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If someone predicted 10 years ago what Big Tech did in the last years, they would have been labeled conspiracy theorist.
by jokethrowaway 6y ago
If someone predicted 10 years ago what Big Tech did in the last years, they would have been labeled conspiracy theorist.
- hoka-one-one 6y agoWell yes because conspiracy theories are usually associated with the far right political agenda. Plus a broken clock is correct twice a day.
- Fellshard 6y agoDo not speak without knowledge. A cursory glance at history will show it is not a unique phenomenon of one worldview.
- huntermeyer 6y agoThey're just ahead of the curve.
- api 6y agoModern surveillance capitalism is far beyond the wildest fever dreams of 90s shortwave radio conspiracy nuts.
- Avicebron 6y agoagreed, at least jack-booted thugs are visible to those they oppress
- Darmody 6y agoStalin would've loved it.
- rangibaby 6y agoIf you told Markus Wolf in 1989 that in 2021 most citizens in the world would write each other private and political communicatons via a tracking device that can’t be turned off, and that device has both microphones and cameras, he would raise and eyebrow and ask “How did we win the Cold War?”
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoAbsolutely would, he could not concieve of a spying machine as powerfull and pervasive as we have today
- Darmody 6y agoCool tech guys from the comfort of their SV office downvoting a negative comment about their beloved Stalin loving surveillance while having a sip from their Starbucks "coffee". HN gives me a pretty clear view of why big tech are trying to control every aspect of our lives. Most of the people here think they hold the higher moral ground so they have the authority to tell others what to do or what to think. Typical modern leftist ideology. Very disappointed with HN lately.
- dang 6y agoThe problem with "Stalin would've loved it" is that it's obviously an unsubstantive flamebait comment, and so was correctly downvoted. Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html? We're trying for a specific kind of conversation here: thoughtful, curious, respectful. That requires avoiding flamebait. Re HN: I think you might be falling prey to the notice-dislike bias, which is a variation of sample bias where the comments we dislike or cause us pain start to feel like they're dominating the whole site. They don't dominate the site—HN is divided much as society (all over the world) is divided. But it feels like they do, because painful data points land harder and make deeper impressions than the things one likes or agrees with. The people who have opposite views to yours see HN as dominated by their opposite side (which is to say, your side), because of exactly the same mechanism. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=notice%20dislike%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=demons%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098
- alexashka 6y agoIf anyone predicted Trump becoming president 10 years ago, they would've been labelled a lunatic. Reality is stranger than the fiction we all live within, because fiction has the constraints of being something we can comprehend and live with. It has to be redeeming and hopeful, reality doesn't.
- m463 6y agoDoc: Tell me, Future Boy, who's President of the United States in 1985? Marty: Ronald Reagan. Doc: Ronald Reagan? The actor? [rolls his eyes] Ha! Then who's vice-president, Jerry Lewis?
- coldtea 6y agoWell, Reagan became president back in 1981, which wasn't much different. If anything he was just an actor (before getting into politics, which is even less qualification that a salesman/real estate guy. And, aside from spending on BS like "Star Wars" and escalating things with USSR, Reagan also established the neoliberal greedy nightmare we live in since.
- brandonmenc 6y ago> If anything he was just an actor Well, he was also a union big shot for over two decades, eventually elected as president of SAG. Then, he was governor of California for nearly a decade. So, quite a bit more qualification than "just an actor."
- coldtea 6y ago>Then, he was governor of California for nearly a decade. Yeah, so like Schwarzenegger.
- rufusroflpunch 6y agoYou could make that argument for every President since Woodrow Wilson at least...
- sib 6y ago
- p2t2p 6y agoR. Stallman did talk about all of that.
- b215826 6y agoBut... but... I thought he was a misogynistic pervert who needs to be expunged from the face of the earth.
- mhh__ 6y agoCan he be both? He seems like a fucking odd guy, but he's not stupid in any way.
- Alupis 6y ago"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." - George Orwell, "1984" Stallman, like most of us (and nearly all prominent historical figures) can posses both positive and negative traits simultaneously. The good isn't always outweighed by the bad, and vice versa. Nuance is a difficult thing sometimes...
- mhh__ 6y agoI think this isn't doublethink at all. I agree on the latter point. In some contexts you do have to consider both, i.e. there are some loonies in every corner but the actual philosophy behind cancel-culture isn't necessarily a bad one of it wasn't the focal point of an extremely violent culture war and being aggressively pumped by social media not designed to encourage introspection or even basic humanity in its participants.
- croissants 6y agoThis isn't doublethink, because "he's weird and unpleasant" and "he has insightful ideas" aren't "two contradictory beliefs".
- 6y ago
- konjin 6y agoIf anyone thought that big tech wouldn't do this 10 years ago they were naive. Big is they key word. Big everything does the same thing. Which is why we need to not let anything get big.
- rriepe 6y agoIt's the same if you talk about it today.
- mhh__ 6y agoI think you're right but I also think the recent Parler/Q stuff is relatively small fry. It was bad already, twitter finally getting the bottle to ban someone who'd been clearly violating their rules for half a decade is pretty minor.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- px43 6y agoWhere did you live 10 years ago that wasn't run by corporate greed and corruption, or were you just too young to remember it? If anything, things are better now than they were 10 years ago, and things were even worse 10 years before that. One reason that things are getting better is that more people are paying attention, which makes that fun paradox where a bunch of people who are new to this whole thing perceive the world as getting worse.
- AndrewBissell 6y agoVery curious what specifically makes you see things as less corrupt or people as paying more attention. The CARES Act was as bad as anything passed during the financial crisis and sailed through Congress with nary a word of objection or media scrutiny.
- jhardy54 6y agoIs there a specific metric you're thinking of? My understanding is that income inequality is at an all-time high, and I'd be very surprised if it were worse 10 and 20 years ago. Examples: https://equitablegrowth.org/eight-graphs-that-tell-the-story-of-u-s-economic-inequality/ https://equitablegrowth.org/eight-graphs-that-tell-the-story...
- px43 6y agoI was mostly speaking in terms of corporate crime/greed and the general public's willingness to let it slide, which is admittedly a pretty hard thing to quantify.
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoBut why do you believe that it was worse 10-20 years ago? How can you tell?
- ROARosen 6y ago> If anything, things are better now than they were 10 years ago, and things were even worse 10 years before that While things are truly better in certain aspects, the percentage of people relying on these companies now - as opposed to then - makes up for the less bad-ness.
- pgrote 6y agoI wish I could find it, but 10 years ago, probably longer now, there was a prescient video where there turned out to be only 4 tech companies left. Something like amazgooglesoft or something. The narrator had a deep voice and I think it was funded by a media company. Edit: Found it through the keywords, "old prediction video where amazon microsoft google buy everything" lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUHBPuHS-7s&feature=emb_title https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUHBPuHS-7s&feature=emb_titl...
- bluetwo 6y agoWhen all the tech companies merge, they will in turn be bought by Taco Bell.
- rangibaby 6y agoA short squeeze is how Taco Bell won the fast food wars
- jackweirdy 6y agoMaybe a 30 Rock bit (or just coincidence): GE. Proud to be one of America’s 6 companies
- karmasimida 6y agoCyberpunk is a thing since 80s, FYI.
- voodootrucker 6y agoYeah, I was. Multiple times. On this site in particular.
- rvz 6y agoStallman predicted this for decades and was labeled as such until Edward Snowden came about and showed the evidence right in our faces. As usual, Big Tech strikes again with a lesser role this time. It won't be the last until some 'action' is done to keep them in check.
- mdoms 6y agoPeople may have taken him more seriously if he didn't eat the crud off the bottom of his own bare foot and sexually harass female colleagues. Dude undermined his own message by being a complete creep.
- krapp 6y ago>People may have taken him more seriously if he didn't eat the crud off the bottom of his own bare foot and sexually harass female colleagues. Dude undermined his own message by being a complete creep. The fact that he remained in his position for so long and the degree to which people melted down and swore bloody vengeance against the "cancel culture mob" when he finally faced any consequences at all demonstrates how little his behavior actually mattered within the free software community. If anything has undermined Stallman's message, it's been the failure of free software to adequately compete in terms of quality and UX to proprietary offerings in the marketplace. Their answer to Photoshop is Gimp, FFS.