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This is a really good thread on why this technology is becoming a problem for "open" anything. The argument "we can create our own separate web" is fine until a

• samplifier 5mo ago
  Are there enough of us to run our own country? It makes me feel dumb, but this is a serious question.
  • hnlmorg 5mo ago
    I’m not sure why you’re asking this question, but you can run a country as a population of 1 (ie just yourself) if you wanted. The problem being raised isn’t due to the size of the country though. It’s the size of the company (ie Apple and Google)
    • deleted 5mo ago
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  • voakbasda 5mo ago
    Where would you do that? Realistically, the question is one that cannot even be asked safely: are there enough of us to overthrow the existing systems and replace them with something better? The answer to either question, really, is no. The powers that be have systematically implemented policies that keep us divided to prevent that eventual outcome.
    • mwwaters 5mo ago
      The “enough of us” is at least a majority of voters agreeing. I’m not sure what the alternative to that is.
    • userbinator 5mo ago
      In terms of headcount, and especially those who are working on this hostile stuff, Big Tech is not even that big compared to the rest of the population.
  • otterley 5mo ago
    If you live in a democracy, you already do run your own country. Vote accordingly. Get involved in politics.
    • daishi55 5mo ago
      There are mountains of academic research showing that even in “democracies”, public opinion rarely translates into policy (by design).
      • zozbot234 5mo ago
        The problem with that argument is that there really is no such thing as public opinion at scale. You can poll people/the general public on just about any issue and the answers are going to differ massively depending on framing effects. In the end, it's hardly better than just flipping a coin.
        • ryandrake 5mo ago
          Even if public opinion is unified, if they want something to happen, they are just going to ignore the public and do it anyway. Like the recent cases of data enter projects where they just ignore the public voting against them. Democracy’s weakness it it requires people to follow the rules, but if nobody voluntarily follows the rules, then we don’t really have one.
          • otterley 5mo ago
            > Like the recent cases of data enter projects where they just ignore the public voting against them Do you have an example? And was this a binding or non-binding vote?
            • ryandrake 5mo ago
              https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/michigan-towns-rush-to-block-ai-data-centers-after-16-billion-stargate-project-overrode-local-opposition https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/michigan-towns-ru...
  • throw7 5mo ago
    We already have a republic. If we can keep it.
  • IdiotSavage 5mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation
  • riedel 5mo ago
    The question is rather: can political parties develop a vision beyond libertarian views or full state control on the other side. I feel that we need a better political consensus on a free society that puts the monopoly of force in the hand of democratic legitimate forces. I currently feel that all digital violence lies in the hands of a few corporations. And at the same time there is politician that like this because they can through this proxy can indirectly execute control without any political legitimacy. Sorry, I do not believe in markets as guarantees for freedom. I have read too much dystopian sci-fi for that.
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  • epistasis 5mo ago
    Who is the "us" in your question? Theoretically in democracies we should be able to decide this, if we aren't being distracted from real political questions with the culture war stuff that divides the public's attention and divides neighbors from each other. Any new country will have these same issues, eventually, and probably a lot more that don't seem obvious on the surface. Fighting against these sorts of monopolies seems far more likely if we can figure out what forces inside the EU and the US are driving these changes and find a way to educated the public, interest groups, and politicians about what's going on.
  • thomastjeffery 5mo ago
    Ideally, we just run our own lives, collaboratively. That's the anarchist default position that we all start in. What we really need is to meaningfully participate outside of the hierarchical monopolistic systems that demand our participation. That doesn't just mean that we create and hang out in distributed networks: it also means that we make and do interesting shit there, too. The biggest hurdle I see is that we only really use uncensored spaces to do the shit that would otherwise be censored. We don't use distributed networks to plan a party with grandma, or bitch about the next series of layoffs. We don't use distributed networks to share scientific discovery or art. I think part of the solution is to make software that is better at facilitating those kind of interactions, and the other part of the solution is actually fucking using it. How many of us are only waiting for the first part?
    • nullc 5mo ago
      but what if the alternatives are fundamentally worse? Turns out centralization has a lot of advantages. I think it's an error to demand the alternatives be as good-- that might not even always be possible. But even if they're less good they're usually still better than anything we could have imagined decades ago-- they're good enough to use. And that should be enough because we shouldn't consider handing control of ourselves to third parties to be an acceptable choice at all.
      • thomastjeffery 5mo ago
        Let's dig into what makes them worse, and see what we can do about it. I think the main struggle is moderation. Moderation requires a hierarchy, which is much more compatible with a centralized model. I'm thinking that curation would be a good alternative. Rather than authoritatively silencing unwanted content, just categorize it well enough for users to filter what they want.
        • iamnothere 5mo ago
          I agree with you, but many people have yet to understand that content they disagree with will continue to exist, no matter what, and central gatekeepers are not helpful in eliminating that content. The fucking “nazi bar” analogy has ruined an entire generation. You would think after centuries of trying to stamp out competing ideas, humans would finally come to terms with the fact that it cannot be done. Small curated groups are the only way to enforce ideological orthodoxy. You cannot force it on the public, nor can you punish the public for holding bad ideas without creating blowback and resistance.
  • dvdkon 5mo ago
    I'm convinced that in the billions of people living on Earth, there are a couple million that could agree on things that currently divide countries, like this. Sadly they're unlikely to ever be able to gather together in a single state. The status quo is nation-states in roughly their post-WW2 borders, and it's fiercely protected. The upside is stability and fewer wars, the downside is that the only way to try anything new is to co-opt an existing country. Adding to that, most countries are ethnostates that would prefer to have only a small percentage of their population be migrants. It's an easy way toward social cohesion, you just stay roughly where you're born, with people who were also born there and share the same cultural background. As we can see, it's not ideal - two lifelong neighbours can easily hold completely opposite moral values.
  • palata 5mo ago
    The problem with "us" is that it's not enough to agree on one small question ("is hardware attestation good or bad") to happily live together in our own country. "We" have a wide variety of opinions about pretty much everything. In other words, "we" exist only to fight against this one thing we disagree with. And even there, we probably don't all agree on how to fight it or what to do instead.
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• luckylion 5mo ago
  Wouldn't the argument be that you'd build separate copies of those services as well? Granted, for banking or government-interactions that isn't feasible, but wouldn't it for many other things? It would likely be more expensive given that the work to build something still needs to be done and the cost is distributed among fewer shoulders and the lower complexity since you don't need to build ad-tech doesn't make up for that, but I suppose that's a bit like quality food. Hardware will be more difficult.
  • chii 5mo ago
    > Wouldn't the argument be that you'd build separate copies of those services as well? you can't if the service requires the network effect to function well, if at all. Look at blusky and all that alternatives, look at the pitiful attempts at making a youtube alternative, etc.
• skybrian 5mo ago
  Yes, it requires you to have an approved device for certain tasks. But you can own multiple devices. You can use an approved device specifically for banking or Netflix and whatever device you like for all your other tasks. Maybe you could use an approved device (a Yubikey?) to authenticate your other devices? Also, governments should be leaning on them to approve more devices.
• Someone 5mo ago
  IMO, it would be better if they removed the claim “It doesn't provide a useful security feature” because, even if it does, the collateral damage of making non-Google, non-Apple OSes second class citizens remains, and that is the main problem.
  • thomastjeffery 5mo ago
    That's one of the two main claims made by in favor of hardware attestation; so it makes sense to argue against it. Of course, the other claim (that categories of people must be kept "safe" from categories of content) is more insidious, so it does deserve more attention.
  • Hoodedcrow 5mo ago
    I feel like the complaint about this not adding to security could be read in a really wrong way. Instead of "this is some hypocritical BS", could be interpreted as "lol let's lock EOL devices from even lower integrity tiers". Doubt this is possible because so, so many people use EOL phones, but still.
    • userbinator 5mo ago
      Doubt this is possible because so, so many people use EOL phones, but still. Because many people have fortunately realised that "EOL" is just an excuse to create lots of e-waste and push even more hostile unwanted changes.
      • Hoodedcrow 5mo ago
        Eh, not really. Using EOL devices is genuinely a bad idea, it's just that with phones you have no choice due to the updates usually being only like 2-3 years and alternative OSes not being as accessible as Linux. And most people don't even care or know anyway.
      • erikerikson 5mo ago
        I would attribute EOL phone use to largely to being frugal or poor. I'm sure at least one person considers the ecological factor but I'd expect that to be a small cohort.
• saltcured 5mo ago
  And it didn't even take attestation to cause this absurd situation where many businesses or social groups were only reachable behind Facebook or Whatsapp or whatever. To me this is such a bizarre cyberpunk dystopia. Like if we could only send letters and packages to people subscribed to the same private postal service, or drive on roads that had cross-licensing with our brand of car.
  • chii 5mo ago
    > could only send letters and packages to people subscribed to the same private postal service ... that's a corporate monopoly's wet dream.
• steelframe 5mo ago
  I like to ride my bicycle with my friends in rides organized by the (Pacific Northwest) Cascade Bicycle Club. They require that I solve a Google reCAPTCHA in order to register for a ride. Google is already completely locking me out from being able to do that. When I try to click on the squares to select whatever items it's asking, it indefinitely loops. When I try using the audio version, it completely blocks me from using it saying that there has been suspicious activity. That means that I ride alone these days. I did not renew my membership this year. The last time I experienced something like this was when Facebook starting being the only way to participate in certain events. Back when that happened, I simply counted myself as excluded and did other things with my time and money.
  • andy99 5mo ago
    I hope you contacted them to explain why. People usually think I’m a nut when I do it, or are too stupid to understand and think it’s a tech support issue, but it’s worth at least trying to make it clear that you are choosing not to use/do/pay something because of their choice to use recaptcha
    • ChuckMcM 5mo ago
      +1 to this. I had a long conversation with a local shop that went to only ordering online or through an enslaved ipad on a pedestal at the entrance. I explained to them that I wasn't going to use their app or web page online and the iPad at the door has people trying to figure it out so orders take longer, and the combination means I just won't eat there any more.
      • pigeons 5mo ago
        I also stop going to these places, and also not out of any deep principle, it just isn't something I want to waste my life doing, I'll go somewhere i can just ask for what i want to order.
    • Footprint0521 5mo ago
      Why not just 2captcha it and go on with your life?