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A lot of that cost, unfortunately, is a collective harm. Your decision means I have to live in a surveillance economy.

api 8y ago
So far emitting fossil CO2 has never cost me more than the utility... I agree. These mass surveillance dragnets are a society-wide risk even more than they're a risk to the individual. The socialized risk is that malicious actors (whether the company itself or anyone else who can get access) will use them to attack the entire society in a variety of ways. I personally consider these systems to be a risk to national security. The risk is also in the panopticon effect itself. If people think they're always under surveillance, they will unconsciously self-censor and cultural innovation could halt. People will just silently stop doing things they think other people might judge.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
It's like littering. No direct cost to the person doing it but if everyone did it it would have a large cost to society.
- criddell 8y ago
  It's not really like littering. I don't think there are very many people that think littering isn't a problem if everybody does it. Smart phones, on the other hand, are used by billions of people everyday to do all kinds of legitimately useful things.
stronglikedan 8y ago
Surveillance economies do have a societal cost, but calling that cost harmful is completely subjective, so the people that choose utility over that cost don't necessarily believe they are harming anything.
- spaceheretostay 8y ago
  The harm done by surveillance societies is not completely subjective. People are suffering. Their suffering due to surveillance-pervasive society is objectively bad. And if you want to argue that people should suffer and that is a good thing, we have gone off the rails into a discussion of morality, a discussion I would be shocked to have here. I think it is safe to say that intentional and targeted suffering of minority groups directly due to our surveillance society is objectively bad. The only wiggle room here is, as you said, the existence of people who believe that targeting minorities for suffering is a good thing but I surely and dearly hope that we can still call those abhorrent ideas "objectively bad".
  - criddell 8y ago
    > People are suffering Do you think that's the net result, or is just the fact that somebody somewhere is suffering means the rest of us need to turn off the internet and hand in our smartphones? I have a very hard time believing that the total harm of devices that watch us (actively or potentially) exceeds the actual benefits delivered by those devices.
    - spaceheretostay 8y ago
      > Do you think that's the net result, Yes, 100%. > I have a very hard time believing that the total harm of devices that watch us (actively or potentially) exceeds the actual benefits delivered by those devices. This is a false dichotomy logical fallacy. You are incorrectly assuming that all of the good from smartphones comes at a forced, dramatic reduction in privacy. I know this is false because even a kitchen timer with no permissions is a useful element of smartphones that can have 0 privacy concerns. The invasion of personal privacy at scale has indeed caused enormous societal harm that I personally think quite obviously outweighs any "good" that could come from it - and I also personally think that any "good" done from the direct causing of suffering of others is not in fact good at all.
      - criddell 8y ago
        > You are incorrectly assuming that all of the good from smartphones comes at a forced, dramatic reduction in privacy. No, I'm saying that the dramatic reduction in privacy from the typical use of smartphones is more than offset by the benefits. There's lots of abuses of privacy that I'd like to see reigned in (I would definitely support the introduction of GDPR-like regulations in the US). I'd like to see my search data have the same protections as my video rental or health data. > any "good" done from the direct causing of suffering of others is not in fact good at all I assume you are talking about things like the trolley problem. That's something that I've never been able to resolve for myself.

api 8y ago

So far emitting fossil CO2 has never cost me more than the utility... I agree. These mass surveillance dragnets are a society-wide risk even more than they're a risk to the individual. The socialized risk is that malicious actors (whether the company itself or anyone else who can get access) will use them to attack the entire society in a variety of ways. I personally consider these systems to be a risk to national security. The risk is also in the panopticon effect itself. If people think they're always under surveillance, they will unconsciously self-censor and cultural innovation could halt. People will just silently stop doing things they think other people might judge.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

It's like littering. No direct cost to the person doing it but if everyone did it it would have a large cost to society.

criddell 8y ago
It's not really like littering. I don't think there are very many people that think littering isn't a problem if everybody does it. Smart phones, on the other hand, are used by billions of people everyday to do all kinds of legitimately useful things.

stronglikedan 8y ago

Surveillance economies do have a societal cost, but calling that cost harmful is completely subjective, so the people that choose utility over that cost don't necessarily believe they are harming anything.

spaceheretostay 8y ago
The harm done by surveillance societies is not completely subjective. People are suffering. Their suffering due to surveillance-pervasive society is objectively bad. And if you want to argue that people should suffer and that is a good thing, we have gone off the rails into a discussion of morality, a discussion I would be shocked to have here. I think it is safe to say that intentional and targeted suffering of minority groups directly due to our surveillance society is objectively bad. The only wiggle room here is, as you said, the existence of people who believe that targeting minorities for suffering is a good thing but I surely and dearly hope that we can still call those abhorrent ideas "objectively bad".
- criddell 8y ago
  > People are suffering Do you think that's the net result, or is just the fact that somebody somewhere is suffering means the rest of us need to turn off the internet and hand in our smartphones? I have a very hard time believing that the total harm of devices that watch us (actively or potentially) exceeds the actual benefits delivered by those devices.
  - spaceheretostay 8y ago
    > Do you think that's the net result, Yes, 100%. > I have a very hard time believing that the total harm of devices that watch us (actively or potentially) exceeds the actual benefits delivered by those devices. This is a false dichotomy logical fallacy. You are incorrectly assuming that all of the good from smartphones comes at a forced, dramatic reduction in privacy. I know this is false because even a kitchen timer with no permissions is a useful element of smartphones that can have 0 privacy concerns. The invasion of personal privacy at scale has indeed caused enormous societal harm that I personally think quite obviously outweighs any "good" that could come from it - and I also personally think that any "good" done from the direct causing of suffering of others is not in fact good at all.
    - criddell 8y ago
      > You are incorrectly assuming that all of the good from smartphones comes at a forced, dramatic reduction in privacy. No, I'm saying that the dramatic reduction in privacy from the typical use of smartphones is more than offset by the benefits. There's lots of abuses of privacy that I'd like to see reigned in (I would definitely support the introduction of GDPR-like regulations in the US). I'd like to see my search data have the same protections as my video rental or health data. > any "good" done from the direct causing of suffering of others is not in fact good at all I assume you are talking about things like the trolley problem. That's something that I've never been able to resolve for myself.