9 ms·

Insurrection as a Service

24 points by undefined1 6y ago

eightysixfour 6y ago
> The American Bill of Rights was written at the time of the printing press, a machine that anyone could buy, the street corner, on which anyone could sell a paper, a system of public roads and walks for distribution, and thousands of small businesses that comprised the “market,” any one of which, absolutely, could refuse to sell a paper, but no one or two (or five in obvious collusion) were capable of censoring a single voice out of public existence. Today, the internet is the gateway through which almost our entire democracy is conducted. I can't figure out if I missed a /s somewhere in this section. Is the author seriously arguing that it was easier to distribute information in the late 1700s and early 1800s than it is now if you're off of the internet? Is he also arguing that FB/Twitter/Apple/Google/Amazon have a monopoly on the ability to communicate on the internet? HN isn't hosted on any of these and I'm writing this just fine. > the printing press, a machine that anyone could buy I can't find the number, but I'm honestly curious. How much did a printing press cost in 1796? How much was the paper for it?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > I can't find the number, but I'm honestly curious. How much did a printing press cost in 1796? From what I can find about £16 (the price I found was 15 guineas) in England, so, via inflation calculators and currency conversion, around $2,000 (yes, the conversion had more details, but more than one sig fig here is definitely false precision.) Operating costs would probably take more digging.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    Hmm. That's not that far from the price of a server...
    - netizen-9748 6y ago
      Realistically, you can serve pages from a RasPi
    - manfredo 6y ago
      A server is just a useless chunk of plastic, metal, and silicon if you don't have an ISP willing to give you an IP and route traffic to you. And without a domain name, you're only accessible to technical users. Also DDoS protection is increasingly becoming a necessity.
      - eightysixfour 6y ago
        Interestingly, ISPs are the only part of this equation I think should be regulated to require any content to travel over them. They are utilities that have government granted proto-monopolies and in exchange they should not be able to dictate the content they deliver. DNS I have mixed feelings about, but I’m inclined to say it should be the same.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > A server is just a useless chunk of plastic, metal, and silicon if you don’t have an ISP willing to give you an IP and route traffic to you. Hence, the argument for net neutrality. > And without a domain name, you’re only accessible to technical users Hence, why DNS service, like ISPs under net neutrality, should have utility-like neutrality regulations.
    - harimau777 6y ago
      You still need people to discover your page which means Google, social media, or advertising.
  - eightysixfour 6y ago
    Thanks for digging that up - as mentioned, that is certainly more than the cost of a server, or a laser printer.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  No, they're arguing that it much harder for a private entity (or even a group) to block distribution of information in the late 1700s. And, I think he's arguing that FB/Twitter/Apple/Google/Amazon have a (near) monopoly on truly mass communication on the internet. Sure, we're on HN, and anyone can read it. Not many will, though. If you want 10 million people to read it without going through FB, Google, et al, I'd like to know how you're going to do it.
  - eightysixfour 6y ago
    > No, they're arguing that it much harder for a private entity (or even a group) to block distribution of information in the late 1700s. I think this is a argument is incorrect. You can still print flyers and hand them out (or even mass mail them!) and none of that cabal can get close to stopping you, this argument assumes/pretends that the internet eliminated all other forms of communication, it didn't. Those methods still exist and have a larger reach than they had then. Communication is more resilient than it was in the 1700s, not less. > I'd like to know how you're going to do it. I'd make it look like an email chain and forward it to my grandma.
    - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
      I’d say the internet has obsoleted earlier forms of communication. Twitter and the use of the phone keyboard as many people’s main input device has mainstreamed a discourse of extremely short communications, “snackable content” has diminished appetite for longer writing (which is often referred to as a daunting “Long Read” even if it is merely the length of an ordinary magazine article from a few decades ago). If you examine some of the late-18th-century pamphlets created by social agitators and revolutionaries, they were often extremely dense text with elaborate argumentation. That kind of writing would not have the same impact on the public today; most of the people given such a pamphlet would bristle at having to read all that.
      - eightysixfour 6y ago
        While I understand what you are saying, there was never a guarantee people would want to read what you wrote, just that you could write it.
- DenisM 6y ago
  > Is the author seriously arguing that it was easier to distribute information in the late 1700s and early 1800s than it is now if you're off of the internet No. He is arguing that 200 years ago distribution was about equally hard for everyone, but today it's very easy for those approved by the IT moguls, and still hard for everyone else. > Is he also arguing that FB/Twitter/Apple/Google/Amazon have a monopoly on the ability to communicate on the internet Google and Apple have absolute 100% lock on app distribution. FB & Twitter together have pretty much 100% lock on "like and share" media, which accounts for, say, 90% of all news discovery. Of course you can still stand on the corner and hand out printed pamphlets, but there is significant difference in reach that is affected by having favors with the IT moguls and not by the appeal of the message itself. I wonder whether you really didn't understand this or simply expressed your disagreement as a question?
  - eightysixfour 6y ago
    > I wonder whether you really didn't understand this or simply expressed your disagreement as a question? No, it was an honest question, because I'm having this conversation with you without any of those services impacting me. My opinion as a whole is simple, the internet is an additional medium of information sharing. We have more means of communicating our ideas (even without the internet) for cheaper than we have in the entire history of humanity. Never in history have the mediums of communication of the day been required to communicate what you ask them to. Sure, you could print a pamphlet, but I guarantee you'd rather have it in the Boston Gazette.
    - DenisM 6y ago
      I feel like you're ignoring the competition aspect of it. If one party finds it 100 times easier to spread their message than the other the latter would not be heard even if their message is twice as appealing. If both parties found it hard to spread their message the ideas would be competing on their merits, but the higher the cost discrepancy the less impact the merit has on the outcome.
      - eightysixfour 6y ago
rdxm 6y ago
I love how self-absorbed the tech world is. "Big Tech" Tech doesn't control things, that's frankly silly. Is it a cancer on our culture? In some cases absolutely (FB/Twitter/Insta for example). But the reality is as it always has been. Big money controls things. The guy really driving the bus at this point is pretty much Larry Fink, who sits on top of a 7.8 trillion dollar fund that effectively controls the markets...like all of them. (there are other large funds but this one is I think the largest). Matt Levine touches on this topic in a piece from last summer: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-25/the-government-wants-esg-out-of-pensions https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-25/the-go... Larry's gotta be super happy to have people distracted by this "Big Tech" nonsense, keeps his shadow government off the radar screens. And really only a very small number of people relative to the broader population actually care that Trump was de-platformed. Frankly it was long overdue. Putin lost his useful idiot (oh well, easy come easy go...), but The Republic, and the broader country appears to have flushed the toilet on a zero-value-add liability. It's worth noting the markets didn't miss a beat over the last two weeks. Go figure....
chris_dcosta 6y ago
As technologists we have always had a responsibility beyond just doing the job. We don’t all see it that way I know, but for example we choose to use encryption for reasons that should not even be up for discussion. We have platforms and services that can be used to provide some direction to society, when we as fellow human beings see it going awry. Sure there are those who will overstep the mark, but you cannot hide anymore and this is the reality that any would be fascist has to face.

24 points by undefined1 6y ago

> The American Bill of Rights was written at the time of the printing press, a machine that anyone could buy, the street corner, on which anyone could sell a paper, a system of public roads and walks for distribution, and thousands of small businesses that comprised the “market,” any one of which, absolutely, could refuse to sell a paper, but no one or two (or five in obvious collusion) were capable of censoring a single voice out of public existence. Today, the internet is the gateway through which almost our entire democracy is conducted. I can't figure out if I missed a /s somewhere in this section. Is the author seriously arguing that it was easier to distribute information in the late 1700s and early 1800s than it is now if you're off of the internet? Is he also arguing that FB/Twitter/Apple/Google/Amazon have a monopoly on the ability to communicate on the internet? HN isn't hosted on any of these and I'm writing this just fine. > the printing press, a machine that anyone could buy I can't find the number, but I'm honestly curious. How much did a printing press cost in 1796? How much was the paper for it?

dragonwriter 6y ago
> I can't find the number, but I'm honestly curious. How much did a printing press cost in 1796? From what I can find about £16 (the price I found was 15 guineas) in England, so, via inflation calculators and currency conversion, around $2,000 (yes, the conversion had more details, but more than one sig fig here is definitely false precision.) Operating costs would probably take more digging.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Hmm. That's not that far from the price of a server...
  - netizen-9748 6y ago
    Realistically, you can serve pages from a RasPi
  - manfredo 6y ago
    A server is just a useless chunk of plastic, metal, and silicon if you don't have an ISP willing to give you an IP and route traffic to you. And without a domain name, you're only accessible to technical users. Also DDoS protection is increasingly becoming a necessity.
    - eightysixfour 6y ago
      Interestingly, ISPs are the only part of this equation I think should be regulated to require any content to travel over them. They are utilities that have government granted proto-monopolies and in exchange they should not be able to dictate the content they deliver. DNS I have mixed feelings about, but I’m inclined to say it should be the same.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > A server is just a useless chunk of plastic, metal, and silicon if you don’t have an ISP willing to give you an IP and route traffic to you. Hence, the argument for net neutrality. > And without a domain name, you’re only accessible to technical users Hence, why DNS service, like ISPs under net neutrality, should have utility-like neutrality regulations.
  - harimau777 6y ago
    You still need people to discover your page which means Google, social media, or advertising.
- eightysixfour 6y ago
  Thanks for digging that up - as mentioned, that is certainly more than the cost of a server, or a laser printer.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
No, they're arguing that it much harder for a private entity (or even a group) to block distribution of information in the late 1700s. And, I think he's arguing that FB/Twitter/Apple/Google/Amazon have a (near) monopoly on truly mass communication on the internet. Sure, we're on HN, and anyone can read it. Not many will, though. If you want 10 million people to read it without going through FB, Google, et al, I'd like to know how you're going to do it.
- eightysixfour 6y ago
  > No, they're arguing that it much harder for a private entity (or even a group) to block distribution of information in the late 1700s. I think this is a argument is incorrect. You can still print flyers and hand them out (or even mass mail them!) and none of that cabal can get close to stopping you, this argument assumes/pretends that the internet eliminated all other forms of communication, it didn't. Those methods still exist and have a larger reach than they had then. Communication is more resilient than it was in the 1700s, not less. > I'd like to know how you're going to do it. I'd make it look like an email chain and forward it to my grandma.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    I’d say the internet has obsoleted earlier forms of communication. Twitter and the use of the phone keyboard as many people’s main input device has mainstreamed a discourse of extremely short communications, “snackable content” has diminished appetite for longer writing (which is often referred to as a daunting “Long Read” even if it is merely the length of an ordinary magazine article from a few decades ago). If you examine some of the late-18th-century pamphlets created by social agitators and revolutionaries, they were often extremely dense text with elaborate argumentation. That kind of writing would not have the same impact on the public today; most of the people given such a pamphlet would bristle at having to read all that.
    - eightysixfour 6y ago
      While I understand what you are saying, there was never a guarantee people would want to read what you wrote, just that you could write it.
DenisM 6y ago
> Is the author seriously arguing that it was easier to distribute information in the late 1700s and early 1800s than it is now if you're off of the internet No. He is arguing that 200 years ago distribution was about equally hard for everyone, but today it's very easy for those approved by the IT moguls, and still hard for everyone else. > Is he also arguing that FB/Twitter/Apple/Google/Amazon have a monopoly on the ability to communicate on the internet Google and Apple have absolute 100% lock on app distribution. FB & Twitter together have pretty much 100% lock on "like and share" media, which accounts for, say, 90% of all news discovery. Of course you can still stand on the corner and hand out printed pamphlets, but there is significant difference in reach that is affected by having favors with the IT moguls and not by the appeal of the message itself. I wonder whether you really didn't understand this or simply expressed your disagreement as a question?
- eightysixfour 6y ago
  > I wonder whether you really didn't understand this or simply expressed your disagreement as a question? No, it was an honest question, because I'm having this conversation with you without any of those services impacting me. My opinion as a whole is simple, the internet is an additional medium of information sharing. We have more means of communicating our ideas (even without the internet) for cheaper than we have in the entire history of humanity. Never in history have the mediums of communication of the day been required to communicate what you ask them to. Sure, you could print a pamphlet, but I guarantee you'd rather have it in the Boston Gazette.
  - DenisM 6y ago
    I feel like you're ignoring the competition aspect of it. If one party finds it 100 times easier to spread their message than the other the latter would not be heard even if their message is twice as appealing. If both parties found it hard to spread their message the ideas would be competing on their merits, but the higher the cost discrepancy the less impact the merit has on the outcome.
    - eightysixfour 6y ago

rdxm 6y ago

I love how self-absorbed the tech world is. "Big Tech" Tech doesn't control things, that's frankly silly. Is it a cancer on our culture? In some cases absolutely (FB/Twitter/Insta for example). But the reality is as it always has been. Big money controls things. The guy really driving the bus at this point is pretty much Larry Fink, who sits on top of a 7.8 trillion dollar fund that effectively controls the markets...like all of them. (there are other large funds but this one is I think the largest). Matt Levine touches on this topic in a piece from last summer: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-25/the-government-wants-esg-out-of-pensions https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-25/the-go... Larry's gotta be super happy to have people distracted by this "Big Tech" nonsense, keeps his shadow government off the radar screens. And really only a very small number of people relative to the broader population actually care that Trump was de-platformed. Frankly it was long overdue. Putin lost his useful idiot (oh well, easy come easy go...), but The Republic, and the broader country appears to have flushed the toilet on a zero-value-add liability. It's worth noting the markets didn't miss a beat over the last two weeks. Go figure....

chris_dcosta 6y ago

As technologists we have always had a responsibility beyond just doing the job. We don’t all see it that way I know, but for example we choose to use encryption for reasons that should not even be up for discussion. We have platforms and services that can be used to provide some direction to society, when we as fellow human beings see it going awry. Sure there are those who will overstep the mark, but you cannot hide anymore and this is the reality that any would be fascist has to face.