7 ms·

It's like having a big family dinner with your crazy uncle Bob who spends the entire meal working themselves up into an angry froth spouting a vast assortment o

by bshipp 5y ago

It's like having a big family dinner with your crazy uncle Bob who spends the entire meal working themselves up into an angry froth spouting a vast assortment of conspiracy theories. It's possible that there is some nugget of value in that mess but your eyes have long since rolled so hard that you're worried you've sprained an optic nerve.

smoldesu 5y ago
Is it really a conspiracy theory to suggest that Microsoft is spying on you in Edge? Or that Apple puts profits before security? I'm not really seeing the nutjob factor here, but maybe that's because I'm already intimated with the field...
- noirbot 5y ago
  Maybe the better analogy is your friend who somehow has to make everything about how either capitalism or communism is behind everything wrong about the world. It doesn't really matter if they're right or wrong, as some point you just want to talk about how much you like the new episode of Succession or whatever and not have them link everything back into their pet universal theory of the world. It's often better and more effective to have an article about one single novel thing than to bang a drum about how every single thing in the world is just the same pattern again and again.
  - tata71 5y ago
    Weird comparison to people complaining about very specific entities exhibiting very specific behaviors and performing very specific actions. Those are general economic concepts that aren't even broadly agreed upon.
    - noirbot 5y ago
      It's weird? TFA is literally "look at how capitalism has enabled surveillance capitalism as evidenced by all of these companies." It's "complaining about very specific entities exhibiting very specific behaviors and performing very specific action" and how all of those behaviors and actions are just the result of capitalism, and that Vizio is another data point in how everything is connected to general economic concepts? Sometimes everything is connected, and sometimes your boss is just a shitty boss, or a company made an unethical decision.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    > It doesn't really matter if they're right or wrong, Do you actually think that it doesn’t matter whether they’re right or wrong? Or do you just say that because in the back of your mind you’re thinking “of course they’re wrong”?
    - noirbot 5y ago
      It doesn't matter in the context of how much I want to have that conversation with them in the moment. Having someone take the mention of a news event or unrelated conversation topic and turn it into "have you considered how that relates to a grander philosophical/political topic" changes the tenor of the conversation in a way that's often uncalled for. Even if I agree with them. I mostly agree with this article's points, but I tire of having every article about a company doing a nefarious thing also including a sizable discussion about how it's a pattern. I already see the pattern. I've read articles about how MSFT and Facebook and co. have been doing this. I clicked on this article because I'm curious about the new news that the title promises about something I didn't know before.
- bshipp 5y ago
  Not at all. Individually they are important discussions to have. The problem is that the thesis here is that "all companies spy on you regardless of how much you pay for their product" when the headline is about Vizio. Perhaps I'm alone in thinking like this, but if a person tells me they are going to discuss a topic but instead do a bait and switch by trying to roll in a dozen other tangentially-related subjects so they can get me to agree with them about a completely different thesis they should not be surprised if the listener starts to smile, nod, and slowly back away.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    There’s nothing remotely like a bait and switch here. The article is simply longer than the headline, which pretty much has to be the case.
  - Drdrdrq 5y ago
    To me the article makes perfect sense. They tell what Vizio does and explain why this is so, and why this is even expected behaviour in capitalism. They also list countless other companies that do the same. After all, it's all about incentives... In this case it is money, but it could be paperclips just the same.
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      The thesis isn't unreasonable and I think could be presented much more persuasively.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- Iefthandrule 5y ago
  There is a certain amount of cognitive dissonance experienced when you read that the companies you frequently patronize (Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple for the majority of the tech world) are doing nefarious things. We would just rather not hear them than deal with that guilt.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    Oh please, the only thing more off-putting than screeds is this kind of patronizing psychobabble.
    - antiterra 5y ago
      It’s pretty clear that the GP was including themselves in the casual assessment, so I’m curious why that deserves such vitriol. If you were interested in not being patronizing yourself, you could discuss how to measure sentiment vs behavior, or discuss results if it has been done before. You could possibly suggest an alternative explanation or approach that shows the flaws in what you deem psychobabble. Is your goal to have insightful and rewarding discussion?
      - emodendroket 5y ago
        I find the suggestion that the audience of this site is uniquely unreceptive to the article because of the cognitive dissonance of buying things from Apple et al implausible, and I think it's patronizing in the sense that it basically says that the only reason you might not like the article is psychological bias or deficiency. The guilt angle would seem to throw in outright blaming readers who didn't like it. I think the unfocused, screed-like nature of the article, as originally proposed, is a more compelling rationale.
        antiterra 5y ago
        I am not sure I read the same comment as you. I read it as a general observation that people compromise ideals for convenience. For example, I buy things from Amazon, but I also think their continued growth is likely harmful. This functional hypocrisy is common and human. Overcoming a particular case of it is a significant challenge, and I wouldn’t know where to start.
tsol 5y ago
I've always thought this line of thinking, while reasonable, was kind of admittedly strange. Just because someone is angry, and perhaps irritating, does not mean they aren't correct. In some ways, you'd expect them someone conveying wide scale injustices to be angry. It's almost counter intuitive to only trust those who can calm themselves. I mean in practical life, I still am a bit leary of overly angry rants-- but this thought occurs to me often.
- sneak 5y ago
  A fanatic is someone who won't change their mind and can't change the subject.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  Sure, that's true, but it's also true that it makes it hard to read and puts off anyone who isn't already 110% in agreement with what you are saying.
- kbenson 5y ago
  I'm not sure why you think it's strange. Nobody wants to wade through 90% bullshit to get to 10% useful info when the volume is high. If the first five things you pay attention to are obviously incorrect, do you keep listening in case there's a useful nugget in there, or do you switch to someone else's conversation which isn't rife with those problems? Because you don't know if what you were listening to was 100% BS, or 90%, or 50%, but you do know it hasn't been useful so far and there are other choices. Or, put another way, why are you conversing on HN when there's plenty of discussions on Facebook you could be contributing in, and undoubtedly some of them would have useful info? I think the same decision making process applies.
  - catlikesshrimp 5y ago
    "...plenty of discussions on Facebook you could be contributing in, and undoubtedly some of them would have useful info?" Not in my experience.
    - 5y ago
aydwi 5y ago
> It's like having a big family dinner with your crazy uncle Bob who spends the entire meal working themselves up into an angry froth spouting a vast assortment of conspiracy theories. Is it, though? To me, this is a rather absurd equivalence. There's a significant amount of buildup before the "Vizio" bit, but it's presented in a structured format, helps establish context about the "issue", and is backed by credible references at every step. A time-constrained reader might not find this to be the most friendly writeup, but that's a separate discussion about the authour's writing style, which has no relation to the analogy you presented.

by bshipp 5y ago

smoldesu 5y ago

Is it really a conspiracy theory to suggest that Microsoft is spying on you in Edge? Or that Apple puts profits before security? I'm not really seeing the nutjob factor here, but maybe that's because I'm already intimated with the field...

noirbot 5y ago
Maybe the better analogy is your friend who somehow has to make everything about how either capitalism or communism is behind everything wrong about the world. It doesn't really matter if they're right or wrong, as some point you just want to talk about how much you like the new episode of Succession or whatever and not have them link everything back into their pet universal theory of the world. It's often better and more effective to have an article about one single novel thing than to bang a drum about how every single thing in the world is just the same pattern again and again.
- tata71 5y ago
  Weird comparison to people complaining about very specific entities exhibiting very specific behaviors and performing very specific actions. Those are general economic concepts that aren't even broadly agreed upon.
  - noirbot 5y ago
    It's weird? TFA is literally "look at how capitalism has enabled surveillance capitalism as evidenced by all of these companies." It's "complaining about very specific entities exhibiting very specific behaviors and performing very specific action" and how all of those behaviors and actions are just the result of capitalism, and that Vizio is another data point in how everything is connected to general economic concepts? Sometimes everything is connected, and sometimes your boss is just a shitty boss, or a company made an unethical decision.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  > It doesn't really matter if they're right or wrong, Do you actually think that it doesn’t matter whether they’re right or wrong? Or do you just say that because in the back of your mind you’re thinking “of course they’re wrong”?
  - noirbot 5y ago
    It doesn't matter in the context of how much I want to have that conversation with them in the moment. Having someone take the mention of a news event or unrelated conversation topic and turn it into "have you considered how that relates to a grander philosophical/political topic" changes the tenor of the conversation in a way that's often uncalled for. Even if I agree with them. I mostly agree with this article's points, but I tire of having every article about a company doing a nefarious thing also including a sizable discussion about how it's a pattern. I already see the pattern. I've read articles about how MSFT and Facebook and co. have been doing this. I clicked on this article because I'm curious about the new news that the title promises about something I didn't know before.
bshipp 5y ago
Not at all. Individually they are important discussions to have. The problem is that the thesis here is that "all companies spy on you regardless of how much you pay for their product" when the headline is about Vizio. Perhaps I'm alone in thinking like this, but if a person tells me they are going to discuss a topic but instead do a bait and switch by trying to roll in a dozen other tangentially-related subjects so they can get me to agree with them about a completely different thesis they should not be surprised if the listener starts to smile, nod, and slowly back away.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  There’s nothing remotely like a bait and switch here. The article is simply longer than the headline, which pretty much has to be the case.
- Drdrdrq 5y ago
  To me the article makes perfect sense. They tell what Vizio does and explain why this is so, and why this is even expected behaviour in capitalism. They also list countless other companies that do the same. After all, it's all about incentives... In this case it is money, but it could be paperclips just the same.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    The thesis isn't unreasonable and I think could be presented much more persuasively.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
Iefthandrule 5y ago
There is a certain amount of cognitive dissonance experienced when you read that the companies you frequently patronize (Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple for the majority of the tech world) are doing nefarious things. We would just rather not hear them than deal with that guilt.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  Oh please, the only thing more off-putting than screeds is this kind of patronizing psychobabble.
  - antiterra 5y ago
    It’s pretty clear that the GP was including themselves in the casual assessment, so I’m curious why that deserves such vitriol. If you were interested in not being patronizing yourself, you could discuss how to measure sentiment vs behavior, or discuss results if it has been done before. You could possibly suggest an alternative explanation or approach that shows the flaws in what you deem psychobabble. Is your goal to have insightful and rewarding discussion?
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      I find the suggestion that the audience of this site is uniquely unreceptive to the article because of the cognitive dissonance of buying things from Apple et al implausible, and I think it's patronizing in the sense that it basically says that the only reason you might not like the article is psychological bias or deficiency. The guilt angle would seem to throw in outright blaming readers who didn't like it. I think the unfocused, screed-like nature of the article, as originally proposed, is a more compelling rationale.
      - antiterra 5y ago
        I am not sure I read the same comment as you. I read it as a general observation that people compromise ideals for convenience. For example, I buy things from Amazon, but I also think their continued growth is likely harmful. This functional hypocrisy is common and human. Overcoming a particular case of it is a significant challenge, and I wouldn’t know where to start.

tsol 5y ago

I've always thought this line of thinking, while reasonable, was kind of admittedly strange. Just because someone is angry, and perhaps irritating, does not mean they aren't correct. In some ways, you'd expect them someone conveying wide scale injustices to be angry. It's almost counter intuitive to only trust those who can calm themselves. I mean in practical life, I still am a bit leary of overly angry rants-- but this thought occurs to me often.

sneak 5y ago
A fanatic is someone who won't change their mind and can't change the subject.
emodendroket 5y ago
Sure, that's true, but it's also true that it makes it hard to read and puts off anyone who isn't already 110% in agreement with what you are saying.
kbenson 5y ago
I'm not sure why you think it's strange. Nobody wants to wade through 90% bullshit to get to 10% useful info when the volume is high. If the first five things you pay attention to are obviously incorrect, do you keep listening in case there's a useful nugget in there, or do you switch to someone else's conversation which isn't rife with those problems? Because you don't know if what you were listening to was 100% BS, or 90%, or 50%, but you do know it hasn't been useful so far and there are other choices. Or, put another way, why are you conversing on HN when there's plenty of discussions on Facebook you could be contributing in, and undoubtedly some of them would have useful info? I think the same decision making process applies.
- catlikesshrimp 5y ago
  "...plenty of discussions on Facebook you could be contributing in, and undoubtedly some of them would have useful info?" Not in my experience.
  - 5y ago

aydwi 5y ago

> It's like having a big family dinner with your crazy uncle Bob who spends the entire meal working themselves up into an angry froth spouting a vast assortment of conspiracy theories. Is it, though? To me, this is a rather absurd equivalence. There's a significant amount of buildup before the "Vizio" bit, but it's presented in a structured format, helps establish context about the "issue", and is backed by credible references at every step. A time-constrained reader might not find this to be the most friendly writeup, but that's a separate discussion about the authour's writing style, which has no relation to the analogy you presented.