4 ms·

Seeing the grand ambitions of these 'builders', the first thing that pops up in my mind is, how do I protect my freedoms from these people? The only political p

by yedava 4y ago

Seeing the grand ambitions of these 'builders', the first thing that pops up in my mind is, how do I protect my freedoms from these people? The only political power I have is a vote and some measly donations to candidates who have my best interests at heart. But how can that compete with the immense political power that these guys wield with their money, media control and lobbying power?

Dracophoenix 4y ago
Although I question how you think your freedoms are going to be robbed by the men quoted in the article, everything you've said is just as applicable to government. "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance" as the saying goes.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
WalterBright 4y ago
> how do I protect my freedoms from these people? The Bill of Rights. Which has (so far) withstood constant and unrelenting attacks, from all sides, since it was enacted.
- paulpauper 4y ago
  As the 'online space' becomes more important and bigger relative to 'meat space', this matters. There re many choices of food and cars, far fewer choices of popular social networks, payment processors.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    There can't be a wide choice of popular anything. The whole idea of the "popular" is something that nearly everyone flocks to. There can't be a variety of top spots. Things like social networks are governed by the same power laws as, say, soda brands: there can't be a large variety of brands as popular as Coca-Cola. There is, of course, a wide variety of smaller brands, from pretty large to tiny, to cater for all tastes. Same for social networks. We are not talking on Facebook or Twitter right now.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - rolenthedeep 4y ago
    You're literally complaining that you can't be a racist and get away with it. If you want a single-race college, you need to provide clear and compelling evidence that such discrimination is useful, necessary, and not overtly harmful. Otherwise you're just being a racist and probably committing a hate crime.
    - barry-cotter 4y ago
      That’s my point, yes. Freedom of association is dead.
      - rolenthedeep 4y ago
        I very strongly suggest you finish (or repeat) high school. You're either stupid, or deliberately looking for an excuse to be a piece of shit. Freedom of association applies to individual, private citizens. It does not apply to businesses or institutions. If you want to hang out with your Klan buddies, no one is going to raid your house because you don't have any black guests. If you want to start a business that doesn't hire black people, you will get sued because this kind of discrimination causes harm to other people. Since you probably don't understand this concept, hurting other people is a bad thing. It makes you a bad person by every conceivable ethical and moral measure. You. Are. A. Bad. Person.
    - Supermancho 4y ago
      A college was probably the worst suggestion the OP could start with. Any racist club (or classist or ageist, sexist, etc) is legally out, despite such clubs still being able to operate without explicit legal action across the nation. Freedom of association has caveats, so the bill of rights, as it was written is not a bulwark and this is a valid critique. I think it's important to recognize reality, in this case. (I'm sure this is not going to do my karma any good.)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- salawat 4y ago
  Wickerd v. Filburn begs to differ. Interstate Commerce basically covers anything with current jurisprudence. 2nd Amendment, down. As does Third Party Doctrine v. The Fourth Amendment. Civil Asset Forfeiture might actually be a 3rd Amendment violation if you squint at it and hold your head just right. Social Media has proven that outsourcing of censorship to industry is a winning combo. 1st Amendment down partially. Bill of Rights is so shaky I wouldn't necessarily hold it up as a beacon of success. Cruel and Unusual Punishment: Solitary Confinement. The Diesel Train (practice in the Federal convict transport system by which a convict can be kept in transfer limbo and essentially rendered impossible to check on the status of/communicate with). 8th Amendment. Point is, most of these only have teeth to the point the judiciary is willing to confer them teeth in an actual case, and even that is discretionary at the SCOTUS level, and there is no requirement placed whereby case law must be internally consistent except aspirationally. Bill of Rights is in a hell of a tawdry condition nowadays. In part because "language/definitional engineering" is essentially the core of modern legislative/administrative rulemaking/jurisprudence nowadays.
s5300 4y ago
>> how do I protect my freedoms from these people? By creating or maintaining a monopoly on violence. There is unfortunately not much more to it than that.
Mezzie 4y ago
I've been considering this and the only real options I've landed on are teaching, long-term thinking, and increasing entropy in social systems. A lot of the hinky things that are done (by governments as well as private entities/individuals) are only possible because there is a level of ambient ignorance in the general population. Moving that needle might accomplish something (in the same way that literacy started as a scribe's gift but eventually was taught to schoolchildren): Arm your fellow travelers. Long term thinking and planning (on the scale of centuries and decades rather than quarters or years): One major weakness of people with power is that they have to devote a substantial amount of their (large but still limited) time and energy towards preserving that power in the near future. Increasing entropy in social systems: As dril puts it [0] "in a world where big data threatens to commodify our lives,. telling online surveys that i "Dont know" what pringles are constitutes Heroism" Essentially, the people in power rely on the gathering and interpretation of large amounts of data to maintain their power. Garbage in, garbage out. The more their inputs are skewed, the more likely they are to make mistakes that lead to cracks in the system and therefore more opportunities for change. This might just be cope, idk. [0]: https://twitter.com/dril/status/1061091401251745792?lang=en https://twitter.com/dril/status/1061091401251745792?lang=en
ShredKazoo 4y ago
What was it from the article that caused you to worry that your freedoms won't be protected?
- yedava 4y ago
  One example is the loss of freedom to own what we buy. We have been slowly moving towards to future where we own nothing, and merely lease stuff. Smartphones are kind of already there - utterly locked down, with a walled garden of apps. Cars too are moving in that direction. Sam Altman was asking in the article - "I’m curious if that caused you to update your priors". I have updated my priors. I now view any new technology developments from these 'builders' as an acceleration of what has been happening these last 10-15 years - a loss of control over our privacy and increasing reliance on software which we merely lease from corporations.
  - ShredKazoo 4y ago
    >One example is the loss of freedom to own what we buy. We have been slowly moving towards to future where we own nothing, and merely lease stuff. Smartphones are kind of already there - utterly locked down, with a walled garden of apps. Cars too are moving in that direction. What does that have to do with the article? Also... insofar as this is something people want, the market should provide it, no? Nothing prevents you from building your own PC that runs linux. Cryptocurrency has been huge. VPNs are a huge business. Nothing prevents you from deleting your Facebook account. Mastodon is blowing up. I think what you're discussing is pretty much orthogonal to the topic. Thiel (mentioned in the article) has been a big cryptocurrency proponent, for example.
    - yunwal 4y ago
      > Nothing prevents you from deleting your Facebook account What does this have to do with the article? FB will track you and erode your freedoms with or without your consent or participation

by yedava 4y ago

Dracophoenix 4y ago

Although I question how you think your freedoms are going to be robbed by the men quoted in the article, everything you've said is just as applicable to government. "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance" as the saying goes.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

WalterBright 4y ago

> how do I protect my freedoms from these people? The Bill of Rights. Which has (so far) withstood constant and unrelenting attacks, from all sides, since it was enacted.

paulpauper 4y ago
As the 'online space' becomes more important and bigger relative to 'meat space', this matters. There re many choices of food and cars, far fewer choices of popular social networks, payment processors.
- nine_k 4y ago
  There can't be a wide choice of popular anything. The whole idea of the "popular" is something that nearly everyone flocks to. There can't be a variety of top spots. Things like social networks are governed by the same power laws as, say, soda brands: there can't be a large variety of brands as popular as Coca-Cola. There is, of course, a wide variety of smaller brands, from pretty large to tiny, to cater for all tastes. Same for social networks. We are not talking on Facebook or Twitter right now.
barry-cotter 4y ago
[flagged]
- rolenthedeep 4y ago
  You're literally complaining that you can't be a racist and get away with it. If you want a single-race college, you need to provide clear and compelling evidence that such discrimination is useful, necessary, and not overtly harmful. Otherwise you're just being a racist and probably committing a hate crime.
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    That’s my point, yes. Freedom of association is dead.
    - rolenthedeep 4y ago
      I very strongly suggest you finish (or repeat) high school. You're either stupid, or deliberately looking for an excuse to be a piece of shit. Freedom of association applies to individual, private citizens. It does not apply to businesses or institutions. If you want to hang out with your Klan buddies, no one is going to raid your house because you don't have any black guests. If you want to start a business that doesn't hire black people, you will get sued because this kind of discrimination causes harm to other people. Since you probably don't understand this concept, hurting other people is a bad thing. It makes you a bad person by every conceivable ethical and moral measure. You. Are. A. Bad. Person.
  - Supermancho 4y ago
    A college was probably the worst suggestion the OP could start with. Any racist club (or classist or ageist, sexist, etc) is legally out, despite such clubs still being able to operate without explicit legal action across the nation. Freedom of association has caveats, so the bill of rights, as it was written is not a bulwark and this is a valid critique. I think it's important to recognize reality, in this case. (I'm sure this is not going to do my karma any good.)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
salawat 4y ago
Wickerd v. Filburn begs to differ. Interstate Commerce basically covers anything with current jurisprudence. 2nd Amendment, down. As does Third Party Doctrine v. The Fourth Amendment. Civil Asset Forfeiture might actually be a 3rd Amendment violation if you squint at it and hold your head just right. Social Media has proven that outsourcing of censorship to industry is a winning combo. 1st Amendment down partially. Bill of Rights is so shaky I wouldn't necessarily hold it up as a beacon of success. Cruel and Unusual Punishment: Solitary Confinement. The Diesel Train (practice in the Federal convict transport system by which a convict can be kept in transfer limbo and essentially rendered impossible to check on the status of/communicate with). 8th Amendment. Point is, most of these only have teeth to the point the judiciary is willing to confer them teeth in an actual case, and even that is discretionary at the SCOTUS level, and there is no requirement placed whereby case law must be internally consistent except aspirationally. Bill of Rights is in a hell of a tawdry condition nowadays. In part because "language/definitional engineering" is essentially the core of modern legislative/administrative rulemaking/jurisprudence nowadays.

s5300 4y ago

>> how do I protect my freedoms from these people? By creating or maintaining a monopoly on violence. There is unfortunately not much more to it than that.

Mezzie 4y ago

I've been considering this and the only real options I've landed on are teaching, long-term thinking, and increasing entropy in social systems. A lot of the hinky things that are done (by governments as well as private entities/individuals) are only possible because there is a level of ambient ignorance in the general population. Moving that needle might accomplish something (in the same way that literacy started as a scribe's gift but eventually was taught to schoolchildren): Arm your fellow travelers. Long term thinking and planning (on the scale of centuries and decades rather than quarters or years): One major weakness of people with power is that they have to devote a substantial amount of their (large but still limited) time and energy towards preserving that power in the near future. Increasing entropy in social systems: As dril puts it [0] "in a world where big data threatens to commodify our lives,. telling online surveys that i "Dont know" what pringles are constitutes Heroism" Essentially, the people in power rely on the gathering and interpretation of large amounts of data to maintain their power. Garbage in, garbage out. The more their inputs are skewed, the more likely they are to make mistakes that lead to cracks in the system and therefore more opportunities for change. This might just be cope, idk. [0]: https://twitter.com/dril/status/1061091401251745792?lang=en https://twitter.com/dril/status/1061091401251745792?lang=en

ShredKazoo 4y ago

What was it from the article that caused you to worry that your freedoms won't be protected?

yedava 4y ago
One example is the loss of freedom to own what we buy. We have been slowly moving towards to future where we own nothing, and merely lease stuff. Smartphones are kind of already there - utterly locked down, with a walled garden of apps. Cars too are moving in that direction. Sam Altman was asking in the article - "I’m curious if that caused you to update your priors". I have updated my priors. I now view any new technology developments from these 'builders' as an acceleration of what has been happening these last 10-15 years - a loss of control over our privacy and increasing reliance on software which we merely lease from corporations.
- ShredKazoo 4y ago
  >One example is the loss of freedom to own what we buy. We have been slowly moving towards to future where we own nothing, and merely lease stuff. Smartphones are kind of already there - utterly locked down, with a walled garden of apps. Cars too are moving in that direction. What does that have to do with the article? Also... insofar as this is something people want, the market should provide it, no? Nothing prevents you from building your own PC that runs linux. Cryptocurrency has been huge. VPNs are a huge business. Nothing prevents you from deleting your Facebook account. Mastodon is blowing up. I think what you're discussing is pretty much orthogonal to the topic. Thiel (mentioned in the article) has been a big cryptocurrency proponent, for example.
  - yunwal 4y ago
    > Nothing prevents you from deleting your Facebook account What does this have to do with the article? FB will track you and erode your freedoms with or without your consent or participation