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It's so strange--I never would have expected the boot of tyranny to come from private corporations, but here we are. And what all this proves is that technolog
by ataturk 8y ago
It's so strange--I never would have expected the boot of tyranny to come from private corporations, but here we are. And what all this proves is that technology is value-neutral and can wipe us all out, or just make us incredibly miserable, if we let it.
Hopefully there will be a way to opt out. Otherwise, I should start selling faraday bags for devices. Probably should anyways.
- emodendroket 8y agoWhy wouldn't you have expected that?
- wpietri 8y agoI think it depends a lot on the kind of capitalism you have. There's what I think of as small-business capitalism, where business owners in a community naturally take the community's interest into account because that's where they live. I think that's distinct from American MBA capitalism, which is the increase-shareholder-value, up-and-to-the-right, maximize-short-term-cash-gains kind. The former is positive-sum, the latter can easily be negative sum. And I think the latter, because it doesn't include any humanity in its calculus, is perfectly capable of profitable tyrrany.
- rectang 8y agoThis tracking abomination is an emergent phenomenon of the merger of private industry and government in the US. See for example both legalized bribery (a.k.a. unlimited campaign contributions by corporations thanks to Citizens United) and outright bribery (Cohen) by telecoms like AT&T, ensuring that they will have the flexibility to perpetrate such garbage as this tracking data sale. Why not distrust both government and industry? The rule "power corrupts" holds in either case.
- emodendroket 8y agoAlright, but distrusting all parties doesn't suggest a way forward.
- rectang 8y agoWhy not? Both government and private industry bring innumerable benefits to humanity. But we can and should view them both with constant skepticism and exercise vigilance. Why should holding one accountable mean that we can't hold the other accountable? If you're looking for someone to root for, I'd suggest the individual citizen.
- emodendroket 8y agoThe individual citizen has practically no power against large institutional actors.
- rectang 8y agoThat's like saying voting is pointless because individual votes don't matter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting
- emodendroket 8y agoAll voting can do is steer the course of the government, which you've just cast as nothing more than a villain.
- rectang 8y agoSince I said that government brings "innumerable benefits to humanity", and you've characterized that as "nothing more than a villain", I think we're done with this thread.
- 18pfsmt 8y agoAre you saying AT&T bribed Cohen in order to have the Justice Dept. sue AT&T over its acquisition with Time Warner?
- rectang 8y agoI'm saying AT&T bribed Cohen, which is what we have evidence for so far. Perhaps there will be additional communiques exposed later which reveal specific requests. They did not get the outcome they wanted with the acquisition, but there was also the matter of the administration wanting to punish CNN. Maybe AT&T should have paid more. But AT&T has still done remarkably well vis a vis the FCC's selective deregulation of net neutrality, which makes it much easier for existing ISPs to leverage their quasi-monopolies and compete unfairly within other verticals. The American system of legalized bribery needn't produce a bill of sale for regulatory capture.
- fixermark 8y ago> Hopefully there will be a way to opt out Don't use a cellphone. See also: the FBI can't wiretap your phone lines if you never use a telephone.
- emodendroket 8y agoLive in a cabin in the woods and never have contact with anyone. Now your surveillance worries are solved.
- brewdad 8y agoWe have satellites to monitor those people.
- dredmorbius 8y agoGo read some history. Power is Power, and will wear any damned guise it wants. Corporations, criminals, monarchies, democracies, Fascists, Communists, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Confucists, Goths, Huns, Romams, Macedonians, Persians, Greeks, Trojans, Hittites, Israelites, etc., etc., etc., have slaughtered, sacked, enslaved, oppressed, or dehumanised others, all in the name of temporary gain. The British East India company had armies. Wyoming cattlemen funded a mercenary army in the Johnson Count War. Coal wars in Apallachia and Colorado. U.S. Steel, Standard Oil, the Pullman Company, the L.A. Times, Union Carbide in Bhopal, oil companies throughout the US, Middle-east, Indonesia, and Africa. Fruit companies in Latin America. Sugar, tobacco, and cotton plantations. Coal mines in Wales. The Kochs today.