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So it's like the app for snitches, tattletales, and nosy neighbors? Why would any free person install this thing on their phone you would have to be nuts.

by pmorici 13y ago

mindslight 13y ago
Because many "free" people have been irreparably damaged by public schooling and other forms of mass media, and feel so helplessly disempowered that they'll take any chance to exercise some petty power. Even if that just means getting their neighbor hassled for useless code violations :/
- Karunamon 13y ago
  That's some impressive conspiracy hokum right there. I'm sure you have links to sane, data-driven evidence of the "damage" of public schooling that you'd like to share?
  - mindslight 13y ago
    Erm, where am I describing a conspiracy? The "nosy neighbor" phenomenon isn't exactly rare - start doing work on a friend's house and there's a decent chance you'll get an inspector stopping by, accusing you of being paid, and generally treating you like a criminal. For the mechanism, it's not really a stretch to figure that people bombarded with stories of omniscient "good guys" (real, fictitious, and imaginary) are likely to reflexively call the purported "good guys" whenever they see something they don't like.
  - olefoo 13y ago
    Anyone who's had contact with american public school knows that they are quite prone to all sorts of social pathologies. The suggestion that they are willfully malign is not entirely implausible, especially in places where the main job of public high schools seems to be serving as a minimum-security holding facility for people who are too energetic and inexperienced to be inflicted on the rest of society. A true synomosophist will distinguish between conspiracies of effect and conspiracies of cause. American public education certainly seems like a conspiracy of effect; wasting massive amounts of human potential to marginal benefit of the few who profit most from the established order.
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    Conspiracy doesn't just mean "thing you think is wrong." It has to do with people conspiring (hint: it's in the name.) If you actually want information about how some people think that traditional schooling damages people, I'd suggest googling "criticism of traditional schooling." It might help to think of the outlooks of the people you know, then think of the major elements of traditional schooling, then try to notice what obvious features of traditional schooling that people you know would probably object to.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >That's some impressive conspiracy hokum right there Gore Vidal: "Americans have been trained by the media to go into Pavlovian giggles at the mention of the word "conspiracy," because for an American to believe in a conspiracy, he must also believe in flying saucers or, craziest of all, that more than one person was involved in the JFK murder". >I'm sure you have links to sane, data-driven evidence of the "damage" of public schooling that you'd like to share? That's a common "scientism" approach to social issues that's completely bogus. Issues that concern with the values of a society can not be measured like particles or IO rates, with "data-driven evidence". For example, do you take a "data-driven" approach to determine if your project manager is a jerk, or if the way he pushes for a project leads to worse morale? Or do you, rather, use your general unquantifiable observation, and do a qualitative assessment of the situation, based on logical (in the common sense) analysis and arguments? It's the same kind of broken logic that takes "data-driven" BS like "LOC commited" or "bugs squashed" as the real metrics for programmer productivity.
    - Karunamon 13y ago
      You could have saved us both a great deal of time by saying "No, I have nothing". You have an opinion, which as far as evaluating something with any level of accuracy goes is pretty much worthless. I see none of the logic you mention. Just some bogus implication in somebody else's words that "conspiracy" == "ufos/jfk". The whole "Public schools are brainwashing!" thing fits nicely into the conspiracist mindset.
      - coldtea 13y ago
        >You have an opinion, which as far as evaluating something with any level of accuracy goes is pretty much worthless. Actually, it's pretty much essential. Even for measuring quantifiable values, like the length of a rod, an opinion ("looks about 2 meters to me"), is pretty much a very valid first step. But for qualitative understanding of social issues, politics, etc, an opinion is not just a first step, it's indispensable. You just have to learn to hone one, instead of relying on mindless data gathering, as if it's a substitute for understanding. >The whole "Public schools are brainwashing!" thing fits nicely into the conspiracist mindset. Well, in its plain form (the purpose of public schools is to indoctrinate future citizens to the values and ideas of those running the state), this has been known and openly stated from both critics of the public school system and its creators alike. So I don't get where you get the "conspiracist" vibe about such a thing. Public school is not about making open-minded citizens, it's about teaching a certain version of history, religion, social ideas etc, as favored by the ruling class. Of course it's "brainwashing" -- the original purpose of the school system, when it was meant for the European elite, was to create functional and useful state employees (for the Prussian state, the British Empire, etc). Later, it was opened up to the masses because of a need of more office workers and higher ranking blue collar workers.
Karunamon 13y ago
This thing where you shame people who invoke any kind of authority figure really needs to die off. It's sophomoric at best.
- pmorici 13y ago
  This isn't exactly any authority figure. It's a piece of software that as described is the essence of Big Brother and is being promoted by an individual who had to resign from a position of power due to corruption per the article. It's being used by an organization that has a history of abuses of power.
  - Karunamon 13y ago
    the essence of Big Brother This is meaningless pap. The app we're describing has one purpose, and that's letting you send things to the police if you want. It is not a remote surveillance application as the headline mischaracterizes it or you mischaracterize it by invoking the title of a book that comes up any time the subject is "police do something". How is this any different from the ability to call/text the local police tip line? I'm all for calling out overreach, but making it easy for people to send the police data voluntarily and on their own terms hardly seems like a bad idea.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      >How is this any different from the ability to call/text the local police tip line? It's not. That's Big Brotherish too -- including in the literal sense that snitching is a common practice in the book of that name. Don't know about modern US, but there are societies with moral codes against snitching of any kind, including snitching the bad guys to the police. And even in the US, I'm aware that there at least used to be some old popular attitude against such a thing. In fact, this notion that snitching is immoral in itself, even if it is to the "authorities", has been part of popular culture and lore for ages, from Zorro and Robin Hood to Batman. Heck, Judas himself was snitching to the authorities, and we all know the status he has in our cultural landscape.

So it's like the app for snitches, tattletales, and nosy neighbors? Why would any free person install this thing on their phone you would have to be nuts.

by pmorici 13y ago

So it's like the app for snitches, tattletales, and nosy neighbors? Why would any free person install this thing on their phone you would have to be nuts.

mindslight 13y ago

Because many "free" people have been irreparably damaged by public schooling and other forms of mass media, and feel so helplessly disempowered that they'll take any chance to exercise some petty power. Even if that just means getting their neighbor hassled for useless code violations :/

Karunamon 13y ago
That's some impressive conspiracy hokum right there. I'm sure you have links to sane, data-driven evidence of the "damage" of public schooling that you'd like to share?
- mindslight 13y ago
  Erm, where am I describing a conspiracy? The "nosy neighbor" phenomenon isn't exactly rare - start doing work on a friend's house and there's a decent chance you'll get an inspector stopping by, accusing you of being paid, and generally treating you like a criminal. For the mechanism, it's not really a stretch to figure that people bombarded with stories of omniscient "good guys" (real, fictitious, and imaginary) are likely to reflexively call the purported "good guys" whenever they see something they don't like.
- olefoo 13y ago
  Anyone who's had contact with american public school knows that they are quite prone to all sorts of social pathologies. The suggestion that they are willfully malign is not entirely implausible, especially in places where the main job of public high schools seems to be serving as a minimum-security holding facility for people who are too energetic and inexperienced to be inflicted on the rest of society. A true synomosophist will distinguish between conspiracies of effect and conspiracies of cause. American public education certainly seems like a conspiracy of effect; wasting massive amounts of human potential to marginal benefit of the few who profit most from the established order.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  Conspiracy doesn't just mean "thing you think is wrong." It has to do with people conspiring (hint: it's in the name.) If you actually want information about how some people think that traditional schooling damages people, I'd suggest googling "criticism of traditional schooling." It might help to think of the outlooks of the people you know, then think of the major elements of traditional schooling, then try to notice what obvious features of traditional schooling that people you know would probably object to.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >That's some impressive conspiracy hokum right there Gore Vidal: "Americans have been trained by the media to go into Pavlovian giggles at the mention of the word "conspiracy," because for an American to believe in a conspiracy, he must also believe in flying saucers or, craziest of all, that more than one person was involved in the JFK murder". >I'm sure you have links to sane, data-driven evidence of the "damage" of public schooling that you'd like to share? That's a common "scientism" approach to social issues that's completely bogus. Issues that concern with the values of a society can not be measured like particles or IO rates, with "data-driven evidence". For example, do you take a "data-driven" approach to determine if your project manager is a jerk, or if the way he pushes for a project leads to worse morale? Or do you, rather, use your general unquantifiable observation, and do a qualitative assessment of the situation, based on logical (in the common sense) analysis and arguments? It's the same kind of broken logic that takes "data-driven" BS like "LOC commited" or "bugs squashed" as the real metrics for programmer productivity.
  - Karunamon 13y ago
    You could have saved us both a great deal of time by saying "No, I have nothing". You have an opinion, which as far as evaluating something with any level of accuracy goes is pretty much worthless. I see none of the logic you mention. Just some bogus implication in somebody else's words that "conspiracy" == "ufos/jfk". The whole "Public schools are brainwashing!" thing fits nicely into the conspiracist mindset.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      >You have an opinion, which as far as evaluating something with any level of accuracy goes is pretty much worthless. Actually, it's pretty much essential. Even for measuring quantifiable values, like the length of a rod, an opinion ("looks about 2 meters to me"), is pretty much a very valid first step. But for qualitative understanding of social issues, politics, etc, an opinion is not just a first step, it's indispensable. You just have to learn to hone one, instead of relying on mindless data gathering, as if it's a substitute for understanding. >The whole "Public schools are brainwashing!" thing fits nicely into the conspiracist mindset. Well, in its plain form (the purpose of public schools is to indoctrinate future citizens to the values and ideas of those running the state), this has been known and openly stated from both critics of the public school system and its creators alike. So I don't get where you get the "conspiracist" vibe about such a thing. Public school is not about making open-minded citizens, it's about teaching a certain version of history, religion, social ideas etc, as favored by the ruling class. Of course it's "brainwashing" -- the original purpose of the school system, when it was meant for the European elite, was to create functional and useful state employees (for the Prussian state, the British Empire, etc). Later, it was opened up to the masses because of a need of more office workers and higher ranking blue collar workers.

Karunamon 13y ago

This thing where you shame people who invoke any kind of authority figure really needs to die off. It's sophomoric at best.

pmorici 13y ago
This isn't exactly any authority figure. It's a piece of software that as described is the essence of Big Brother and is being promoted by an individual who had to resign from a position of power due to corruption per the article. It's being used by an organization that has a history of abuses of power.
- Karunamon 13y ago
  the essence of Big Brother This is meaningless pap. The app we're describing has one purpose, and that's letting you send things to the police if you want. It is not a remote surveillance application as the headline mischaracterizes it or you mischaracterize it by invoking the title of a book that comes up any time the subject is "police do something". How is this any different from the ability to call/text the local police tip line? I'm all for calling out overreach, but making it easy for people to send the police data voluntarily and on their own terms hardly seems like a bad idea.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >How is this any different from the ability to call/text the local police tip line? It's not. That's Big Brotherish too -- including in the literal sense that snitching is a common practice in the book of that name. Don't know about modern US, but there are societies with moral codes against snitching of any kind, including snitching the bad guys to the police. And even in the US, I'm aware that there at least used to be some old popular attitude against such a thing. In fact, this notion that snitching is immoral in itself, even if it is to the "authorities", has been part of popular culture and lore for ages, from Zorro and Robin Hood to Batman. Heck, Judas himself was snitching to the authorities, and we all know the status he has in our cultural landscape.