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Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

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Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#61

Post by magicGLASSman »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #40
magicGLASSman wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the concept very well. Of course their are advantages to using a service that everyone else is using, but it comes down to what you value more your privacy or the inconvenience of a smaller user group/paying a fee. I think the majority of people don't care about their privacy and would rather make that trade off right now. My core argument is that you still have a choice with free markets but with goverment if…

> I think the majority of people don't care about their privacy and would rather make that trade off right now. That depends on what you mean by that. I think most people care very much about the long-term effects that lack of privacy has on societies. They just are uninformed and therefore don't see those future costs, which is why they make a flawed tradeoff against their own interests. > My core argument is that y…

>They just are uninformed and therefore don't see those future costs

Who is educating these people? organization who have an interest in keeping the masses ignorant to the effects of privacy.

>which is why they make a flawed tradeoff against their own interests.

this is a common argument it hear, do you not think it is elitist to think that you know better then the common people? Hell, maybe you do, but I bet 10,000 other people also think they know better too. I am going to trust 100 billion micro decisions everyday rather then some academic in an ivory tower who thinks they know the will of the people.

>if everyone is on facebook, what choice do you have in reaching an audience?

Come on, There are many more channels to reach your audience, you are on one right now. Hacker new knows nothing about me other then my username and password.

>If google started manipulating the opinions of the majority of society against your interests, what choice would you have?

duckduckgo, bing, reddit, facebook, TV, or Family people get create their opinions based on a huge number of inputs. The problem is that people want to be told they are right so they only consume things that reinforce their opinion (confirmation bias) but that is a whole other road.

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#62

Post by AndrewKemendo »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #40
magicGLASSman wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the concept very well. Of course their are advantages to using a service that everyone else is using, but it comes down to what you value more your privacy or the inconvenience of a smaller user group/paying a fee. I think the majority of people don't care about their privacy and would rather make that trade off right now. My core argument is that you still have a choice with free markets but with goverment if…

> I think the majority of people don't care about their privacy and would rather make that trade off right now. That depends on what you mean by that. I think most people care very much about the long-term effects that lack of privacy has on societies. They just are uninformed and therefore don't see those future costs, which is why they make a flawed tradeoff against their own interests. > My core argument is that y…

Being uninformed is a proxy for how much people care. If they did, they would be informed and demand accountability.

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#63

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

magicGLASSman wrote: post #61
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the majority of people don't care about their privacy and would rather make that trade off right now. That depends on what you mean by that. I think most people care very much about the long-term effects that lack of privacy has on societies. They just are uninformed and therefore don't see those future costs, which is why they make a flawed tradeoff against their own interests. > My core argument is that y…

>They just are uninformed and therefore don't see those future costs Who is educating these people? organization who have an interest in keeping the masses ignorant to the effects of privacy. >which is why they make a flawed tradeoff against their own interests. this is a common argument it hear, do you not think it is elitist to think that you know better then the common people? Hell, maybe you do, but I bet 10,000…

> this is a common argument it hear, do you not think it is elitist to think that you know better then the common people? Hell, maybe you do, but I bet 10,000 other people also think they know better too. I am going to trust 100 billion micro decisions everyday rather then some academic in an ivory tower who thinks they know the will of the people.

What is your point? That people don't ever act against their own interest because of lack of information or understanding?

> Come on, There are many more channels to reach your audience, you are on one right now.

That wasn't the question. The question referred to a hypothetical situation. Stating that the hypothetical situation doesn't match reality doesn't answer the question.

> Hacker new knows nothing about me other then my username and password.

And your IP address and which comment threads you are interested in and which opinions you express and which comments you vote on in which way ... but I guess that's besides the point anyway.

> duckduckgo, bing, reddit, facebook, TV, or Family people get create their opinions based on a huge number of inputs. The problem is that people want to be told they are right so they only consume things that reinforce their opinion (confirmation bias) but that is a whole other road.

How is that a choice you have regarding other people being manipulated against your interests? I don't understand.

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#64

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #62
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the majority of people don't care about their privacy and would rather make that trade off right now. That depends on what you mean by that. I think most people care very much about the long-term effects that lack of privacy has on societies. They just are uninformed and therefore don't see those future costs, which is why they make a flawed tradeoff against their own interests. > My core argument is that y…

Being uninformed is a proxy for how much people care. If they did, they would be informed and demand accountability.

So, are you saying that people never make decisions that they later regret?

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#65

Post by magicGLASSman »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #63
magicGLASSman wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They just are uninformed and therefore don't see those future costs Who is educating these people? organization who have an interest in keeping the masses ignorant to the effects of privacy. >which is why they make a flawed tradeoff against their own interests. this is a common argument it hear, do you not think it is elitist to think that you know better then the common people? Hell, maybe you do, but I bet 10,000…

> this is a common argument it hear, do you not think it is elitist to think that you know better then the common people? Hell, maybe you do, but I bet 10,000 other people also think they know better too. I am going to trust 100 billion micro decisions everyday rather then some academic in an ivory tower who thinks they know the will of the people. What is your point? That people don't ever act against their own inte…

>What is your point?

You don't know what they value most, only they do.

>That wasn't the question.

True, to much hypotheticals

>And your IP address and which comment threads you are interested in and which opinions you express and which comments you vote on in which way ... but I guess that's besides the point anyway.

Your right about that, but if I cover my tracks I give a lot less data then say a Facebook.

>How is that a choice you have regarding other people being manipulated against your interests?

You don't and you never will. People have been manipulating others since the the dawn of humanity. My point is that if people have choice they can take in many inputs and decide the best way to make decisions for themselves instead of being forced to use a service.

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#66

Post by magicGLASSman »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #64
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being uninformed is a proxy for how much people care. If they did, they would be informed and demand accountability.

So, are you saying that people never make decisions that they later regret?

I wish I had a time machine to change the decisions that I have made, but in that specific time and place with the information that I had at hand, I think I have made the right decisions. I think post people do. Cliché "Hindsight is 20/20"

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#67

Post by benevol »

teekert wrote: post #32
driverdan wrote: post #6

> Governmental control is nothing compared to what Google is up to. Governments have guns, Google does not. I'm not saying we should ignore corporate surveillance but there is a big difference.

Also, Google is opt-in (to a degree, perhaps using Tor/blockers/anti-tracker should be called opt-out), The government presents not options.

Google is NOT opt-in.

You know very well that their analytics product tracks everybody all across the Web (and techies are the only ones who know about noscript). And what do you do when you are forced to reply to Gmail emails because others who have no clue use it?

Joe the user has no clue about "all this technical stuff", how it works, what it is capable of, how it can be combined with data from other DBs, how it is really used by the corporate and governmental world and where all this is going, especially when AI will have advanced even more.

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#68

Post by kushti »

driverdan wrote: post #6

> Governmental control is nothing compared to what Google is up to. Governments have guns, Google does not. I'm not saying we should ignore corporate surveillance but there is a big difference.

Google is already punishing people physically: http://yashalevine.com/articles/we-got-geeks-inside-google-s...

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#69

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

magicGLASSman wrote: post #65
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is a common argument it hear, do you not think it is elitist to think that you know better then the common people? Hell, maybe you do, but I bet 10,000 other people also think they know better too. I am going to trust 100 billion micro decisions everyday rather then some academic in an ivory tower who thinks they know the will of the people. What is your point? That people don't ever act against their own inte…

>What is your point? You don't know what they value most, only they do. >That wasn't the question. True, to much hypotheticals >And your IP address and which comment threads you are interested in and which opinions you express and which comments you vote on in which way ... but I guess that's besides the point anyway. Your right about that, but if I cover my tracks I give a lot less data then say a Facebook. >How is…

> You don't know what they value most, only they do.

But you very well can find out that people commonly proclaim inconsistent values, and that they often regret decisions they made earlier, and that that often coincides with having had inconsistent values.

It's just an empirical fact that if you look at how happy people (claim they) are, for example, people living in police states tend to be less happy than people living in free(ish) societies, while at the same time you still find many people who are very pro law-and-order. Now, I am not telling them whether they should prefer a police state or a free society, I just can empirically observe that people show support for politics that empirically leads to a society that the same people also empirically dislike.

Re: Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism

#70

Post by p4wnc6 »

pdkl95 wrote: post #21
sadgit wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're surrounded by confirmation that it is. Plus way too focused on the details.

I wonder how much the "open plan" style of office conditions people to accept surveillance.

Surveillance is the primary reason for its use. It's the only way organizations would tolerate the cost-ineffectiveness of that working style.

Whether people can be conditioned for it is an interesting question. Naive young extroverts probably don't have much problem with it. Introverts of all stripes probably cannot be conditioned as easily since introverts are depleted of energy by social interaction.

One of my worst fears about our industry is that it will quickly become 100% open plan surveillance offices and 100% adoption of idiot time wasting Agile/Scrum/Kanban management process (which are yet another form of cost-ineffective surveillance).

Before he took down his blog, Michael O. Church had a great post warning about the "macho subordination" cultures that build up in these Panopticon-like work spaces. Young workers who don't know that the company is harming them via the surveillance culture will instead adopt a race to the bottom attitude in which people compete to be seen as most loyal by showing how much privacy and human dignity they are vocally willing to give up.

The state of physical working conditions in Silicon Valley is beyond deplorable, and the trend is quickly being copied even by large firms. And don't even think for a second that it's about money. Firms pay out the nose for idiotic, opulent showpiece offices, where rows of sweatshop-like engineering stations are just office eye candy, not means of production. When they are paying for fucking fountains, roof gardens, employee cafés, and on-site rock-climbing walls, you know the argument is not that open-plan saves money. They are just getting off on how much employees are happy to debase themselves to get foosball access or craft beer.

It tells me a lot about the integrity of Y Combinator when I see how many YC companies have deplorable surveillance and macho subordination work spaces, but that Paul Graham himself gained much notoriety for writing essays, like his pieces "Great Hackers" or "Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule," which profoundly influenced me as a young programmer, that talk at length about the cost-effectiveness of providing people with protected, private, quiet space and time to get things done.

Modern YC companies, when contrasted against what Graham describes for almost a decade as good places to work, are a total farce (and the rest of the start-up world follows suit).

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