4 ms·

Not a good term. Anti-personnel mines do exactly what they are intended to do. These devices/software do something against the interests of the user in the proc

by fmajid 1y ago

Not a good term. Anti-personnel mines do exactly what they are intended to do. These devices/software do something against the interests of the user in the process of doing something the user actually wants (otherwise why would the user even get them?). Perhaps "Faustian computing"?

Zambyte 1y ago
Anti-personnel computers also do exactly what they're intended to do. The interests of the subject are not considered a priority, just like with mines. > otherwise why would the user even get them? Why does a moth fly into a flame?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- Modified3019 1y ago
  Moths (and other insects) evolved to use transverse orientation to fly level at night by using distant bodies of light (stars, moon), essentially trying to fly perpendicular to light above. Sources of light which are physically close disrupt this instinct. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44785-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44785-3
  - jazzyjackson 1y ago
    An apt metaphor as humans evolved to orient themselves based on information (in the strict sense of novel data) and so all it takes to trap a human in a continuous cycle of hitting themselves against a wall is to create a wall of continuously novel information
cess11 1y ago
Where in this do you see the connection to worldly, scientific, knowledge?
- fmajid 1y ago
  As in "Faustian bargain"
  - cess11 1y ago
    Yeah, that ought to be when you trade your supposedly immortal soul for scientific knowledge and pleasure. "Habe nun, ach! Philosophie, Juristerei und Medizin, Und leider auch Theologie Durchaus studiert, mit heißem Bemühn. Da steh ich nun, ich armer Tor! Und bin so klug als wie zuvor; Heiße Magister, heiße Doktor gar Und ziehe schon an die zehen Jahr Herauf, herab und quer und krumm Meine Schüler an der Nase herum— Und sehe, daß wir nichts wissen können! [...] Drum hab ich mich der Magie ergeben, Ob mir durch Geistes Kraft und Mund Nicht manch Geheimnis würde kund; Daß ich nicht mehr mit saurem Schweiß Zu sagen brauche, was ich nicht weiß; Daß ich erkenne, was die Welt Im Innersten zusammenhält, Schau alle Wirkenskraft und Samen, Und tu nicht mehr in Worten kramen."
rixed 1y ago
At the contrary, to me the term evoked exactly what the author meant. And after the series of detonations of the communication devices in Lebanon some time ago, the analogy with anti-personnel mines takes an even more concrete and sinister meaning.
red_trumpet 1y ago
> Anti-personnel mines do exactly what they are intended to do. These devices/software do something against the interests of the user in the process of doing something the user actually wants Actually, I think you got it backwards: Anti-personnel mines are highly problematic especially when they are not needed anymore. They often linger in the ground for extended times after a conflict and are a cause of death and injuries in civilians, who just want to live their lives. Contrary to this, anti-personnel computing is problematic in the times when civilians are incentivized to use it.
- liotier 1y ago
  > Anti-personnel mines are highly problematic especially when they are not needed anymore When immediate survival is at stake, the future is heavily discounted. Slow and channel the attacker now, and consider the demining cost later - if you survived the war.
bestouff 1y ago
This is because you got the "user" part slightly wrong. The real users of your smartphone are countless ads companies, media giants or even some government services.
- webdoodle 1y ago
  Yep. Big tech is the user, you are the product. The smartphone is just the interface.
patcon 1y ago
Thinking of the complex systems terms of "coarse-graining" (moving up into higher level systems/astronomical/above scale) and "fine-graining" (moving down into human/biological/below levels). Utility of anti-personnel mines is at system level of state war (no human-level participant meaningfully "wants" its effect on another human). Utility of anti-personnel computing is the same -- compute resources used to benefit of system, but to detriment of human actor below. The difference is we don't equally understand the battle damage we take to our minds the way we understand battle damage to our biology. This might change though EDIT: but yes, there are some differences thru this lens that make the metaphor a bit strained
sifar 1y ago
I was discussing this with my son the other day. We have a Faustian bargain with technology in general, not just computing.
ygjb 1y ago
Well, anti-personnel mines should function as expected for the primary user. The classic "Front Toward Enemy" is the basic UI that illustrates who the primary user is. The secondary users may want to file a ticket about the user experience. That said, I think more lovecraftian horrors that have taken on their own life, aided by the human creation of corporations... I don't recall where I first saw it, but this is fairly apt :P --- Did anyone notice how quickly the internet turned into a Lovecraftian horror scenario? Like we’ve got this dimension right next to ours, that extends across the entire planet, and it is just brimming with nightmares. We have spambots, viruses, ransomware, this endless legion of malevolent entities that are blindly probing us for weaknesses, seeking only to corrupt, to thieve, to destroy. Add onto that the corrupted ones themselves, humans who’ve abandoned morality and given up faces to hunt other people, jeering them, lashing out, seeing how easy it is to kill something you can’t touch or see or smell. They’ll corrupt anything they think could be a vessel for their message and they’ll jabber madly at any who question them. Their chittering haunts every corner of the internet. They are not unlike the spambots in some ways. Add on top of that the arcane magisters, who are forever working at the cracks between our world and the world we made. Some of them do it for fun, some of them do it for wealth, others do it for the power of nations unwise enough to trust them. There are mages who work to defend against this particular evil, but they are mad prophets, and their advice is almost never heeded, even by those who keep them as protection.
- wizzwizz4 1y ago
  That one's from asterCrash (via Tumblr). Canonical URL: https://astercrash.tumblr.com/post/157419046864/did-anyone-notice-how-quickly-the-internet-turned https://astercrash.tumblr.com/post/157419046864/did-anyone-n.... Full text below. --- Did anyone notice how quickly the internet turned into a Lovecraftian horror scenario? Like we’ve got this dimension right next to ours, that extends across the entire planet, and it is just brimming with nightmares. We have spambots, viruses, ransomware, this endless legion of malevolent entities that are blindly probing us for weaknesses, seeking only to corrupt, to thieve, to destroy. Add onto that the corrupted ones themselves, humans who’ve abandoned morality and given up faces to hunt other people, jeering them, lashing out, seeing how easy it is to kill something you can’t touch or see or smell. They’ll corrupt anything they think could be a vessel for their message and they’ll jabber madly at any who question them. Their chittering haunts every corner of the internet. They are not unlike the spambots in some ways. Add on top of that the arcane magisters, who are forever working at the cracks between our world and the world we made. Some of them do it for fun, some of them do it for wealth, others do it for the power of nations unwise enough to trust them. There are mages who work to defend against this particular evil, but they are mad prophets, and their advice is almost never heeded, even by those who keep them as protection. All people know several spells to use the internet. Facebook asks you for the magic words to log in, so does your email, so does your twitter and on and on. The spells are words or a gesture with the hand, some use the colour of your eyes, or the shape of your finger. Our chief of security joked about requiring users to give a drop of blood before they could log in. Many do not understand the humour of mages. The cracks between the two are breaking. IP cameras filled our world with eyes and the magisters learned how to open almost all of them. We all carry magic slabs of glass that if you hold it up to your ear can sing to you with a loved one’s voice, but if you look at it with your eyes, can show you a corrupted human with bleeding orange skin scream the profane with a thousand voices. The other day I saw someone hack a moving vehicle. At one point they made it stop. At another they made it so it couldn’t stop. Some of our best and brightest are going to create an army of four winged bats hovering throughout every city and we are going to connect them directly to the dimension where the nightmares live. I’m not saying it’s all bad, but I am saying Cthulhu lies deathless dreaming in this web we built him and he is waking up.
SilasX 1y ago
I'm just ... dumbfounded at why it isn't "anti-personal computing". Like, as a riff on "personal computer/computing". Related: the scene in Bojack Horseman: "And this time, it's personnel!" 'Uh, shouldn't the line be, "It's personal"?' "No, because it's like, he's saying it's an inside job, so, personnel."

by fmajid 1y ago

Zambyte 1y ago

Anti-personnel computers also do exactly what they're intended to do. The interests of the subject are not considered a priority, just like with mines. > otherwise why would the user even get them? Why does a moth fly into a flame?

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Modified3019 1y ago
Moths (and other insects) evolved to use transverse orientation to fly level at night by using distant bodies of light (stars, moon), essentially trying to fly perpendicular to light above. Sources of light which are physically close disrupt this instinct. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44785-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44785-3
- jazzyjackson 1y ago
  An apt metaphor as humans evolved to orient themselves based on information (in the strict sense of novel data) and so all it takes to trap a human in a continuous cycle of hitting themselves against a wall is to create a wall of continuously novel information

cess11 1y ago

Where in this do you see the connection to worldly, scientific, knowledge?

fmajid 1y ago
As in "Faustian bargain"
- cess11 1y ago
  Yeah, that ought to be when you trade your supposedly immortal soul for scientific knowledge and pleasure. "Habe nun, ach! Philosophie, Juristerei und Medizin, Und leider auch Theologie Durchaus studiert, mit heißem Bemühn. Da steh ich nun, ich armer Tor! Und bin so klug als wie zuvor; Heiße Magister, heiße Doktor gar Und ziehe schon an die zehen Jahr Herauf, herab und quer und krumm Meine Schüler an der Nase herum— Und sehe, daß wir nichts wissen können! [...] Drum hab ich mich der Magie ergeben, Ob mir durch Geistes Kraft und Mund Nicht manch Geheimnis würde kund; Daß ich nicht mehr mit saurem Schweiß Zu sagen brauche, was ich nicht weiß; Daß ich erkenne, was die Welt Im Innersten zusammenhält, Schau alle Wirkenskraft und Samen, Und tu nicht mehr in Worten kramen."

rixed 1y ago

At the contrary, to me the term evoked exactly what the author meant. And after the series of detonations of the communication devices in Lebanon some time ago, the analogy with anti-personnel mines takes an even more concrete and sinister meaning.

red_trumpet 1y ago

> Anti-personnel mines do exactly what they are intended to do. These devices/software do something against the interests of the user in the process of doing something the user actually wants Actually, I think you got it backwards: Anti-personnel mines are highly problematic especially when they are not needed anymore. They often linger in the ground for extended times after a conflict and are a cause of death and injuries in civilians, who just want to live their lives. Contrary to this, anti-personnel computing is problematic in the times when civilians are incentivized to use it.

liotier 1y ago
> Anti-personnel mines are highly problematic especially when they are not needed anymore When immediate survival is at stake, the future is heavily discounted. Slow and channel the attacker now, and consider the demining cost later - if you survived the war.

bestouff 1y ago

This is because you got the "user" part slightly wrong. The real users of your smartphone are countless ads companies, media giants or even some government services.

webdoodle 1y ago
Yep. Big tech is the user, you are the product. The smartphone is just the interface.

patcon 1y ago

Thinking of the complex systems terms of "coarse-graining" (moving up into higher level systems/astronomical/above scale) and "fine-graining" (moving down into human/biological/below levels). Utility of anti-personnel mines is at system level of state war (no human-level participant meaningfully "wants" its effect on another human). Utility of anti-personnel computing is the same -- compute resources used to benefit of system, but to detriment of human actor below. The difference is we don't equally understand the battle damage we take to our minds the way we understand battle damage to our biology. This might change though EDIT: but yes, there are some differences thru this lens that make the metaphor a bit strained

sifar 1y ago

I was discussing this with my son the other day. We have a Faustian bargain with technology in general, not just computing.

ygjb 1y ago

Well, anti-personnel mines should function as expected for the primary user. The classic "Front Toward Enemy" is the basic UI that illustrates who the primary user is. The secondary users may want to file a ticket about the user experience. That said, I think more lovecraftian horrors that have taken on their own life, aided by the human creation of corporations... I don't recall where I first saw it, but this is fairly apt :P --- Did anyone notice how quickly the internet turned into a Lovecraftian horror scenario? Like we’ve got this dimension right next to ours, that extends across the entire planet, and it is just brimming with nightmares. We have spambots, viruses, ransomware, this endless legion of malevolent entities that are blindly probing us for weaknesses, seeking only to corrupt, to thieve, to destroy. Add onto that the corrupted ones themselves, humans who’ve abandoned morality and given up faces to hunt other people, jeering them, lashing out, seeing how easy it is to kill something you can’t touch or see or smell. They’ll corrupt anything they think could be a vessel for their message and they’ll jabber madly at any who question them. Their chittering haunts every corner of the internet. They are not unlike the spambots in some ways. Add on top of that the arcane magisters, who are forever working at the cracks between our world and the world we made. Some of them do it for fun, some of them do it for wealth, others do it for the power of nations unwise enough to trust them. There are mages who work to defend against this particular evil, but they are mad prophets, and their advice is almost never heeded, even by those who keep them as protection.

wizzwizz4 1y ago
That one's from asterCrash (via Tumblr). Canonical URL: https://astercrash.tumblr.com/post/157419046864/did-anyone-notice-how-quickly-the-internet-turned https://astercrash.tumblr.com/post/157419046864/did-anyone-n.... Full text below. --- Did anyone notice how quickly the internet turned into a Lovecraftian horror scenario? Like we’ve got this dimension right next to ours, that extends across the entire planet, and it is just brimming with nightmares. We have spambots, viruses, ransomware, this endless legion of malevolent entities that are blindly probing us for weaknesses, seeking only to corrupt, to thieve, to destroy. Add onto that the corrupted ones themselves, humans who’ve abandoned morality and given up faces to hunt other people, jeering them, lashing out, seeing how easy it is to kill something you can’t touch or see or smell. They’ll corrupt anything they think could be a vessel for their message and they’ll jabber madly at any who question them. Their chittering haunts every corner of the internet. They are not unlike the spambots in some ways. Add on top of that the arcane magisters, who are forever working at the cracks between our world and the world we made. Some of them do it for fun, some of them do it for wealth, others do it for the power of nations unwise enough to trust them. There are mages who work to defend against this particular evil, but they are mad prophets, and their advice is almost never heeded, even by those who keep them as protection. All people know several spells to use the internet. Facebook asks you for the magic words to log in, so does your email, so does your twitter and on and on. The spells are words or a gesture with the hand, some use the colour of your eyes, or the shape of your finger. Our chief of security joked about requiring users to give a drop of blood before they could log in. Many do not understand the humour of mages. The cracks between the two are breaking. IP cameras filled our world with eyes and the magisters learned how to open almost all of them. We all carry magic slabs of glass that if you hold it up to your ear can sing to you with a loved one’s voice, but if you look at it with your eyes, can show you a corrupted human with bleeding orange skin scream the profane with a thousand voices. The other day I saw someone hack a moving vehicle. At one point they made it stop. At another they made it so it couldn’t stop. Some of our best and brightest are going to create an army of four winged bats hovering throughout every city and we are going to connect them directly to the dimension where the nightmares live. I’m not saying it’s all bad, but I am saying Cthulhu lies deathless dreaming in this web we built him and he is waking up.

SilasX 1y ago

I'm just ... dumbfounded at why it isn't "anti-personal computing". Like, as a riff on "personal computer/computing". Related: the scene in Bojack Horseman: "And this time, it's personnel!" 'Uh, shouldn't the line be, "It's personal"?' "No, because it's like, he's saying it's an inside job, so, personnel."