Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then you must like Safari more than you despise ads.
There is no alternative on ios. I choose not to watch videos on mobile over using android.
Then you must like iOS more than you despise ads.
Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads
241–250 of 329 posts
Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
How recent are we talking? 15 years ago I was working at my college's IT helpdesk. The majority of students that brought in their machines told me they didn't use their computers for anything besides MS Word, AIM, Flash games and DVDs. Of course there were the art students with Adobe troubleshooting issues, or Econ students with STATA questions, but 90% of the time the computer was an entertainment-centric device.
>...AIM, Flash games 15 years ago Microsoft wasn't dictating moderation rules and content for these.
I don't see how that's related to 'general computing'. Microsoft does not have a monopoly on the distribution of software.
Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does it mean to "abolish competition and advertisement"? If I come up with a new idea, I can't tell anybody about it?
Competition doesn't mean "having ideas" or going separate ways. "Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared" (wikipedia). For example, competition is when you keep millions of empty apartments to make sure everybody struggles and will pay more and do whatever you say to find a place to live. Competition is also when you teach children in schools that they should…
What are the limits to this abolition of competition? How could you possibly eliminate all zero sum games? Watching toddlers ‘compete’ makes me believe competition is very human and a natural extension of desire.
How do you abolish desire?
Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads
#244I've been listening to books while I go to sleep for 20 years. Not intentionally, really, it's just that I put books on text to speech to help me get to sleep and then they play all night. Sure, a rare sometimes the vague themes of a story might get integrated into my dreams and I'll remember it when I get up, but it's a very rare rare.
Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads
#245Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never appreciated Futurama when I was younger. At the time it felt like worse Simpsons but in the future. But later on I realized it’s a really good critique of our contemporary society disguised as the future looking back on us with Fry standing in for the audience. Some of the jokes are funny because they’re so biting.
Well, a critique of society 2 decades ago.
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Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if I just take it home and keep it?
It's identical to if you destroyed it. It just adds some risk that you might suddenly mobilize it (hence one of the reasons it's actually illegal for individuals to store large amounts of physical cash for long durations). Also irrelevant anyway from point 1: you're still working to make money, thus you're growing the economy.
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Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads
#248We have gotten to the point where the simple (and arguably essential) task of individuals learning about what the economy is producing is degenerating into a societal gangrene. No, this is not all the handywork of Zuck and the "don't be evil" company. All the conditions for their "success" have been engineered in the previous decades of the adoption and scaling of TV tech: The captive population of couch potato, over…
> Because without the promise of a consumerist bliss always around the corner all the internal frictions, deep dissatisfaction and social fracture lines come to the fore...
Panem et circenses. Even the old Romans were already masters at keeping a populace from rioting and a society from collapse.
We're just lucky that most developed countries have eradicated executions. But to make up for the lack of public spectacle that a hanging or quartering was, we have taken up mass sports events (soccer, baseball, basketball, cricket) and blatant consumerism instead...
Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eventually you work less so you never earn that money in the first place. This may involve saving up first so you have more economic bargaining power, or it may involve collective action to reduce working hours across the board.
"Saving up" implies you're going to spend on something else. Which means you just improved your water efficiency to get other things. The only thing which is neutral here is if you literally just do nothing with the extra hours you take not working. That's unlikely: if you take up a hobby you'll be buying supplies, if you spend it helping out family then you're improving their opportunities etc.
My only point in referencing saving is that it is one path to achieve the bargaining power to actually work less, against employers who inherently want to occupy your entire life. I'm talking about having saved up enough to be comfortable working less - after which you can turn your reduced spending into reduced working. An alternative avenue that doesn't involve saving at all is collective action, which is how we've gotten down to a 40 hours per week standard.
"The economy" is defined by what is legible in the financial system. In this example, that is working for a wage. Time spent on other endeavors is not reflected in such accounting (sure, money spent on those activities is obviously still part of the economy, but said money is only part of what is spent on them). Time spent on other endeavors is therefore not "growing the economy", except in some pathological sense of trying to shoehorn our entire existence into economic terms.
Time spent with family or on hobbies certainly does make society better though, despite not being economic activity or "growth". In fact, this is exactly what opponents of the growth-worship philosophy are aiming for.
Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads
#250All this plus "coaxing knowledge into dream"... Brave New World's hypnopaedia comes to my mind...
We've already got Fahrenheit 451's "Seashells" in the form of the AirPod--your constant companion, even when you sleep!
Your average person reads a dystopian novel and finds it frightening because they can follow the author's extrapolation from the present to the fictional setting. Advertisers and other immoral beings read a dystopian novel (well, they probably read the Cliff's Notes) and think, wow, he's right, I bet people would put up with that sort of thing if we pitched it right!