7 ms·

Notes from an Emergency [video]

85 points by Propen 9y ago

Animats 9y ago
Summary?
- gcr 9y ago
  Here's a transcript of the talk: http://idlewords.com/talks/notes_from_an_emergency.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/notes_from_an_emergency.htm
  - Animats 9y ago
    "The emergency I want to talk about is the rise of a vigorous ethnic nationalism in Europe and America. This nationalism makes skillful use of online tools, tools that we believed inherently promoted freedom, to advance an authoritarian agenda. ... There are five Internet companies — Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook. Together they have a market capitalization just under 3 trillion dollars. And please regulate, regulate, regulate this industry, while you can." The trouble for calling for regulation is that what you get is Theresa May's version.[1] Or the Great Firewall of China. [1] http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/theresa-may-internet-conservatives-government-a7744176.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...
    - dkarapetyan 9y ago
      The trouble with not regulating is what we currently have, unfettered data collection and retention. There obviously need to be rules around all the digital gold these companies are amassing. The Chinese and Theresa May want what currently the tech giants have which is unregulated access to data. Except instead of it being in the current sandboxes they want to build their own. Both are equally incorrect and stem from unregulated data access and lack of rules around data aggregation and the ecosystems that the data props up.
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      Talking about the great firewall, didn't Bono of all people praise it as a demonstration that filtering the net was possible? His statement was in the context of unlicensed copying (aka piracy). And frankly if they want to deal with the rise of nationalism, they need to have a long hard look at the financial market and their destructive behavior. What is needed is for the big finance houses to fall, and for the Euro zone to drop the whole austerity insanity. Until then the left have no proper counterpoint to the rising nationalism, as said nationalism is largely feeding off anti-austerity, and thus anti-EU, opinions.
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      A simple workaround is to regulate the collection, storage and use of personally identifiable information. There's nothing especially horrifying about Facebook not being allowed to use demographic profile information to target advertising.
      - dasmoth 9y ago
        How do we regulate in a way that limits the power of the big five without also hurting small businesses? Otherwise, the end result will almost certainly be to bolster Google and Facebook.
        idlewords 9y ago
        Regulating adtech will really only hurt Google and Facebook, who are capturing all of the revenue growth. Most kinds of limits on data retention should have no effect on small business (like the kind I run!).
        maxerickson 9y ago
        I honestly don't care if regulation that protects consumers ends up hurting small businesses. Perhaps something else would also need to be done about Google and Facebook having too much power, but continuing to screw over everyone else to help small businesses isn't really on my personal radar.
        alphonsegaston 9y ago
        By creating strong regulations to curb the worst practices of ad company tracking, then dismantling these monopolies the same way we did with Microsoft in the 90s.
        dasmoth 9y ago
        I'm not at all confident that the Microsoft antitrust moves really did much to erode their dominance on the desktop -- rather, the desktop becoming less relevant has done that. If anyone won from those actions, it was Google...
        9y ago
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
ploggingdev 9y ago
> Regulate ads to target content, not users. This. 1000x. At it's core this is essentially like sponsorship. Anecdote : I've always found sponsored content more useful than the ads that ad networks show me and they are also not creepy like traditional ads. Eg- I search for strawberries on google, click through a few links. Separately I visit a tech blog to learn about how to monitor a VPS, guess what shows up on a site about servers and software? Strawberries! Creepy as f*uck and completely out of place. Do you think an ad network that focuses on targeting content rather than users will work? Are there any such networks already? If not, it's time to build one.
- avaer 9y ago
  What's your selling point to advertisers though? That you're a worse-targeted version of the big guys? You could say you're more user-friendly, but I don't think that's a premium most advertisers are willing to subsidize. If this were a good opportunity for an ad network, then we wouldn't need any regulation to force it.
  - idlewords 9y ago
    This is why it's a regulatory argument, not a business argument. Without a regulatory floor, it's a race to the bottom. People will always respond better to novel forms of advertising, and it takes bad actors some time to figure out how to game new kinds of online advertising. The result is ever more invasive surveillance and tracking techniques, in a Red Queen's race.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    Maybe the selling point is "we place your ads where they will be relevant and users won't be so inclined to block them" and back that up with statistics.
  - wongarsu 9y ago
    The selling point so advertisers would be click-through rates, engagement rates, proportion of ads blocked etc. But those numbers are kind of hard to predict. You would actually need to collect those numbers somewhere and compare them to numbers other advertising networks publish.
neom 9y ago
This paper, Natural Monopoly and Its Regulation Richard A. Posner (1968) gives a really good overview of how (and why) this might play out. http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2861&context=journal_articles http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...
jakozaur 9y ago
Celgowski got one of the most original and accurate view of the world. He see the big picture.
gojomo 9y ago
Ceglowski wants internet companies to be brought under stronger regulatory authority of local European governments, to protect societies and elections from pernicious forces in those companies and on the internet generally. He hopes there's a spillover benefit to people in other countries. "Regulate, regulate, regulate!", Maciej urges. Erdogan of Turkey says, "OK, Maciej!" – blocking Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, & Wikipedia in the name of social order. Putin of Russia says, "OK, Maciej!" – running the Zuckerberg-of-Russia (Durov) out of the country, blocking protest websites, and moving Russia towards a Chinese model of internet content control. Newly-elected Macron of France says, "OK, Maciej!" – following previous French initiatives to fine Google for failing to delete truthful news worldwide under EU 'Right to be Forgotten' rules, and to ban 'terrorist' websites by administrative decree, Macron pledges further regulations to "stop fake news". Theresa May of the UK says, "OK, Maciej!" – unveiling a manifesto to make Britain "the global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and the internet", penalizing internet companies that "direct users – even unintentionally – to hate speech, pornography, or other sources of harm".
- idlewords 9y ago
  Obviously there is good and bad regulation. I go into specifics about what I want in the text version of this talk, and here: http://idlewords.com/six_fixes.htm http://idlewords.com/six_fixes.htm
  - 10165 9y ago
    Regarding the "right to go offline", I see an increasing trend of non-networking software that inexplicably "requires" the user to have an internet connection. This trend may have the effect of coercing users to stay connected. (Even if the "requirement" is not truly a requirement but merely a suggestion or recommendation disguised as a directive.) As such, users with the "right to go offline" may not do so because a company is telling them they must stay connected in order for some (non-networking) software to work. There are many examples of such software, and at the risk of annoying some people, I will provide some. But the nature of my question arises from the simple idea that sometimes software can accomplish it purpose without an internet connection, as will be familar to anyone who used such software before internet connections were inexpensive, "always on" or fast. This a broad concept. It applies to all software. Random example 1: Professional/hobbyist audio recording, editing software Random example 2: Unnamed operating system setting world records for number of "updates" "Office suite" software, e.g., word processor, spreadsheet, etc. Can a user record and edit audio without having an internet connection? Can a user read, create, edit a document or spreadsheet while being disconnected from the internet? There are reasons that companies want users to stay connected. However users are not always given full details on those reasons. Obviously leaving computers connected poses risks for the user. Users have to weight those risks. Should users be entitled to the full details? (Without having to use a program like "Little Snitch".) The first question to ask is: Can a given program accomplish it purpose without using the network? If yes, then the next question is: Why does a company "require" a user to have a working internet connection for the use of this software? Free use of a user's internet connection by a company enables collecting user data and potentially generating revenue from user data, e.g., through advertising. But should users give away their network bandwidth to companies to use however they see fit? Even more, should users give away their RAM as if it was an inexpensive, infinite resource? Software programs that generate revenue routinely increase "minimum RAM requirements" year by year but many times users receive no details on why the increases are needed. The reasons could be legitimate however they might also be questionable. Without consideration of the undisclosed details, how can users make informed decisions?
idlewords 9y ago
Text version here: http://idlewords.com/talks/notes_from_an_emergency.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/notes_from_an_emergency.htm
TeMPOraL 9y ago
Typical 'idlewords :). Lots of good points intermingled with unwarranted jabs at Elon Musk, X-risk and anti-aging efforts. I suppose the latter are just signalling, but they do detract from the point he's making. The points about tech running amok with the surveillance capitalism are spot on. I do have some doubts about other parts though; here are they in somewhat random order: -- Problem solving. I'm not buying this villifying of tech world for trying to avoid the "dirty political work". In fact, I believe it's a good approach. Turning a problem into a political issue pretty much guarantees that it won't be solved as people take sides and then invent arguments to rationalize their positions. Just look at the climate change - since it became politicized, it's close to impossible to do anything in the area (Trump's election in the US is not helping either). The only way to address it now is by ignoring the democratic process altogether - by doing research, developing new technologies, and hoping for the market forces to sort things out. Moreover, why does the tech industry is always blamed for trying to avoid political work? Like, are there no human beings who don't work in tech industry that could try a different approach? Why is tech industry expected to do everything, and then at the same time gets called out for hubris? Related, on tech and life extension efforts. I call the Comet King principle - "somebody has to and no one else will". Why is nobody else besides tech billionaires interested in putting serious resources into solving that problem? -- Poland. Is it an evil surveillance state now? I live there and I haven't noticed it. -- Trump. I'm starting to get a feeling that some people on anti-Trump side are just sore losers, and can't accept that he won democratic elections; no, it must be some conspiracy. I'm not endorsing what Trump is doing, but the facts on the ground are that many people did vote for him, and denying them agency makes it more difficult to notice the problems those people face in their lives.
- alex_young 9y ago
  You completely lost me by calling a sizable majority of voters anti-democratic sore losers.
  - zeroer 9y ago
    Majority, sure. But I wouldn't call 54% (the percentage of voters who voted for somebody other than Trump) a "sizeable majority".
cjauvin 9y ago
"Now some dopey kids in Palo Alto get to decide the political future of the European Union based on some coding bootcamp that they went to. This doesn't seem right."
grkvlt 9y ago
I think that the phenomenon of rich people investing in life extension technology is inescapable - it's the one thing that having a billion dollars still can't fix right now, rich people die just the same as everyone else... But I agree with the sentiment that the world doesn't really need an immortal Larry Ellisson ;)

85 points by Propen 9y ago

Animats 9y ago

Summary?

gcr 9y ago
Here's a transcript of the talk: http://idlewords.com/talks/notes_from_an_emergency.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/notes_from_an_emergency.htm
- Animats 9y ago
  "The emergency I want to talk about is the rise of a vigorous ethnic nationalism in Europe and America. This nationalism makes skillful use of online tools, tools that we believed inherently promoted freedom, to advance an authoritarian agenda. ... There are five Internet companies — Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook. Together they have a market capitalization just under 3 trillion dollars. And please regulate, regulate, regulate this industry, while you can." The trouble for calling for regulation is that what you get is Theresa May's version.[1] Or the Great Firewall of China. [1] http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/theresa-may-internet-conservatives-government-a7744176.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...
  - dkarapetyan 9y ago
    The trouble with not regulating is what we currently have, unfettered data collection and retention. There obviously need to be rules around all the digital gold these companies are amassing. The Chinese and Theresa May want what currently the tech giants have which is unregulated access to data. Except instead of it being in the current sandboxes they want to build their own. Both are equally incorrect and stem from unregulated data access and lack of rules around data aggregation and the ecosystems that the data props up.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    Talking about the great firewall, didn't Bono of all people praise it as a demonstration that filtering the net was possible? His statement was in the context of unlicensed copying (aka piracy). And frankly if they want to deal with the rise of nationalism, they need to have a long hard look at the financial market and their destructive behavior. What is needed is for the big finance houses to fall, and for the Euro zone to drop the whole austerity insanity. Until then the left have no proper counterpoint to the rising nationalism, as said nationalism is largely feeding off anti-austerity, and thus anti-EU, opinions.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    A simple workaround is to regulate the collection, storage and use of personally identifiable information. There's nothing especially horrifying about Facebook not being allowed to use demographic profile information to target advertising.
    - dasmoth 9y ago
      How do we regulate in a way that limits the power of the big five without also hurting small businesses? Otherwise, the end result will almost certainly be to bolster Google and Facebook.
      - idlewords 9y ago
        Regulating adtech will really only hurt Google and Facebook, who are capturing all of the revenue growth. Most kinds of limits on data retention should have no effect on small business (like the kind I run!).
      - maxerickson 9y ago
        I honestly don't care if regulation that protects consumers ends up hurting small businesses. Perhaps something else would also need to be done about Google and Facebook having too much power, but continuing to screw over everyone else to help small businesses isn't really on my personal radar.
      - alphonsegaston 9y ago
        By creating strong regulations to curb the worst practices of ad company tracking, then dismantling these monopolies the same way we did with Microsoft in the 90s.
        dasmoth 9y ago
        I'm not at all confident that the Microsoft antitrust moves really did much to erode their dominance on the desktop -- rather, the desktop becoming less relevant has done that. If anyone won from those actions, it was Google...
        9y ago
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

ploggingdev 9y ago

> Regulate ads to target content, not users. This. 1000x. At it's core this is essentially like sponsorship. Anecdote : I've always found sponsored content more useful than the ads that ad networks show me and they are also not creepy like traditional ads. Eg- I search for strawberries on google, click through a few links. Separately I visit a tech blog to learn about how to monitor a VPS, guess what shows up on a site about servers and software? Strawberries! Creepy as f*uck and completely out of place. Do you think an ad network that focuses on targeting content rather than users will work? Are there any such networks already? If not, it's time to build one.

avaer 9y ago
What's your selling point to advertisers though? That you're a worse-targeted version of the big guys? You could say you're more user-friendly, but I don't think that's a premium most advertisers are willing to subsidize. If this were a good opportunity for an ad network, then we wouldn't need any regulation to force it.
- idlewords 9y ago
  This is why it's a regulatory argument, not a business argument. Without a regulatory floor, it's a race to the bottom. People will always respond better to novel forms of advertising, and it takes bad actors some time to figure out how to game new kinds of online advertising. The result is ever more invasive surveillance and tracking techniques, in a Red Queen's race.
- ams6110 9y ago
  Maybe the selling point is "we place your ads where they will be relevant and users won't be so inclined to block them" and back that up with statistics.
- wongarsu 9y ago
  The selling point so advertisers would be click-through rates, engagement rates, proportion of ads blocked etc. But those numbers are kind of hard to predict. You would actually need to collect those numbers somewhere and compare them to numbers other advertising networks publish.

neom 9y ago

This paper, Natural Monopoly and Its Regulation Richard A. Posner (1968) gives a really good overview of how (and why) this might play out. http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2861&context=journal_articles http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...

jakozaur 9y ago

Celgowski got one of the most original and accurate view of the world. He see the big picture.

gojomo 9y ago

Ceglowski wants internet companies to be brought under stronger regulatory authority of local European governments, to protect societies and elections from pernicious forces in those companies and on the internet generally. He hopes there's a spillover benefit to people in other countries. "Regulate, regulate, regulate!", Maciej urges. Erdogan of Turkey says, "OK, Maciej!" – blocking Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, & Wikipedia in the name of social order. Putin of Russia says, "OK, Maciej!" – running the Zuckerberg-of-Russia (Durov) out of the country, blocking protest websites, and moving Russia towards a Chinese model of internet content control. Newly-elected Macron of France says, "OK, Maciej!" – following previous French initiatives to fine Google for failing to delete truthful news worldwide under EU 'Right to be Forgotten' rules, and to ban 'terrorist' websites by administrative decree, Macron pledges further regulations to "stop fake news". Theresa May of the UK says, "OK, Maciej!" – unveiling a manifesto to make Britain "the global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and the internet", penalizing internet companies that "direct users – even unintentionally – to hate speech, pornography, or other sources of harm".

idlewords 9y ago
Obviously there is good and bad regulation. I go into specifics about what I want in the text version of this talk, and here: http://idlewords.com/six_fixes.htm http://idlewords.com/six_fixes.htm
- 10165 9y ago
  Regarding the "right to go offline", I see an increasing trend of non-networking software that inexplicably "requires" the user to have an internet connection. This trend may have the effect of coercing users to stay connected. (Even if the "requirement" is not truly a requirement but merely a suggestion or recommendation disguised as a directive.) As such, users with the "right to go offline" may not do so because a company is telling them they must stay connected in order for some (non-networking) software to work. There are many examples of such software, and at the risk of annoying some people, I will provide some. But the nature of my question arises from the simple idea that sometimes software can accomplish it purpose without an internet connection, as will be familar to anyone who used such software before internet connections were inexpensive, "always on" or fast. This a broad concept. It applies to all software. Random example 1: Professional/hobbyist audio recording, editing software Random example 2: Unnamed operating system setting world records for number of "updates" "Office suite" software, e.g., word processor, spreadsheet, etc. Can a user record and edit audio without having an internet connection? Can a user read, create, edit a document or spreadsheet while being disconnected from the internet? There are reasons that companies want users to stay connected. However users are not always given full details on those reasons. Obviously leaving computers connected poses risks for the user. Users have to weight those risks. Should users be entitled to the full details? (Without having to use a program like "Little Snitch".) The first question to ask is: Can a given program accomplish it purpose without using the network? If yes, then the next question is: Why does a company "require" a user to have a working internet connection for the use of this software? Free use of a user's internet connection by a company enables collecting user data and potentially generating revenue from user data, e.g., through advertising. But should users give away their network bandwidth to companies to use however they see fit? Even more, should users give away their RAM as if it was an inexpensive, infinite resource? Software programs that generate revenue routinely increase "minimum RAM requirements" year by year but many times users receive no details on why the increases are needed. The reasons could be legitimate however they might also be questionable. Without consideration of the undisclosed details, how can users make informed decisions?

idlewords 9y ago

Text version here: http://idlewords.com/talks/notes_from_an_emergency.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/notes_from_an_emergency.htm

TeMPOraL 9y ago

Typical 'idlewords :). Lots of good points intermingled with unwarranted jabs at Elon Musk, X-risk and anti-aging efforts. I suppose the latter are just signalling, but they do detract from the point he's making. The points about tech running amok with the surveillance capitalism are spot on. I do have some doubts about other parts though; here are they in somewhat random order: -- Problem solving. I'm not buying this villifying of tech world for trying to avoid the "dirty political work". In fact, I believe it's a good approach. Turning a problem into a political issue pretty much guarantees that it won't be solved as people take sides and then invent arguments to rationalize their positions. Just look at the climate change - since it became politicized, it's close to impossible to do anything in the area (Trump's election in the US is not helping either). The only way to address it now is by ignoring the democratic process altogether - by doing research, developing new technologies, and hoping for the market forces to sort things out. Moreover, why does the tech industry is always blamed for trying to avoid political work? Like, are there no human beings who don't work in tech industry that could try a different approach? Why is tech industry expected to do everything, and then at the same time gets called out for hubris? Related, on tech and life extension efforts. I call the Comet King principle - "somebody has to and no one else will". Why is nobody else besides tech billionaires interested in putting serious resources into solving that problem? -- Poland. Is it an evil surveillance state now? I live there and I haven't noticed it. -- Trump. I'm starting to get a feeling that some people on anti-Trump side are just sore losers, and can't accept that he won democratic elections; no, it must be some conspiracy. I'm not endorsing what Trump is doing, but the facts on the ground are that many people did vote for him, and denying them agency makes it more difficult to notice the problems those people face in their lives.

alex_young 9y ago
You completely lost me by calling a sizable majority of voters anti-democratic sore losers.
- zeroer 9y ago
  Majority, sure. But I wouldn't call 54% (the percentage of voters who voted for somebody other than Trump) a "sizeable majority".

cjauvin 9y ago

"Now some dopey kids in Palo Alto get to decide the political future of the European Union based on some coding bootcamp that they went to. This doesn't seem right."

grkvlt 9y ago

I think that the phenomenon of rich people investing in life extension technology is inescapable - it's the one thing that having a billion dollars still can't fix right now, rich people die just the same as everyone else... But I agree with the sentiment that the world doesn't really need an immortal Larry Ellisson ;)