4 ms·

"for people to find solidarity" That's not going to happen with the way tech/algos are exacerbating the divide.

by giantg2 2y ago

malfist 2y ago
Which is increasingly looking intentional
- giantg2 2y ago
  Nah, it's a by-product of giving people what they want to make money. This sort of issue has been building for a long time. It's based on abundance of resources and availability of choices. As we have more time and money to spend on things, we can make more independent choices and take positions on issues that we didnt even think about before. Essentially, the semi-homogeneous population slowly fragments into smaller and smaller factions that are not geographically constrained (thanks to tech).
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
  We've known it is intentional since Cambridge Analytica at the latest.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    That wasn't about creating a split but rather taking advantage of an existing split, right?
    - HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
      Potato potato
soulofmischief 2y ago
If you have engineering or product skills, now is the time to take a hard look in the mirror, inventory your interests and concerns, and figure out how to fight fire with fire. We need to be proliferating alternative, humanistic, empathetic software in the world and putting it into people's hands. It's easier than ever for us to independently build a wealth of defensive infrastructure for the common people.
- giantg2 2y ago
  We already have the tools. The problem is marketing, FOMO, etc. We can use stuff like Cloudflare restrictive DNS, a Pihole with additonal lists (like social media), a VPN, screen time or app usage timers, etc. Will and self-control are what's lacking.
  - soulofmischief 2y ago
    The problem isn't marketing or FOMO. The problem is the average person barely understands what you just said, and we can't expect them all to become domain experts, especially when many people lack the fundamental research skills and experience needed to intuitively grok these technologies. We have to use our intelligence and expertise to make applications which take care of users and their privacy, without them needing to suddenly become overnight computer experts. Most of the tooling I see today has (understandably) massive UX issues and is largely relegated to at least the mildly technical. We need new and open Facebooks, TikToks, calendars, operating systems, etc. which protect and empower people but don't complicate their lives and stress them out, which leads to security and privacy fatigue. Even my current operating system, macOS, is so intensely user-hostile and obfuscated off the happy path, despite being heralded as a champion of human-oriented design. We need a modern GNU-like organization but focused on building the social/web tooling that most people today are using.
    - giantg2 2y ago
      Almost anyone who cares about their privacy should be able to Google how to improve it, find an article about VPNs, and sign up for Nord VPN (pretty user friendly and commercials everywhere). Dive just slightly deeper and you can find information on DNS and set the VPN to use the DNS you were recommended. Most people don't care enough to even ask the questions. Creating competing services were the value differentiation is privacy (likely at the trade off of cost or quality) is bound to fail for that same reason.
      - soulofmischief 2y ago
        You're proving my point, that users have to be protected by software engineers in the same way that pedestrians know nothing of civil engineering but trust that bridges are safe to walk on, and aren't to blame when they fail. It's not a marketing or FOMO issue, it's a matter of culture within our profession and way of life as engineers.

"for people to find solidarity" That's not going to happen with the way tech/algos are exacerbating the divide.

malfist 2y ago

Which is increasingly looking intentional

giantg2 2y ago
Nah, it's a by-product of giving people what they want to make money. This sort of issue has been building for a long time. It's based on abundance of resources and availability of choices. As we have more time and money to spend on things, we can make more independent choices and take positions on issues that we didnt even think about before. Essentially, the semi-homogeneous population slowly fragments into smaller and smaller factions that are not geographically constrained (thanks to tech).
HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
We've known it is intentional since Cambridge Analytica at the latest.
- giantg2 2y ago
  That wasn't about creating a split but rather taking advantage of an existing split, right?
  - HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
    Potato potato

soulofmischief 2y ago

If you have engineering or product skills, now is the time to take a hard look in the mirror, inventory your interests and concerns, and figure out how to fight fire with fire. We need to be proliferating alternative, humanistic, empathetic software in the world and putting it into people's hands. It's easier than ever for us to independently build a wealth of defensive infrastructure for the common people.

giantg2 2y ago
We already have the tools. The problem is marketing, FOMO, etc. We can use stuff like Cloudflare restrictive DNS, a Pihole with additonal lists (like social media), a VPN, screen time or app usage timers, etc. Will and self-control are what's lacking.
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  The problem isn't marketing or FOMO. The problem is the average person barely understands what you just said, and we can't expect them all to become domain experts, especially when many people lack the fundamental research skills and experience needed to intuitively grok these technologies. We have to use our intelligence and expertise to make applications which take care of users and their privacy, without them needing to suddenly become overnight computer experts. Most of the tooling I see today has (understandably) massive UX issues and is largely relegated to at least the mildly technical. We need new and open Facebooks, TikToks, calendars, operating systems, etc. which protect and empower people but don't complicate their lives and stress them out, which leads to security and privacy fatigue. Even my current operating system, macOS, is so intensely user-hostile and obfuscated off the happy path, despite being heralded as a champion of human-oriented design. We need a modern GNU-like organization but focused on building the social/web tooling that most people today are using.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    Almost anyone who cares about their privacy should be able to Google how to improve it, find an article about VPNs, and sign up for Nord VPN (pretty user friendly and commercials everywhere). Dive just slightly deeper and you can find information on DNS and set the VPN to use the DNS you were recommended. Most people don't care enough to even ask the questions. Creating competing services were the value differentiation is privacy (likely at the trade off of cost or quality) is bound to fail for that same reason.
    - soulofmischief 2y ago
      You're proving my point, that users have to be protected by software engineers in the same way that pedestrians know nothing of civil engineering but trust that bridges are safe to walk on, and aren't to blame when they fail. It's not a marketing or FOMO issue, it's a matter of culture within our profession and way of life as engineers.