9 ms·

Big Brothers Has Privatized

109 points by Rayaneh11 5y ago

nicolashahn 5y ago
What would the suggested changes be to the Sherman Anti-trust Act?
- Rayaneh11 5y ago
  That's an excellent question, and it really is something for all of us to think about. In the 1890's people understood monopolies in terms of products. One suggestion might be that information can also be monopolized. Any company that acts as the sole gatekeeper of information should be regulated. Ironically, monopoly over information is infinitely more dangerous than over products. Monopoly over words and ideas is the definition of thought control. We need to find an answer to this problem with the tech monopolies quickly or we are all in serious trouble, not just in the West, but in every country around the globe!!
- wrycoder 5y ago
  I suspect the reference to 1890 may be to Bellamy’s Looking Backward, one of the most popular books its time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward
- cybernautique 5y ago
  I think there ought to be a data/interface divide. Social media companies that service more than 50 million Americans should be subject to this divide. Therefore, split Facebook in twain: one of its halves shall be Face, which is the web UI we currently interact with; the other half shall be Book, more akin to a data utility provider. The monopoly that Facebook, Google, etc. have is a monopoly over how their data is presented. Google is the only entity with access to the data that Google collates, etc.; except that this isn't data they generate. It's data they capture, pieces of the commons that they sequester from the commons.
  - hajile 5y ago
    Doesn't this still make tyranny where the data provider censors? At which point, the UI representation of the censored data doesn't matter.
- iammisc 5y ago
  I think we should handle social media like we do smoking. They must print a giant warning warning it's addictive and dangerous and they must pay for advertising campaigns against their product.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
I also used to think that the dystopia of the future was corporations use money, power, convenience, and AI brainwashing to control people in a democracy. Now I am afraid, it will be something far older and far worse: just straight up state autocracy enforced by people with guns/weapons. Look at Texas. Who cares about using differential targeting of voters when you can just disenfranchise groups that are likely to vote against you. And as January 6, came so close to showing, who care who people actually vote if you can cry “fraud” and physically intimidate the people in charge of certifying the votes. The Chinese government isn’t intimidated by the market reach of Alibaba when they can physically threaten Jack Ma and makes sure he only does what he is supposed to. Analogous to the xkcd cartoon and the $5 wrench, many times the tool of coercion is not some multimillion dollar GPU cluster running advanced AI, it is a 50 cent bullet.
- drekipus 5y ago
  I'd say that's the reasoning for states and countries to begin with; the group with the bigger stick. What you're witnessing is people desiring to be outside of what is acceptable to those inside. The basis of that whole Jan6 debacle was that they felt the state (is: vote counting) did them wrong, and so they don't want to be in that group. One group, state, country, splits into many others, where each now feel protected better by their in-group. It's a common thread throughout history.
  - drekipus 5y ago
    To add, I'm not American, but if I saw the same graph spikes in my election I'd probably do the same, regardless of candidates. https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-afs:Content:9647421250 https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-afs:Content:9647421...
    - arglebarglegar 5y ago
      why? the explanation is entirely reasonable and was expected beforehand
    - jandrese 5y ago
bobthechef 5y ago
Accepting the premise of the article, one can only respond... And YOU did it. YOU yearned to work for these companies and were prepared to sell your gonads and even your soul to do so for the ostensible prestige, the salary, the tech, the "interesting problems", the 30 pieces of silver, helping the oligarchic overlords establish this technocratic world order. YOU! You claim to care about the common good, but that is mere posturing, mere pretense, mere cover for your real motives. You might even rationalize your behavior in various transparent ways. At least have the decency to be honest. Double down and say "I don't care. I'm doing it anyway." Alas, the cunning of reason, providence, will always press even evil acts into its service. The evil man shall lose by defiling himself through his deeds, but these evil deeds shall be used to bring about a greater good despite his efforts. Thus the use of these technologies by those whom the oligarchic class despises and the shattering of the false narrative they were previously able to and hoping to continue to control.
reilly3000 5y ago
This sort of lost my attention at the notion that all police were defunded, guns were banned, and millions of people were brutally murdered. Those ideas were propoganda. Defunding the police was never a sincerely held belief save the ideas that institutional racism be addressed and militarization of police disrupted. The most ardent municipalities replaced leadership and adapted their policing models. Its hard to take a piece about dystopia seriously after that is the premise. Aside from that, a commercial dystopia is so anglo-centric it hurts my teeth. In that scenario, the have-nots have more freedom? Consumption is slavery? The disconnected have more connection? Okay that last part rings true, the rest feels like a paradox of privilege. We are uniquely entitled to compute as we please using whatever devices and service we see fit, to block and disable telemetry at will, to sue and win when things get bad. I appreciate what the author is trying to highlight, but maybe they should go back to 1984 and see what they miss.
- everdrive 5y ago
  >Defunding the police was never a sincerely held belief It certainly was in some circles: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...
  - syops 5y ago
    In Minneapolis they want to dismantle the existing police force and replace it with another. A big reason for wanting to do this is to get rid of the problem cops. Police in the U.S. do a horrible job in solving even major crimes. They currently commit a large number of acts of violence without accountability. They system definitely needs to be dismantled and rebuilt.
    - blahblahblogger 5y ago
      > In Minneapolis they want to dismantle the existing police force and replace it with another. A big reason for wanting to do this is to get rid of the problem cops. So throw out the whole bunch because of a few bad apples? And what happens when the replacements have problem cops? Do it over again?
motohagiography 5y ago
Have been here from the future for the last 25 years. It doesn't matter, you can't tell anyone anything that changes their minds or what happens, you can only watch it play out and maybe help a few people feel less alone. The only people who can affect its course are the ones whose existence is endogenous to this timeline, and the outcome is the aggregate effect of their desires. You all seem like nice people. The future will belong to those who own a pair of dry shoes and avoid boxcars. This will be funny in 2050.
- cookiengineer 5y ago
  I refuse to believe this. There is a way to fight deception, by using democratic approaches built into the tools that gather information. The only way to fight deception is through more transparency. Information has to be more easy to understand, and the tools we (as the people) have right now pale in comparison to the tools that disinformation campaign managers have. We need to even out their strategical advantage.
  - s5300 5y ago
    The only way to fight deception is through education, and a certain political party within the U.S. has spent the last 40-50 years completely butchering the public education system to a point near beyond repair. Our last secretary of education was the heir to the most pervasive MLM pyramid scheme in the U.S., and is also part of a cult that believes a certain pre-determined number of cult members (very small percentage of them) go to heaven and every other human on Earth is condemned to eternal purgatory. Now, maybe call me a crazy bigot, but I don't exactly see how such a person might have strengthening our public school system as part of their best interests. MLM products don't buy themselves, you know.
    - hulitu 5y ago
      The same happened in europe (bologna convention). The ruling class realized that education can make people ask questions and they fixed this.
    - 5y ago
xqcgrek2 5y ago
Wait until the time traveler learns about a pandemic that has killed 15 million people by a virus that leaked from a lab, rather than trivial tech monopoly stuff that at most has killed a few hundred people.
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  It's politically incorrect to blame anyone for this virus. I hated the way Trump politicized it, but let's not deny accountability because we had an absolute head banging idiot for a president. Let's just act like that Chinese lab was a top notch research facility, with strict safety protocols in place?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
endominus 5y ago
I wish more people read Brave New World. It's a more fitting comparison [0], even if it's a little more "distant" feeling than 1984. The tyranny in it is born from convenience and complacence, not violent compulsion. Comparing it to our current environment requires no awkward contortions around violence and control. And it's available for free online! https://www.huxley.net/bnw/ https://www.huxley.net/bnw/ [0]: https://biblioklept.org/2013/06/08/huxley-vs-orwell-the-webcomic-2/ https://biblioklept.org/2013/06/08/huxley-vs-orwell-the-webc...
- h0p3 5y ago
  It depends on your privilege. Coercion comes in many degrees and kinds as well. Both are required reading.

109 points by Rayaneh11 5y ago

nicolashahn 5y ago

What would the suggested changes be to the Sherman Anti-trust Act?

Rayaneh11 5y ago
That's an excellent question, and it really is something for all of us to think about. In the 1890's people understood monopolies in terms of products. One suggestion might be that information can also be monopolized. Any company that acts as the sole gatekeeper of information should be regulated. Ironically, monopoly over information is infinitely more dangerous than over products. Monopoly over words and ideas is the definition of thought control. We need to find an answer to this problem with the tech monopolies quickly or we are all in serious trouble, not just in the West, but in every country around the globe!!
wrycoder 5y ago
I suspect the reference to 1890 may be to Bellamy’s Looking Backward, one of the most popular books its time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Backward
cybernautique 5y ago
I think there ought to be a data/interface divide. Social media companies that service more than 50 million Americans should be subject to this divide. Therefore, split Facebook in twain: one of its halves shall be Face, which is the web UI we currently interact with; the other half shall be Book, more akin to a data utility provider. The monopoly that Facebook, Google, etc. have is a monopoly over how their data is presented. Google is the only entity with access to the data that Google collates, etc.; except that this isn't data they generate. It's data they capture, pieces of the commons that they sequester from the commons.
- hajile 5y ago
  Doesn't this still make tyranny where the data provider censors? At which point, the UI representation of the censored data doesn't matter.
iammisc 5y ago
I think we should handle social media like we do smoking. They must print a giant warning warning it's addictive and dangerous and they must pay for advertising campaigns against their product.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago

I also used to think that the dystopia of the future was corporations use money, power, convenience, and AI brainwashing to control people in a democracy. Now I am afraid, it will be something far older and far worse: just straight up state autocracy enforced by people with guns/weapons. Look at Texas. Who cares about using differential targeting of voters when you can just disenfranchise groups that are likely to vote against you. And as January 6, came so close to showing, who care who people actually vote if you can cry “fraud” and physically intimidate the people in charge of certifying the votes. The Chinese government isn’t intimidated by the market reach of Alibaba when they can physically threaten Jack Ma and makes sure he only does what he is supposed to. Analogous to the xkcd cartoon and the $5 wrench, many times the tool of coercion is not some multimillion dollar GPU cluster running advanced AI, it is a 50 cent bullet.

drekipus 5y ago
I'd say that's the reasoning for states and countries to begin with; the group with the bigger stick. What you're witnessing is people desiring to be outside of what is acceptable to those inside. The basis of that whole Jan6 debacle was that they felt the state (is: vote counting) did them wrong, and so they don't want to be in that group. One group, state, country, splits into many others, where each now feel protected better by their in-group. It's a common thread throughout history.
- drekipus 5y ago
  To add, I'm not American, but if I saw the same graph spikes in my election I'd probably do the same, regardless of candidates. https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-afs:Content:9647421250 https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-afs:Content:9647421...
  - arglebarglegar 5y ago
    why? the explanation is entirely reasonable and was expected beforehand
  - jandrese 5y ago

bobthechef 5y ago

Accepting the premise of the article, one can only respond... And YOU did it. YOU yearned to work for these companies and were prepared to sell your gonads and even your soul to do so for the ostensible prestige, the salary, the tech, the "interesting problems", the 30 pieces of silver, helping the oligarchic overlords establish this technocratic world order. YOU! You claim to care about the common good, but that is mere posturing, mere pretense, mere cover for your real motives. You might even rationalize your behavior in various transparent ways. At least have the decency to be honest. Double down and say "I don't care. I'm doing it anyway." Alas, the cunning of reason, providence, will always press even evil acts into its service. The evil man shall lose by defiling himself through his deeds, but these evil deeds shall be used to bring about a greater good despite his efforts. Thus the use of these technologies by those whom the oligarchic class despises and the shattering of the false narrative they were previously able to and hoping to continue to control.

reilly3000 5y ago

This sort of lost my attention at the notion that all police were defunded, guns were banned, and millions of people were brutally murdered. Those ideas were propoganda. Defunding the police was never a sincerely held belief save the ideas that institutional racism be addressed and militarization of police disrupted. The most ardent municipalities replaced leadership and adapted their policing models. Its hard to take a piece about dystopia seriously after that is the premise. Aside from that, a commercial dystopia is so anglo-centric it hurts my teeth. In that scenario, the have-nots have more freedom? Consumption is slavery? The disconnected have more connection? Okay that last part rings true, the rest feels like a paradox of privilege. We are uniquely entitled to compute as we please using whatever devices and service we see fit, to block and disable telemetry at will, to sue and win when things get bad. I appreciate what the author is trying to highlight, but maybe they should go back to 1984 and see what they miss.

everdrive 5y ago
>Defunding the police was never a sincerely held belief It certainly was in some circles: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...
- syops 5y ago
  In Minneapolis they want to dismantle the existing police force and replace it with another. A big reason for wanting to do this is to get rid of the problem cops. Police in the U.S. do a horrible job in solving even major crimes. They currently commit a large number of acts of violence without accountability. They system definitely needs to be dismantled and rebuilt.
  - blahblahblogger 5y ago
    > In Minneapolis they want to dismantle the existing police force and replace it with another. A big reason for wanting to do this is to get rid of the problem cops. So throw out the whole bunch because of a few bad apples? And what happens when the replacements have problem cops? Do it over again?

motohagiography 5y ago

Have been here from the future for the last 25 years. It doesn't matter, you can't tell anyone anything that changes their minds or what happens, you can only watch it play out and maybe help a few people feel less alone. The only people who can affect its course are the ones whose existence is endogenous to this timeline, and the outcome is the aggregate effect of their desires. You all seem like nice people. The future will belong to those who own a pair of dry shoes and avoid boxcars. This will be funny in 2050.

cookiengineer 5y ago
I refuse to believe this. There is a way to fight deception, by using democratic approaches built into the tools that gather information. The only way to fight deception is through more transparency. Information has to be more easy to understand, and the tools we (as the people) have right now pale in comparison to the tools that disinformation campaign managers have. We need to even out their strategical advantage.
- s5300 5y ago
  The only way to fight deception is through education, and a certain political party within the U.S. has spent the last 40-50 years completely butchering the public education system to a point near beyond repair. Our last secretary of education was the heir to the most pervasive MLM pyramid scheme in the U.S., and is also part of a cult that believes a certain pre-determined number of cult members (very small percentage of them) go to heaven and every other human on Earth is condemned to eternal purgatory. Now, maybe call me a crazy bigot, but I don't exactly see how such a person might have strengthening our public school system as part of their best interests. MLM products don't buy themselves, you know.
  - hulitu 5y ago
    The same happened in europe (bologna convention). The ruling class realized that education can make people ask questions and they fixed this.
  - 5y ago

xqcgrek2 5y ago

Wait until the time traveler learns about a pandemic that has killed 15 million people by a virus that leaked from a lab, rather than trivial tech monopoly stuff that at most has killed a few hundred people.

hellbannedguy 5y ago
It's politically incorrect to blame anyone for this virus. I hated the way Trump politicized it, but let's not deny accountability because we had an absolute head banging idiot for a president. Let's just act like that Chinese lab was a top notch research facility, with strict safety protocols in place?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

endominus 5y ago

I wish more people read Brave New World. It's a more fitting comparison [0], even if it's a little more "distant" feeling than 1984. The tyranny in it is born from convenience and complacence, not violent compulsion. Comparing it to our current environment requires no awkward contortions around violence and control. And it's available for free online! https://www.huxley.net/bnw/ https://www.huxley.net/bnw/ [0]: https://biblioklept.org/2013/06/08/huxley-vs-orwell-the-webcomic-2/ https://biblioklept.org/2013/06/08/huxley-vs-orwell-the-webc...

h0p3 5y ago
It depends on your privilege. Coercion comes in many degrees and kinds as well. Both are required reading.