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Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

sciencemag.org

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Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#301

Post by luffapi »

CountDrewku wrote: post #296
luffapi wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the problems is ecological destruction which has increased with economic growth. I would argue that because growth is so unevenly captured by those at the top, a very high gini coefficient is another problem.

We've reversed a lot of that destruction in the past century. You're benefiting daily from that growth and your modern lifestyle (in 1st world countries) is far above what people enjoyed even half a century ago. Unfortunately destruction is a necessary evil. There's no way to improve society while simultaneously avoiding any ecological change. Unless you're suggesting we all go back to some sort of nomadic lifestyle?

> We've reversed a lot of that destruction in the past century.

Not even close, where are you getting that from?

> Unless you're suggesting we all go back to some sort of nomadic lifestyle?

US car culture is the first thing I’d put on the chopping block. The US military and billionaires as a class are the two highest polluting entities on the planet. Lots of additional gains to be had there.

I would classify very little of our wonton destruction of the environment as “necessary evil”.

> You're benefiting daily from that growth and your modern lifestyle (in 1st world countries) is far above what people enjoyed even half a century ago.

I wonder if all the men who have lowered sperm counts agree with you…

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#302

Post by germinalphrase »

developer93 wrote: post #297
germinalphrase wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Toddlers also can't shit in a toilet or eat tidily, but they learn to...

I asked my question sincerely. Are there limits to this abolition of competition?

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#303

Post by FridayoLeary »

spacemark wrote: post #254
FridayoLeary wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank god that at least google, fb, amazon etc. are trying so hard to improve our advertising experience as much as possible. Where would we be if the ads directed at us were not so personalized....

Please tell me this comment is satire... honestly can't tell these days.

That comment was satire.

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#304

Post by pas »

goodpoint wrote: post #294
thaumasiotes wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't have economic growth, then tomorrow cannot be better then today. Untrue, just look at Europe before and after the Bubonic Plague. You see massive economic collapse, but people are better off. Well, the people who are still alive are better off.

It's even worse: after the Plague there was a big economic growth due to the shrinking of the population.

The growth was the recovery of the population. the shrinking is not the growth phase, that's the recession. initially there were not enough people to work, to produce, to care for animals, to plant seeds, to harvest, to clean the ditches, to fix roofs, etc.. waste was enormous, crops spoiled, there was no demand and no supply, markets collapsed.

Then a recovering (growing) population meant that the previous level of economic activity was reached.

This is why some misguided people think that war is good, and it's "necessary", and that "we are overdue". But that's a complete fallacy. Those years have been lost. Yes growth was drastic, but that's hardly any consolation. Just like with COVID19. Yes, mRNA and other new vaccine vectors and tech grown a lot, but the whole economy went to shit otherwise. (Even if the recovery was again fast and even somewhat unexpected, because this time states stepped in and provided okay-ish fiscal and great monetary interventions.)

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#305

Post by pas »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #217
XorNot wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, this is not what economic growth is. Any efficiency improvement, any self-improvement, anything, is economic growth. If you don't have economic growth, then tomorrow cannot be better then today. But that is a very different question to "should we cut down more rainforest?" You've got the cause and effect backwards, and it's exactly what lobbyists for the problem areas want: arguing against economic growth is p…

> If you don't have economic growth, then tomorrow cannot be better then today. Untrue, just look at Europe before and after the Bubonic Plague. You see massive economic collapse, but people are better off. Well, the people who are still alive are better off.

> Well, the people who are still alive are better off.

No, that's not how it works... these "great reset" theories are nice, and might even make some intuitive sense, but the actual years of the plague were (almost) completely lost (especially economically), sure the recovery seems great on a graph, but the graph would have been (in most of the cases) even higher by then. (Yes, indeed the next generation enjoyed better relations with feudal lords, because labor was scarce. But usually - when people are asked whether they would enjoy a bit better wages or keep their relatives and extended family alive, they somehow opt for the altruistic option.)

The fast recovery soon regresses to the mean rate of growth (as dictated by the general technological progress).

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#306

Post by pas »

xg15 wrote: post #285
XorNot wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The human race, consisting of 6+ billion people, can do more then one thing at a time. The idea of "we need to end economic growth" implies an extremely broad ranging, aggressive, authoritarian imposition on people's freedoms - requiring so much logistics, infrastructure and coordination as to be practically impossible. Or you know, we could just fund the EPA and BLM, and employ auditors for sustainable sourcing requ…

If economic growth is something so natural that it needs to be actively suppressed for it not to happen, why do we need aggressive, harmful growth drivers like planned obsolescence or the ever-growing pervasiveness of ads that this thread was originally about?

That's the whole point! We don't! We have to actively fight planned obsolescence and other useless ways of inefficient growth. But due to the short term optimization of states, society, people, and businesses, it's what happens nowadays.

It's a meta-optimization problem. Like the problem of figuring out how to spend our "remaining" carbon budget best to minimize suffering both short and long term.

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#307

Post by XorNot »

mindslight wrote: post #249
XorNot wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> "The economy" is defined by what is legible in the financial system.

No it is not, this is categorically wrong.

Simple question: does a barter-based tribe have an economy? Yes.

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#308

Post by pas »

tremon wrote: post #119
pas wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes no sense. Every time an economic activity happens that helps people growth happens. The simple fact that when someone gets a bicycle, car, washing machine, electricity, plumbing, a phone, or whatever they value and if it helps them take better care of their family (or even themselves), that counts as growth. The problem is unsustainable growth, ecological destruction, etc. Of course effective measures (car…

"When a measure becomes a goal, it seizes to be a good measure." But as you say, the problem isn't economic growth in itself, but the fact that our entire (debt-based) economy is predicated on eternal growth. Eventually, every population reaches a steady-state equilibrium with its environment (even an artificial environment such as "the economy"). The hyper-focus on economic growth and our dependence on it causes all…

There's no real hyper focus on growth. There are plenty of important/powerful/influential people who loudly and clearly say that it's just an artificial measure, we must look at the real problems. Health, education, poverty, etc.

Growth mostly comes into contemporary discourse when people talk about investment or when people use it as a swearword.

There's no real dependence on it. Yes central banks target 2% inflation (US Fed uses the PCE deflator), because it is comparatively the easiest/simplest. Targeting "full employment" is just as important. If there would be nothing to improve, build, no one would have any unmet need, nor anyone would trade anything, then sure, we would not see growth nor debt, but for the foreseeable future growth is a useful indicator for how much debt is okay.

Re: Researchers fear a scenario in which smart speakers feed sleepers subliminal ads

#309

Post by r0rshrk »

floxy wrote: post #292
nick238 wrote: post #252

Investigating spooky claims: "Facebook is always listening to you!": I assume that many researchers have attempted to figure this out by snooping traffic from the app. It takes a bit of technical skill to do this. If there was any strong sign of this, I assume it would have come out by now. Maybe there's a super secret bit of code that bypasses Android's microphone controls, does speech-to-text and intent processing…

>Also, anyone might be a light sleeper or wake up at the wrong time and discover this. Besides the sleep staging link in the article, what about monitoring your fitbit to know your current sleep phase, and would turn off the ad when it sensed you waking up.

Someone could just walk in and hear the speaker playing ads.
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