7 ms·

There's a way to achieve the stated goals: have the government come down real hard both on the low-level data crime and the big players that are supposedly legi

There's a way to achieve the stated goals: have the government come down real hard both on the low-level data crime and the big players that are supposedly legit. Burn it all down.

bpodgursky 5y ago
"Burn it all down" as a solution — inevitably applied to cultures, systems or industries viewed from the outside — is also a plague of laziness.
- NoGravitas 5y ago
  The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.
- Judgmentality 5y ago
  I've never heard "hey this isn't working, let's start over from scratch!" be called laziness before.
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    "It isn't working" is also lazy, when you're describing an industry that powers half the economy, and frankly, civilization is trucking along pretty OK with the data industry warts and all. There are certainly problems, but you haven't put enough thought into what the statement even _means_ (Would this eliminate EMR systems? Bank transfers? Credit scores?) to consider what "burning it down" means, or "it's not working" means.
  - awillen 5y ago
    It's lazy when it doesn't come with a proposal to replace the stuff that you want to burn down. It's like the US tax code... it is insanely complicated and in a lot of ways doesn't serve the public well (because rich folks can use the complexity of it to escape taxation), so it's easy and popular to say let's just get rid of it and start with a new, simple tax code. The problem is it got to be the way it is for a reason. We want to incentivize people to own homes and buy electric cars and a thousand other things, and we use the tax code to do that. If you tear it down without a plan on how to keep incentivizing all the things you want, you're going to end up with some undesirable results that you then have to fix. It's fine to say let's throw it out and start over, but if that's as far as your plan goes then it's pretty lazy.
    - Judgmentality 5y ago
      > It's lazy when it doesn't come with a proposal to replace the stuff that you want to burn down. And what do we want to replace targeted ads, surreptitious tracking, and a system that exploits its users for money while not being held accountable to its users with? I'd say we're better off with nothing. So yes, in this instance, burn it all down actually is a solution. I'm aware I'm ignoring the externalities, I'm aware it's complicated, and I'm aware what I'm proposing actually is lazy. I'm aware a bunch of people will lose their jobs (mostly in tech though so I really don't feel bad, having spent most of life in that industry). I'm saying in this instance it doesn't matter. We're still better off burning it all down.
      - TchoBeer 5y ago
        Presumably we want companies to be able to use user data to improve their product, so that's one thing we'd have to legislate around.
        Judgmentality 5y ago
        Someone else proposed what I consider a very reasonable solution. Just make whatever data they have 100% transparent, and you as the user can choose to offer less (or more) at any point in time. This should be regulated similar to HIPAA with serious penalties for any violations, because it absolutely is about avoiding privacy violations. And if you as the user want to share no data at all, you should have that option. This is the company's problem, not the customer's problem - or at least that's the world I want to live in. And obviously don't hide anything behind dark patterns, and all the other common sense gotchas. Violations should be treated as criminal fraud with prison time (assuming they are found guilty in a court of law, and proving criminal fraud is notoriously difficult but the threat needs to be real).
    - khawkins 5y ago
      >We want to incentivize people to own homes and buy electric cars and a thousand other things, and we use the tax code to do that. [If we want] to incentivize... While it's true that incentivization necessitates tax code complexity, we don't all agree on the necessity of incentivization in the first place.
  - jfengel 5y ago
    I'm surprised you haven't heard it before. "As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy than to create," as one wise man put it. "Burn it all down" is easy to say. You can apply it to anything, with no further thought. It's precisely what I'd call "lazy". To avoid being lazy, you'd have to couple it with exactly what you intend to build from scratch, and ideally how you'd go about it. That's a ton of work, not just because you have to have a concrete idea, but because you have something that people can point out the flaws of. Many of whom will say, "It's terrible, burn it down."
  - mym1990 5y ago
    I'm also surprised you haven't heard of this before. Every New Year millions make resolutions that are not kept because 'it is easier to start from scratch' or a clean slate, but it is very difficult to actually follow through. People who diet non stop because they might get to day 20 and it isn't working and the solution is to start over in a week or so. It is much easier to make yourself think that behavior will change if only one got a clean start. But inevitably you find yourself at a similar point, and a similar result. In order to start from scratch and make it effective, you should have a reason why things will be different in the future.
    - TchoBeer 5y ago
      I don't think the plan is to get rid of data collection and then allow it, we ban it moving forward
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ianai 5y ago
I sense this would have been in the Bill of Rights had the notion been around back then. They knew the government needed to protect property rights as a fundamental principle and that is written throughout the legal code and constitution. So endowing citizens with ownership of the date of where they are, what they’re doing, and how they use sites seem like extensions of the personal property right. In a sane universe, there might only need to be a Supreme Court judgement somehow establishing this from the current legalization, for that matter.
- asiachick 5y ago
  I doubt it. If you ask me "who lives next door" I'll tell you "Oh, the Smith's live next door, John, Jane, Jill, and Jacob. John's a blacksmith, Jane makes the best apple pie, Jill is studying to be a doctor and Jacob just turned 14" I doubt the forefathers would have thought there needed to be a law against me passing on info.
  - ianai 5y ago
    That actually makes it sound like unlawful search and seizure.
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    The US Constitution is around a century too old to care about lists of people, but I think even they would react badly to some powerful organization going around classifying everybody by some random feature.
    - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
      Domesday Book commissioned in 1085, Constitution of USA 1787; I think you mean at least 700 years. I mean the Bible tells us about censuses by the Romans ~5BC, so depending what's in your list ...
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > The US Constitution is around a century too old to care about lists of people, but I think even they would react badly to some powerful organization going around classifying everybody by some random feature. Probably not, since it created a new powerful orgabization (the federal government) and mandated it to go around classifying everybody by a particular set of feature (whether they were a “free person”, an “indian not taxed”, or an “other person”.) Given that when the framers were scared of a powerful organization doing something, their first concern tended to be about government doing it, and their response tended to be to prohibit at least the federal government from doing it, I think the fact that they mandated the federal government to do it indicates that it was neither something they feared nor something they failed to fear out of lack of consideration.
bobthechef 5y ago
That's how we got here. Revolution.
commandlinefan 5y ago
> Burn it all down Easier said than done. What we're seeing is advertising as a business carried to its logical conclusion. If you "burn it all down", you have to end, in effect, all advertising. Advertisers try to target their budget as effectively as possible; the more they know about their target demographic, the better able they are to do that.
anm89 5y ago
I'm sure we're going to "burn it all down" any day now.
TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
Good luck. All those so-called hearings with social media companies? Excuses to get those CEO's into the back rooms, where the REAL discussions -- and graft -- sorry, campaign donations -- happened. Our government is completely captured by the organizations that are most-hostile to our long-term well-being.

There's a way to achieve the stated goals: have the government come down real hard both on the low-level data crime and the big players that are supposedly legit. Burn it all down.

bpodgursky 5y ago

"Burn it all down" as a solution — inevitably applied to cultures, systems or industries viewed from the outside — is also a plague of laziness.

NoGravitas 5y ago
The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.
Judgmentality 5y ago
I've never heard "hey this isn't working, let's start over from scratch!" be called laziness before.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  "It isn't working" is also lazy, when you're describing an industry that powers half the economy, and frankly, civilization is trucking along pretty OK with the data industry warts and all. There are certainly problems, but you haven't put enough thought into what the statement even _means_ (Would this eliminate EMR systems? Bank transfers? Credit scores?) to consider what "burning it down" means, or "it's not working" means.
- awillen 5y ago
  It's lazy when it doesn't come with a proposal to replace the stuff that you want to burn down. It's like the US tax code... it is insanely complicated and in a lot of ways doesn't serve the public well (because rich folks can use the complexity of it to escape taxation), so it's easy and popular to say let's just get rid of it and start with a new, simple tax code. The problem is it got to be the way it is for a reason. We want to incentivize people to own homes and buy electric cars and a thousand other things, and we use the tax code to do that. If you tear it down without a plan on how to keep incentivizing all the things you want, you're going to end up with some undesirable results that you then have to fix. It's fine to say let's throw it out and start over, but if that's as far as your plan goes then it's pretty lazy.
  - Judgmentality 5y ago
    > It's lazy when it doesn't come with a proposal to replace the stuff that you want to burn down. And what do we want to replace targeted ads, surreptitious tracking, and a system that exploits its users for money while not being held accountable to its users with? I'd say we're better off with nothing. So yes, in this instance, burn it all down actually is a solution. I'm aware I'm ignoring the externalities, I'm aware it's complicated, and I'm aware what I'm proposing actually is lazy. I'm aware a bunch of people will lose their jobs (mostly in tech though so I really don't feel bad, having spent most of life in that industry). I'm saying in this instance it doesn't matter. We're still better off burning it all down.
    - TchoBeer 5y ago
      Presumably we want companies to be able to use user data to improve their product, so that's one thing we'd have to legislate around.
      - Judgmentality 5y ago
        Someone else proposed what I consider a very reasonable solution. Just make whatever data they have 100% transparent, and you as the user can choose to offer less (or more) at any point in time. This should be regulated similar to HIPAA with serious penalties for any violations, because it absolutely is about avoiding privacy violations. And if you as the user want to share no data at all, you should have that option. This is the company's problem, not the customer's problem - or at least that's the world I want to live in. And obviously don't hide anything behind dark patterns, and all the other common sense gotchas. Violations should be treated as criminal fraud with prison time (assuming they are found guilty in a court of law, and proving criminal fraud is notoriously difficult but the threat needs to be real).
  - khawkins 5y ago
    >We want to incentivize people to own homes and buy electric cars and a thousand other things, and we use the tax code to do that. [If we want] to incentivize... While it's true that incentivization necessitates tax code complexity, we don't all agree on the necessity of incentivization in the first place.
- jfengel 5y ago
  I'm surprised you haven't heard it before. "As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy than to create," as one wise man put it. "Burn it all down" is easy to say. You can apply it to anything, with no further thought. It's precisely what I'd call "lazy". To avoid being lazy, you'd have to couple it with exactly what you intend to build from scratch, and ideally how you'd go about it. That's a ton of work, not just because you have to have a concrete idea, but because you have something that people can point out the flaws of. Many of whom will say, "It's terrible, burn it down."
- mym1990 5y ago
  I'm also surprised you haven't heard of this before. Every New Year millions make resolutions that are not kept because 'it is easier to start from scratch' or a clean slate, but it is very difficult to actually follow through. People who diet non stop because they might get to day 20 and it isn't working and the solution is to start over in a week or so. It is much easier to make yourself think that behavior will change if only one got a clean start. But inevitably you find yourself at a similar point, and a similar result. In order to start from scratch and make it effective, you should have a reason why things will be different in the future.
  - TchoBeer 5y ago
    I don't think the plan is to get rid of data collection and then allow it, we ban it moving forward

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ianai 5y ago

I sense this would have been in the Bill of Rights had the notion been around back then. They knew the government needed to protect property rights as a fundamental principle and that is written throughout the legal code and constitution. So endowing citizens with ownership of the date of where they are, what they’re doing, and how they use sites seem like extensions of the personal property right. In a sane universe, there might only need to be a Supreme Court judgement somehow establishing this from the current legalization, for that matter.

asiachick 5y ago
I doubt it. If you ask me "who lives next door" I'll tell you "Oh, the Smith's live next door, John, Jane, Jill, and Jacob. John's a blacksmith, Jane makes the best apple pie, Jill is studying to be a doctor and Jacob just turned 14" I doubt the forefathers would have thought there needed to be a law against me passing on info.
- ianai 5y ago
  That actually makes it sound like unlawful search and seizure.
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  The US Constitution is around a century too old to care about lists of people, but I think even they would react badly to some powerful organization going around classifying everybody by some random feature.
  - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
    Domesday Book commissioned in 1085, Constitution of USA 1787; I think you mean at least 700 years. I mean the Bible tells us about censuses by the Romans ~5BC, so depending what's in your list ...
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > The US Constitution is around a century too old to care about lists of people, but I think even they would react badly to some powerful organization going around classifying everybody by some random feature. Probably not, since it created a new powerful orgabization (the federal government) and mandated it to go around classifying everybody by a particular set of feature (whether they were a “free person”, an “indian not taxed”, or an “other person”.) Given that when the framers were scared of a powerful organization doing something, their first concern tended to be about government doing it, and their response tended to be to prohibit at least the federal government from doing it, I think the fact that they mandated the federal government to do it indicates that it was neither something they feared nor something they failed to fear out of lack of consideration.

bobthechef 5y ago

That's how we got here. Revolution.

commandlinefan 5y ago

> Burn it all down Easier said than done. What we're seeing is advertising as a business carried to its logical conclusion. If you "burn it all down", you have to end, in effect, all advertising. Advertisers try to target their budget as effectively as possible; the more they know about their target demographic, the better able they are to do that.

anm89 5y ago

I'm sure we're going to "burn it all down" any day now.

TheRealDunkirk 5y ago

Good luck. All those so-called hearings with social media companies? Excuses to get those CEO's into the back rooms, where the REAL discussions -- and graft -- sorry, campaign donations -- happened. Our government is completely captured by the organizations that are most-hostile to our long-term well-being.