71–80 of 240 posts
> that governments need to put some "guardrails" around engineers and the tech titans they serve The evil engineers! Not the managers, CEOs and so on, but engineers. The true root of evil. Finally someone recognizes who's really at fault
Once upon a time public opinion was manipulated by TV and the big newspapers; now it is manipulated by new media companies. My stupid question is: where is the big difference?
By the time that a society recognizes that a new medium has changed them, it's too late.
> that governments need to put some "guardrails" around engineers and the tech titans they serve The evil engineers! Not the managers, CEOs and so on, but engineers. The true root of evil. Finally someone recognizes who's really at fault
Stop pushing the blame upstairs. If you knowingly build software that hurts people, you share the blame. The job market for programmers has never been better. "My boss told me to do it" is not an excuse. I, for one, hope more engineers involved in fraud (eg VW), privacy breaches (eg Facebook) etc get tried and punished. It might help make programmers realize that yes, your work actually affects real humans and yes, y…
Once upon a time public opinion was manipulated by TV and the big newspapers; now it is manipulated by new media companies. My stupid question is: where is the big difference?
The people who used to be able to manipulate public opinion are really, really pissed off that others are doing it and they’re even more pissed off that manipulating public opinion has become more difficult and people who aren’t respectable members of the elite are being listened to by the public. Before the internet Sanders, Trump, AOC, Yang, they would never have gotten anywhere. The ruling class is pissed off that…
Good political instincts, ability to speak extemporaneously (a rare ability in the modern era). I expect that he could have picked up a House seat fairly easily on the way to a Presidential campaign as sort of a Williams Jennings Bryanesque character.
I do agree though that the internet has changed the character of politics (painfully obvious). Anything that breaks the back of newspapers and broadcasters as gatekeepers isn't such a bad thing, the trick is to avoid having youtube/facebook/etc. become activist successors to the NYT and CBS.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is naive. Organizations and people depend on specific software and there is not replacement for any kind of app that is spying on you.
Organisations mandating use of a specific OS is one thing, but most people would be able to get by fine using Linux personally.
Once upon a time public opinion was manipulated by TV and the big newspapers; now it is manipulated by new media companies. My stupid question is: where is the big difference?
We had something like a consensus reality when big newspapers framed the terms of debate. Now we're retribalizing. Different groups are working not only with different beliefs, but also different sets of facts to cement their beliefs. By the time that a society recognizes that a new medium has changed them, it's too late.
Why can't big tech self-regulate? Why must it always be a solution that depends on big government instead? Why should anyone trust the government given the last few thousand years of history?
Should we allow chemical companies, oil companies, and power plants to regulate themselves? What about drug companies?
Personally, I think that the government vs. industry split becomes rather academic when you are speaking of monopolies, especially monopolies that spy on you. I expect that there's a slow motion merger into a GoogleFacebookMicrosoftApple.gov body with the companies acting as cabinet branches.
The threats to democracy arguments are so overblown. We're about to have a huge election. There is no literal threat to democracy. Hmmm...it must be some kind of metaphor. So what do people mean when they say this? The NPR piece says Smith suggests "the Internet giants will cannibalize the very fabric of this country". This metaphor seems hyperbolic as well. To use "cannibalize" means that something will eat itself.…
Once upon a time public opinion was manipulated by TV and the big newspapers; now it is manipulated by new media companies. My stupid question is: where is the big difference?
We had something like a consensus reality when big newspapers framed the terms of debate. Now we're retribalizing. Different groups are working not only with different beliefs, but also different sets of facts to cement their beliefs. By the time that a society recognizes that a new medium has changed them, it's too late.
Why can't big tech self-regulate? Why must it always be a solution that depends on big government instead? Why should anyone trust the government given the last few thousand years of history?
I think because democracy also implies a separation of powers, so that you have the players watching each other in order to prevent any player from becoming too strong.
Even in the case of a dictatorial and lifetime head of state, separation of powers is baked into the cake by groups with common interests, sometimes organically, sometimes on purpose.