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In Germany the government used census data tabulated on IBM punchcard equipment to find who to round up. Later, during the liquidation phase of the effort eac
by vmh1928 6y ago
In Germany the government used census data tabulated on IBM punchcard equipment to find who to round up. Later, during the liquidation phase of the effort each camp had punch card equipment to help with maintaining the inventory of slave labor skills. That's what the number on the arm was for - the primary key. Copies of punched cards were sent to the central administrative HQ of the camp organization for additional processing and were used to identify specific skilled people who needed to be moved to other camps. Authoritarians rely on the stupid for the grunt work but they're not stupid themselves and can exploit technology to achieve their goals.
- AndrewUnmuted 6y agoGiven their past, I found it just a little rich, that IBM so publicly decried the recent "insurrection." [0] [0] https://twitter.com/ArvindKrishna/status/1346932293991079936 https://twitter.com/ArvindKrishna/status/1346932293991079936
- spockz 6y agoWell the IBM of today has little to do with the IBM of 80 years ago. Just like the Germany of today has little to do with what happened 80 years ago and people living now are not and should not be held responsible for the misdeeds of previous generations.
- AndrewUnmuted 6y ago> people living now are not and should not be held responsible for the misdeeds of previous generations. I'm sure we could all agree on this point. However, the aspects of IBM that led to their assisting the Third Reich are still very much alive at IBM today. It remains in the form of their core business model of assisting the world's most powerful regimes in automating oppression, autocracy, and authoritarianism at a global scale.
- spockz 6y agoOkay fair point. But sadly that holds for most companies. There are remarkably few of them that do not sell or provide support on FOSS to big governments that in turn do all kinds of nasty things. How can we change this, if at all? Isn’t it part of capitalism?
- dash2 6y agoHow is this relevant to my point or the article?
- vmh1928 6y agoit was in response to the comment about decentralized apps built by idealistic silicon valley types being used by MAGA types. The point being that it might be funny to him but authoritarians do have a track record of exploiting technology.
- dash2 6y agoBut these apps are explicitly designed to be decentralised and avoid state control! I'm no fan of e.g. the capitol rioters, but the analogy with IBM and the Nazis seems to get things backwards. The rioters don't control the government apparatus, they are trying to subvert it. And the use of this technology is to aid that by preventing centralised censorship and snooping. If you really want to power past Godwin's law, then you could compare them to Hitler in the 1920s, subverting the Weimar constitution.