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I have seen the future and I am opposed

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Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#41

Post by ajscherer »

grellas wrote: post #8

This is a thoughtful piece written by a tech-savvy author who expresses concerns about the idea that we, as tech consumers, will be subject to the greed-driven restraints placed upon the technology we use by various corporate interests. The unstated premise of the piece seems to be that, as technology matures, control over it becomes consolidated in fewer hands, each of whom has a proprietary interest to limit its ul…

I'd greatly prefer if my freedom coincided with me being alive. "The long term" may or may not allow for that.

Your argument seems to be akin to "History shows that every tyrant who ever existed has died." Yes but if one or more new tyrants has been born for every one that died, what consolation is it? Different corporate overlords isn't the same as no corporate overlords.

Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#42

Post by timwiseman »

grellas wrote: post #8

This is a thoughtful piece written by a tech-savvy author who expresses concerns about the idea that we, as tech consumers, will be subject to the greed-driven restraints placed upon the technology we use by various corporate interests. The unstated premise of the piece seems to be that, as technology matures, control over it becomes consolidated in fewer hands, each of whom has a proprietary interest to limit its ul…

Your points are all well stated and true. I agree with everything you have said.

And yet it is also true that the end-users can have a significant amount of influence in how quickly the marketplace provides more choice and more open solutions. Most immediately they can choose the more open solution instead of the one that provides more of a walled garden (such as selecting android over the iphone). They can, at least in less capital intensive fields, choose to enter themselves and provide a more open solution (as certain Linux providers have done). In the extreme, they can lobby for legislation or regulation to require or at least support openness and choice. While I generally support a very light regulatory touch, there are some rare and extreme cases where it is appropriate.

While everything you say is true, those who wish to resist walled gardens and proprietary traps can choose to do so in an active and conscious way, rather than merely waiting for the inevitable (yet sometimes slow) march of technology to bring this openness.

Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#43

Post by leot »

gwern wrote: post #37
nick_urban wrote: post #3

Does it strike any one else as at least a _bit_ disturbing that he thinks his "mind" is in his smart phone, and finds no problem with this other than that service providers are greedy? An obvious way to avoid becoming beholden to service providers is to retain some independence from our devices. It's not like people didn't travel before the invention of the iPhone.

It's a perfectly reasonable thesis ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Mind ). Do you have any objection beside some transitory subjective distaste?

In fact, Don Norman is among the world's most qualified to say this kind of thing: he was founding Chair of UC San Diego's Cognitive Science department, where (among other theses) the notion of distributed cognition was developed (during Norman's time as Chair).

Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#45

Post by VladRussian »

cletus wrote: post #34

It's an interesting post. A few points: > But what I see developing seems driven by greed and profit... Yes, it's called "capitalism". > For me, the future would bring forth solutions to our needs and wants... Check. > design that provides value in a sustainable and responsible manner... "Sustainable" is an extremely loaded term. Basically, you get it when the market demands it. If you see it as important, it's not a…

>Don't be quick to dismiss or disparage "greed and profit" as there has been no greater catalyst for human advancement.

war. While war and its related technological advances are frequently connected to "greed and profit", it is still a driver of its own. For example, Manhattan project and its people weren't driven by "greed and profit".

Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#46

Post by cletus »

VladRussian wrote: post #45
cletus wrote: post #34

It's an interesting post. A few points: > But what I see developing seems driven by greed and profit... Yes, it's called "capitalism". > For me, the future would bring forth solutions to our needs and wants... Check. > design that provides value in a sustainable and responsible manner... "Sustainable" is an extremely loaded term. Basically, you get it when the market demands it. If you see it as important, it's not a…

>Don't be quick to dismiss or disparage "greed and profit" as there has been no greater catalyst for human advancement. war. While war and its related technological advances are frequently connected to "greed and profit", it is still a driver of its own. For example, Manhattan project and its people weren't driven by "greed and profit".

I guess that depends on how far you want to take causality. As in, do you want to attribute the Manhattan Project solely to the participants' endeavours or go further and attribute them to the aggressions of Hitler?

I'll certainly agree that many technological changes owe their origins to war. Rocketry is a prime example. Another is the steam engine. The ability to make pistons was a direct byproduct of the technology developed to make cannons.

War is an interesting phenomenon. By our nature, we compete. We've competed since we climbed out of the primordial ooze. Actually before.

One can view war as the ultimate means of settling accounts but even that's an incomplete picture as many wars have their origins in culture and religion.

Anyway, my point isn't that greed and profit motivated ALL advancement. The people who invented the solid state transistor but companies who fund such research do so typically with a profit motive. It's that profit motive that also takes a scientific discovery and mass produces it into something people will buy.

Without that profit motive, many such advancements might otherwise be laboratory curiosities.

Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#47

Post by 5teev »

cletus wrote: post #34

It's an interesting post. A few points: > But what I see developing seems driven by greed and profit... Yes, it's called "capitalism". > For me, the future would bring forth solutions to our needs and wants... Check. > design that provides value in a sustainable and responsible manner... "Sustainable" is an extremely loaded term. Basically, you get it when the market demands it. If you see it as important, it's not a…

Picking a minor nit: I think you mean "asymmetrical" not "asynchronous".

Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#48

Post by knshaum »

randallsquared wrote: post #31
cool-RR wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clothes don't crash spontaneously...

Incorrect. I periodically have clothing fail. Typically, of course, I throw away crashed clothing, rather than rebooting it. :)

The vendor really should supply a patch.

Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#49

Post by gukjoon »

ippisl wrote: post #36
grellas wrote: post #8

This is a thoughtful piece written by a tech-savvy author who expresses concerns about the idea that we, as tech consumers, will be subject to the greed-driven restraints placed upon the technology we use by various corporate interests. The unstated premise of the piece seems to be that, as technology matures, control over it becomes consolidated in fewer hands, each of whom has a proprietary interest to limit its ul…

From looking at your examples for disrupted companies, they are mostly disruped by the internet, which was a huge technological change. Yes , we live in time of rapid technological change , but how soon do you see an internet level change affecting the industry ? and aren't today's companies more aware of the innovator's dillema and can handle disruptive change somewhat better(microsoft has done quite a good job at t…

I disagree. We're just so jaded by the speed of change that we don't ascribe much significance to changes that have completely changed how human beings interact. While many of these technologies are built on the internet, saying that they're insignificant because of this is kind of like saying the internet is insignificant since it's built on telephony.

Furthermore, it's almost without exception that these technologies have weakened big companies, especially in the software industry. Cheap computing power that you don't even have to manage, a massive ecosystem of open source code, and powerful communication tools are available to anybody now. Big companies rely on economies of scale to offset the costs of organization. It's becoming increasingly difficult for them to win in an industry with almost no barrier to entry.

Re: I have seen the future and I am opposed

#50

Post by sedachv »

Create wrote: post #32

Oh dear. Don Norman has discovered why free software is about freedom and what the cloud business model is really about. "One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control," he said. "It's just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's w…

Recently I keep hearing pundits opine that the "open source" movement hasn't gone anywhere and is basically irrelevant.

IMO that is a great sign that it's a good time to be getting into Free Software. The Affero GPL is probably the only thing that can realize the potential of cloud computing, and keep the cloud bubble from popping and a major swing back to locally hosted IT systems.

PS - Also, I am very glad that "open source" became unfashionable because it made Eric Raymond go away.

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