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This makes me realize that from now on, most human beings will probably increasingly be "memorialized" online. I can't help but see in this a new form of moder

by K0SM0S 7y ago

This makes me realize that from now on, most human beings will probably increasingly be "memorialized" online. I can't help but see in this a new form of modernized, digitalized mortuary ritual, comparable to all the things we humans have been doing with our deads for millennia. Egyptian tombs sought to preserve the body; now with big-tech tombs we seek to preserve the mind, what's left of it, what has been revealed by the deceased. I bet this is just the beginning of that. The work of historians is changing, fast, in this fledging computing era. Think that, from now on, we may be increasingly able to replay then-dead-but-real people in real situations as if it were just another virtual world. Which leads to this suggestion: maybe all the data held by big tech companies should be released for public research (public datasets) upon one's death, after anonymization etc. of course (and maybe a 'wait' period of 10 years, or a full generation or more, whatever precautions are necessary). The point being to learn cumulatively from all our deceased brothers and sisters, make them count forever in the great study of humanity and the cosmos. Of course people should choose for themselves (including delays and anonymity), like some have donor cards, may prefer incineration, etc.

freeflight 7y ago
That's very idealized, right now we still struggle with having big tech even acknowledge its actually our data [0] and not completely and only theirs the moment we give it to them willingly or often enough unwillingly. At our current trajectory, it looks much more like we are heading into a cyberpunk Esque dystopia in which people are not just only commoditized through their labor, but also their data value. So instead of post-privacy for big data projects that could serve all of humanity, we end up with data oligopolies hoarding the "gold" in neatly segregated silos to control its scarcity and thus value. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/11/tim-berners-lee-web-inventor-save-internet https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/11/tim-berne...
- K0SM0S 7y ago
  > That's very idealized Agreed, as we speak. This is why I generally think we ought to take control back of our data, massively, as citizens. And devs and the tech community in general are front and center to lead the charge, obviously. It's a long road. Years, decades probably. But eventually we must get there. We may have sacrificed the first generations in that regard because we honestly build as we go, we can't anticipate everything. But now that we're here, that we see that we know, it's time to stop deploring what is, and start building what should be. IMHO... This isn't 'holier-than-thou' at all but very humbly calling for all of us to wake up and start creating tomorrow's solutions to these problems.

by K0SM0S 7y ago

freeflight 7y ago

That's very idealized, right now we still struggle with having big tech even acknowledge its actually our data [0] and not completely and only theirs the moment we give it to them willingly or often enough unwillingly. At our current trajectory, it looks much more like we are heading into a cyberpunk Esque dystopia in which people are not just only commoditized through their labor, but also their data value. So instead of post-privacy for big data projects that could serve all of humanity, we end up with data oligopolies hoarding the "gold" in neatly segregated silos to control its scarcity and thus value. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/11/tim-berners-lee-web-inventor-save-internet https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/11/tim-berne...

K0SM0S 7y ago
> That's very idealized Agreed, as we speak. This is why I generally think we ought to take control back of our data, massively, as citizens. And devs and the tech community in general are front and center to lead the charge, obviously. It's a long road. Years, decades probably. But eventually we must get there. We may have sacrificed the first generations in that regard because we honestly build as we go, we can't anticipate everything. But now that we're here, that we see that we know, it's time to stop deploring what is, and start building what should be. IMHO... This isn't 'holier-than-thou' at all but very humbly calling for all of us to wake up and start creating tomorrow's solutions to these problems.