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James Mickens on this topic: https://youtu.be/ajGX7odA87k https://youtu.be/ajGX7odA87k > Some people enter the technology industry to build newer, more exciti

James Mickens on this topic: https://youtu.be/ajGX7odA87k https://youtu.be/ajGX7odA87k > Some people enter the technology industry to build newer, more exciting kinds of technology as quickly as possible. My keynote will savage these people and will burn important professional bridges, likely forcing me to join a monastery or another penance-focused organization. In my keynote, I will explain why the proliferation of ubiquitous technology is good in the same sense that ubiquitous Venus weather would be good, i.e., not good at all. > Using case studies involving machine learning and other hastily-executed figments of Silicon Valley’s imagination, I will explain why computer security (and larger notions of ethical computing) are difficult to achieve if developers insist on literally not questioning anything that they do since even brief introspection would reduce the frequency of git commits. At some point, my microphone will be cut off, possibly by hotel management, but possibly by myself, because microphones are technology and we need to reclaim the stark purity that emerges from amplifying our voices using rams’ horns and sheets of papyrus rolled into cone shapes. I will explain why papyrus cones are not vulnerable to buffer overflow attacks, and then I will conclude by observing that my new start-up papyr.us is looking for talented full-stack developers who are comfortable executing computational tasks on an abacus or several nearby sticks.

paganel 8y ago
Thanks for the link. At some point he says "the gadgets are the true people of the Earth", which more or less resembles what Jacques Ellul first wrote about 60 years ago [1]: > Hard determinists would view technology as developing independent from social concerns. They would say that technology creates a set of powerful forces acting to regulate our social activity and its meaning. and > According to this view of determinism we organize ourselves to meet the needs of technology and the outcome of this organization is beyond our control or we do not have the freedom to make a choice regarding the outcome (autonomous technology) (...) In his 1954 work The Technological Society, Ellul essentially posits that technology, by virtue of its power through efficiency, determines which social aspects are best suited for its own development through a process of natural selection. I used to be a pretty big believer in things like "technology will make everything better", but after reading some of Ellul's books I've started to have my doubts about that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism#Hard_and_soft_determinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism#Hard...
- perfmode 8y ago
  I’m going to have to read this book. Thanks for mentioning it.
- graphitezepp 8y ago
  Great now I can quote somebody about why I think technology is evil who isn't the Unabomber thanks.
  - Verdex 8y ago
    Sarcasm? I only ask because you're saying this on a website. A website focused on funding technology startups. Hosted on the internet. Build by darpa grants. Like, this doesn't seem like your sort of place if you're serious about thinking technology is evil.
    - perfmode 8y ago
      Sometimes the people in the best position to judge are the ones who know the most.
- naringas 8y ago
  > "the gadgets are the true people of the Earth", and corporate businesses are fast becoming the true citizens of nations.
Phemist 8y ago
For what it's worth. The conference this talk is held at is given an interesting connotation when read in a combination of English & Dutch. Use in English being Use. And "Nix" can be read in Dutch as a short-hand/homophone for "Niks", meaning nothing. It sounds kind of forced when explaining it like this, but for me (and I'm sure for other Dutch people frequenting this forum) it's quite natural to interpret it as such. I.e., the conference name can be interpreted as meaning Use Nothing, which seems to be related to/reinforce the topic of this talk.
hoaw 8y ago
More and more people I respect are becoming skeptical of Silicon Valley, or at least the attitudes attributed to it, to the point where I don't think convincing people is necessarily the problem any more. What is lacking is a solid plan of what to do instead.
- nwhatt 8y ago
  My takeaway from talk is basically "go slower". He points out that history can be a good guide. In academic fields you need to get IRB approval for human subjects. A similar system might make sense for models applied to people, for example the system used for sentencing prisoners probably should have some kind of third party oversight.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > In academic fields you need to get IRB approval for human subjects. On the other hand, that has its own problems: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/ It seems like the real issue is the information asymmetry. You can build hot garbage in five days but it takes the customer five months to figure it out, by which point they've lost all their data to malware. Meanwhile on day zero the carefully-designed application is $50 and the hot garbage is "FREE*", so which does the user choose without any other way to tell the difference?
  - hoaw 8y ago
    I get what they are usually saying and I generally agree. For example DHH has a ton of material on how to do things differently, or more sane if you so will. It is just, now that I am convinced then what? I can try and incorporate some things, but it doesn't change much overall. So while I can appreciate the "gospel", there needs to be a path for people who are already on board. Maybe a organization, methodology, role or even a damn certificate. Because there are thousands of people learning "growth hacking", "agile" or whatever every day.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > What is lacking is a solid plan of what to do instead. One of the issues is that surveillance capitalism is a collective action problem. If companies have more data about people like you then they can capture more of the consumer surplus when they sell you things. But they don't need data about you specifically for that, only aggregate data about people like you. So if you don't sell your privacy but someone else does, you don't get the free services but you still pay the higher prices. So everybody sells out. Europe tried to address this with the GDPR, but the amount of friction that creates is problematic. What might work better is that instead of regulating collection, regulate third party distribution. Put Equifax out of business because they can't have a giant data breach if no one can give them any data. And if there are no more credit scores and it's harder for people to get a loan, housing prices would come down to what people could afford without having to pay interest on half a million dollars to the bank for thirty years. Probably a good thing. Combine that with a big honking tax on advertising revenue to reduce the profits from collecting the data for that purpose and you reduce the incentive to collect data on everyone, without affecting smaller companies that don't sell advertising or user data to anyone. But that would be a huge political feat. You'd be going after multiple hundred billion plus dollar companies in addition to the banks. The other alternative would be for enough individuals to recognize the collective action problem and selflessly help their neighbors by not patronizing these companies, but that's not a trivial feat either.
dekhn 8y ago
personally I find his writing tiresome. it's literally the same setup and joke, with little content.
- Verdex 8y ago
  Personally, I find his talks fantastic. However, to be fair I also normally have problems determining what his actual points are and what is a joke and I rarely see what his main point is (sometimes I'm pretty sure it's just a bunch of stuff randomly thrown together). That being said, his talks are a great example of how to make an otherwise dry topic very interesting and consumable by laymen. And he typically takes a skeptical approach to technology just working. Combine those two things and you get something that we as an industry desperately need. A skeptical and conservative view towards emerging technology that arbitrary people can consume (especially technology inept decision makers). Currently, the best presentations to decision makers about new technologies are all made by evangelists, wide eyed early adapters, and snake oil sales men. These presentations encourage those with power to make poor decisions (they don't want to be left behind for the next big thing, they already thought the internet wasn't going to work). James Mickens provides a much needed splash of cold water. And it's in a form that is easy to listen to when you don't understand technology. The typical approach for why a new technology is a bad idea is a boring technical digression where a bunch of people say a bunch of words that nobody understands. James Mickens makes it interesting and compelling without getting bogged down. Somebody does need to get into the details at some point, but if we don't have a way to signal that some new things are in fact a bad idea then nobody is going to get the chance and we'll be stuck implementing the next bad idea yet again.

paganel 8y ago

Thanks for the link. At some point he says "the gadgets are the true people of the Earth", which more or less resembles what Jacques Ellul first wrote about 60 years ago [1]: > Hard determinists would view technology as developing independent from social concerns. They would say that technology creates a set of powerful forces acting to regulate our social activity and its meaning. and > According to this view of determinism we organize ourselves to meet the needs of technology and the outcome of this organization is beyond our control or we do not have the freedom to make a choice regarding the outcome (autonomous technology) (...) In his 1954 work The Technological Society, Ellul essentially posits that technology, by virtue of its power through efficiency, determines which social aspects are best suited for its own development through a process of natural selection. I used to be a pretty big believer in things like "technology will make everything better", but after reading some of Ellul's books I've started to have my doubts about that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism#Hard_and_soft_determinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism#Hard...

perfmode 8y ago
I’m going to have to read this book. Thanks for mentioning it.
graphitezepp 8y ago
Great now I can quote somebody about why I think technology is evil who isn't the Unabomber thanks.
- Verdex 8y ago
  Sarcasm? I only ask because you're saying this on a website. A website focused on funding technology startups. Hosted on the internet. Build by darpa grants. Like, this doesn't seem like your sort of place if you're serious about thinking technology is evil.
  - perfmode 8y ago
    Sometimes the people in the best position to judge are the ones who know the most.
naringas 8y ago
> "the gadgets are the true people of the Earth", and corporate businesses are fast becoming the true citizens of nations.

Phemist 8y ago

For what it's worth. The conference this talk is held at is given an interesting connotation when read in a combination of English & Dutch. Use in English being Use. And "Nix" can be read in Dutch as a short-hand/homophone for "Niks", meaning nothing. It sounds kind of forced when explaining it like this, but for me (and I'm sure for other Dutch people frequenting this forum) it's quite natural to interpret it as such. I.e., the conference name can be interpreted as meaning Use Nothing, which seems to be related to/reinforce the topic of this talk.

hoaw 8y ago

More and more people I respect are becoming skeptical of Silicon Valley, or at least the attitudes attributed to it, to the point where I don't think convincing people is necessarily the problem any more. What is lacking is a solid plan of what to do instead.

nwhatt 8y ago
My takeaway from talk is basically "go slower". He points out that history can be a good guide. In academic fields you need to get IRB approval for human subjects. A similar system might make sense for models applied to people, for example the system used for sentencing prisoners probably should have some kind of third party oversight.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > In academic fields you need to get IRB approval for human subjects. On the other hand, that has its own problems: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/29/my-irb-nightmare/ It seems like the real issue is the information asymmetry. You can build hot garbage in five days but it takes the customer five months to figure it out, by which point they've lost all their data to malware. Meanwhile on day zero the carefully-designed application is $50 and the hot garbage is "FREE*", so which does the user choose without any other way to tell the difference?
- hoaw 8y ago
  I get what they are usually saying and I generally agree. For example DHH has a ton of material on how to do things differently, or more sane if you so will. It is just, now that I am convinced then what? I can try and incorporate some things, but it doesn't change much overall. So while I can appreciate the "gospel", there needs to be a path for people who are already on board. Maybe a organization, methodology, role or even a damn certificate. Because there are thousands of people learning "growth hacking", "agile" or whatever every day.
AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> What is lacking is a solid plan of what to do instead. One of the issues is that surveillance capitalism is a collective action problem. If companies have more data about people like you then they can capture more of the consumer surplus when they sell you things. But they don't need data about you specifically for that, only aggregate data about people like you. So if you don't sell your privacy but someone else does, you don't get the free services but you still pay the higher prices. So everybody sells out. Europe tried to address this with the GDPR, but the amount of friction that creates is problematic. What might work better is that instead of regulating collection, regulate third party distribution. Put Equifax out of business because they can't have a giant data breach if no one can give them any data. And if there are no more credit scores and it's harder for people to get a loan, housing prices would come down to what people could afford without having to pay interest on half a million dollars to the bank for thirty years. Probably a good thing. Combine that with a big honking tax on advertising revenue to reduce the profits from collecting the data for that purpose and you reduce the incentive to collect data on everyone, without affecting smaller companies that don't sell advertising or user data to anyone. But that would be a huge political feat. You'd be going after multiple hundred billion plus dollar companies in addition to the banks. The other alternative would be for enough individuals to recognize the collective action problem and selflessly help their neighbors by not patronizing these companies, but that's not a trivial feat either.

dekhn 8y ago

personally I find his writing tiresome. it's literally the same setup and joke, with little content.

Verdex 8y ago
Personally, I find his talks fantastic. However, to be fair I also normally have problems determining what his actual points are and what is a joke and I rarely see what his main point is (sometimes I'm pretty sure it's just a bunch of stuff randomly thrown together). That being said, his talks are a great example of how to make an otherwise dry topic very interesting and consumable by laymen. And he typically takes a skeptical approach to technology just working. Combine those two things and you get something that we as an industry desperately need. A skeptical and conservative view towards emerging technology that arbitrary people can consume (especially technology inept decision makers). Currently, the best presentations to decision makers about new technologies are all made by evangelists, wide eyed early adapters, and snake oil sales men. These presentations encourage those with power to make poor decisions (they don't want to be left behind for the next big thing, they already thought the internet wasn't going to work). James Mickens provides a much needed splash of cold water. And it's in a form that is easy to listen to when you don't understand technology. The typical approach for why a new technology is a bad idea is a boring technical digression where a bunch of people say a bunch of words that nobody understands. James Mickens makes it interesting and compelling without getting bogged down. Somebody does need to get into the details at some point, but if we don't have a way to signal that some new things are in fact a bad idea then nobody is going to get the chance and we'll be stuck implementing the next bad idea yet again.