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When I left Silicon Valley, it was to escape the bubble. What you wrote is what I felt. But in hindsight, I think "Silicon Valley is out of touch with the real

When I left Silicon Valley, it was to escape the bubble. What you wrote is what I felt. But in hindsight, I think "Silicon Valley is out of touch with the real world" is too innocuous. Obviously, it is, but a lot of the "elite" aren't just happily enjoying their bubble. They are intent on shaping "the real world", and they have enough resources and influence to be successful some of the time. I doubt very much that the masses will be scanning their retinas into The Orb so that they can get Worldcoin, but these people are not going to stop coming for your retina, your DNA, even more of your digital fingerprints, etc. Sadly, they're eventually likely to get it all.

denton-scratch 5y ago
> Sadly, they're eventually likely to get it all. Not mine! But WTF, I'm just a paranoid weirdo.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  Thing is, you don't matter. If I have access to the data of 95% of people in a society, I have enough to model and predict behavior, and maybe even the hooks to inject information and influence future behavior. The long tail of paranoid weirdos who spend all their time and energy fighting to maintain their privacy are irrelevant to the goal of societal domination.
  - LurkingPenguin 5y ago
    This is sadly spot on. I had a conversation that touched on privacy once with a person I met at a bar who works for Big Evil Tech Co. and she basically came out and said this in slightly more diplomatic terms.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    Of course, you're right! FWIW I don't spend a lot of energy; it's become habitual. I just don't hand out my PII simply because someone asked. And if people ask me for PII when I don't think they need it, I'll deal with the hassle of finding another way to solve my problem. I know that my attitude is irrelevant to the behaviour of the snoopers. I'm not trying to train them.
Loughla 5y ago
There was a time, relatively recently, that the second half of your second paragraph was strictly in the realm of tin-foil hat weirdo. But now, I can see a clear line between the data we're collecting today and the data that would be that much more useful like DNA.

denton-scratch 5y ago

> Sadly, they're eventually likely to get it all. Not mine! But WTF, I'm just a paranoid weirdo.

anonporridge 5y ago
Thing is, you don't matter. If I have access to the data of 95% of people in a society, I have enough to model and predict behavior, and maybe even the hooks to inject information and influence future behavior. The long tail of paranoid weirdos who spend all their time and energy fighting to maintain their privacy are irrelevant to the goal of societal domination.
- LurkingPenguin 5y ago
  This is sadly spot on. I had a conversation that touched on privacy once with a person I met at a bar who works for Big Evil Tech Co. and she basically came out and said this in slightly more diplomatic terms.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  Of course, you're right! FWIW I don't spend a lot of energy; it's become habitual. I just don't hand out my PII simply because someone asked. And if people ask me for PII when I don't think they need it, I'll deal with the hassle of finding another way to solve my problem. I know that my attitude is irrelevant to the behaviour of the snoopers. I'm not trying to train them.

Loughla 5y ago

There was a time, relatively recently, that the second half of your second paragraph was strictly in the realm of tin-foil hat weirdo. But now, I can see a clear line between the data we're collecting today and the data that would be that much more useful like DNA.