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Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

nytimes.com

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Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#21

Post by s_kilk »

dragontamer wrote: post #19
s_kilk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the "sin" is in Valley programmers broad refusal to acknowledge the social impacts of their work, their refusal to believe that technology, which is inseparable from the context it is used in, could possibly have any negative impact on that context, and the people who use it. Even in 2017 we still have engineers crowing about how technology is value neutral, it's a-political, and how any attempt to claim otherwis…

I can agree that what you bring up is an issue. But your sentiment doesn't occur anywhere in the first 15 paragraphs of the article. In effect, your two sentences make a better argument than 15+ paragraphs from the article. I'm criticizing the ARTICLE, not necessarily the viewpoint. The article is poorly written in my opinion.

Thanks ;)

The article certainly suffers from __that__ kind of long-winded (some call it long-form) writing.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#23

Post by thriftwy »

hprotagonist wrote: post #2

I grew up reading 2600 and the jargon file and early slashdot, and hanging out on freenode and usenet, so i've been indoctrinated in this way of thinking this way for 20 years. In my experience, the people who built the net are among its sharpest and most vocal critics, and there's some cause for that. I'm not sure what the implications of everyone else thinking this way will be.

We knew from the day one that over-reliance on cloud giants like Facebook or Google in holding all your life worth of data is a bad idea.

We told everybody that it is a bad idea.

Everybody promptly ignored our warnings. Some laughed.

I guess they don't laugh anymore, do they? Now, who was right?

Obligatory https://xkcd.com/743/

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#24

Post by dclowd9901 »

hprotagonist wrote: post #2

I grew up reading 2600 and the jargon file and early slashdot, and hanging out on freenode and usenet, so i've been indoctrinated in this way of thinking this way for 20 years. In my experience, the people who built the net are among its sharpest and most vocal critics, and there's some cause for that. I'm not sure what the implications of everyone else thinking this way will be.

This is my experience as well. While my family are enjoying their Amazon Dots and "Hey Siri" and everything else, I'm constantly reminding them of how evil these companies are, and how they're constantly consuming and eating information, while Uncle Sam syphons every drip of internet off the pipeline.

Convenience, in my mind, has never been worth the price of losing anonymity.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#25

Post by conanbatt »

adventured wrote: post #12
hprotagonist wrote: post #2

I grew up reading 2600 and the jargon file and early slashdot, and hanging out on freenode and usenet, so i've been indoctrinated in this way of thinking this way for 20 years. In my experience, the people who built the net are among its sharpest and most vocal critics, and there's some cause for that. I'm not sure what the implications of everyone else thinking this way will be.

In a word, regulation. Tech has been mostly hands-off politically, an oasis of limited targeted regulation, over the post WW2 era. While the rest of the US economy has practically been regulated to death. Bloomberg had an opinion piece a few days ago, noting how several of the tech giants (eg Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Oracle, Cisco) had higher profit margins than the S&P 500 average and argued that it was d…

I wish they took it as an example of reducing regulation in the others, instead of adding regulation to these ones..

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#26

Post by justinpaulson »

adventured wrote: post #12
hprotagonist wrote: post #2

I grew up reading 2600 and the jargon file and early slashdot, and hanging out on freenode and usenet, so i've been indoctrinated in this way of thinking this way for 20 years. In my experience, the people who built the net are among its sharpest and most vocal critics, and there's some cause for that. I'm not sure what the implications of everyone else thinking this way will be.

In a word, regulation. Tech has been mostly hands-off politically, an oasis of limited targeted regulation, over the post WW2 era. While the rest of the US economy has practically been regulated to death. Bloomberg had an opinion piece a few days ago, noting how several of the tech giants (eg Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Oracle, Cisco) had higher profit margins than the S&P 500 average and argued that it was d…

"regulated to death"? Hyperbole much? You make it sound as if regulations have no goal other than to limit the growth of industries. As if the wellbeing of the people and the planet have nothing to do with it. The main reason other industries are regulated more than tech is because other industries usually have a lot more physical repercussions to their actions (affecting health, finances, etc. in a very tangible way). Most tech companies offer free products in exchange for data or advertising space, and the dissemination of personal data is not viewed at the same level as destroying someone's finances or health.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#27

Post by qudat »

Who thought tech companies were ever a friend?

I don't see a problem with massive corporations so long as they get that way by offering the best good or service at the lowest price (natural monopolies). If they achieve their status by partaking in political activity or otherwise using their power in a coercive manner (coercive monopolies) then that's where I draw the line.

There lies the biggest problem with powerful institutions, how can we create a political system that renders political clout benign?

If governments had no power then growing monoliths couldn't extract that power to begin with, right?

It seems at the core of any coercive monopoly there sits government force.

This is where I think the article got it wrong, it's not tech that is the problem, but the solution. We should be looking for ways to render government force obsolete through technological advancements in order to completely eradicate coercive monopolies (and by proxy, monolithic institutions) once and for all.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#29

Post by paulryanrogers »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #24
hprotagonist wrote: post #2

I grew up reading 2600 and the jargon file and early slashdot, and hanging out on freenode and usenet, so i've been indoctrinated in this way of thinking this way for 20 years. In my experience, the people who built the net are among its sharpest and most vocal critics, and there's some cause for that. I'm not sure what the implications of everyone else thinking this way will be.

This is my experience as well. While my family are enjoying their Amazon Dots and "Hey Siri" and everything else, I'm constantly reminding them of how evil these companies are, and how they're constantly consuming and eating information, while Uncle Sam syphons every drip of internet off the pipeline. Convenience, in my mind, has never been worth the price of losing anonymity.

How do you maintain your anonymity?
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