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We need to stop building a world without trust. Always checking, ensuring, surveilling (,mining on a blockchain), this is anti-human and will only lead to unhap

• trident5000 6y ago
  What does blockchain have to do with literally anything pertaining to this article.
  • throwaway29303 6y ago
    I think they're referring to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26802874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26802874
    • trident5000 6y ago
      Btc is a store of value more than a payment rail and others like monero or even the lightning network can be anonymous.
  • mustafa_pasi 6y ago
    The whole crypto space is about replacing trust-based systems with trust-less systems.
    • trident5000 6y ago
      Who cares? Completing a trustless transaction is not parallel to someone tracking your physical location.
      • TeMPOraL 6y ago
        Look past the surface of Bitcoin payments, and at the greater space of technologies around blockchains and cryptocurrencies. The core idea they are all based on is that you can provide mathematically provable distributed consensus if you're willing to jump through enough hoops. That you can build systems that can achieve and enforce agreements without any need to trust the participants. All you need is to trade enough electricity for it. And so the whole crypto space is currently trying to refactor every single aspect of our society to eliminate the need for trusting other people. The problem is, they're looking at it from the wrong end. The right way of looking at it is, interpersonal trust is a huge performance optimization. It's what allows societies to exist and cooperate without jumping through hoops or burning more electricity than a developed country just to send small amounts of money around. What the crypto space is explicitly trying to do is to eliminate the most important feature of our civilization.
• throwaway29303 6y ago
  You're right but ironically the very same people that are now complaining about these measures were the same that enabled it in the first place. All for the sake of convenience. Pandora's jar was opened and there's really no way in sight to put its filth back and close it for good. And one of the worst parts is when this information can be used by people (nations, criminals, etc) for any reason.
  • extradesgo 6y ago
    >”the very same people that are now complaining about these measures were the same that enabled it in the first place” Wage workers? No. That’s just false. I don’t know what exactly you’re trying to say but it’s wrong. This is just another appearance of the same class warfare that drives slavery. Working people didn’t ask for this any more than slaves asked for slavery.
    • goatinaboat 6y ago
      Wage workers? No. That’s just false. I don’t know what exactly you’re trying to say but it’s wrong. This is just another appearance of the same class warfare that drives slavery. Working people didn’t ask for this any more than slaves asked for slavery. I remember, because it was only a few years ago, companies would allocate anyone who needed one a BlackBerry. Any work calls would come to that device, you would use it for emails on the go etc, it was managed by the corporate IT department and when you weren't on call you could leave it in a drawer. It was very clearly "theirs" and could be treated as such. It actually was ordinary workers who said, hey, I would much prefer to have the company take over my own personal device for this, which I have paid for and pay all the bills for too, it would be soooo convenient not to carry two phones, and of course companies gleefully said yes. And nowadays if you want a "burner phone" for use at work, you pay for that yourself too! Congratulations everyone, we played ourselves. Well not me, I miss the BlackBerry days, and I said all this when BYOD was becoming fashionable too. But they still took my BlackBerry away and made it all but impossible to stay employed and not install their MDM crap on my own phone.
      • 6y ago
• dandanua 6y ago
  Unfortunately, we've reached a no return point. The next natural stage will be the raise of fascist states. With mass surveillance, AI, and nuclear weapons it will be almost impossible to overthrow them.
  • da_big_ghey 6y ago
    You have overestimate that there is no overthrow of these. Geurilla war in Vietnam, Midle East, other have been fight best militarys with succeeding. But here we also have reason why we are needing for to keep gun rights, and for to end existing infringment (e.g. no restricting on automatics).
    • iso1210 6y ago
      Its a reason you need to keep the people in your military against the totalitarianists. US police officers kill about 1000 people a year, guns don't seem to protect them.
      • da_big_ghey 6y ago
        Yes you are right on this. Policeman killing is random in most case, so not surprpse here. Also one may not be using gun against police; I am presuming that in rebelion one may, state monopoley on force is going out the window.
        • iso1210 6y ago
          The state has no monopoly on force. The US armed forces are made up of US citizens. They are sworn to defend the constitution against all threats, foreign and domestic. That could include a president and congress, it could include corporations, it could include Canada. The narrative of armed citizens operating in a structure to defend citizens and the constitution works fine if you don't have armed citizens operating in a structure to defend citizens and the constitution. If you lose hearts and minds of one group armed US citizens (the military), why is your group of armed citizens any more justified? If you don't lose it, why do you need the armaments?
• Gregoriy 6y ago
  I had a team of 10, two of them are remote, we recruted a third person, we work 40 hours a week, usually more or less flexible. We have recruted another person, after 6 month of work with him i have noticed some strange delays, like take too much time to respond etc, we work in pretty much relaxed environement so it was not visible very much. After a quick search i have found his freelance account and proposed him to do some job, he agreed and did so during his active working hours, double pay, how do i suppose counter that ?
  • rambambram 6y ago
    Exactly how you already did that. IANAL (although I studied law), but my take is you have proof for a case here.
  • loloquwowndueo 6y ago
    Fire him? :P
    • Gregoriy 6y ago
      I see it as a fail at both sides, i mean we could find a solution before that last measure
  • krisdol 6y ago
    He’s not performing well at work and you found out without any extra surveillance. I mean you didn’t even need to find his freelance gig, it seems irrelevant to what you should do.
  • cyberlurker 6y ago
    Does he get his work done? Is he providing value? If yes, don’t worry about it.
    • wdb 6y ago
      Or the employee does this work in its own time. Assuming he is employed full time.
• GuB-42 6y ago
  That's what you get with larger organizations. But these large organization is what allows for the specialization and economies of scale that make up modern civilization. For example, if you go to some big box store and forget to make you pay for something, I don't know many people who will point out the mistake and pay their due. The same people will probably be more inclined to do so if the shop in question is a small shop and they know the owner personally, even more so if he is an actual friend. And the level of trust reflects that. Big box stores will monitor everything, because they know their customers can't be trusted, while friends will not even keep tabs. At the highest level, I don't know any country that trust their citizens when it comes to paying taxes, for good reason. There is an entire industry dedicated to more or less legal tax avoidance, opposed by an army of legislators and inspectors. We have lost trust long ago. I'd say the turning point is the invention of the lock, thousands of years ago. I mean, isn't the lock and its information counterpart, cryptography, a symbol of distrust? For me, it is, but it is also what allows us to be secure among people we don't know.
  • spacemanmatt 6y ago
    Big box stores are also more likely to be associated with a lobbying group on their behalf, loss prevention scandals, and other things that deteriorate public trust.
  • TeMPOraL 6y ago
    You're right with the varying amounts of trust in different social structures, but recent developments in and adjacent to the crypto space are a whole new level of lack of trust. The country may not trust their citizens when it comes to paying taxes, but it's not an absolute lack of trust. They set up regulations outlining rules and punishments, back them with various enforcement mechanisms, and... they trust it's enough for vast majority of the citizens. They trust most people will be nudged towards paying the right amount of taxes - that's why they don't generally surveil every single transaction you're making. It's hard for a regular person to get on the IRS radar in a way other than interacting with government services in a weird way somehow. When they notice something suspicious, they will follow up, but the process set in the aforementioned laws is again very much trust-based, giving the suspect the ability to explain themselves at various stages, and not digging through one's entire life until late in the process. It's based on a reasonable assumption that most of the issues a country's IRS would flag are honest mistakes. Same with every other process in most (all?) societies. There are directions, nudges, deterrents. Not total surveillance. But the newest trends in technology businesses seem to desperately want to move us towards the latter.
• dalbasal 6y ago
  One of the most important philosophers of enlightenment/industrial era was Jeremy Bentham... of utilitarian fame. He designed a building called a Panopticon, a design for a factory that allows many workers to be monitored closely by managers. He also thought it would make a good design for prisons, another interest areas. A lot of modern prisons resemble/derive from the Panopticon. We need to remember that not everything is a new problem. Digitisation creates new privacy avenues which can be violate or defend. The bigger picture often stays the same. Solving problems by exercising more rigorous control over workers... in ways they don't like. I think many HN-ers have a certain class blindness about these issues. A lot of jobs require urine tests, monitor employee's screens, motivate using cctv, etc. Some jobs actually require this. Often though, it's just a class thing. Urine tests for CS agents and warehouse workers. None for programmers.
  • TeMPOraL 6y ago
    The core difference that makes this new problem more worrying is, Panopticon only created a perception of being constantly watched. The managers/guards could see into every cell, but not all of them at the same time - but the workers/prisoners couldn't know if they're being watched at any given moment, so they had to assume they were. As bad as it is, it's still better than actually being constantly watched.
    • dalbasal 6y ago
      Well... we'll see. It's not the first time for "actually being constantly watched" either. eg stazi/etc. There is somewhat of a distinction between spying to sell you papmers and spying to maintain political power/stability. The latter can get bad fast. Ad businesses can be creepy, but their motivation is mostly just to sell you stuff. In both cases, it doesn't feel great at first... but you do get used to it. Spying to make you sell pampers... that can go either way. Whatever lock-in powers Apple or FB wield... bosses have more power over employees than retailers over consumers. Add privacy belligerence to labour relations... third party ecosystems. don't panic.