A poli-sci major...who was an "ethicist" at Meta...
I'm having a hard time deciding what part of this is the most ridiculous. Contenders include:
- A political Science major lecturing on ethics.
- Meta and ethics in the same paragraph.
- A company who's CEO has credibly threatened (publicly) the livlihoods of hundreds of millions of people globally so much as paying lip service to ethics as a concept.
- Any news outlet feigning credulity hard enough to deadpan reporting on any of this.
Is it possible to roll one's eyes hard enough to injure oneself?
The most frustrating part of all of this is the underlying premise that the internet is, has been, or could ever be a credible cultural record is deeply stupid. Or maybe more charitably it's both historically and technically illiterate. It has always taken continuous unwavering effort on some person's part to keep any given piece of content online. And while managing a simple hosting account and updating domain registration periodically doesn't take a tremendous amount of effort 20 years is a long time to expect anyone to maintain enthusiasm. The internet has always been a frothy, ever changing blend of the odd nugget of truth drifting in a sea of unadulterated bullshit. Treating this, or worse what comes from statistically averaging it, as a source of capital T truth is totally unhinged. From whence did this mythology of online truth spring?
I mean I might give it to you for Discord but Facebook is an easy win here. There's so much bot crap on Facebook Meta keeps getting dragged in front of congress over it.
Fuck no, I stopped using my phone for anything besides maps and phone stuff before the pandemic. You peddling the idea that that isn't what all of the social platforms are these days?
"Our society is structured around the assumption that you'll have not just a cellphone, but a smartphone."
Except it really isn't, it just seems that way when you spend a bunch of time on your phone. As part of an utterly graceless transition to middle age I bailed on social media and have aggressively refused to engage with service-related apps of any kind (fuck mychart, drive-thru mobile apps, and the horse they rode in on). To the extent that I use my phone at all these days it's to check text messages, field calls, and (rarely) navigate via maps. I've reverted to the Old Ways (mailing paper checks, calling ahead to get live humans to explain shit, etc) and it's been pretty frictionless. I've yet to encounter a situation where I was prevented from doing anything because I didn't phone.
The really obnoxious part is that with the possible exception of maps all of the other "services" touted as vital parts of a digitally connected existence are so enshittified at this point that the original value proposition for all of them is absent. So we're left with this zombie rhetoric around being disconnected while "connecting" means you spend hours every day staring at bot content and ads.
Author appears to have concerns about the belts working out of the top of the housing, but is seemingly ignoring the four existing screws that could be used to fasten a top plate to prevent this?
Previously on We Bet On Unlimited Growth, the global financial meltdown of 2008. If I was even slightly less cynical I'd honestly wonder how many times they're going to stick a fork in the same outlet in my lifetime.
Roughly a third of the market is digging a $1T-a-year-deep-hole with <5yr amortization schedule on all of it and passing around the same $100B like it's in all of their bank accounts simultaneously. Yeah, shit's going to work out for sure, in all of the same ways that flying a plane into the side of a mountain has a clear ending.
Crazy to assume that an individual of vision has so thoroughly dropped the plot simply because their position is at odds with tech industry orthodoxy. If anything that should be an indication to more closely examine your assumptions.
I mean yeah, diversify we must but idk anyone who had a retail portfolio that didn't eat shit in 2008 so it isn't real obvious where the bomb shelter is.
I understand the author's claims that ideas matter and that is a major part of what I'm sneering at. Ideas grow on trees and they're worthless 100% of the time there aren't skilled and motivated individuals behind them pushing. The arts are and should be capital E elitist for all of the same reasons my kid's refrigerator art isn't hanging in the Louvre next to the Mona Lisa. Nobody's stopping you or anyone from grabbing some art supplies and expressing yourself to your heart's content, but unless you put the time in you aren't going to be on a level with Rembrant regardless of what toolset you use to try to paper over the gaps in your skillset.
So having established one would have to institute I'm-hiding-from-at-least-two-sovereign-governments-that-are-actively-hunting-me levels of OPSEC to even stand a chance of avoiding being thoroughly fingerprinted I'm fairly confident in my point is proven here. I don't see anyone proposing to gut Meta and Google's business models, ban data brokerages, or any of a myriad other possible things that would at least in theory result in the possibility of actual online privacy. What I'm seeing is folks screeching at the prospect of a legal framework by which these companies negative impacts on kids might be managed. And of course literally no alternatives are proposed to address said harms in lieu of requiring ID so here we are.
sigh If data brokerages, Meta, Google, and Palantir are all staring at you how is it possible to claim privacy is even possible? Like, you have to have a thing before it's possible to assault it.
Of course not. But literally any excuse that comes to hand will be deployed if it helps the tech industry continue to avoid meaningful consequences. The same handful of companies that have engineered a global surveillance suite that rivals the most tyrannical sovereign governments wildest dreams (and can trivially detect the approximate age of a user) will without a shred of irony deploy legions of paid influencers and other astroturf to decry age verification as an assault on privacy.
Replacing "hand over your keys" with "perform detailed inspection of your vehicle, including undercarriage and suspension for damage before leaving" doesn't sound particularly enticing. Given I'm capable of parking my own vehicle without having an anxiety attack in the process I'm also fairly certain this thing doesn't solve any of my problems. I am likewise surprised that this seemingly pointless, grossly overengineered system that is nakedly hostile to minimum wage tier workers like valet service drivers isn't being warmly received here, but for different reasons.
Low grade engagement bait that reads like a mediocre attempt at whitewashing slop. If the author's premise holds then we're saying that there's no daylight between the works of an individual who has taken a literal lifetime to hone a skillset and any random dilletante armed with the appropriate AI tools.
I'm guessing you aren't aware how much of that innovation comes from academic research instead of direct private investment by pharma companies, or that there is a thriving pharmaceutical industry in places like Europe. Ironically your chosen examples are based on innovations pioneered by a German biotech (BioNTech) and a Danish pharmaceutical company (Novo Nordisk). What relevance the Soviet Union might have 34 years after it's collapse is something of a mystery.
Just a minor clarification: The Money freaks out, calls these things "Socialism" and then dumps billions on red-baiting campaigns and political donations to defend the (highly profitable) status quo. Most citizens would just like some healthcare.
DCs have a tendency to destabilize the local grid and drive up grid rates and have ridiculous water consumption requirements, both largely externalized to the surrounding community, so it's more a matter of basic self-defense than any notional populist agenda.
You're right, nor am I attempting to. I'm merely pointing out the kazoo-music-and-a-propeller-beanie slapstick levels of comedy that manifest when the tech industry writ large attempts to argue for online privacy with a straight face.