Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend • Hacker News Board

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#61

Post by zitterbewegung » Fri, Oct 13, 2017, 3:46 PM UTC

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.

I think with the start of having inference at the edge on the device of a network instead of uploading to some cloud service there will be an opportunity to take back our data. We could create a system similar to an Amazon Echo where it performs inference on the device. Then if it needs to connect to an external data source for something like did the Cubs win yesterday it would only get that service. For things like setting reminders it would be able to do that completely on device.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#62

Post by ChuckMcM » Fri, Oct 13, 2017, 3:47 PM UTC

I wonder how "Wall Street is not your friend" would play in the NY Times. I mean I get it, greed and flexible morality result in exploitation of the masses, but it is not unique to tech.

During the dot.com boom it was pretty clear that there were people here in the Bay Area whose only goal was to sell some investors on an idea, pump it up, take it public on a story, pocket some big profits and then blow town. My friends and I called it the "Invasion of the MBAs" but it really was the invasion of people who want to make easy money and they don't care who they hurt doing it. After things blew up and the only people getting investment were people trying to actually build products it calmed way down. This 'type' of person seems to seek out other avenues when there is real work to be done.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#63

Post by haberman » Fri, Oct 13, 2017, 3:48 PM UTC

> We need greater regulation, even if it impedes the introduction of new services. If we can’t stop their proposals — if we can’t say that driverless cars may not be a worthy goal, to give just one example — then are we in control of our society?

Governments are in full control of whether driverless cars happen. They were fully illegal until some states started making them legal in certain circumstances (like for testing). And they are well-regulated; for example here are California's regulations: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/auto

So yes, the people are in control of society. If driverless cars happen over the author's objection, all it means is that he's failed to convince his fellow countrymen/women that they are the great menace he believes them to be.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#64

Post by darethas » Fri, Oct 13, 2017, 3:49 PM UTC

dclowd9901 wrote: post #36

paulryanrogers wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you maintain your anonymity?

Not tweeting (much), not instagramming (much), not posting on Facebook (much), etc. I don't see anonymity as a binary; more of a spectrum (think something that stretches between a hermit and a celebrity). Obviously as a human existing into some manner of time with family and friends and coworkers, I'm _known_ by those who could/should, but I don't need Amazon parsing conversations in my kitchen.

Right, but do you hang out with people around you that tweet, Instagram, and post on Facebook? Have you ever had dinner with friends and they have an Echo/Dot/Home/"Smart" TV? They can infer where you are based on being around others that use these services.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#65

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 13, 2017, 3:52 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #62

I wonder how "Wall Street is not your friend" would play in the NY Times. I mean I get it, greed and flexible morality result in exploitation of the masses, but it is not unique to tech. During the dot.com boom it was pretty clear that there were people here in the Bay Area whose only goal was to sell some investors on an idea, pump it up, take it public on a story, pocket some big profits and then blow town. My frie…

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#66

Post by steveax » Fri, Oct 13, 2017, 3:53 PM UTC

s_kilk wrote: post #14

dragontamer wrote: post #3

Okay, there are a lot of ills in Silicon Valley / Tech world, but this article... frankly speaking... is a load of anti-corporate rage. I've read about halfway through this article, and it seems like the biggest "sin" of Silicon Valley, according to this article, is their acceptance of advertisements (Google / Facebook Mobile) and possibly Amazon's dominance of the online marketplace? Facebook's "sin" of allowing Rus…

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’m reminded of this from Einstein:

“The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking ... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.”

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#67

Post by ZoeZoeBee » Fri, Oct 13, 2017, 3:54 PM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #8

I'm no fan of Facebook, but I don't get why they're to blame for Russia's meddling in the election. It's hard to believe that they were aware of what was going on and allowed it to continue because they were making money off of it. The money they were getting was a pittance, all things considered.

>The money they were getting was a pittance, all things considered.

Go a little further down the rabbit hole, you'll have your answer

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#68

Post by cromwellian » Fri, Oct 13, 2017, 3:54 PM UTC

The reporter asks a rhetorical question of whether self driving cars should be stopped. Did he ask the car companies whether they should have been stopped selling a machine that helps kill tens of thousands a year and pollute the global environment?

I mean, lets get a damn perspective here: traditional non-silicon valley companies continue to make and sell things which poison and kill people and because of that, there is a greater concern about them. But he doesn't like SV because it's companies created anarchic platforms that allow unsavory people to buy and publish propaganda? Seems somewhat hypocritical for a writer of the NYT to decry freedom to publish on platforms.

And if we had a completely decentralized internet, none of these issues would go away. Rather, we'd be talking about how no one can stop the Russians using Bitcoin to pay for publish and propaganda on whatever decentralized platform has the most eyeballs.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#69

Post by 659087 » Fri, Oct 13, 2017, 3:55 PM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #8

I'm no fan of Facebook, but I don't get why they're to blame for Russia's meddling in the election. It's hard to believe that they were aware of what was going on and allowed it to continue because they were making money off of it. The money they were getting was a pittance, all things considered.

> The money they were getting was a pittance

Or at least, the money they told you they were getting was a pittance.

Re: Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend

#70

Post by rublev » Fri, Oct 13, 2017, 3:58 PM UTC

dclowd9901 wrote: post #36

paulryanrogers wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you maintain your anonymity?

Not tweeting (much), not instagramming (much), not posting on Facebook (much), etc. I don't see anonymity as a binary; more of a spectrum (think something that stretches between a hermit and a celebrity). Obviously as a human existing into some manner of time with family and friends and coworkers, I'm _known_ by those who could/should, but I don't need Amazon parsing conversations in my kitchen.

>Not tweeting (much), not instagramming (much), not posting on Facebook (much)

It's not a spectrum. You are a user and you are rationalizing your cognitive dissonance. Just delete it, those things are completely useless/pointless and you're being tracked regardless of whatever precautions you take. You are on it, or you are not.