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the echo is pure evil -- in the same way the 1984 Telescreen is evil. It exists to control, manipulate and spy on you. If you dont see this, I am truly sorry my

the echo is pure evil -- in the same way the 1984 Telescreen is evil. It exists to control, manipulate and spy on you. If you dont see this, I am truly sorry my friend, but it is too late.

criddell 9y ago
Assuming that you aren't just suffering from paranoid delusions, care to share the likely harms from me using an Echo? I use a car and the worst case scenario is death or permanent disability, right? People die in their cars every day. So what's the worst case scenario for using an Echo? How many people a day does that happen to?
- sgarman 9y ago
  Being locked in a room for your entire life sure is safer then driving a car so that can't be bad for you right? I think ops point is it's dangerous to your mind and lively hood as well as society as a whole - not to your physical body like your car example.
  - criddell 9y ago
    But the potential harm from driving is very clear. The worst case scenario hits more than 30,000 people every year in the US. Smart people can calculate a dollar cost to that damage. What's the worst case scenario from having an Echo? How many people does it affect each year? What's the dollar cost of that damage?
    - jenscow 9y ago
      It might incorrectly tell you the weather is hot, so you walk out with just a t-shirt, then freeze to death.
    - ThrowawaysOnly 9y ago
      I personally am not a fan of these types of devices, but I am also not as doom and gloom about them as GP. IMO, it isn't an imminent threat. It's not going to kill you. It's not going to cause you any physical harm. It's the slow erosion of privacy which is a detriment to everyone. I'm going to avoid the cliche Orwellian arguments and the normalizing surveillance arguments. Both of these have been addressed ad nauseaum. I'm going to go a different route and see if it resonates with you at all. It is incredibly easy for humans to be manipulated. This only gets easier as we have treasure troves of data about individuals. Amazon has many of the smartest people in the world working to manipulate you to do things in their best interest. Sometimes their interests lineup with your best interests and things are great. Other times, their interests will be negative to your life. It is in their best interest for you to not be content with what you have. It probably is your best interest to be content with what you have. It's not wrong to want things, but things will never fulfill you. I'm not saying capitalism is evil, Amazon is bad, or that we aren't living in one of the best times in human history. I am saying that putting a marketing device (which is also a privacy concern) in my home is not something I am interested in. Especially when I can do the 90% with my phone in 5 thumb presses.
      - criddell 9y ago
        All of that I can agree with. However, what gets left out of the equation is that the devices do provide some utility. All I'm really saying is that calling it pure evil is as silly as saying the device has no downsides. I like the driving analogy because even though the worst case scenario is about as bad as it gets, it's not all that likely. I think people, even here, have a hard time separating possibility and probability. A connected speaker has real and immediate benefits for some people. People that use it to buy stuff (I do all the time) aren't going to see ads for associated products like website shoppers do. Frankly, if the Echo scares you, https://amazon.com https://amazon.com should scare you even more. I bet they collect a lot more data in a 10 minute browsing session than they do with months of Echo use.

the echo is pure evil -- in the same way the 1984 Telescreen is evil. It exists to control, manipulate and spy on you. If you dont see this, I am truly sorry my friend, but it is too late.

criddell 9y ago

Assuming that you aren't just suffering from paranoid delusions, care to share the likely harms from me using an Echo? I use a car and the worst case scenario is death or permanent disability, right? People die in their cars every day. So what's the worst case scenario for using an Echo? How many people a day does that happen to?

sgarman 9y ago
Being locked in a room for your entire life sure is safer then driving a car so that can't be bad for you right? I think ops point is it's dangerous to your mind and lively hood as well as society as a whole - not to your physical body like your car example.
- criddell 9y ago
  But the potential harm from driving is very clear. The worst case scenario hits more than 30,000 people every year in the US. Smart people can calculate a dollar cost to that damage. What's the worst case scenario from having an Echo? How many people does it affect each year? What's the dollar cost of that damage?
  - jenscow 9y ago
    It might incorrectly tell you the weather is hot, so you walk out with just a t-shirt, then freeze to death.
  - ThrowawaysOnly 9y ago
    I personally am not a fan of these types of devices, but I am also not as doom and gloom about them as GP. IMO, it isn't an imminent threat. It's not going to kill you. It's not going to cause you any physical harm. It's the slow erosion of privacy which is a detriment to everyone. I'm going to avoid the cliche Orwellian arguments and the normalizing surveillance arguments. Both of these have been addressed ad nauseaum. I'm going to go a different route and see if it resonates with you at all. It is incredibly easy for humans to be manipulated. This only gets easier as we have treasure troves of data about individuals. Amazon has many of the smartest people in the world working to manipulate you to do things in their best interest. Sometimes their interests lineup with your best interests and things are great. Other times, their interests will be negative to your life. It is in their best interest for you to not be content with what you have. It probably is your best interest to be content with what you have. It's not wrong to want things, but things will never fulfill you. I'm not saying capitalism is evil, Amazon is bad, or that we aren't living in one of the best times in human history. I am saying that putting a marketing device (which is also a privacy concern) in my home is not something I am interested in. Especially when I can do the 90% with my phone in 5 thumb presses.
    - criddell 9y ago
      All of that I can agree with. However, what gets left out of the equation is that the devices do provide some utility. All I'm really saying is that calling it pure evil is as silly as saying the device has no downsides. I like the driving analogy because even though the worst case scenario is about as bad as it gets, it's not all that likely. I think people, even here, have a hard time separating possibility and probability. A connected speaker has real and immediate benefits for some people. People that use it to buy stuff (I do all the time) aren't going to see ads for associated products like website shoppers do. Frankly, if the Echo scares you, https://amazon.com https://amazon.com should scare you even more. I bet they collect a lot more data in a 10 minute browsing session than they do with months of Echo use.