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Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

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Re: Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

#251
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing is old money, another is telling everyone you are selfmade when in fact you are a nepo kid. If you are old money you tend towards intelligence roles because they give you diplomatic passport and make you immune to the law. It is much better than owning 5 passports from some banana republic because in the end only military might of the colonial powers counts (e.g. the british crown). So many of the silicon v…

What does it mean to be ‘in intelligence’ in this context?

Performing privileged work for the government in some shape or form which allows you to skirt the legal rules and makes you immune to certain issues (e.g. travel with diplomatic passport or invent fake identities to hide your real family tree). In force-colonized countries such as South Africa, the local colonial overlords openly looted the country, first in the name of the monarch and later for their own wealthy class which was still deeply connected to the European aristocracy. The colonialist class in South Africa most likely were also involved with the South African intelligence community and secret police, with all the special status this entails.

But simply focusing on five-eyes three-letter agencies is too narrow because there are thousands of "inofficial" entities surrounding them. And at least on paper if you are working in intelligence you're an idealistic government servant. History shows that most whistleblowers we read about are these kind of idealists, because they notice that not all five-eyes governments are equal. Some are monarchies, and the crown did many things which are incompatible with democratic values of US citizens and the narrative of the "American dream" they learned from Hollywood.

People always blame CIA and their black budgets, but what if CIA was actually subverted by the British crown and their colonial aristocracy?

The most famous spy in the world is James Bond, 007, not a "yankee". The British broke the Enigma and had extensive experience managing hundreds of colonies and their local populations, supposedly even introducing foreign pathogens as biological warfare on native populations.

Maxwell family was big in software and networking, especially for identity control. Epstein family was blacklisted from Hollywood due to antisemitism and moved into radio stations & broadway. Jeffrey was arrested by Scotland Yard in London and a bit earlier Jarecki was arrested in East Germany and later stationed for a very long time in Heidelberg, which is 1hr away from Thiel's official origin story, and also close to where the Trump family originated from in a different era.

Fred Trump sent youth abroad from NY area with the American Foreign Service (AFS), which during the cold war was at least relevant for national security, because each of the students could be converted into communists by foreign agencies.

When the King visited the white house, Mr. Trump was seemingly out of character and did not speak a bad word.

Re: Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

#252

Just here to remind you all about bicycles.

Fun fact:

e-bikes are more climate friendly than human-powered bikes.

5 grams CO2 equivalent emissions per mile e-bike, 40 grams per mile for human eating exclusively bananas. Much, much worse for other dietary choices. Embodied carbon emissions in the bike itself are essentially equivalent.

The Carbon Footprint of Everything (2022)

Re: Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

#254

Just here to remind you all about bicycles.

Fun fact: e-bikes are more climate friendly than human-powered bikes. 5 grams CO2 equivalent emissions per mile e-bike, 40 grams per mile for human eating exclusively bananas. Much, much worse for other dietary choices. Embodied carbon emissions in the bike itself are essentially equivalent. The Carbon Footprint of Everything (2022)

The carbon in food is not captured or emitted in any coherent sense here. The crops are grown (capturing the carbon in the first place) for the purpose of feeding people -- in the same way that modern American forestry for paper is functionally carbon neutral (ignoring transport and processing) because the trees are in equilibrium. The counterfactual of not eating the food results in fewer crops and basically the same atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Edit: if you only mean food transportation carbon, it seems impossible bananas are literally optimal per calorie.

Re: Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

#255

With cars, networked computers are encroaching on privacy from two sides: the computers inside the car sharing sensor data and the computers outside the car sharing camera data from known points on the road. Older cars may not have cellular data, and some new cars (e.g. the Slate electric car) may be specifically designed without cellular connections or with easily removable chips, but so much can still be inferred f…

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Re: Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

#256

Every corporation is trying to spy on you. Why wouldn't they? There is no real punishment, and large reward. As long as that is true, superficial regulations around tracking will always be circumvented or hollowed out. We need fundamental change in the way corporations interact with society, and in what is expected of them.

Everyone saying everything other than "Consumers are going to need to be willing to spend more money for things, and people with less money are going to be hit the hardest as they benefit the most from the data economy." Data has value is flatly true statement. So at best we can have system where you can keep your data and pay more, or sell your data and pay less. The rub here though is that the people who have the m…

>So at best we can have system where you can keep your data and pay more, or sell your data and pay less.

And that would be fine, but without more rigorous controls on corporate behavior, you'll end up paying more and not keeping your data.

Re: Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

#257

Every corporation is trying to spy on you. Why wouldn't they? There is no real punishment, and large reward. As long as that is true, superficial regulations around tracking will always be circumvented or hollowed out. We need fundamental change in the way corporations interact with society, and in what is expected of them.

This is the long tail of monopoly and cartel power. We need a fundamental change in the _size_ of corporations. They're otherwise too big to regulate and changing expectations will achieve nothing.

The problem is that in an unregulated capital system, money naturally flows uphill. The industrial revolution made this clear to everyone early on, and so we got anti-trust laws and progressive taxation. But over the decades, anti-trust laws have been weakened or left unenforced, and progressive taxation largely died in the 1980s. We need to reinvigorate these measures, and also look for more structural ways to counter-balance the advantage of capital over merit in our economy.

Re: Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

#258

With cars, networked computers are encroaching on privacy from two sides: the computers inside the car sharing sensor data and the computers outside the car sharing camera data from known points on the road. Older cars may not have cellular data, and some new cars (e.g. the Slate electric car) may be specifically designed without cellular connections or with easily removable chips, but so much can still be inferred f…

I think there are THREE sets of data collection:

- data your car collects about you

- roadside data collection by flock/etc

- data collection by other vehicles. other vehicles act like roving flock cameras. I think fedex vehicles collect data for example.

I also wonder about data your car collects that is not about you. Might not show up in the privacy policy.

Re: Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

#259

Every corporation is trying to spy on you. Why wouldn't they? There is no real punishment, and large reward. As long as that is true, superficial regulations around tracking will always be circumvented or hollowed out. We need fundamental change in the way corporations interact with society, and in what is expected of them.

The time to do this was 30 years ago. While today we need it more than ever, it is probably already too late: corporations will find those trying to do this and stop them.

One can easily imagine pragmatic Tories saying the same thing about the American Revolution: "We should have done this 30 years ago, there's not point in trying now."

Re: Cars collect a startling amount of data about you

#260
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We live in a hell of our own creation Well not "our" creation since only a few oligarchs control most of the companies that engage in this. > and only new legislation and regulations can get us out of here. The same oligarchs control nearly all the legislators, so no way out.

> Well not "our" creation since only a few oligarchs control most of the companies that engage in this. They're just looking after their interests and kinks. It's the suckers that accept it, which are hundreds of millions, that allow this hell to be created, and continue to not do anything about it, when they're not even supporting and voting for them.

What would you suggest people do about it?
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