5 ms·

You are under the assumption that we aren't already trying to doing all these things?

coldtea 8y ago
Well, I am under the certainty that we aren't already trying _enough_ to doing all these things...
InitialLastName 8y ago
When the brightest minds of our generation have dedicated themselves to optimizing advertising networks, you can be sure we aren't emphasizing these things.
- bkohlmann 8y ago
  Are we sure the brightest minds of our generation really are simply devoting themselves to optimizing advertising? To be sure, some are - but folks like the author of the original paper the article is based on are the counter example to the common refrain. I see brilliant folks laboring in all sort of fascinating endeavors. They’ve yet to achieve publicity because their work is either not complete or they prefer obscurity.
  - oligosacharide 8y ago
    I've considered the possibility that while seemingly pervasive and inescapable, ad tech is widely ineffective. There's the perception that it's part of some deep state panopticon, and that there's more than one, and the other one fucked up the 2018 election, or something like that. But I'd take a wild guess that in reality the effectiveness is something akin to anti-virus software. It only seems to catch the low hanging fruit. With that in mind, I think this narrative is basing the underlying theme on things that were happening in the early 2000's when Google started buying up companies like Urchin and DoubleClick. We're way past those days, and while ad tech does still pose a pervasive privacy hazard, I think newer more powerful technologies can passively track pretty much everyone by sniffing all the signals in the air for every wireless and mobile device in everyone's pockets. I'd wager that the coverage is so dense that it even exposes the identities of people not carrying devices at all, and the facial recognition analysis of security video is just the icing on the cake to confirm exactly that. So, really, now you have to wonder what the new awful thing is, that our brightest minds are working on. Probably killbots. Flying, driving, walking, talking killbots. That's my guess.

Well, I am under the certainty that we aren't already trying _enough_ to doing all these things...

When the brightest minds of our generation have dedicated themselves to optimizing advertising networks, you can be sure we aren't emphasizing these things.

bkohlmann 8y ago
Are we sure the brightest minds of our generation really are simply devoting themselves to optimizing advertising? To be sure, some are - but folks like the author of the original paper the article is based on are the counter example to the common refrain. I see brilliant folks laboring in all sort of fascinating endeavors. They’ve yet to achieve publicity because their work is either not complete or they prefer obscurity.
- oligosacharide 8y ago
  I've considered the possibility that while seemingly pervasive and inescapable, ad tech is widely ineffective. There's the perception that it's part of some deep state panopticon, and that there's more than one, and the other one fucked up the 2018 election, or something like that. But I'd take a wild guess that in reality the effectiveness is something akin to anti-virus software. It only seems to catch the low hanging fruit. With that in mind, I think this narrative is basing the underlying theme on things that were happening in the early 2000's when Google started buying up companies like Urchin and DoubleClick. We're way past those days, and while ad tech does still pose a pervasive privacy hazard, I think newer more powerful technologies can passively track pretty much everyone by sniffing all the signals in the air for every wireless and mobile device in everyone's pockets. I'd wager that the coverage is so dense that it even exposes the identities of people not carrying devices at all, and the facial recognition analysis of security video is just the icing on the cake to confirm exactly that. So, really, now you have to wonder what the new awful thing is, that our brightest minds are working on. Probably killbots. Flying, driving, walking, talking killbots. That's my guess.