is: - hiding the political issues related to the power the tech companies have on our lives - giving them even more power - because they are the experts here and in health we defer a lot of our judgement to the doctors - is based on a mythical 'human nature as separate from our technology' idea

What to do with it: use anti monopoly laws, tax, introduce rules about the usage of private data and build public/coop infrastructure.

I am not so sure about public/coop infrastructure part - I don't think government is automatically better than a company - but maybe it should be tried. But the most difficult part will be the 'rules about usage of private data', that goes much deeper than just 'protecting privacy' and I am not sure how it can work - you cannot stop an individual from thinking about you and using all his memories in his thinking, sure a person is not a perfect analogy to organization.

By the way, the Facebook 'time well spent' project priorities our private communications over public ones - it is really about hooking us even deeper into the machine.

Re: Why Silicon Valley can’t fix itself

#42

Post by ponderatul »

It's great what their trying to do. But if we can't talk about the fact that sometimes we don't even need technology around us is worrying. E.g. Sometimes you don't have to be on facebook, you shouldn't be on facebook, it's detrimental for you to be on facebook.

Good, human centric design is part of the solution, but sometimes technology just needs to get out of the way completely.

Re: Why Silicon Valley can’t fix itself

#43

Post by ponderatul »

tldr; "In short, the effort to humanise computing produced the very situation that the tech humanists now consider dehumanising: a wilderness of screens where digital devices chase every last instant of our attention. To guide us out of that wilderness, tech humanists say we need more humanising. They believe we can use better design to make technology serve human nature rather than exploit and corrupt it. But this idea is drawn from the same tradition that created the world that tech humanists believe is distracting and damaging us."

Re: Why Silicon Valley can’t fix itself

#44

Post by zeth___ »

mettamage wrote: post #34
zeth___ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've started using hidden services a lot more recently. They remind me of the internet I remember from 1998-2006. I wouldn't say it's the 'old' internet, because I wasn't alive for the supposed glory days of arpanet, but it definitely has the sleazy, probably illegal, never say who I am irl vibe I remember and miss.

What kind of hidden services? You mean stuff like Tor?

Tor, freenet, i2p.

Re: Why Silicon Valley can’t fix itself

#45

Post by zeth___ »

steve_musk wrote: post #24
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It started before then and it exists outside the US as well.

People outside of the US are aware of what happened, and Russia has been targeting other countries elections as well (France, Germany, etc.).

And no one took it seriously.

The only targets that people were worried about were PLCs in power plans and other things that go boom.

Re: Why Silicon Valley can’t fix itself

#46

Post by krageon »

baxtr wrote: post #40
catach wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why you think that, since I don't see any mass-scale incentive pointing in that direction.

It's a hunch. People are not happy the way it is now, at least people on the fringes. Technology allows for disintegration and decentralized services today

Technology has allowed it basically forever. The trouble is they're annoying to use, so nobody does.

Re: Why Silicon Valley can’t fix itself

#47

Post by realusername »

zeth___ wrote: post #44
mettamage wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of hidden services? You mean stuff like Tor?

Tor, freenet, i2p.

Freenet definitively has a old-school feeling, I'm subscribed to their mailing list and I just wish the project wasn't plagued by a lot of internal fights.

Re: Why Silicon Valley can’t fix itself

#48

Post by ThePadawan »

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #25
iampims wrote: post #2

This made me kind of nostalgic of the pre-Facebook days. I liked that version of the internet…

That somehow made me think of the viagra ads as an indicator of a changing of eras. The viagra ads were a product of a time when the goal was to immediately and directly sell things. Now the era has shifted to one where the goal is to sell your information to people that want to sell you things ( or otherwise use that information to further their ends ). So instead of spamming you with viagra ads you're spammed with…

Perhaps fitting then that the patent on Viagra is in the process of expiring: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/viagra-to-go-generic-in-2017-ac...

Re: Why Silicon Valley can’t fix itself

#49

Post by AlexandrB »

It’s extremely telling that this huge article uses the words ad/advertise/advertising only twice. This is basically a puff piece that talks about all the great changes coming that change absolutely nothing about the fundamental reality of modern SV companies.

Of course advertising is not the problem! Design just has to be more “humanising” and the problems inherent with surveillance capitalism would disappear.

Re: Why Silicon Valley can’t fix itself

#50

Post by Retra »

baxtr wrote: post #39
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breaking the internet? No. Breaking huge near-monopolies into smaller companies - I'd love to see it happen, but it never will.

That’s what I meant, but I think it won’t happen through regulation but through new companies

New companies that will threaten established ones without being bought out by them?
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