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Data Dictatorships: The Arms Race to Hack Humankind

borjamoya.com

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Re: Data Dictatorships: The Arms Race to Hack Humankind

#31

Post by excalibur »

bilbo0s wrote: post #25
excalibur wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Liberal democracy is going to die. Data is becoming the raw materialization of power, and this is making dictatorships more efficient than ever before. Why not make the data public? If data is power, you criminalize the hoarding of data, and require it to be shared openly with all. We would still be headed toward a surveillance state, which comes with a high risk of authoritarianism, but at least we would have a sh…

> at least we would have a shot at keeping it democratic If by democratic you mean freedom to form outrage mobs then I'd agree, but I don't think that would be a good thing. Having thousands of people in some community screaming for the head of some kid who said something dumb about his school and his dad's rifle on a Call of Duty discord is not going to end well for the kid. I'm not sure I believe in completely open…

Weird that we're having the same discussion on two different threads, I suppose I started it.

> If by democratic you mean freedom to form outrage mobs then I'd agree, but I don't think that would be a good thing.

I don't think it would be an objectively good thing either. I only think it may be better than the alternative. Given a choice between an authoritarian dictatorship and an authoritarian democracy, I lean toward the latter.

Additionally, I think you may not be giving people enough credit. Devolution of democracy to mob rule is certainly a danger, but I don't know that it's a foregone conclusion. I don't how to go about preserving individual liberty without privacy, but as long as the common man has power it should be possible in theory.

Re: Data Dictatorships: The Arms Race to Hack Humankind

#32

Post by bilbo0s »

naringas wrote: post #29
bilbo0s wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at least we would have a shot at keeping it democratic If by democratic you mean freedom to form outrage mobs then I'd agree, but I don't think that would be a good thing. Having thousands of people in some community screaming for the head of some kid who said something dumb about his school and his dad's rifle on a Call of Duty discord is not going to end well for the kid. I'm not sure I believe in completely open…

> I'm not sure I believe in completely open data because entire populations with access to it are not completely rational. certainly not. but we are at the beginning of a cultural shift in line with the renaissance and the age of enlightnement which vastly changed the cultural mindset quite a bit. before these previous 'cultural revolutions' what people considered rational was different.

I think we agree that we are in the middle of a cultural shift, but I don't think it's going where you think it is.

It's exactly this cultural shift that I'm worried about. What exactly does crowdsourced school security look like in an environment of radically open data?

I just think you're being very optimistic.

Re: Data Dictatorships: The Arms Race to Hack Humankind

#33

Post by bilbo0s »

excalibur wrote: post #31
bilbo0s wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at least we would have a shot at keeping it democratic If by democratic you mean freedom to form outrage mobs then I'd agree, but I don't think that would be a good thing. Having thousands of people in some community screaming for the head of some kid who said something dumb about his school and his dad's rifle on a Call of Duty discord is not going to end well for the kid. I'm not sure I believe in completely open…

Weird that we're having the same discussion on two different threads, I suppose I started it. > If by democratic you mean freedom to form outrage mobs then I'd agree, but I don't think that would be a good thing. I don't think it would be an objectively good thing either. I only think it may be better than the alternative. Given a choice between an authoritarian dictatorship and an authoritarian democracy, I lean tow…

I mean if you're going into this whole thing with your eyes open and you're saying, "I know that I'm just replacing authoritarian dictatorship with authoritarian democracy." Then we have no debate.

You're fully aware of the danger of what's coming. Just be aware, authoritarian democracy with full open access to the totality of everyone's data is not really authoritarian democracy.

It's totalitarian democracy. Just that small nit pick but other than that, if you know what you're getting into, go for it.

I just disagree with that trade off.

Re: Data Dictatorships: The Arms Race to Hack Humankind

#36

Post by allemagne »

People make the mistake of assuming that a more assertive authoritarian state means a more confident authoritarian state, when the inverse is more often the case.

China's growth is slowing and its leadership will always have the specter of Soviet collapse haunting them. The actual potential for Chinese growth and innovation will always be out of reach because creative destruction is unacceptable to entrenched interests.

The CCP aren't the future, they're dinosaurs clinging to relevance by using technologies usually invented overseas as crudely wrought instruments of power.

Re: Data Dictatorships: The Arms Race to Hack Humankind

#37

Post by nx2059 »

kmlx wrote: post #4

i was born in a communist country and lived thru the downfall of the USSR. the level of censorship and control that we have now is nothing compared to what the soviets were doing. that's why my impression of the paper is very negative. we're the generation that has the most access to information in history, we can travel like no other human generation travelled in history. and we have so much money and access that ob…

The fact that kmix was downvoted indicates with the problem with a LOT of the youth today. I grew up in the 80's during the cold war. I remember the freedoms we "had" in the USA, and how people defected from the communist "utopia" of the USSR. When I was young I learned that our constitutional republic is based on the assumption that people in power are corrupt. And believed in quotes such as "When the government fears the people there is liberty, when the people fear the government there is tyranny", which gives a rather obvious interpretation to the second amendment. You can have the type of weapons that will cause the government to think twice before taking away our rights. Or "People who give up liberty for safety and security will have nor deserve neither" A deliberate nod to the fourth amendment. The war on drugs is due to completely ignoring fact that the federal government has enumerated powers. Probation in the 1920's was only legal because a constitutional amendment had to be made. We have things like "Enhanced Interrogation" and Prison Rape, a deliberate ignoring of the law against "cruel and unusual punishment" which is just accepted with out second thought today. I could go on and on, but it's become clear that something that my dad told me years ago is true. In a Democracy, you get the government you deserve.

Re: Data Dictatorships: The Arms Race to Hack Humankind

#38

Post by pdonis »

borjamoya wrote: post #14
naringas wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's also a cultural shift underway. > a new economic model based on social behavior. this reminds me of China's social credit scores. It seems to me that this is (in a way) automatic-money. Imagine if instead of having to manage your own balance your "wallet" does it for you. One just shows up at the store and they tell you what you get. No "visible" transaction takes place.

Right, and the shift gets even deeper. Few people know this but money was invented to keep track of debt. In fact, what most economic textbooks say is that money comes from barter. It turns out there's no single evidence that this ever happened in history! (David Graeber has a phenomenal book call Debt that explains all of this.) Now, the shift we're seeing is that social credit system--or as I call them Social Debt…

> money was invented to keep track of debt

I think you're conflating two different usages of the term "money". Wikipedia calls them "money of account" and "money of exchange". Money of account appears to be older, and was, as you say, invented to keep track of debts. But when economics textbooks talk about money being invented to solve the double coincidence of wants problem, which is the main limitation of barter, they are talking about money of exchange.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money

Re: Data Dictatorships: The Arms Race to Hack Humankind

#39

Post by borjamoya »

pdonis wrote: post #38
borjamoya wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and the shift gets even deeper. Few people know this but money was invented to keep track of debt. In fact, what most economic textbooks say is that money comes from barter. It turns out there's no single evidence that this ever happened in history! (David Graeber has a phenomenal book call Debt that explains all of this.) Now, the shift we're seeing is that social credit system--or as I call them Social Debt…

> money was invented to keep track of debt I think you're conflating two different usages of the term "money". Wikipedia calls them "money of account" and "money of exchange". Money of account appears to be older, and was, as you say, invented to keep track of debts. But when economics textbooks talk about money being invented to solve the double coincidence of wants problem, which is the main limitation of barter, t…

That's the history of coinage, which came after debt.

Debt is older though. It goes back 5,000 years--at least:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years

Re: Data Dictatorships: The Arms Race to Hack Humankind

#40

Post by naringas »

bilbo0s wrote: post #32
naringas wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure I believe in completely open data because entire populations with access to it are not completely rational. certainly not. but we are at the beginning of a cultural shift in line with the renaissance and the age of enlightnement which vastly changed the cultural mindset quite a bit. before these previous 'cultural revolutions' what people considered rational was different.

I think we agree that we are in the middle of a cultural shift, but I don't think it's going where you think it is. It's exactly this cultural shift that I'm worried about. What exactly does crowdsourced school security look like in an environment of radically open data? I just think you're being very optimistic.

no one can tell where will end up.

regardless, I don't think it's optimism because I don't think I will leave long enough to see such a world, at best we will leave through the roughest part of the shift. this level of cultural transformation takes more tha a few of generations.

in any case, I see something else regarding the way in which individual humans are aware of the relationship to their supporting society which translates up to the way in which a distinct society sees itself as a component of a larger system.

where do you think this is going?

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