4 ms·
Good point. But there are Knowledge Hazards that stand alone. Such as traumatic images you cannot unsee. A lot of people who work in digital forensics would lov
by nonrandomstring 4y ago
Good point. But there are Knowledge Hazards that stand alone. Such as
traumatic images you cannot unsee. A lot of people who work in digital
forensics would love a zero knowledge proof that a folder is full of
CP without having to look at it. That's pretty much the idea of the
CSAM algorithm Apple wanted to push, which makes it a pretty great
idea minus the digitally rapey forcing it on people without their
consent bit.
> "Only 1% of participants consistently wanted to know"
Wow! I sometimes feel "better not to know" but for the most-part I am
scientific/rationalist and will take all the intel I can get even if
it may be challenging.
There's one exception: I often deliberately don't google people I am
going to meet. I want the relationship to evolve organically. If it's
an interview I might check a bit on their professional background, and
the orgs they've worked with, but even given the opportunity to see a
much deeper dox I'll pass on it. I feel it's degrading. Also that it
may give me a false impression that excludes opportunities. I would
only break that "polite ignorance" if I needed to assess the risk of
someone or suspected a problem.
- bombcar 4y agoThat last part is quite important; we've lost the ability to lose things to time, and it can be brought back up quite easily. Part of it has been loss in trust of the people in society setup as gatekeepers, but the "cure" of everyone doing it themselves may be worse than the disease.
- nonrandomstring 4y agoThat theme, of whether the age of 'benevolent elites' has given way to a hyper-liberal vigilantism (and whether that's worse) is explored quite nicely by Adam Curtis in some of his more recent films.
- bertil 4y agoIn the case of CSAM, I think you are conflating not wanting to see, which I appreciate, and wanting, needing really, to know to make decision. Knowing gives agency, the ability ot fight a crime in that case. People who are exposed to it suffer less from being exposed to it and more from the inability to see the flow stop.
- nonrandomstring 4y agoYes I agree. We've come full circle back to Cassandra. The thing with cybersecurity that infuriates me with frustration is telling people the things they don't want to know yet knowing I am powerless to stop them harming themselves and others with stubbornly bad choices. I'm sure healthcare professionals get the same. It's why I wrote in Digital Vegan quite a lot about drug addiction and technology.