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There's a long history of the government preventing abuse when one party in a relationship is not capable of evaluating the other party. We see certifications f

by dwaite 8y ago

There's a long history of the government preventing abuse when one party in a relationship is not capable of evaluating the other party. We see certifications for various roles from tax preparers to hairdressers, we see limits on what can be sold as food and medicine (unfortunately not enough limits in the US). Would you consider such (common) systems to be authoritarian? It is unfortunate that technology evolves so much faster than the average person's understanding of it. It both places a huge need on such intermediaries being present, but puts the running of such an intermediary outside of an entity supposedly operating in the public good (like the government) and into the hands of a corporation that may in one way or another be motivated to abuse such a role - and even if they try not to, being a for-profit gate-keeper guarantees they will be perceived as abusing such a role.

Reelin 8y ago
> Would you consider such (common) systems to be authoritarian? That question can only be meaningfully answered on a case by case basis. Many of them do cross the line as currently implemented in my opinion; to what extent varies. Oftentimes there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for their design rooted in history (ex being created prior to the internet or some other technology). On the whole most of them seem to work well enough. I would note that the presence of one flawed system does not serve as justification for others to exist as well. The world is certainly imperfect, but that is not a valid argument against improving it. > places a huge need on such intermediaries being present I don't dispute this - what I take issue with is the inability to opt out. > being a for-profit gate-keeper guarantees they will be perceived as abusing such a role Regarding app stores, the manufacturers could have trivially set them up such that it wasn't possible to abuse them. Functioning examples of such systems already exist. They specifically chose not to do this, so I do not think it is unreasonable to assume the worst about their intentions.

by dwaite 8y ago

Reelin 8y ago

> Would you consider such (common) systems to be authoritarian? That question can only be meaningfully answered on a case by case basis. Many of them do cross the line as currently implemented in my opinion; to what extent varies. Oftentimes there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for their design rooted in history (ex being created prior to the internet or some other technology). On the whole most of them seem to work well enough. I would note that the presence of one flawed system does not serve as justification for others to exist as well. The world is certainly imperfect, but that is not a valid argument against improving it. > places a huge need on such intermediaries being present I don't dispute this - what I take issue with is the inability to opt out. > being a for-profit gate-keeper guarantees they will be perceived as abusing such a role Regarding app stores, the manufacturers could have trivially set them up such that it wasn't possible to abuse them. Functioning examples of such systems already exist. They specifically chose not to do this, so I do not think it is unreasonable to assume the worst about their intentions.