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Things that I think will be important in the next decade

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Re: Things that I think will be important in the next decade

#251

Post by fghtr »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #245
CaptainZapp wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh! Where to start? OK, let me give it a shot. Luddites complained about the automated loom as well Now that's a really bad case of whataboutism. I'm not complaining about technological advance. I'm complaining about tech, which is a massive invasion of privacy. Have you ever been lying on a beach and some asshole lets his drone flying around? I don't know about you, but I really don't fancy to be half naked on som…

We have had CCTVs around for the last 30 years, where are the massive privacy violations that you guys predicted 30 years ago? Very very few people had google glass to begin with, the glass hole term was invented and perpetuated by a bunch of conspiracy theorists, enough to get 3.9 million hits on google (for Tech Luddism is as old as technology itself. It isn’t surprising that you don’t want this, that you don’t wan…

Tech Luddism has nothing to do with these arguments. I do not want tech that someone else controls, because it benefits 'them', not me. I want tech that I can control. See, e.g., Free Software Foundation and Purism.

Re: Things that I think will be important in the next decade

#252

Post by balladeer »

pferde wrote: post #239
AndrewDucker wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I want to communicate with a bunch of my friends, going back 30 years, it's where I have to go. I could, I guess, go back to running mailing lists or manual methods of keeping track of contact details and sending things directly to people. But short of that there's no easier way for me to keep up with friends who are distributed around the planet.

What's wrong with keeping contact details and sending things directly to people?

Nothing. People just find other means more convenient and for some reason are willing to sacrifice their privacy in return. Also, by names and college and work you can find people on these social platforms even if you lost their contact long back.

Re: Things that I think will be important in the next decade

#253

Post by lexapro »

anon012012 wrote: post #233
thrwaway69 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of - VR talk with Mark Zuckerberg (bit nsfw): https://youtu.be/q2LIXcbDiZA It will be a difficult battle for privacy when AR becomes mainstream. They will have reasons to track your surroundings and every body movement. :(

This is unpopular to say, but when we're heading for a mass extinction event, maybe we should be sacrificing freedom for the sake of social cohesion. There should be facial recognition, social score and such things, to preserve humanity from chaos. I think there's a decent case to be made, and that's why I generally appreciate what China is doing. They are the best prepared for what might come.

What is this "mass extinction event"? You don't get to advocate for giving up freedom for the sake of security if you're not even saying what we should be so afraid of.

Re: Things that I think will be important in the next decade

#254

Post by superboum »

Thorrez wrote: post #144

The section titles are pretty funny. It's almost as if they were chosen to specifically disappoint cypherpunks. > A New Private Social Platform Cypherpunk: Signal! Tor! Riot! Mark: Small groups of people who know each other. > Decentralizing Opportunity Cypherpunk: Bitcoin! Peertube! IPFS! Mastadon! Namecoin! Scuttlebutt! Mark: Products for small businesses. > The Next Computing Platform Cypherpunk: Ethereum! Urbit!…

IMHO this choice of word is not neutral. Facebook is not the cool thing anymore, it faces many contestations. Assimilating its adversaries vocabulary after rendering it meaningless can be a way to fight them, to prevent any change. Non-expert will be a bit more lost because the same words will now mean two different things. Now, we will have to explain the difference between Fediverse decentralized and Facebook decentralized for example. Until they ""steal"" another word :P

Re: Things that I think will be important in the next decade

#255

Post by saberience »

quelltext wrote: post #168
mlurp wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have any love for Microsoft, but they at least have a handful of objectively useful products that probably make the world a little better. Pretty much all the research I've heard about social media indicates that it makes the world worse. So I think it is relevant.

That's interesting. I just don't think there has been any research into holistically evaluating social networks. AFAIK studies mostly focus on small parts often with the premise to find something negative (e.g. effect of seeing other feeds with success stories). Obviously a lot of people do in fact derive pleasure and some other benefits or they wouldn't keep using it.

"Obviously a lot of people do in fact derive pleasure and some other benefits or they wouldn't keep using it."

That doesn't follow at all. When I used to use Facebook it was based on an addictive compulsion but each time I used I realized it made my mood worse. My life got better when I stopped using the platform.

Re: Things that I think will be important in the next decade

#256

Post by dredmorbius »

buboard wrote: post #246
dredmorbius wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost always: industries or activities which were once only viable in a single (or small number) of instances, but which, given increases in net total capabilities, but no inherent efficiencies of scale, require replicated instances rather than a centrally-controlled monopoly. Even here, if there's a space for centralised control, it's possible that either some single entity will gain effective unitary control or im…

good points, but as they say, the internet doesn't weigh anything

Regulation, language, and firewalls might have effects.

Generally, though, that's my point: infotech tends strongly to monopoly.

Re: Things that I think will be important in the next decade

#257

Post by taneq »

nikolay wrote: post #165
bitexploder wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did have a hard time taking any of what he wrote seriously. It was not thought provoking for me and I felt it wasn’t deep or interesting. It’s interesting in the sense that it is useful to know where FB may be headed, but when I think of Facebook all I see is another advertising company looking for more ways to put ads in front of captive eyeballs.

One thing I can't understand is why Facebook is still around. But, at the same time, Twitter is still around, too. I guess people got tired switching platforms.

Because they actually solve a real problem for a majority of their users? I mean I get it, I'm on the hate train too but their actual product (the Facebook web site) provides a useful service. It allows me to share a bunch of stuff with a bunch of groups of people who I want to stay in touch with, in a low friction manner.

Pretending Facebook is useless is like pretending GM doesn't make cars. Sure, maybe you don't like GM cars but they fill a genuine need for a lot of people.

Re: Things that I think will be important in the next decade

#258

Post by Silhouette »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #244
Silhouette wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the chance that you are being recorded if someone wants to is already very high. OK, good, you understand the origin of the problem. Modern technology has co-opted ordinary people to act as spies for big, powerful data processing organisations, in the process seriously undermining our privacy. Now, how do we solve it?

Yes, the cameras are all around, but no, they aren’t spying on you, why should they? Most video just gets deleted unless some event happened, they don’t even archive it. I guess we could get rid of all the cameras and have everyone walk around with blind folds so they can respect everyone else’s privacy from being seen, but it seems like a net negative in my book.

Yes, the cameras are all around, but no, they aren’t spying on you, why should they?

How can you ever be sure of that, though?

Devices get hacked.

The manufacturers of devices sell out, with or without being transparent about it.

Data hoarders grab more data than they should or they have the device owner's informed consent to take.

These things happen all the time, with everything from photos and videos and audio, to location information, via address books and "private" messages. As a third party who is not the device's maker or owner, you have little if any say about any of it. However, the combination of many devices capable of observing you and associating audio/video data with other information about you and the potential dangers created when this is done at scale in a highly asymmetric situation is enough to all but annihilate privacy, and more importantly, the underlying reasons we have come to value privacy in the past.

I guess we could get rid of all the cameras and have everyone walk around with blind folds so they can respect everyone else’s privacy from being seen, but it seems like a net negative in my book.

There is a vast, qualitative difference between someone casually walking past you in the street where the two of you see each other but pay little attention and move on, or even catching you incidentally in a photo taken for personal reasons and not shared, and the systematic, widespread acquisition of huge data sets drawn from multiple sources with or without the data subject's informed consent or even knowledge to be stored indefinitely in an automatically searchable format and then used for purposes unknown by parties unknown with consequences unknown to the data subject.

Re: Things that I think will be important in the next decade

#260

Post by artificialidiot »

nikolay wrote: post #165
bitexploder wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did have a hard time taking any of what he wrote seriously. It was not thought provoking for me and I felt it wasn’t deep or interesting. It’s interesting in the sense that it is useful to know where FB may be headed, but when I think of Facebook all I see is another advertising company looking for more ways to put ads in front of captive eyeballs.

One thing I can't understand is why Facebook is still around. But, at the same time, Twitter is still around, too. I guess people got tired switching platforms.

low effort intelligence collection. I wouldn't mind "investing" into those companies if I were an agency employing who are basically incompetent crooks.
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