Why we should end the data economy • Hacker News Board

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#191

Post by matz1 » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

shkkmo wrote: post #121

slver wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From reading this list, I can deduce OP just made up most of them, because over half of them contains details that are total BS. Also I happen to think we'd be a better society if we all knew everything about each other. Instead of discouraging companies from analyzing us, encourage them to publish everything all the time. Let governments join in on the fun. Everyone should be tracking an analyzing everyone else. Sol…

The worst thing about the information economy of today is absolutely the inequality of access. We would be better off if everything that is collected was public. I don't think that means we don't need privacy. It absolutely has value. The problem is when privacy is only available to the rich and powerful, while the details about the rest of us are hoarded and used by the very same powerful people who pay such a premi…

>I don't think that means we don't need privacy. It absolutely has value.

I never heard any convincing argument about why privacy has value.

>but that doesn't mean we should allow everything to be collected.

Why ?

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#192

Post by kwhitefoot » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

slver wrote: post #110

cs702 wrote: post #54

No one sane would ever want their relatives, friends, work colleagues, and neighbors to be able to know (quoting from the OP): > who you sleep with because both you and the person you share your bed with keep your phones nearby > whether you sleep soundly at night or whether your troubles are keeping you up > whether you pick up your phone in the middle of the night and search for things like "loan repayment" > your…

From reading this list, I can deduce OP just made up most of them, because over half of them contains details that are total BS. Also I happen to think we'd be a better society if we all knew everything about each other. Instead of discouraging companies from analyzing us, encourage them to publish everything all the time. Let governments join in on the fun. Everyone should be tracking an analyzing everyone else. Sol…

Upvoted, not because I agree with you but because it makes important points.

Anyone who thinks such transparency is a good idea should read Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter's Light of Other Days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Other_Days

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#193

Post by dioBaco » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

SavantIdiot wrote: post #80

cs702 wrote: post #54

No one sane would ever want their relatives, friends, work colleagues, and neighbors to be able to know (quoting from the OP): > who you sleep with because both you and the person you share your bed with keep your phones nearby > whether you sleep soundly at night or whether your troubles are keeping you up > whether you pick up your phone in the middle of the night and search for things like "loan repayment" > your…

This is a great list. SO many times people have said to me, "Let them track me, I've got nothing to hide." And you hit them with a few things off this list and they immediately change their mind. There should be a tinurl for website I can send people to that shows a simple list of all the ways personal information can be used.

[dead]

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#194

Post by bsedlm » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

I think we should go further, into a full review of what it means to own something. However this is rather ambitious considering that the idea of ownerhsip lies at the very foundation of civilization as we do it.

But the nature of "digital property" has changed things. If you think the printing press changed the nature of human societies, just wait until the internet has existed for a few hundred years and their corresponding number of generations.

Capitalist market economies, trade-centric as they are, have evolved around a world in which all property is exclusive. However starting from printing press up to "model-T"--style mass production (the development of industrial societies) reduced the cost of copying and duplicating stuff more more until the creation of the internet brought about "digital goods" (such as all your personal data) which has duplication costs _below_ marginal (I think digital copying has essentially ZERO cost).

Digital goods provide a huge boon if we are able to stop trying to force-fit them into a system which works great for physical (i.e. exclusive) goods. Why and how did Microsoft become what it is during the 90s? because of huge savings in duplicating their software in a society that expected said duplication to have a not-negible cost.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#195

Post by codeisawesome » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

yboris wrote: post #155

cs702 wrote: post #54

No one sane would ever want their relatives, friends, work colleagues, and neighbors to be able to know (quoting from the OP): > who you sleep with because both you and the person you share your bed with keep your phones nearby > whether you sleep soundly at night or whether your troubles are keeping you up > whether you pick up your phone in the middle of the night and search for things like "loan repayment" > your…

The author of this article, Carissa Véliz, also wrote Privacy Is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data https://www.amazon.com/Privacy-Power-Should-Take-Control/dp/...

If one were to buy that book (or even visit the link) - some new interesting ‘data points’ have now been collected ;)

Actually no, not a wink, it’s terrifying :D D:

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#196

Post by Raidion » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

xibalba wrote: post #173

cs702 wrote: post #54

No one sane would ever want their relatives, friends, work colleagues, and neighbors to be able to know (quoting from the OP): > who you sleep with because both you and the person you share your bed with keep your phones nearby > whether you sleep soundly at night or whether your troubles are keeping you up > whether you pick up your phone in the middle of the night and search for things like "loan repayment" > your…

Would you please demonstrate to me how I, Joe Q. Public, can find out, via collected data that I can access, with whom another person is sleeping with? Or, in lieu of that, walk me through how that would be done with Facebook's, Google's, or Apple's data via your first-hand knowledge of those data and where and how they are stored and accessed? These fear mongering comments about data collection have never demonstrat…

I'm undecided on this topic, but playing devil's advocate: Does the fact that this knowledge exists, and only in the hands of some of the largest (and most pervasive) tech companies in the world, make this information 'safer', or does it mean that it's a 'force multiplier' that increases the risk that this information will be used a) to enable anti-competitive behavior or b) be co-opted by authoritarian governments to suppress dissent.

I personally think that if I give this data to a company, and they keep it "safe" and only to support features that are beneficial to me, that's totally OK, but I wouldn't like companies reselling my mobility data to health insurers (without aggregation or cohorting) to give me a 100% customized insurance rate, regardless of how beneficial that would be.

Data that's used to distill people down to a number and value them precisely seems to have a potential to enforce systematic inequalities and further improve the lives of "haves" at the cost of "have nots".

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#197

Post by rootusrootus » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

mancerayder wrote: post #140

cs702 wrote: post #54

No one sane would ever want their relatives, friends, work colleagues, and neighbors to be able to know (quoting from the OP): > who you sleep with because both you and the person you share your bed with keep your phones nearby > whether you sleep soundly at night or whether your troubles are keeping you up > whether you pick up your phone in the middle of the night and search for things like "loan repayment" > your…

Add to this... everything you said is a forever kept thing. So over decades this stuff can be mined and a tiny needle can be found if it's meaningful to the searcher. It's terrifying.

And as we already see happening, when cultural values shift over time, you will definitely be judged by things you did or said decades ago. Even if by contemporary standards they were typical.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#198

Post by weasel_words » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 6:54 PM UTC

bo1024 wrote: post #109

Swizec wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your life expectancy based on how fast you walk, as measured by your phone Shit I would love to know this for myself! Is there a service or app that can crunch the numbers and tell me?

Just to respond seriously for a second: it's good to remind ourselves that ML isn't magic. If it knew your weight and age it would use those for predicting life expectancy instead. Same for smoking history, sleep habits, etc. But all it has access to is the accelerometer, and a weak correlation is better than nothing, so that's what it uses.

Someone previously illustrated sceneries where the algorithm hiccupped on your data and erroneously labeled you as a pedophile and/or terrorist (at the same time!).

If you think about it, bad ML (or your words: "...ML isn't magic.") is just as bad, if not worse, than infallible ML.

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#199

Post by supercanuck » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 6:55 PM UTC

xibalba wrote: post #173

cs702 wrote: post #54

No one sane would ever want their relatives, friends, work colleagues, and neighbors to be able to know (quoting from the OP): > who you sleep with because both you and the person you share your bed with keep your phones nearby > whether you sleep soundly at night or whether your troubles are keeping you up > whether you pick up your phone in the middle of the night and search for things like "loan repayment" > your…

Would you please demonstrate to me how I, Joe Q. Public, can find out, via collected data that I can access, with whom another person is sleeping with? Or, in lieu of that, walk me through how that would be done with Facebook's, Google's, or Apple's data via your first-hand knowledge of those data and where and how they are stored and accessed? These fear mongering comments about data collection have never demonstrat…

Here you go…

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_comments/2...

Re: Why we should end the data economy

#200

Post by websites3434 » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

The people who are OK with this kind of thing -- "But nothing bad has ever happened to anyone IRL" -- are obviously not part of a minority ethnic/religious/sexual orientation/gender group. This kind of technology is already used to do harm in China. Those of us in those groups don't have the luxury of "waiting to see if the nightmare becomes real" because of some of us would be in the crosshairs, not potential bystanders.