The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#81

Post by pessimizer » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 1:18 AM UTC

johncolanduoni wrote: post #62

pessimizer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This article is out of date Only if you're trying to say that the war is mostly over, and general purpose computing lost.

The general purpose computing doomsayers lost the average person caring whether they have a general purpose computer that they were never going to use as such anyway. They haven’t come within a light year of actually losing the ability to own devices that can run whatever code they want to.

Yes, people don't even want to install software on their own devices, which is why it's so weird that companies spend so much time and effort preventing them from doing it.

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#82

Post by salawat » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 1:20 AM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #35

city41 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember in the 90s people all thought Stallman was crazy. And by people I mean developers, Linux users, people on usenet, etc. We all appreciated his contributions but at the end of the day just figured he was wearing a tin foil hat.

To be clear, Richard "I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children" Stallman is totally nuts (although I'll give credit where it's due, he finally walked back his stance on pedophilia). A stopped clock is still right twice a day.

First off, he recanted on that, in particular after actually seeing or meeting people to whom it happened.

One thing I just don't understand is how people can want to shut off their brains when seeing one thing unusual and not go "That seems really odd, maybe I'm just misunderstanding it, and need to investigate a bit more."

If you don't, you miss out on some of the most exquisitely unique samples of the human species. People with life experience so deep as to have limited exposure to some of the more mundane ones we all take for granted. I'd recommend offering a bit more benefit of a doubt, and a wee bit more effort in terms of investigating context before writing someone off.

After all, if they're going to be your enemy, you might as well know them for what they really are that you don't underestimate them.

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#83

Post by themacguffinman » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 1:24 AM UTC

grawprog wrote: post #53

Phones, consoles, Chromebooks and other unrootable hardware, restrictive hardware licensing, arm's business model, abstraction over abstraction, SAAS, corporate cloud infrastructure, web apps over local, streaming over storing, walled gardens, signed binaries, nearly everything about 'modern safe computing' is all about taking control and responsibility away from users and handing it over to somebody else to be paid…

Tech people don't have this attitude, users do. Have you ever tried to teach someone who wasn't already enthusiastic about tech? Do you really think most users actually care?

Since the beginning of the tech industry, users have been presented over and over again with choices of closed and open tech, centralized and decentralized platforms, and each time users have overwhelmingly chosen the more convenient closed & centralized options. Most people just want to use tech like an appliance that benefits their lives, not teach themselves to manage or understand it.

Driving is an apt analogy because the overwhelming majority of people have no idea how to maintain or extend or tinker with their vehicle, nor do they want to learn. They just want to steer their car towards a location much like computer users want to steer their phones to a video or article or profile. Some minimal skill is currently necessary for driving, but even that's going away. Soon, cars will drive themselves and the automobile will finally be as convenient as a phone.

Kill everyone in tech right now then reset the clock, and in 30 years you'll have exactly the same industry. There's no tech Illuminati trying to crush general computing, general computing just stopped being necessary.

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#84

Post by core-questions » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 1:26 AM UTC

the_af wrote: post #64

grawprog wrote: post #53

Phones, consoles, Chromebooks and other unrootable hardware, restrictive hardware licensing, arm's business model, abstraction over abstraction, SAAS, corporate cloud infrastructure, web apps over local, streaming over storing, walled gardens, signed binaries, nearly everything about 'modern safe computing' is all about taking control and responsibility away from users and handing it over to somebody else to be paid…

I'm applauding your post furiously. It warms my heart there are still people like you. Yet, it's disheartening that even in many online forums of so-called hackers, one can still find plenty of people who will argue in favor of walled gardens and against general computing. Or who argue against the FSF and the right to tinker. If I had to choose one quote from your post is this one: > The general purpose computer is h…

> one can still find plenty of people who will argue in favor of walled gardens and against general computing.

What these people don't know is that we already had all of these arguments, 20+ years ago, on Usenet and Slashdot and a ton of mailing lists and it's all still there; every counter-argument, every riposte, every troll. The argument in favour of Free Software was won, philosophically, a while ago. The problem, of course, is actually getting the average Joe to understand what it means and what it implies; they have enough difficulty understanding what Free Speech really meant for them, and even now are willing participants in its dismantling.

That said, the library of existing Free Software is phenomenal. For most people, almost anything you could possibly need has some incarnation in the vast libraries of GPL and copylefted software out there. It's not going away, and so far there's no sign of general purpose-ish computing going away; $50 Raspberry Pis have more compute than most machines from a decade ago and so it's a really good, really equalizing era in computing, for anyone willing to take the plunge.

We need schools to start teaching kids Linux from a young age, I think.

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#85

Post by fsfffs » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 1:30 AM UTC

As alluded to in the talk, I think the initial "war" solution isn't contentious for many people and most on HN.

The civil war problem though, user rights vs owner rights, I think can be helped along though maybe not solved completely with basic income and mandatory information disclosure. Lots of the problems he talks about involve people very underlevereged in the market and incapable of making decisions both because of an unequal distribution of information and/or capability.

So maybe we can solve the capability problem by giving everyone enough cash to allow them to make market decisions not solely based on survival, but also based on things like moral value. For example, people could more sustainably make purchases based on things like logging, spying, data protection or even allow someone to move from one rental property with an overzealous landlord to another without being captive to the whims of the owner out of circumstance. The monetary threshold is arguable and having the capacity to make non-binary market decisions when capable doesn't mean that people will -- most that are capable of voting with their wallet today still often don't. This wouldn't solve those human problems, but in many markets I feel we're reaching a point where many people are not just unwilling to make pro-consumer decisions, they're incapable.

My second point, mandatory information disclosure, is kind of a necessary component to a functioning capitalist market. Consumers can't make informed market decisions without information from the market. Forcing correct information disclosure of one kind or another allows consumers to compare services. Sure this doesn't solve problems with what should be mandated or "natural flavors", etc, but the more correct information consumers have, the more likely they will be able to make the best market decision, be that ingredients, certifications or schematics.

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#86

Post by arexxbifs » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 1:37 AM UTC

preommr wrote: post #51

The only thing that brings me solace in regards to doomsday scenarios like this is that they're extremely unlikely because of human incompetence. We are so far away from companies creating and embedding computers everywhere for this to be an issue. Let alone for sophisticated means of interaction. And lets say we somehow exceed all expectations and companies start creating marvelous products that are all on par with…

> We are so far away from companies creating and embedding computers everywhere for this to be an issue.

Apart from those in TV:s, loudspeakers, phones, light bulbs, doorbells, cars, airplanes, watches, trains, billboards, medical equipment, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, thermostats, elevators, vending machines, kitchen appliances, lawnmowers, musical instruments, cameras, bathroom scales, thermometers and a few more things there's almost no computers at all in most everyday objects.

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#87

Post by Qwertious » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 1:37 AM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #45

shadowgovt wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We lived under that model, and it sucks for a lot of people. Barons also provided for the common defense. An unlocked software architecture and untrusted code leaves people at the mercy of hackers, it doesn't empower the average user. We can do that defense of users better than we're doing right now, by divorcing the trust model from the paid vendor model, but it's worth noting how we got here in the first place and…

An unlocked software architecture and untrusted code leaves people at the mercy of hackers, it doesn't empower the average user. There are other solutions to this problem that do not involve surrendering control over everything that matters to corporate interests that may coincidentally align with your own sometimes. For example, do we really think a corporation primarily motivated by making its profits is going to b…

"For example, do we really think a corporation primarily motivated by making its profits is going to be habitually careful about software security?"

Yes. It's the monarchy argument - Apple focuses on security because they own the ecosystem, so they're hurting themselves and there's no-one else left for Apple to blame if they screw it up.

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#88

Post by Silhouette » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 1:44 AM UTC

Qwertious wrote: post #87

Silhouette wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An unlocked software architecture and untrusted code leaves people at the mercy of hackers, it doesn't empower the average user. There are other solutions to this problem that do not involve surrendering control over everything that matters to corporate interests that may coincidentally align with your own sometimes. For example, do we really think a corporation primarily motivated by making its profits is going to b…

"For example, do we really think a corporation primarily motivated by making its profits is going to be habitually careful about software security?" Yes. It's the monarchy argument - Apple focuses on security because they own the ecosystem, so they're hurting themselves and there's no-one else left for Apple to blame if they screw it up.

Let me know when everything on iCloud is fully end-to-end encrypted. Until then, Apple are still knowingly compromising security in the interests of other priorities.

Maybe those priorities are well-intentioned, helping to make sure their customers don't lose access to precious photos because they lost some important key. Maybe they are driven by more nefarious motives, such as the endless rumours of government interventions. It doesn't really matter, because the gaping security vulnerability is there all the same, and much of what Apple does actively pushes users into it, and at the same time Apple makes a big deal about the security and privacy of its devices.

At least if you are technically inclined you can read their more technical documentation to understand what is really happening, which is to their credit. But it seems likely that most people potentially affected by that vulnerability won't have done so.

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#89

Post by fsfffs » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 1:46 AM UTC

fsfffs wrote: post #85

As alluded to in the talk, I think the initial "war" solution isn't contentious for many people and most on HN. The civil war problem though, user rights vs owner rights, I think can be helped along though maybe not solved completely with basic income and mandatory information disclosure. Lots of the problems he talks about involve people very underlevereged in the market and incapable of making decisions both becaus…

So the above advocates for a "complete owner-controlled" system, but the users in the market (every human) is also buoyed with cash and information where they can make market decisions not solely based on their income and thus market decisions that may, if they wish, be based on non-survival based values they have and by nature of increased demand, increase their market prevalence.

Re: The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing (2012)

#90

Post by mwcampbell » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 1:49 AM UTC

themacguffinman wrote: post #83

grawprog wrote: post #53

Phones, consoles, Chromebooks and other unrootable hardware, restrictive hardware licensing, arm's business model, abstraction over abstraction, SAAS, corporate cloud infrastructure, web apps over local, streaming over storing, walled gardens, signed binaries, nearly everything about 'modern safe computing' is all about taking control and responsibility away from users and handing it over to somebody else to be paid…

Tech people don't have this attitude, users do. Have you ever tried to teach someone who wasn't already enthusiastic about tech? Do you really think most users actually care? Since the beginning of the tech industry, users have been presented over and over again with choices of closed and open tech, centralized and decentralized platforms, and each time users have overwhelmingly chosen the more convenient closed & ce…

Maybe our best hope is to get more children enthusiastic enough about programming that they won't want the locked-down devices that Big Tech is selling.