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Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

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Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#81

Post by scottyah »

csallen wrote: post #45
psadauskas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? If I had enough money that I could make a serious dent in local or even global poverty without noticing the change in my lifestyle, and I just... chose not to, I have no idea how I could sleep at night.

Huge numbers (billions) of people have enough money to make massive changes to the lives of those less fortunate than them, but don't, and prefer instead to make incremental upgrades to their own lives. New rugs, more savings, first-class airline tickets, eating out a few more times a month, etc. This is just human nature. People who are at wealth level x tend to say, "I can't believe that people at wealth level x+1…

We can also tell because anyone who can take the time to use a computer with internet to write a comment in well-formed English is already comparatively wealthy or connected enough to provide food and housing for dozens of people.

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#82

Post by jakeydus »

kevincox wrote: post #57
th0raway wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes down to two things. One is the well documented issue of how, when you are that rich, you are treated differently, and how that will ultimately modify your behavior. The other is the prerequisites to get to the job. Chances are you aren't fully self-made, receiving no investment. From convincing investors, to having immense faith in a project that cannot be obviously good, as otherwise you'd be building what…

> To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. > - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The people who would, shouldn't. The people who should, won't.

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#83

Post by nostrademons »

SimianSci wrote: post #71
th0raway wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes down to two things. One is the well documented issue of how, when you are that rich, you are treated differently, and how that will ultimately modify your behavior. The other is the prerequisites to get to the job. Chances are you aren't fully self-made, receiving no investment. From convincing investors, to having immense faith in a project that cannot be obviously good, as otherwise you'd be building what…

- Own a monopoly - Inherit your fortune - Run a criminal enterprise Using just these three filters alone, you encompass more than 99% of all billionaires in existence. The amount of billionaires who do not fit into these categories can barely occupy a family sized vehicle. The criteria here suggesting that there is a specific sociopathic personality requirement to being a billionaire as each category can be argued as…

I've been thinking that you can divide businesses on two axes,

                            Scalable - Many customers
                                     |
    Short-term/       Ponzi Scheme   |    Monopoly         Long-term/
    Transactional  --------------------------------------   Relational
                       Contracting / |   Consulting /
                       Retail etc    |   Therapy etc
                                     |
                        Non-scalable - Few customers
And mathematically, only businesses at the top of the graph are capable of generating a billion dollars. Hence, if you are looking to be a billionaire, the path lies either through a Ponzi scheme or through a monopoly. Both of them, in their most pure form, are illegal, and the challenge in the business model is to execute on them while staying just barely on the right side of the law.

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#84

Post by jmye »

forgotaccount3 wrote: post #48
zdragnar wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And from a product standpoint, there's really only one reason to ship a native app I have worked on several applications where the product managers wanted to make our web app something that could be installed through the app store, because that's how users expect to get apps. I know people who don't even type search queries or URLs into a browser, they just tell the phone what they want to find and open whatever sh…

> I know people who don't even type search queries or URLs into a browser, they just tell the phone what they want to find and open whatever shows up in a search result. I don't know exactly what you are talking about here, but if I wanted to find a restaurant that is local I definitely just type 'Miguels' into the browser and then it searches google for 'Miguels' automatically and it know's my location so the first…

I want to be really clear that I'm not trying to argue with your experience, just to understand it... but:

> However even then, I'd rather have an app for them where I can enter in the items I want to order.

Really? You want to download a different app for every restaurant you order from?

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#85

Post by graemep »

drnick1 wrote: post #28
graemep wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apps can gather data, and there are lots of things that requires apps now. Edit: I meant apps can gather data.

Apps obviously gather data. In fact, on common phone operating systems, they tend to have access to an insane amount of information, including what other apps are used, hardware identifiers, information related to Google/Apple accounts and more. As for things "requiring" apps, I am happy to do without those. If I cannot access something through a website on a device under my control, I will not use it. No convenience…

Oops. I meant apps can gather (more) data.

The inconvenience is considerable. In the last few days I had the choice of use the app or drive 20 mins each way plus park, walk and possibly queue. Required (UK) government ID verification. The issued my new passport without that!

It is often more costly to not use an app, not just inconvenient. My daughter had to use the bus company app to get (much cheaper) monthly ticker to get to school.

I use few apps, keep location turned off, do not use wallet, etc. but there is going to be more and more pressure to use apps.

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#86

Post by thatguy0900 »

literalAardvark wrote: post #79
malfist wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ming boggling just how....cringe... these billionaires that want to run the world are. Makes you wonder if the personas that seek billions are correlated strongly with mental illnesses.

I think they are, and strongly. The drive to achieve that level of success often comes from weaponized poor self esteem. Well adjusted individuals just chill out after a few million and work on whatever is fun/important for them. Only rarely does this also happen to be something that can take you from 10M to 1B. (and if it can it would take a lot of work you can't be bothered to do unless it's some core value like he…

Trump saying recently that he hates hanging around successful people and prefers losers because he doesn't want to listen to other people's stories really speaks to the poor self esteem angle

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#87

Post by malfist »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #69
malfist wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a hell of a difference between a multimillionare who has a successful business and a billionare. The difference between a person who has a million dollars and a person who has a billion dollars is about a billion dollars.

> a hell of a difference between a multimillionare who has a successful business and a billionare Yeah, I'm saying the ones worth hundreds of millions to low billions who aren't on social media are, in my personal experience, often fine people. The ones I don't like are the ones on social media, but that's also true of the folks worth a few thousand dollars. Plenty of billionaires are assholes. The world's GDP is ove…

And who are you to personally know enough billionaires intimately enough to absolve them of any guilt they might have earned hoarding enough wealth to reach that level?

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#88

Post by ashton314 »

malfist wrote: post #6
john_strinlai wrote: post #5

> This thing also has a "Text the President" button that auto-fills your message with "Greatest President Ever!" and then collects your name and phone number. when is the onion going to go bankrupt? it has to be soon, i imagine. no way it can compete with reality at this point. (the rest of the article is a bit too depressing for me to comment on at the moment, other than saying "wow, gross")

It's ming boggling just how....cringe... these billionaires that want to run the world are. Makes you wonder if the personas that seek billions are correlated strongly with mental illnesses.

Most don’t seem to think about morals or quality at all: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/introspection-andr...

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#89

Post by keybored »

malfist wrote: post #6
john_strinlai wrote: post #5

> This thing also has a "Text the President" button that auto-fills your message with "Greatest President Ever!" and then collects your name and phone number. when is the onion going to go bankrupt? it has to be soon, i imagine. no way it can compete with reality at this point. (the rest of the article is a bit too depressing for me to comment on at the moment, other than saying "wow, gross")

It's ming boggling just how....cringe... these billionaires that want to run the world are. Makes you wonder if the personas that seek billions are correlated strongly with mental illnesses.

Aren’t sociopaths strongly overrepresented among the powerful?

(Assuming that) It’s a bit astonishing that we discuss things like that, go huh, and then go about our day. Effectively acquiescing to rule-by-personality disordered.

Re: Fedware: Government apps that spy harder than the apps they ban

#90

Post by dnautics »

malfist wrote: post #80
psadauskas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? If I had enough money that I could make a serious dent in local or even global poverty without noticing the change in my lifestyle, and I just... chose not to, I have no idea how I could sleep at night.

Elon tweeted that he'd fund ending world hunger if someone presented him with an actual plan to do that. UNESCO did. Elon did not act.

can you verify that the UNESCO plan would have ended world hunger?
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