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Agreed. There's a technical word for the kind of world we technical folks are helping to build. It's called a "dystopia" And while it's fun to either wave our

Agreed. There's a technical word for the kind of world we technical folks are helping to build. It's called a "dystopia" And while it's fun to either wave our arms around and say "But everybody's doing it!" or talking about wild dreams of a better tomorrow, the crap we've created is right here, right now. As a technical person, if you're looking for somebody to blame, there's the mirror. When I was in the armed forces and you needed something desperately that you did not have, somebody would always say "Well, you'd better grow one" We technical folks do not have the moral underpinning we need to help there be a brighter tomorrow. We're lacking the social and political theory and the historical grounding to understand what kinds of things might help and what kinds of things might hurt. Instead we just imagine how what we're making might help mankind along. News flash: imagining isn't cutting it any more. We may not have the tools we need to responsibly create the tech we're creating, but we'd better grow some.

vertex-four 10y ago
An "apolitical" approach to tech is very much supporting the worst of what people would like to do with said tech, as well as the best. I think people should think a lot more about the bad side of what the tech they're creating enables, and decide whether they're actually comfortable with that, and whether there's a way to achieve their goals which enables less harm.
the8472 10y ago
> There's a technical word for the kind of world we technical folks are helping to build. It's called a "dystopia" Consider e-cash. People would love to implement it, but banking regulation makes it difficult to actually do business through anonymous transactions. Similarly many privacy-conscious ISP operators want to throw away logs as soon as possible, but regulation forces them to retain data. Sure, the likes of facebook and google do thrive on gobbling up more data. But others who want to improve privacy are actually actively hampered by politics. This creates an asymmetric landscape.
- wodencafe 10y ago
  It always comes down to big companies and big gov't.
  - DanielBMarkham 10y ago
    Yep. You get to be a big company by creating something where people voluntarily give you information that big governments have long dreamed of forcing out of people.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  You can't forget that there are good reasons for those regulations you mentioned, and getting rid of them isn't necessarily going to create a brighter, better future. I'm not going to push "terrorism" or "pictures of small children" angle, because people engaging in those actions are very rare. Reality is much more boring - those rules help against run-of-the-mill fraud and abuse, the kind which every other individual business, small and large, would happily do. Nor did those regulations came out of thin air or "imagination" - they're almost always responses to real problems.
  - the8472 10y ago
    That does not change the fact that new regulation usually tends to do little against information-gathering entities or even mandates more of it while there's little regulation strengthening privacy. The thing is, anonymous cash transactions work. They have for millenia. And yet there are 0 motions to enable them in the digital space and >0 to restrict or abolish them in meatspace. The privacy they enable is practically treated like a historical accident that needs fixing. Maybe part of the problem is that it's easy to assign monetary value to the law enforcement effort saved if you could just have more surveillance or the additional tax revenue if only every transaction were traceable. But it's a lot harder to put a value on privacy. > they're almost always responses to real problems. Problems may be real, but if the solutions fix that problem by creating new problems then it's not obvious that we should actually fix those problems. Maybe some youths setting bus seats on fire a few times a year is a price worth paying to not have surveillance cameras following every step you make. Just because there are reasons behind those regulations does not mean they are good.

vertex-four 10y ago

An "apolitical" approach to tech is very much supporting the worst of what people would like to do with said tech, as well as the best. I think people should think a lot more about the bad side of what the tech they're creating enables, and decide whether they're actually comfortable with that, and whether there's a way to achieve their goals which enables less harm.

the8472 10y ago

> There's a technical word for the kind of world we technical folks are helping to build. It's called a "dystopia" Consider e-cash. People would love to implement it, but banking regulation makes it difficult to actually do business through anonymous transactions. Similarly many privacy-conscious ISP operators want to throw away logs as soon as possible, but regulation forces them to retain data. Sure, the likes of facebook and google do thrive on gobbling up more data. But others who want to improve privacy are actually actively hampered by politics. This creates an asymmetric landscape.

wodencafe 10y ago
It always comes down to big companies and big gov't.
- DanielBMarkham 10y ago
  Yep. You get to be a big company by creating something where people voluntarily give you information that big governments have long dreamed of forcing out of people.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
You can't forget that there are good reasons for those regulations you mentioned, and getting rid of them isn't necessarily going to create a brighter, better future. I'm not going to push "terrorism" or "pictures of small children" angle, because people engaging in those actions are very rare. Reality is much more boring - those rules help against run-of-the-mill fraud and abuse, the kind which every other individual business, small and large, would happily do. Nor did those regulations came out of thin air or "imagination" - they're almost always responses to real problems.
- the8472 10y ago
  That does not change the fact that new regulation usually tends to do little against information-gathering entities or even mandates more of it while there's little regulation strengthening privacy. The thing is, anonymous cash transactions work. They have for millenia. And yet there are 0 motions to enable them in the digital space and >0 to restrict or abolish them in meatspace. The privacy they enable is practically treated like a historical accident that needs fixing. Maybe part of the problem is that it's easy to assign monetary value to the law enforcement effort saved if you could just have more surveillance or the additional tax revenue if only every transaction were traceable. But it's a lot harder to put a value on privacy. > they're almost always responses to real problems. Problems may be real, but if the solutions fix that problem by creating new problems then it's not obvious that we should actually fix those problems. Maybe some youths setting bus seats on fire a few times a year is a price worth paying to not have surveillance cameras following every step you make. Just because there are reasons behind those regulations does not mean they are good.