Yes, and people that insist steering their car themselves will be punished by public opinion. They will be treated nearly the same way as Muslim looking people in US airports directly after 9/11.
1,352 karma · joined November 1, 2013
Applications try to be extra-clever (more clever than their users) and think 2 steps further ... thus doing more than the users said.
So in my opinion, it is not only a privacy problem, but a problem of our "computing-" era. Applications get more and more clever, but in the effect they become extra-stupid, not doing what the user really wants, but doing what the programmer thought (or worse, some weird AI thought) could be right to do now.
I think, the reason is, that somehow applications must more and more show that they are "better" than just simple eMail, or just simple groupware or just a simple (you name it), as it existed before and as thousands exists as open source apps. The way it goes, is adding some "extra benefit" (same as in the food area) to the applications. But sometimes the extra benefit plainly backfires.
That's also the reason, I shiver when I think that the car industry wants cars that more and more take over control. That will become a big mess!
I also will reduce my usage of Google products, because it becomes more and more "you have to do it the Google-way" products and I must say, that e.g. Gmail has worsen it's user experience over time ...
What do you have in mind? I was thinking about it, but could not get anything fixed to 1984 that could make it a relevant date.
Might be, that there are more exact descriptions of our future around. But one thing I think is dominant and alarming: The "free" world does not converge to a system of even rights and freedom for all, but into a new system of control and inequality, that might in turn even top the system of the middle ages.
That is corrupting the language.
And I even see it in Germany. Because the basic rights (like free speech) are defined in our constitution and "security" is not among them, our former secretary of the interior said this would be a "super basic right" -- thus also putting security above all basic rights ... and giving our rights in the hands of the NSA.
By this way, they corrupt our language and our thinking. Defining everything that way, how they pleasure and how they can betray us!
It is just a small step from there to be arrested, as we saw before.
Even today, if you have the wrong name you can be disallowed from flying in the "land of the free". Because the government put your name on the list.
Some woman fought against this list, but the government even played tricks, that the trial could not go on. Where is there democracy or freedom?
Freedom and opportunity?
Opportunity might be true in some areas (particularly IT), but not in other areas. Just because you think you are king, you are not!
Freedom, no, not at all. Democracy has brought much freedom to the people and after the 2nd WW freedom lived up to it's maximum, it seems to me. But in the last decades it declined rapidly.
Do you mean, freedom in Iraq? Or in Afghanistan or other Arabian countries? Think twice! There might be some countries, yes, but they are far away from being real free.
Freedom in western countries? Europe?? The US???
Think again! Just think!
Do you not realize it?
Or (to name a more current example) just say at the NY airport that the security measures are bullshit! ... just as doublethought-enhancer.
No?
Then think again. Doubleplus think.
There is no evidence in my opinion, that given, that common wealth all over the world has grown (what I even would doubt a little), that it is because of our capitalistic way of thinking and exploitation.
I agree, that some degree of inequality might be inevitable, but that degree of inequality we have today is ill in my opinion.
If (and I mean "if") common wealth has risen, than it might be more likely because of state of technology today. To what degree our capitalistic system does contribute to it is just unclear. Our world might be more wealthy without it. But nobody can prove either side, since we only have one world! And comparing roman times to our days today is just ill thinking.
Poor people stay poor -- even when they have now working places, since most work is lowly paid. It is in fact so low paid, that people don't rise from poverty but they will fall back as soon as the boom is over.
In many countries today, because of globalization, they have jobs, but their wages are so low, that they merely can live from it.
Broader wealth in European countries or the US was created, because workers fought for their rights and better working conditions. In the US once, the state fought side by side with the workers for the common good. That was the time, the US build the wealth of its own country. Today it dumps its own wealth.
In countries like China, this is prohibited by the state.
The countries with the luckiest people in Europe are those with the highest taxation. The reason is, that a brought middle-class of people exist.
You could really say, that taxation (that increases with income) is good for society, since differences are leveled out and middle-class is more likely to establish.
The system with interest rates and profits from money (stock) is leading us into rapidly increasing imbalance of property and incomes. Today you can make thousands times more money just by making money from other money -- without any benefits for society involved (in many cases, the results are even devastating for society, e.g. food speculations) -- than any well paid office worker who uses much creativity and produces real values (like an architect or designer) even, if it is not your own money you speculate with.
That should make us think for a moment.
This spiral even has gotten worse in the last decades, because profit margins have been increased and increased. Everybody is crying for "investment opportunities" and pressure is on the stocks to generate more profits. That was also powered up by the globalization.
Normal human labor has been devaluated this way and just making profits from your possessions is increasingly making more and more money.
The people with money also have managed to make the rules in nearly all the world so, that earnings increase.
At the same time, more and more companies and rich people have brought their money or profits into tax havens, so the countries are starving on taxes ... the lower paid people have to pay them alone.
It's an downward spiral, taking the whole human kind down!
I think, it's in best interest of the people in power, that the campaign is so costly. When you look at the presidents of the last decades (I don't know to much US history, to go back to far), they all where already millionaires when they where elected.
But you should better watch this one, I don't know if you know Lessig (I think, he is a real patriot): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g
In our country, the campaigns are less costly, but until anybody comes to the top of any major party, he must be inwardly corrupted already. I see it this way, that nearly no current leading politician in our country is not already totally corrupted by money and power. I think, Mark Twain had this one right, but I don't think, that it had to be exported, it seems to lay inside the human kind. I think it was already visible in the first republics like Rome. Maybe we are in a similar position today as in Caesars or even Neros time.
You should know, that some years ago, even in Europe, rich people started building places to live for millionaires -- apart and secure from the "plebs". They provide for times, when the 99% will no longer hold still. Of course, millionaires are only third class "rich" people in our world. Second class are billionaires.
At least one law was brought to a downfall later by judges, because it was extremely unconstitutional -- and it came out, that it was pressed threw the parliament, so the politicians just did not know, what they did (or even don't wanted to).
Thanks, it was also a pleasure for me!
I think, names like "patriotism", "freedom", "homeland" or even "solidarity" are grandly misused by politicians today. I think, today politicians are just show-men of the real class in power. What should be decided, is not discussed openly, but by people that are not shown on cover pages. The task of the show-men is, to put the decisions (how bad they might be!) in some sound sounding words (like "Patriot Act") so that the masses will agree or at least don't disagree with the things that shall take their freedom, their work-power, their money, their land ... and give it to the new lords, which are no nobles.
And of course, left and right are also instrumented a lot. Because giving a clear "foe" is good to mobilize the own side (even for the wrong things).
How courteous they are!
The world is often times more complex than "left" and "right".
But again: US gov. has double standards. When Snowden breaks a law, he will most likely be hung (or worse), but if members of Us agencies breaks hundred, thousands, even million times laws of human rights and the US constitution, they will be either promoted or get an automatic pardon from the president (as Obama did directly after election).
That stinks and is a SHAME for the whole "western world".
The US gov. is applying double standards.
Seems to be widespread today in so called "free western countries".