Let’s Get Better at Demanding Better from Tech(locusmag.com)
locusmag.com
Let’s Get Better at Demanding Better from Tech
http://locusmag.com/2018/03/cory-doctorow-lets-get-better-at-demanding-better-from-tech/
102 comments
> Yeah, but then Google, Facebook et al started throwing six-figure salaries to CS graduates to steal your data and, well, that's what happened to hackers' ethics and technology morality.
I think it's more than the money. Many engineers view FB and Google as kind of a rite of passage in tech. Ex-Googlers and ex-FBers are highly regarded. Your startup is safe hiring them because they have been vetted already.
I turned down an opportunity to interview at FB in 2008 when they were just starting to build their native mobile team. I was even offered a free flight from Chicago and was told I'd get to meet Zuck. Some of us have refused to work for companies that exploit user data and have always put ethics first. But "person who refused to interview at Google" doesn't sound as nice as "ex-Googler" to most.
I think it's more than the money. Many engineers view FB and Google as kind of a rite of passage in tech. Ex-Googlers and ex-FBers are highly regarded. Your startup is safe hiring them because they have been vetted already.
I turned down an opportunity to interview at FB in 2008 when they were just starting to build their native mobile team. I was even offered a free flight from Chicago and was told I'd get to meet Zuck. Some of us have refused to work for companies that exploit user data and have always put ethics first. But "person who refused to interview at Google" doesn't sound as nice as "ex-Googler" to most.
I turned down a phone screen at Facebook.
About a week later, a tech recruiter called and asked me if there was any sort of company I wouldn't work at. I said, yeah, I wouldn't want to work in any social media company. He challenged me by pointing out that the money and prestige has to be tempting, right?
I told them Facebook contacted me the week before and I declined.
The hem and haw, followed by 'uhhh.... well" and silence was revealing.
To be fair, I have zero chance of getting into Facebook, especially for what they contacted me for.
About a week later, a tech recruiter called and asked me if there was any sort of company I wouldn't work at. I said, yeah, I wouldn't want to work in any social media company. He challenged me by pointing out that the money and prestige has to be tempting, right?
I told them Facebook contacted me the week before and I declined.
The hem and haw, followed by 'uhhh.... well" and silence was revealing.
To be fair, I have zero chance of getting into Facebook, especially for what they contacted me for.
Isn't "fake it 'til you make it" a common mantra among CS grads entering the work force in the US?
>>But "person who refused to interview at Google" doesn't sound as nice as "ex-Googler" to most.
You could have gone a bit further, and been a "person who refused a job offer from Google". That, imo, would carry more weight.
It's similar to the way some companies specifically look for newly admitted Stanford/Harvard/MIT students, then pay those students ridiculous sums to give up college and work for them instead.
You could have gone a bit further, and been a "person who refused a job offer from Google". That, imo, would carry more weight.
It's similar to the way some companies specifically look for newly admitted Stanford/Harvard/MIT students, then pay those students ridiculous sums to give up college and work for them instead.
Anyone can say they refused a job offer from Google. It's puffery unless you can substantiate it, and substantiating it is awkward and smells of praise-seeking.
> Yeah, but then Google, Facebook et al started throwing six-figure salaries to CS graduates to steal your data and, well, that's what happened to hackers' ethics and technology morality.
I still believe that there are enough hackers who would be willing to work for a much worse salary if they could obey hacker ethics and morality. Of course this implies working at a place that is much cheaper than Bay Area. But even under this premise: Where is the money supposed to come from to pay an even much lower salary reliably?
I still believe that there are enough hackers who would be willing to work for a much worse salary if they could obey hacker ethics and morality. Of course this implies working at a place that is much cheaper than Bay Area. But even under this premise: Where is the money supposed to come from to pay an even much lower salary reliably?
>I still believe that there are enough hackers who would be willing to work for a much worse salary if they could obey hacker ethics and morality. Of course this implies working at a place that is much cheaper than Bay Area. But even under this premise: Where is the money supposed to come from to pay an even much lower salary reliably?
I think this is essentially the role Mozilla fills in the SF/SV ecosystem at least. Everyone knows Mozilla engineers are equally or greater respected than anyone from Facebook or Google. The problem is there's only room for one Mozilla. There simply isn't enough donations to support more.
I think this is essentially the role Mozilla fills in the SF/SV ecosystem at least. Everyone knows Mozilla engineers are equally or greater respected than anyone from Facebook or Google. The problem is there's only room for one Mozilla. There simply isn't enough donations to support more.
Mozilla makes bank mainly as a non-profit company, not via donations: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2016/
Which i am very happy about, they are still on the right side of history in my book. The recent issues with tracking and marketing channels have burned me a bit, but there is still good will left. I hope they don't fuck it up
Which i am very happy about, they are still on the right side of history in my book. The recent issues with tracking and marketing channels have burned me a bit, but there is still good will left. I hope they don't fuck it up
My guess is that many of those hackers willing to take much lower salary for ethics and morality are either already rich or do not have the burden of supporting a family yet. It's already hard for someone to take low salary job when plenty of much better paying jobs are available, it'd be way more harder for someone to do that consistently throughout their life.
Come on, a "much lower salary" compared to a Google or Facebook salary is still a pretty good salary compared to a lot of other jobs. I don't make Google money (I also don't live in the Bay Area) and I need maybe a quarter of the money I'm making. If I had a family I might need half.
You might be surprised at how much family changes things. You have to factor in:
- Assuming two working parents initially, either lose one salary or pay >$1000/month on child care per child until school (unless you're lucky and grandparents live nearby)
- Larger house, larger mortgage. In the UK at least, you probably end up looking for one in the catchment area of a good school which means even more expensive, or go private which is a lot more expensive.
- Kids are just expensive. Clothes, book, activities, clubs, holidays, books.
- College/University fund
- Assuming two working parents initially, either lose one salary or pay >$1000/month on child care per child until school (unless you're lucky and grandparents live nearby)
- Larger house, larger mortgage. In the UK at least, you probably end up looking for one in the catchment area of a good school which means even more expensive, or go private which is a lot more expensive.
- Kids are just expensive. Clothes, book, activities, clubs, holidays, books.
- College/University fund
And yet a lot of plumbers, bus drivers, cashiers and people with other jobs that pay a lot less than whatever a software developer gets successfully raise children.
Those jobs still exist in large numbers in places with low costs of living. Programming jobs generally only exist in places with high costs of living, where someone with any of the jobs you listed (except maybe plumber; those folks make bank) would be struggling to get by, and wouldn't think it was wise to start a family.
> You might be surprised at how much family changes things.
Every expensive hobby that you start probably changes things a lot. Starting a family has the disadvantage that you cannot simply stop it if money starts to lack.
Every expensive hobby that you start probably changes things a lot. Starting a family has the disadvantage that you cannot simply stop it if money starts to lack.
as anybody who tracks my every move, reviewed my transcripts, or listened to me rant can tell - I was never going to get a job at a top-tier tech company. but making six figures at a big solar company for a couple years, was awesome.
I quit when I realized that they were really selling a financial product to large banks by securitizing the solar tax credit... not solar to save the planet.
so, yeah... ethics. and convenience. and as much as I wanted to save the world, I knew that wasn't my way.
i hope other people can get themselves out of debt, and out of that machine. for me though... it's stressful af to be trying to make it on my own.
I quit when I realized that they were really selling a financial product to large banks by securitizing the solar tax credit... not solar to save the planet.
so, yeah... ethics. and convenience. and as much as I wanted to save the world, I knew that wasn't my way.
i hope other people can get themselves out of debt, and out of that machine. for me though... it's stressful af to be trying to make it on my own.
Question: does securitizing the solar tax credit increase or decrease solar deployment? I don't know enough about the market to say, but I do wonder if you may have missed the forest for the trees.
> does the credit work?
clearly the folks responsible for renewing the solar tax credit thought so.
> but forest & trees!
imo, neither the solar tax credit, nor the oil & gas R&D credits are valid uses of public funds. so I quit.
clearly the folks responsible for renewing the solar tax credit thought so.
> but forest & trees!
imo, neither the solar tax credit, nor the oil & gas R&D credits are valid uses of public funds. so I quit.
Oh I was confused. From your original comment, I thought your goal was "solar to save the planet" and that your ethical issue was that it was primarily a financial play and only secondarily about increasing solar deployment. But from this comment it sounds like your primary problem was with taxpayer funding for a subsidy, which, fair enough, if you don't believe in subsidies, you shouldn't work for a company whose business model relies on them.
I would like to hear the same demands on business people. In the last few decades it has slowly become accepted that business should behave like total psychopaths that should only be concerned with enriching themselves. In the end the people with power (money) will always find people doing dirty work for them, be it tech or something else. I think that's the real problem that needs to be addressed.
That the most powerful have been the ones that are a combination of selfish, good at deception, and able to toe the line of morality has been the case at least since mammals evolved.
There are two parts of this— one is the exploitation of the weak by the powerful using technology as a tool, and the other is the technologists that are willing collaborators.
It’s been this way since before daVinci designed war machines for the prince.
It’s been this way since before daVinci designed war machines for the prince.
Beneath the popular messages that everyone should be respected, that all members of certain groups should be treated well, hides the fact that there are people who do true evil, who exploit and deceive, on a daily basis.
This is a great reminder that it always helps to think deeply about a problem before spouting out a solution. I appreciate that Cory moves beyond the "protech" and "anti-tech" rhetoric and allows for us to be humans together on the same journey.
However, I find it increasingly frustrating that there are many voices out there involved in this "techlash" yet there seems to be little thought given to the actual ethics and morality they continue to cite. Who gets to define what is right?
However, I find it increasingly frustrating that there are many voices out there involved in this "techlash" yet there seems to be little thought given to the actual ethics and morality they continue to cite. Who gets to define what is right?
Who gets to define what is right?
Indeed this is the right question to be asking. I think moral relativism has a lot to offer here. As SSC put it, you have to think about whether people with different moral aims than you are just not clever enough to see you're right, or know they're wrong but hope to profit (mistake vs. conflict). Too rarely does anyone consider that from where the other party stands, things might look different. You can have two good-faith actors with good (but not totally overlapping) information take up totally opposed positions because they don't see the same thing as being "right".
Indeed this is the right question to be asking. I think moral relativism has a lot to offer here. As SSC put it, you have to think about whether people with different moral aims than you are just not clever enough to see you're right, or know they're wrong but hope to profit (mistake vs. conflict). Too rarely does anyone consider that from where the other party stands, things might look different. You can have two good-faith actors with good (but not totally overlapping) information take up totally opposed positions because they don't see the same thing as being "right".
I've found your comment very interesting:
"As SSC put it, you have to think about whether people with different moral aims than you are just not clever enough to see you're right, or know they're wrong but hope to profit (mistake vs. conflict)."
Regarding "dumb v. evil", I've lately encountered this distinction:
"dumb people don't use moral concepts to get their way. They just sort of use brute force, bullying, you know they'll call names. But the smart people are the people, who use moral concepts in the service of evil. "
I've heard it in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-0V-gUuvW8
(at 18:15 min)
I transcribed the segment at my blog over here: http://tribeone.net/morality/how-to-malice-stupidity/
(If you like reading better.)
"As SSC put it, you have to think about whether people with different moral aims than you are just not clever enough to see you're right, or know they're wrong but hope to profit (mistake vs. conflict)."
Regarding "dumb v. evil", I've lately encountered this distinction:
"dumb people don't use moral concepts to get their way. They just sort of use brute force, bullying, you know they'll call names. But the smart people are the people, who use moral concepts in the service of evil. "
I've heard it in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-0V-gUuvW8
(at 18:15 min)
I transcribed the segment at my blog over here: http://tribeone.net/morality/how-to-malice-stupidity/
(If you like reading better.)
You missed the most common answer: most people don't care if they are right or wrong, they just live their lives.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" - Upton Sinclair
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" - Upton Sinclair
Though if you want to take moral relativism seriously, you'd also have to consider if your own moral standards might be too lax and what it means if you overstep the boundaries of others.
Just saying "well who knows what's right and what's wrong anyway?" and use that as an excuse to invalidate others' objections is cheap.
Just saying "well who knows what's right and what's wrong anyway?" and use that as an excuse to invalidate others' objections is cheap.
> you have to think about whether people with different moral aims than you are just not clever enough to see you're right, or know they're wrong but hope to profit
> You can have two good-faith actors with good (but not totally overlapping) information take up totally opposed positions because they don't see the same thing as being "right" (mistake vs. conflict)
The second quote describes a conflict, but it doesn't describe a conflict where one side knows it's wrong but is hoping to get away with it anyway. It describes an intractable conflict, one where no one is wrong.
The two choices you highlight in the first quote are a very small fraction of the possibilities, and are not a good reflexive thought to have, because if your first thought is "OK, it's one of these two options", you may not notice that you're going through life assuming, based on nothing, that everyone who disagrees with you is wrong.
> You can have two good-faith actors with good (but not totally overlapping) information take up totally opposed positions because they don't see the same thing as being "right" (mistake vs. conflict)
The second quote describes a conflict, but it doesn't describe a conflict where one side knows it's wrong but is hoping to get away with it anyway. It describes an intractable conflict, one where no one is wrong.
The two choices you highlight in the first quote are a very small fraction of the possibilities, and are not a good reflexive thought to have, because if your first thought is "OK, it's one of these two options", you may not notice that you're going through life assuming, based on nothing, that everyone who disagrees with you is wrong.
Obviously video game journalists should be in charge.
Well, there's a great tv show called "The Good Place"...
I don't know that he's thinking more deeply than willing to be a bit contrarian... he seems to loosely throw around concepts without seeming to care whether they make sense or could withstand scrutiny in context. He seems perfectly happy with half-baked thinking and poorly defined buzzwords as long as it sounds good for a moment.
Example: "Reagan deregulated business and defanged anti-trust, and so newspapers were snapped up by private equity funds that slashed their newsrooms, centralized their ad sales, and weakened their product. When Craigslist came along, these businesses had been looted of all the cash they could have used to figure out their digital futures, and they started to die."
He laments this as an example of a more tech-neutral but also "complicated" story but it's not just complicated it's also, you know, easy to poke holes in. It was merely the "deregulated environment", not craigslist. Right. I could spend half an hour on this but "neoliberal capitalism" means I have other stuff to do right now, so...
Example: "Reagan deregulated business and defanged anti-trust, and so newspapers were snapped up by private equity funds that slashed their newsrooms, centralized their ad sales, and weakened their product. When Craigslist came along, these businesses had been looted of all the cash they could have used to figure out their digital futures, and they started to die."
He laments this as an example of a more tech-neutral but also "complicated" story but it's not just complicated it's also, you know, easy to poke holes in. It was merely the "deregulated environment", not craigslist. Right. I could spend half an hour on this but "neoliberal capitalism" means I have other stuff to do right now, so...
> I could spend half an hour on this but "neoliberal capitalism" means I have other stuff to do right now, so...
I wish you would. I agree with your complaint that the article leaves a lot of details to be desired, and I have the same complaint of your comment.
I wish you would. I agree with your complaint that the article leaves a lot of details to be desired, and I have the same complaint of your comment.
Well, I don't know anything about "neoliberal capitalism", but the big problem with the raiders in the 80's and 90's is that they were all about "maximum efficiency" of money.
The problem is that "maximally efficient" is "minimally robust".
Sure, you can buy that big company and section it into parts. That generally leaves you with 1 or 2 very profitable sections that are what you wanted. That also kills 10 bad sections that deserve to be killed.
The problem is that you also kill a small number of sections that look like they are treading water. These are the sections that produce your next product or that save your company when the main products suddenly die for some reason. And, unfortunately, nobody can tell which of these is going to be successful and which are going to die a priori. Killing these sections is destroying the future in order to produce an extra couple of percentage points of profit in the present.
The problem is that "maximally efficient" is "minimally robust".
Sure, you can buy that big company and section it into parts. That generally leaves you with 1 or 2 very profitable sections that are what you wanted. That also kills 10 bad sections that deserve to be killed.
The problem is that you also kill a small number of sections that look like they are treading water. These are the sections that produce your next product or that save your company when the main products suddenly die for some reason. And, unfortunately, nobody can tell which of these is going to be successful and which are going to die a priori. Killing these sections is destroying the future in order to produce an extra couple of percentage points of profit in the present.
I would like to draw attention to Gallup's "Business and Industry Sector Ratings" as polled in August of 2017. http://news.gallup.com/poll/12748/Business-Industry-Sector-R...
"Computer Industry" ranks first in net approval, while "Internet Industry" ranks fifth (in between are "Restaurant Industry", "Farming and Agriculture", and "Grocery Industry").
I don't particularly buy into this "techlash" as a prevailing phenomenon.
"Computer Industry" ranks first in net approval, while "Internet Industry" ranks fifth (in between are "Restaurant Industry", "Farming and Agriculture", and "Grocery Industry").
I don't particularly buy into this "techlash" as a prevailing phenomenon.
Maybe we could get better at demanding better from Gun Manufacturers, Fossil Fuel and Chemical Companies while we’re at it?
The tech community has to get better at avoiding navel gazing. Hyperbolizing threats from tech, some theoretical and far off, while ignoring serious threats that affect he lives people everyday.
The majority of the real, actual suffering going on right now has little to do with tech. It’s the people turner into refugees thanks to geopolitics, it’s the DACA kids afraid ICE is just around the corner to break up their family, it’s the women being systemically assaulted, it’s the malnourished and maleducated kids among America’s poor. I wish half the attention spent on net neutrality or vertical search was targeted at lower items of the hierarchy of needs.
The tech community has to get better at avoiding navel gazing. Hyperbolizing threats from tech, some theoretical and far off, while ignoring serious threats that affect he lives people everyday.
The majority of the real, actual suffering going on right now has little to do with tech. It’s the people turner into refugees thanks to geopolitics, it’s the DACA kids afraid ICE is just around the corner to break up their family, it’s the women being systemically assaulted, it’s the malnourished and maleducated kids among America’s poor. I wish half the attention spent on net neutrality or vertical search was targeted at lower items of the hierarchy of needs.
That's the No True Scotsman fallacy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
> The majority of the real, actual suffering going on right now has little to do with tech.
> It’s the people turned into refugees thanks to geopolitics, it’s the DACA kids afraid ICE is just around the corner to break up their family, it’s the women being systemically assaulted, it’s the malnourished and maleducated kids among America’s poor
Tech has non-trivially contributed or stood idly by while all these happened.
> The majority of the real, actual suffering going on right now has little to do with tech.
> It’s the people turned into refugees thanks to geopolitics, it’s the DACA kids afraid ICE is just around the corner to break up their family, it’s the women being systemically assaulted, it’s the malnourished and maleducated kids among America’s poor
Tech has non-trivially contributed or stood idly by while all these happened.
Everyone has stood by while this has happened, more so than Tech in many cases, for example, with respect to immigration, the major tech companies have filed amicus briefs with courts, lobbied politicians, and pleaded with the Trump administration to stop what they're doing.
And while tech companies have been accused at various rates of sexual harassment, do we really think the big tech companies aren't trying to mitigate these issues to a greater degree than say, Hollywood or Wall Street Investment Banks (or the VC industry)? Are tech companies destroying the environment as fast as Koch Industries, or are they actually trying to be carbon neutral? Are they at least trying to cleanup their supply chain's bloody parts, or are they lobbying politicians to legalize pollution and bloody exploitation. (e.g. Apple and blood minerals vs Union Carbide/Dow)
Your usage of the fallacy is incorrect BTW, this isn't a No True Scotsman fallacy, no where did I assert that tech companies don't do things which could harm society. My point is, the focus of HN is to obsess about tech companies behavior and avoid the far greater harm that non-tech (i.e. non-software) have done, principally because their interests are primarily talking about tech and how it relates to everything, and it is a myopic view of tech as the center of the universe: it either is the center of great harm, or the utopian solution to everything.
The real problems of the world require messy, political problems that don't include the skills of geeks or silicon valley, they include things you can't calculate, engineer, or apply rigid principles to.
So at worst, you can say my fallacy is "whataboutism", but in this case, the "whataboutism" is real. Lots of people crying about AI Skynets and full spectrum surveillance, and none about basic inequality. Why? Because a tech geek can imagine a way to filter cookies, or implement Asimov laws, but they can't imagine how to convince millions of people to stop voting for candidates who promise not to raise their taxes and stop giving money to "freeloaders" The real squishy, soft problems can't be solved with code on GitHub.
Yes, we can tackle both issues, both what tech companies are doing wrong and what non-tech companies are doing, but it is a false equivalence to say they're causing equal levels of damage, right now we haven't even cleaned up the historical legacy damage caused by the old economy, and we're talking about paying large amount of attention hypothetical threats and damages?
And while tech companies have been accused at various rates of sexual harassment, do we really think the big tech companies aren't trying to mitigate these issues to a greater degree than say, Hollywood or Wall Street Investment Banks (or the VC industry)? Are tech companies destroying the environment as fast as Koch Industries, or are they actually trying to be carbon neutral? Are they at least trying to cleanup their supply chain's bloody parts, or are they lobbying politicians to legalize pollution and bloody exploitation. (e.g. Apple and blood minerals vs Union Carbide/Dow)
Your usage of the fallacy is incorrect BTW, this isn't a No True Scotsman fallacy, no where did I assert that tech companies don't do things which could harm society. My point is, the focus of HN is to obsess about tech companies behavior and avoid the far greater harm that non-tech (i.e. non-software) have done, principally because their interests are primarily talking about tech and how it relates to everything, and it is a myopic view of tech as the center of the universe: it either is the center of great harm, or the utopian solution to everything.
The real problems of the world require messy, political problems that don't include the skills of geeks or silicon valley, they include things you can't calculate, engineer, or apply rigid principles to.
So at worst, you can say my fallacy is "whataboutism", but in this case, the "whataboutism" is real. Lots of people crying about AI Skynets and full spectrum surveillance, and none about basic inequality. Why? Because a tech geek can imagine a way to filter cookies, or implement Asimov laws, but they can't imagine how to convince millions of people to stop voting for candidates who promise not to raise their taxes and stop giving money to "freeloaders" The real squishy, soft problems can't be solved with code on GitHub.
Yes, we can tackle both issues, both what tech companies are doing wrong and what non-tech companies are doing, but it is a false equivalence to say they're causing equal levels of damage, right now we haven't even cleaned up the historical legacy damage caused by the old economy, and we're talking about paying large amount of attention hypothetical threats and damages?
> Everyone has stood by while this has happened, more so than Tech in many cases, for example, with respect to immigration
First, I don't think that's the case, because it's impossible to open any media website, tv channel, or newspaper without being inundated with a very uniform opinion with regards to what Trump is doing. The folks who do not like what is being done are doing anything but idly standing by. Whether their protestations will or should be heard is a different question.
Second, what Trump is doing - or at least, what it can be proven that he is doing - is so far entirely within the scope of the powers of the office and is within law. What sort of things can be done about the actions of the President as long as he's acting within the law?
Let's not forget that roughly half the country wanted this - what of them? It's easy to act as though the opposing side's argument has no merit, but what if you actually consider their idealized motivation, from at least a sympathetic-for-argument's-sake mindset? These are not fools and monsters, and they do have their reasons for feeling and thinking the way they do. Discounting that from the outset leads only to enmity.
> Lots of people crying about AI Skynets and full spectrum surveillance, and none about basic inequality. Why? Because a tech geek can imagine a way to filter cookies, or implement Asimov laws, but they can't imagine how to convince millions of people to stop voting for candidates who promise not to raise their taxes and stop giving money to "freeloaders"
What if the geeks themselves see inequality as a natural outcome of any possible system that enables people to advance themselves? What if there do exist freeloaders, in an innumerable multitude of forms? What if someone doesn't believe that a government that we can all agree is incapable of handling infrastructure maintenance or any meaningful reorganization of itself shouldn't be trusted to take even more money and "redistribute" it to whomever it deems most worthy at any given moment?
I don't think that folks with these ideas necessarily want the worst for anyone. I think they just have very different ideas about what is needed and what is feasible in terms of improving quality of life for everyone.
If you want to play at whataboutism, you must know that it can be fired back just as easily. It's not entirely useless or without merit as a discussion method but it doesn't really lead us to answers.
First, I don't think that's the case, because it's impossible to open any media website, tv channel, or newspaper without being inundated with a very uniform opinion with regards to what Trump is doing. The folks who do not like what is being done are doing anything but idly standing by. Whether their protestations will or should be heard is a different question.
Second, what Trump is doing - or at least, what it can be proven that he is doing - is so far entirely within the scope of the powers of the office and is within law. What sort of things can be done about the actions of the President as long as he's acting within the law?
Let's not forget that roughly half the country wanted this - what of them? It's easy to act as though the opposing side's argument has no merit, but what if you actually consider their idealized motivation, from at least a sympathetic-for-argument's-sake mindset? These are not fools and monsters, and they do have their reasons for feeling and thinking the way they do. Discounting that from the outset leads only to enmity.
> Lots of people crying about AI Skynets and full spectrum surveillance, and none about basic inequality. Why? Because a tech geek can imagine a way to filter cookies, or implement Asimov laws, but they can't imagine how to convince millions of people to stop voting for candidates who promise not to raise their taxes and stop giving money to "freeloaders"
What if the geeks themselves see inequality as a natural outcome of any possible system that enables people to advance themselves? What if there do exist freeloaders, in an innumerable multitude of forms? What if someone doesn't believe that a government that we can all agree is incapable of handling infrastructure maintenance or any meaningful reorganization of itself shouldn't be trusted to take even more money and "redistribute" it to whomever it deems most worthy at any given moment?
I don't think that folks with these ideas necessarily want the worst for anyone. I think they just have very different ideas about what is needed and what is feasible in terms of improving quality of life for everyone.
If you want to play at whataboutism, you must know that it can be fired back just as easily. It's not entirely useless or without merit as a discussion method but it doesn't really lead us to answers.
> what Trump is doing - or at least, what it can be proven that he is doing - is so far entirely within the scope of the powers of the office and is within law. What sort of things can be done about the actions of the President as long as he's acting within the law?
What can be done is exactly what's being done: Challenge him in the courts, lobby congress to make changes, vote in the midterms to change congress.
>What if the geeks themselves see inequality as a natural outcome...
What if the geeks themselves are people who read Atlas Shrugged as teenagers, fantasized about revenge for years of bullying in school, and now feel justified in their new status as meritocratically earned and confirmation of their inherent worth.
In other words, people with a false theory of meritocracy, that justifies their own serendipitous gains in life, grants little weight to those unlucky enough to be born in unfortunate situations (e.g oh, you were born to bad parents in a crack infested neighborhood? The fact that you're not rich is obviously your fault for not studying in school hard enough, and your claims that I need to pay more taxes so your family can freeload for generations is unfair to me)
What if people who believe in libertarianism have no scientific data to back up their claims of efficacy? That there's no correlation between say, marginal tax rates and economic growth? That views on government incompetence are self fulfilling? What if they're completely wrong about the ability of the market to account for negative externalities and self correct before irreparable damage in rendered to the environmental or society?
What if meritocracy is bullshit, and that the people who ride at the top of the pyramid get there based on who they know, and not what they personally achieve? What if two people who work equally hard and are equally smart, results in one being in abject poverty and the other being fantastically rich because the latter had met a wealthy and connected family friend when they attended Stanford?
What if claiming that opposition to laissez-faire capitalism doesn't mean you're a Marxist and doesn't mean you want to punish success? What if you see a crisis in capitalism coming from automation that will cause vast swaths of humanity to be structurally unemployed and that Universal Basic Income (the dreaded "redistribution" word) might be necessary in the end?
What if the predictable consequence of Trump's tax cuts is a $2 trillion deficit, and the vast majority of the corporate profits plowed into stock buybacks and executive compensation, and the bottom 10% ends up worse?
What if either-or is a logical fallacy, and that a system can enable and incentivize advancement without being winner-take-all? What if people won't stop trying to be entrepreneurs and get rich, even if you raise their taxes by 10% to pay for universal health care, or college? What if a vibrant social safety net encourages more people to take entrepreneurial risks because failure doesn't mean destitution?
What if Silicon Valley Techno-Libertarians, especially of the Peter Thiel type, have a dogmatic, unsupported view of success and failure, ascribe too much of their own situation only to their own volition and actions they're taken, and then go on echo chamber sites arguing against redistribution, affirmative action, and other attempts to limit the most damaging negative externalities of a winner-take-all system?
What can be done is exactly what's being done: Challenge him in the courts, lobby congress to make changes, vote in the midterms to change congress.
>What if the geeks themselves see inequality as a natural outcome...
What if the geeks themselves are people who read Atlas Shrugged as teenagers, fantasized about revenge for years of bullying in school, and now feel justified in their new status as meritocratically earned and confirmation of their inherent worth.
In other words, people with a false theory of meritocracy, that justifies their own serendipitous gains in life, grants little weight to those unlucky enough to be born in unfortunate situations (e.g oh, you were born to bad parents in a crack infested neighborhood? The fact that you're not rich is obviously your fault for not studying in school hard enough, and your claims that I need to pay more taxes so your family can freeload for generations is unfair to me)
What if people who believe in libertarianism have no scientific data to back up their claims of efficacy? That there's no correlation between say, marginal tax rates and economic growth? That views on government incompetence are self fulfilling? What if they're completely wrong about the ability of the market to account for negative externalities and self correct before irreparable damage in rendered to the environmental or society?
What if meritocracy is bullshit, and that the people who ride at the top of the pyramid get there based on who they know, and not what they personally achieve? What if two people who work equally hard and are equally smart, results in one being in abject poverty and the other being fantastically rich because the latter had met a wealthy and connected family friend when they attended Stanford?
What if claiming that opposition to laissez-faire capitalism doesn't mean you're a Marxist and doesn't mean you want to punish success? What if you see a crisis in capitalism coming from automation that will cause vast swaths of humanity to be structurally unemployed and that Universal Basic Income (the dreaded "redistribution" word) might be necessary in the end?
What if the predictable consequence of Trump's tax cuts is a $2 trillion deficit, and the vast majority of the corporate profits plowed into stock buybacks and executive compensation, and the bottom 10% ends up worse?
What if either-or is a logical fallacy, and that a system can enable and incentivize advancement without being winner-take-all? What if people won't stop trying to be entrepreneurs and get rich, even if you raise their taxes by 10% to pay for universal health care, or college? What if a vibrant social safety net encourages more people to take entrepreneurial risks because failure doesn't mean destitution?
What if Silicon Valley Techno-Libertarians, especially of the Peter Thiel type, have a dogmatic, unsupported view of success and failure, ascribe too much of their own situation only to their own volition and actions they're taken, and then go on echo chamber sites arguing against redistribution, affirmative action, and other attempts to limit the most damaging negative externalities of a winner-take-all system?
Our technology can make our lives better, can give us
more control, can give us more privacy – but only if
we force it to live up to its promise.
For privacy and control? Definitely not. A huge chunk of my family uses Facebook as the means of communication which means private correspondence is being mediated and read by Facebook's platform. At any whim they can ban a user, delete a message, etc. The same applies to Gmail but at least there is an escape hatch to a different email provider if you are using a custom domain.
The centralization of stuff into Amazon, Google, and Facebook's offerings has been extremely destructive to the status quo for control and privacy.
The centralization of stuff into Amazon, Google, and Facebook's offerings has been extremely destructive to the status quo for control and privacy.
At a whim, you and your family/friends can stop using Facebook and use any of literally hundreds of other excellent options for communication.
That's control. And privacy is much better now than it was in the "glorious early days of the internet" when your two choices were SMTP and IRC and both were subject to monitoring by local sysadmins and pretty much any node your packets passed through.
Just because the present is not perfect does not mean the past was better. I much prefer the privacy and control of today's internet over yesterday's internet.
That's control. And privacy is much better now than it was in the "glorious early days of the internet" when your two choices were SMTP and IRC and both were subject to monitoring by local sysadmins and pretty much any node your packets passed through.
Just because the present is not perfect does not mean the past was better. I much prefer the privacy and control of today's internet over yesterday's internet.
Facebook tags photos with my face in it without my permission. How do I as a non-Facebook user stop that?
How do I prevent Google from reading my email conversations when a huge chunk of the destinations are on the Gmail platform?
I DON'T have control. And I DON'T like it.
How do I prevent Google from reading my email conversations when a huge chunk of the destinations are on the Gmail platform?
I DON'T have control. And I DON'T like it.
You can't stop it because you don't control your friends. These are their pictures, their email conversations.
I fear the set of Orwellian rules that would be required to make you happy.
I fear the set of Orwellian rules that would be required to make you happy.
I don't mind that my friends have access. Controlling that would be Orwellian.
I mind that Google and Facebook have access. They are already Orwellian, and figuring out how to control that would be anti-Orwellian.
I mind that Google and Facebook have access. They are already Orwellian, and figuring out how to control that would be anti-Orwellian.
>At a whim, you and your family/friends can stop using Facebook
Said nobody who truly understands network effects or knows someone who depends on Facebook for day-to-day communication with 5-10 people.
Quitting Facebook by yourself is easy but it's pointless if your friends don't do the same. Forcing your social circle to switch at the same time (particularly if they aren't technologically inclined) is folly.
Said nobody who truly understands network effects or knows someone who depends on Facebook for day-to-day communication with 5-10 people.
Quitting Facebook by yourself is easy but it's pointless if your friends don't do the same. Forcing your social circle to switch at the same time (particularly if they aren't technologically inclined) is folly.
This is only true with our modern bar. And yes, we should continue to get better. I am not calling for a halt of progress.
However, women, children, and minorities have far more freedom and privacy than they ever have historically. There are some ways you can look at this so that it seems that corporations have more ability to see into your life. In large, it is really just a rise in their accuracy. Their attempts and actions are actually lessened.
However, women, children, and minorities have far more freedom and privacy than they ever have historically. There are some ways you can look at this so that it seems that corporations have more ability to see into your life. In large, it is really just a rise in their accuracy. Their attempts and actions are actually lessened.
>However, women, children, and minorities have far more freedom and privacy than they ever have historically.
Why should technology get the credit?
Why should technology get the credit?
Because a lot of it is pretty simply rooted in economics.
If you want your kids to go to school, there needs to be resources for that to happen (and you personally have to have enough resources that you aren't using them for labor).
If you want your kids to go to school, there needs to be resources for that to happen (and you personally have to have enough resources that you aren't using them for labor).
Why shouldn't it?
Different technologies, sure. But the liberating effects of labor saving devices is pretty tough to dispute.
Different technologies, sure. But the liberating effects of labor saving devices is pretty tough to dispute.
> women, children, and minorities have far more freedom and privacy than they ever have historically
Zoe Quinn, black men getting shot at traffic stops and victims of cyberbullying might all have a different opinion about that.
Zoe Quinn, black men getting shot at traffic stops and victims of cyberbullying might all have a different opinion about that.
This is a bit of goal post shifting. I am claiming we are getting better. Not that we have solved all problems.
None of those things are good. But you needn't dig hard to find our culture actively doing these things almost with glee not long ago. Our bar is rightfully higher than it was, and we have legitimate criticisms to overcome. But don't let that detract from the fact that the bar is higher.
None of those things are good. But you needn't dig hard to find our culture actively doing these things almost with glee not long ago. Our bar is rightfully higher than it was, and we have legitimate criticisms to overcome. But don't let that detract from the fact that the bar is higher.
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By what metric? American life expectancy is declining. Suicide rates are stable. And the cost of healthcare related to either of these issues is increasing.
Meanwhile, wages remain stagnant and automation threatens the jobs of everyone without an apprenticeship in mechanical engineering or a PhD in computer science. And literally every internet-connected device in our lives are surveillance tools being exploited for some corporate interest.
Yet there are piles of laundry in my home that aren't washing or folding themselves. Anything other than a TV dinner won't cook itself. Cars...might eventually drive themselves, I suppose, until enough bored teenagers poking around on Shodan decide they'd like a turn at the wheel.
Tech has risen to meet the needs of the average household by providing us...cellphone apps that put us in contact with some desperate human willing to perform tasks for those who can afford it, invisible money whose value fluctuates and gets stolen in more ways than is possible to spend, and gypsy cab/delivery services.
I can't think of a recent technological development that has made my life any better or easier. Instead, I spend more time troubleshooting half-assed, overcomplicated black-box shitware (with even less support!) than ever before. No thank you. It's been a race to the bottom since the late 2000s.
Meanwhile, wages remain stagnant and automation threatens the jobs of everyone without an apprenticeship in mechanical engineering or a PhD in computer science. And literally every internet-connected device in our lives are surveillance tools being exploited for some corporate interest.
Yet there are piles of laundry in my home that aren't washing or folding themselves. Anything other than a TV dinner won't cook itself. Cars...might eventually drive themselves, I suppose, until enough bored teenagers poking around on Shodan decide they'd like a turn at the wheel.
Tech has risen to meet the needs of the average household by providing us...cellphone apps that put us in contact with some desperate human willing to perform tasks for those who can afford it, invisible money whose value fluctuates and gets stolen in more ways than is possible to spend, and gypsy cab/delivery services.
I can't think of a recent technological development that has made my life any better or easier. Instead, I spend more time troubleshooting half-assed, overcomplicated black-box shitware (with even less support!) than ever before. No thank you. It's been a race to the bottom since the late 2000s.
I have a hard time reading this as other than paranoia.
There are concerns over expectancy going flat or down. My understanding is that a few points down does not indicate the swing down has started. Should be looked at, but evidence is equally indicative of standard variance in growth.
That is, the anomaly was the constant growth in expectancy. Certainly an outlier in our histories.
And you should try harder in looking for things that are easier in life. It may not have got your life, yet. We should do what we can to spread the rewards to everyone, including you.
There are concerns over expectancy going flat or down. My understanding is that a few points down does not indicate the swing down has started. Should be looked at, but evidence is equally indicative of standard variance in growth.
That is, the anomaly was the constant growth in expectancy. Certainly an outlier in our histories.
And you should try harder in looking for things that are easier in life. It may not have got your life, yet. We should do what we can to spread the rewards to everyone, including you.
...for some. It’s a bit less clear if you’re a kid mining cobalt in the DRC, right? The wonders of tech probably don’t matter to teen who is doxxed and bullied until they take their own life. Tech might not have improved the lives of people who lost their jobs to “gig” workers who are paid a fraction of minimum wage. Tech has downright hurt the environment, even if you only look at sheer waste. You probably don’t appreciate the future of drones if your experience with them is being bombed by them.
So yeah, if you can afford it, tech is wonderful. If you’re a Chinese Uigher, maybe not so much, and “any talk to the contrary” is disingenuous at best.
So yeah, if you can afford it, tech is wonderful. If you’re a Chinese Uigher, maybe not so much, and “any talk to the contrary” is disingenuous at best.
It’s a bit less clear if you’re a kid mining cobalt in the DRC
Worldwide incomes have risen more in the last 30 years, especially for the poor, than at any other time in history.
Tech might not have improved the lives of people who lost their jobs to “gig” workers who are paid a fraction of minimum wage.
This is mostly a myth. Gig workers tend to make a bit more than minimum wage. Which, sure, isn't great but these are unskilled jobs where you make your own hours. It's not surprising that the wages tend to be on the low side.
Tech has downright hurt the environment, even if you only look at sheer waste.
GDP per unit of energy consumed has risen dramatically due to better technology.
You probably don’t appreciate the future of drones I’d your experience with them is being bombed by them.
Deaths due to warfare are at all time historic lows. I can't say that this is due to new technology but it is worth noting.
Worldwide incomes have risen more in the last 30 years, especially for the poor, than at any other time in history.
Tech might not have improved the lives of people who lost their jobs to “gig” workers who are paid a fraction of minimum wage.
This is mostly a myth. Gig workers tend to make a bit more than minimum wage. Which, sure, isn't great but these are unskilled jobs where you make your own hours. It's not surprising that the wages tend to be on the low side.
Tech has downright hurt the environment, even if you only look at sheer waste.
GDP per unit of energy consumed has risen dramatically due to better technology.
You probably don’t appreciate the future of drones I’d your experience with them is being bombed by them.
Deaths due to warfare are at all time historic lows. I can't say that this is due to new technology but it is worth noting.
I'm not sure why you switched to worldwide when it specifically said DRC. Most economic indicators there have been flat or declining for the last 50 years. Vague platitudes about the world as a whole are unhelpful, and if anything only serve to reinforce the mythology of universal progress.
> Worldwide incomes
gotta buy that shit they're selling now that WORLD TRADE is here. thank goodness for foreign products instead of whatever came before that.
> GDP per unit of energy consumed
using this metric presumes that GDP is the goal. fortunately or not, there's no quantitative measure of well-being. certainly we could suggest that not dying during childbirth is an improvement... but if you're instead spending life under the thumb of an extraction economy established by colonialists with the explicit intent to remote-rule thru division[0], then... well, it's at least not so crystal clear that foreign tech comes from the hand of the savior.
> Deaths due to warfare are at all time historic lows.
I like this statistic, too, but I suspect it's inflated by medics around battlefields not letting people bleed, or rot from infection, to death.
anyway, I just wanted to make the point that it's not so clear cut. I think technology is largely good... and whatever it is, it's not going away.
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonization
gotta buy that shit they're selling now that WORLD TRADE is here. thank goodness for foreign products instead of whatever came before that.
> GDP per unit of energy consumed
using this metric presumes that GDP is the goal. fortunately or not, there's no quantitative measure of well-being. certainly we could suggest that not dying during childbirth is an improvement... but if you're instead spending life under the thumb of an extraction economy established by colonialists with the explicit intent to remote-rule thru division[0], then... well, it's at least not so crystal clear that foreign tech comes from the hand of the savior.
> Deaths due to warfare are at all time historic lows.
I like this statistic, too, but I suspect it's inflated by medics around battlefields not letting people bleed, or rot from infection, to death.
anyway, I just wanted to make the point that it's not so clear cut. I think technology is largely good... and whatever it is, it's not going away.
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonization
Now let’s just apply some regional filters there, so that skyrocketing benefits for a minority don’t play statistical games with the majority.
It’s been pretty great for Bangladesh and India.
Time will tell. Bangladesh is grossly overpopulated, and struggling with hydrological and agricultural issues which may yet lead to systems collapse. India may thrive, or die in nuclear fire along with Pakistan. Until pretty recently tech was great for Syria too, but again, chicken, eggs, hatch.
There are the big twin baddies of climate change and mass migration to contend with, and nobody seems to be contending. We’re in a decent place, but I would argue, a profoundly negative trajectory. In the same way that the Late Bronze Age was both a time of wonders, and utterly doomed.
There are the big twin baddies of climate change and mass migration to contend with, and nobody seems to be contending. We’re in a decent place, but I would argue, a profoundly negative trajectory. In the same way that the Late Bronze Age was both a time of wonders, and utterly doomed.
Apply whatever regional filters you want. Most of what I said will still hold most of the time. I'm not playing any statistical games.
Ok, let’s look at the Middle East and Northern Africa.
Edit: Or better yet, stick with my original example of the DRC, which is not a happy tale.
Edit: Or better yet, stick with my original example of the DRC, which is not a happy tale.
This sort of rhetoric is borderline insane, though. Yes, bad things happen even with tech. But they are typically far less dramatic than what happened before the tech. Homicides/lynchings were common before modern tech, as an easy example.
Similarly, suicides are not only not a new phenomenon, but they are actually not as high as they have ever been historically. This is precisely what i meant by us having a higher bar. And we should continue to raise the bar. But don't talk about how tech could possibly make our lives better. Instead, lets continue the progress we have made.
Similarly, suicides are not only not a new phenomenon, but they are actually not as high as they have ever been historically. This is precisely what i meant by us having a higher bar. And we should continue to raise the bar. But don't talk about how tech could possibly make our lives better. Instead, lets continue the progress we have made.
"Bad things happened before" isn't really a rebuttal. The point of the original article was that tech can improve the outcomes of those things, but it's not, because we're not demanding it.
Worse things happened before, is the rebuttal. We are getting better. To the point that we now hold ourselves to standards we didn't even imagine before.
yet our stories of their past don't include any history before colonial forces, slave capture, or the faintest possibility that anything other than improvement could have come with the civilizing forces.
What? Even without the conquests of societies in the past, most other societies were much less likely to survive nature. A simple walk through the forest before antibiotics was ridiculously risky.
Again, the claim is that the bar is rising. Not that it always rose fairly. Nor that it has equally reached everyone. Just that, by and large, technology has made our lives better.
Again, the claim is that the bar is rising. Not that it always rose fairly. Nor that it has equally reached everyone. Just that, by and large, technology has made our lives better.
I mistakenly thought your double-grand-parent was related... so my comment is without context.
yeah, "tech" is changing things and I couldn't imagine life without it... I imagine there are beings on the planet that can't imagine life with it, and they seem to live fine lives.
we're special animals... in that technology is part of "us". but I don't know that makes our lives better.
bill joy and some others disagreed, too
yeah, "tech" is changing things and I couldn't imagine life without it... I imagine there are beings on the planet that can't imagine life with it, and they seem to live fine lives.
we're special animals... in that technology is part of "us". but I don't know that makes our lives better.
bill joy and some others disagreed, too
This sort of rhetoric is borderline insane, though. Yes, bad things happen even with tech. But they are typically far less dramatic than what happened before the tech.
Oh totally, war was much less dramatic before atomic bombs. /s
Edit for substance: Tech is a massively double-edged sword, and looking only at the benefits is dishonest. You have nuclear power, which is truly amazing, and nuclear weapons, which may yet end us all. You have vaccines, but also biological weapons, medicines and poisons, better plows, better swords. You can argue that tech is a net positive, but if it’s anything, it is dramatic.
Oh totally, war was much less dramatic before atomic bombs. /s
Edit for substance: Tech is a massively double-edged sword, and looking only at the benefits is dishonest. You have nuclear power, which is truly amazing, and nuclear weapons, which may yet end us all. You have vaccines, but also biological weapons, medicines and poisons, better plows, better swords. You can argue that tech is a net positive, but if it’s anything, it is dramatic.
We need you to please up the insight/provocation ratio of your comments, no matter what you're replying to.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Understood, I edited it to include more details about what I was trying to get across.
Despite the incredible destructive weaponry we can deploy today, the last half-century has been the least bloody in history. Technology has drastically improved both our ability to create and destroy, but fortunately we're doing more of the former.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll
Past performance does not guarantee future returns. One could say something similar about the 50 year period ending in 1910. WWI, WWII, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot really skew the average.
If you look at the death toll in proportion to the population at that time, even that 50 year period will be less bloody than some others in the past.
Let me argue that the only reason for this is the atomic bomb and not 'technological progress' as a whole. Technology's 'ability to create' has virtually no bearing on any of this in my opinion.
To add to what Kitsune has said, the violence has simply changed into a series of proxy wars between nuclear powers, at the expense of non-nuclear powers. The other part is that for the first time in over a thousand years, Western Europe isn’t almost constantly killing itself in endless wars.
> the violence has simply changed into a series of proxy wars between nuclear powers, at the expense of non-nuclear powers
Still thanks to technology (e.g. radio, satellite, improved espionage capabilities).
> Western Europe isn’t almost constantly killing itself in endless wars
Once again, thanks to technology. We're now able to do more for less, and many of the motivations for war (resources, land) are no longer as much as a contributing factor.
Still thanks to technology (e.g. radio, satellite, improved espionage capabilities).
> Western Europe isn’t almost constantly killing itself in endless wars
Once again, thanks to technology. We're now able to do more for less, and many of the motivations for war (resources, land) are no longer as much as a contributing factor.
For values or “us” which are nuclear powers and their close allies. Of course if “thanks to technology” we end up destroying ourselves with nuclear weapons, climate change, or something as yet unforeseen then really what has come of it? Fixing nitrogen for fertilizer also led to the democratization of high explosives. Nuclear power and weapons are linked.
Look away from your personal circumstances for a minute and consider the trajectory overall, for everyone, and not just you. This Panglossian “optimism” is downright destructive. It feels a lot like being in an airplane which has entered an unpowered, uncontrolled descent, and the guy next to tells you to be happy, it’s a miracle that we’re flying, humans never flew in all of history until recently.
Look away from your personal circumstances for a minute and consider the trajectory overall, for everyone, and not just you. This Panglossian “optimism” is downright destructive. It feels a lot like being in an airplane which has entered an unpowered, uncontrolled descent, and the guy next to tells you to be happy, it’s a miracle that we’re flying, humans never flew in all of history until recently.
Some feedback: the way you present your arguments is not useful or productive to discussion.
This has nothing to do with whether I agree or disagree with your premise. It's the delivery of the message that you need to improve if you want it to come across in a way that is productive.
This has nothing to do with whether I agree or disagree with your premise. It's the delivery of the message that you need to improve if you want it to come across in a way that is productive.
I appreciate the feedback and agree, I did a poor job. Hopefully my edit has added some much-needed substance.
And likewise - I appreciate your edit and I think your point is stronger for it (regardless of whether I agree or disagree with it)
That's funny because I was just thinking how much I appreciated your comments.
Edit: but of course I didn't see it before the edit ;)
Edit: but of course I didn't see it before the edit ;)
Did the site do down?
Reminds me of the Scuttlebutt culture docs, which I found recently: https://coolguy.website/writing/the-future-will-be-technical...
When I try to access the site, I get "Error establishing a database connection" Let's indeed demand better from tech!
I'm guessing that eventually, Azure and Google Cloud put enough pressure on AWS that the whole elastic solution situation is affordable enough that people stop skimping on affordable hosting.
At the moment, there's a fair amount of pennywise/poundfoolish behavior because of crazy high cloud egress costs.
There's a huge pricing chasm between, for example, a cheap Digital Ocean non-elastic hosting solution and AWS. Digital Ocean, though, is moving closer to an actual cloud, and the big 3 seem to be starting to compete on price.
At the moment, there's a fair amount of pennywise/poundfoolish behavior because of crazy high cloud egress costs.
There's a huge pricing chasm between, for example, a cheap Digital Ocean non-elastic hosting solution and AWS. Digital Ocean, though, is moving closer to an actual cloud, and the big 3 seem to be starting to compete on price.
Cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-S8H-gz...
Since this is an article on privacy in tech here's a mirror not hosted by one of the top invaders of online privacy: http://web.archive.org/web/20180305203213/http://locusmag.co...
I get stuck on that too, but viewing the text version + browser "reader" mode gets it for me :)
>It may sound improbable, but revolutions always rely on fifth columnists who change sides. In China Miéville’s October, a masterful, novelistic history of the Russian Revolution, he recounts how the Cossacks, the Czar’s most brutal shock-troops, took the revolutionaries’ side, refusing to mount cavalry charges on protestors and keeping their horses perfectly stationary while protesters openly crawled between the mounts’ legs, technically complying with their officers’ orders to “hold the street and do not move from your positions.”
Unfortunately, for the Cossacks, the Soviets basically committed genocide against them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decossackization
This goes to show you that before you switch sides, sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know.
Unfortunately, for the Cossacks, the Soviets basically committed genocide against them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decossackization
This goes to show you that before you switch sides, sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know.
The history of genocide is the history of human civilization.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom
"Modern historians give estimates of the scale of the murders by Khmelnytsky's Cossacks ranging between 40,000 and 100,000 men, women and children,[21][22] or perhaps many more.[23]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom
"Modern historians give estimates of the scale of the murders by Khmelnytsky's Cossacks ranging between 40,000 and 100,000 men, women and children,[21][22] or perhaps many more.[23]"
Just as a historical aside, I think this anecdote comes from the February revolution (which overthrew the czar, and which the book also covers), not the Bolshevik October revolution (which overthrew the parliamentary government established in February).
That also depends if your goal is self-preservation, or living in a principled way.
I wonder how many would maintain their principles if they knew the consequences, not just for themselves, but for their family too. Not too many I think
Your username is perfect.
You can have as many principles as you can afford.
Yeah, but then Google, Facebook et al started throwing six-figure salaries to CS graduates to steal your data and, well, that's what happened to hackers' ethics and technology morality.