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No. No. No other company on the planet knows where billions of people exactly are and what they're doing at a given point or can predict their behavior. Not Coc
by aje403 9y ago
No. No. No other company on the planet knows where billions of people exactly are and what they're doing at a given point or can predict their behavior. Not Coca Cola or Monsanto or any of them. There are very, very specific reason why people on HN are complaining about big tech now. We're mainly well-educated and have read a lot of sci-fi written by well-educated people.
- redial 9y agoAnd yet, they benefit the most from lobying, taxes and profits, and dictate and have dictated the market for decades. They drain entire countries, they extract all their resources, most of their water, they pollute and are responsible for the extinction of entire ecosystems and quite a few human deaths. Imagine, they've done all of that without knowing exactly where you are and what you are doing right now. What has Facebook done? Copied all of Snapchat and displayed some russian ads.
- arstin 9y agoWell for one, Facebook, through crass negligence and a failure to own up to the duties that go along with their position in regulating the flow of information between people, played a key role in the election of an administration which supports the draining of countries, the extraction of resources, and the extinction of ecosystems...and if the recent stories about a lifetime cap on medicaid benefits are true, quite a few human deaths! (Obviously Facebook isn't solely or even mostly responsible, Monsanto is worse, yadda yadda yadda)
- aje403 9y agoThank you captain planet, most people are aware those corporations are scum and do not approve of their behavior. I'm not really sure what to tell you - something closely approximating omniscience will be in the hands of a few organizations ran by a few people in 20 years. Hopefully society wisens up. This will be an interesting century. I would personally pick Monsanto if I were you.
- redial 9y agoThen Jesus will come. Everybody has their version of the apocalypse. No one cares which companies are the worst, they are all bad in their own way, but if you claim that the number one priority is to break up Facebook because they could harm people in the future with their omniscience, then don't get mad when someone calls you out and tells you it's been happening for decades, even without all of that techno-knowledge you are so afraid of. But they know where you are and what you do! yes, so what, they can harm you without knowing, they have been. They've been telling people what to think since they invented talking. Superintelligence is coming and guess what? Governments are gonna own it, full stop. Not a company, not two. Governments, with guns. And for the looks of it is gonna be China. The NSA has been fighting against the odds this whole time but who knows, maybe they still have a chance. Facebook is just a pawn, the tip of the wedge, and you've fallen for the distraction. Or do you really think breaking up facebook will completely halt development of AI?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- elefanten 9y agoI think you overestimate the scope of two things: 1) How vast the useful data gulf is between Google/FB and dozens of other entities. Maybe they have more data overall and had a decade head start, but at this point there's tons of other software, hardware and data stakeholders that can construct a pretty complete map of your life. And even before Google/FB there was the whole financials infrastructure: banks, credit agencies, etc. 2) How actionable that data advantage is for Google/FB. Let's say you're right and they know a lot more than the next most knowledgeable entities. They're still constrained in how they can actually use that to manipulate your life to whatever nefarious ends. They're already under a lot of scrutiny, which is good, and no doubt will remain so. There are many obvious and overt steps they'd have to achieve (all of which would garner huge backlash) before consolidating some kind of truly hegemonic power. The leap from "has the best information" to your sci-fi scenarios is pretty significant for non-government entities with like-sized competitors to worry about in the private sector.
- lancesells 9y agoGoogle, Facebook & Amazon are all trying to own all aspects of your wallet and life. That data is extremely actionable as you can see by their market cap. These three companies are so pervasive and agressive in their reach into your life. And no one outside of those companies truly knows the amount of data being collected and it's borderline criminal in my opinion. I'm not for breaking them apart but I am for limiting their data collection and privacy invasion outside of their own products.