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Cory Doctorow has talked about how "they" test these kinds of things on captive "audiences" - mainly children and prisoners - before expanding to the rest of us
by yterdy 3y ago
Cory Doctorow has talked about how "they" test these kinds of things on captive "audiences" - mainly children and prisoners - before expanding to the rest of us. I tend to add marginalized groups to that list. Even when a person can nominally be held accountable, it doesn't matter if you can't reach them, protected by an administrative or institutional barrier of some kind.
Standardized testing and remote learning monitoring, automated sentencing software, and any number of social programs are examples, if you were wondering.
So, part of the problem is the signalling that the tolerating of these practices when they happen to those less able to defend themselves presents to companies. "Go ahead, do it, you'll get away with it." I tend to think: because the people with the power to stop it benefit from it.
- vorpalhex 3y agoI want to dive into the "how to politely resist this in an effective way". 1. Opt out of these things as much as you can. Often times you can't opt out of the underlying actual thing (school, banking, etc) but you can opt out of the terrible new thing. You don't need to explain to people a deep "why". Instead give the people polite, reasonable (and generally true) excuses. "Oh, it doesn't work on my computer". "Oh, I don't understand how to use it." "I don't really like technology." 2. Help other people, particularly children, the elderly, the vulnerable, etc, in opting out of these things and bypassing them when needed. Help them fill out the paperwork, call the right people, cause the right fuss. Frequently, you'll find by helping one person they'll go on to help other people do the same thing. 3. Tell other people, in appropriate times and circumstances, that you don't care for these things and opt out of them. Don't be weirdly obnoxious about it, but when someone gripes about it or complains about it not working for them.. just agree with them. Most people don't like these things. These things don't generally work (for anyone). They suck. Let other people know you agree with them that these things suck. There are cases where this doesn't work - automated account closures, automated sentancing, rent shenanigans. You can of course do the usual things of bugging your congress critters (and you should) but you should also use the full range of pressure available to you. Don't do business with shitty companies - and when they inevitably try to sell to you, tell them why you don't do business with them. When a politician supports automated sentancing tools, explain to them why you aren't voting for them. Surprisingly a little bit of pressure goes quite far.
- amatecha 3y agoRight, it's a lot easier to say "my phone is too old" rather than "I reject basically the entire premise of the extractive, exploitative societal structures upon which this coercive relationship is built and relies", etc. :)
- WalterBright 3y ago[flagged]
- 1letterunixname 3y ago"Gamed" by whom? Do you assume poor people are all lazy, undeserving, criminal, and cheating? Have you ever accompanied a poor or disabled person to a county assistance office to see what the forms or process entails? Do you know how SNAP or WIC works?
- WalterBright 3y ago> all I never said "all". Some years back, and acquaintance of mine detailed how he gamed the system. He'd work until he met the minimum number of employed weeks to qualify for unemployment, then he'd do a lousy job so he'd get laid off. He'd then go on unemployment. Being unemployed required him to look for a job, so he'd look for a job, and flunk the job interview. When the unemployment compensation ran out, then he'd get a job again. Over and over and over. BTW, when he was "unemployed", he'd take off-the-books jobs. A businessman acquaintance told me how he'd found some well qualified people he wanted to hire. They said they'd take the job, but only after their unemployment compensation ran out. The Seattle Times ran an article a couple decades ago (wish I'd saved it) where they went around interviewing people on welfare. They'd ask "what would you do if the welfare was cut off?" The answer was "get a job." They interviewed people in a car with fishing gear. "Where are you going?" "Fishing" "Don't you have jobs?" "No, we get welfare." "Wouldn't you rather have a job?" "No, we'd rather go fishing." Sure, there are people who should be on welfare. But there are a lot of people gaming it. Every government program designed to hand out money if specific requirements are met results in companies and individuals springing up to game it.
- thebradbain 3y agoAlmost like we should just blanket-provide the same amount of aid and safety net to everyone, cut out any and all pre-qualifications, and completely change our tax system to ensure all costs are recaptured by a progressive tax system. That way someone who used aid and becomes wealthy would pay into it in the future. Right now our systems more or less just keep you where you are.
- pyuser583 3y agoAlso the people who are harmed are unimportant. Nobody cares if Harvey Weinstein is part of a dystopian social experiment.
- mulmen 3y agoI don’t follow. Is Harvey Weinstein a child or a minority in this analogy?