
Notes from an Emergency [video] - Propen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSrLjb3k1II
======
ploggingdev
> Regulate ads to target content, not users.

This. 1000x.

At it's core this is essentially like sponsorship. Anecdote : I've always
found sponsored content more useful than the ads that ad networks show me and
they are also not creepy like traditional ads. Eg- I search for strawberries
on google, click through a few links. Separately I visit a tech blog to learn
about how to monitor a VPS, guess what shows up on a site about servers and
software? Strawberries! Creepy as f*uck and completely out of place.

Do you think an ad network that focuses on targeting content rather than users
will work? Are there any such networks already? If not, it's time to build
one.

~~~
avaer
What's your selling point to advertisers though? That you're a worse-targeted
version of the big guys? You could say you're more user-friendly, but I don't
think that's a premium most advertisers are willing to subsidize.

If this were a good opportunity for an ad network, then we wouldn't need any
regulation to force it.

~~~
idlewords
This is why it's a regulatory argument, not a business argument. Without a
regulatory floor, it's a race to the bottom.

People will always respond better to novel forms of advertising, and it takes
bad actors some time to figure out how to game new kinds of online
advertising. The result is ever more invasive surveillance and tracking
techniques, in a Red Queen's race.

------
TeMPOraL
Typical 'idlewords :). Lots of good points intermingled with unwarranted jabs
at Elon Musk, X-risk and anti-aging efforts. I suppose the latter are just
signalling, but they do detract from the point he's making.

The points about tech running amok with the surveillance capitalism are spot
on. I do have some doubts about other parts though; here are they in somewhat
random order:

\-- Problem solving.

I'm not buying this villifying of tech world for trying to avoid the "dirty
political work". In fact, I believe it's a good approach. Turning a problem
into a political issue pretty much guarantees that it won't be solved as
people take sides and then invent arguments to rationalize their positions.
Just look at the climate change - since it became politicized, it's close to
impossible to do anything in the area (Trump's election in the US is not
helping either). The only way to address it now is by ignoring the democratic
process altogether - by doing research, developing new technologies, and
hoping for the market forces to sort things out.

Moreover, why does the tech industry is always blamed for trying to avoid
political work? Like, are there no human beings who don't work in tech
industry that could try a different approach? Why is tech industry expected to
do everything, and then at the same time gets called out for hubris?

Related, on tech and life extension efforts. I call the Comet King principle -
"somebody has to and no one else will". Why is nobody else besides tech
billionaires interested in putting serious resources into solving that
problem?

\-- Poland.

Is it an evil surveillance state now? I live there and I haven't noticed it.

\-- Trump.

I'm starting to get a feeling that some people on anti-Trump side are just
sore losers, and can't accept that he won democratic elections; no, it must be
some conspiracy. I'm not endorsing what Trump is doing, but the facts on the
ground are that many people did vote for him, and denying them agency makes it
more difficult to notice the problems those people face in their lives.

~~~
alex_young
You completely lost me by calling a sizable majority of voters anti-democratic
sore losers.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I didn't call them that - you did, by asserting that the sore losers I
identified actually form the majority of the voting population.

EDIT:

Also, "you lost me" kool kid dismissal is supposed to be used with things
mentioned early in the piece of writing, not with literally the last two
sentences of the post. You admitted that you read everything, so no points for
style :P.

~~~
alex_young
You very much did. Go reread your comment.

You lost me is me telling you that I was entertaining your argument up to the
point where you called the majority who voted for someone else sore losers.

The 'kool kid' slur seems pretty unnecessary. What value does that add to your
argument?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Let me quote directly from my comment:

"I'm starting to get a feeling that _some_ people on anti-Trump side are just
sore losers, and can't accept that he won democratic elections; no, it must be
some conspiracy."

Note the key word "some" here. I didn't call the majority of voters (or even
of those not voting for Trump) "sore losers". Most people who didn't want
Trump to win are sad about the outcome - that's normal. But there's a huge
difference between being sad your side lost, and going around talking all the
time about how the other side _could not possibly have won_ (and it must be
some kind of evil conspiracy).

The "wrong" side won, but the real question isn't how, it's _why_. As for
answering it, 'idlewords says it's a "bug in the operating system of our
democracy, one of the many ways that slavery still casts its shadow over
American politics". Personally, I disagree. I think this is democracy working
as designed, and the whole situation should be a sad lesson about a) what you
get when lots of people feel they are treated unfairly, and b) that general
population is kind of dumb in aggregate, and nationalism is unfortunately the
default state (in-group/out-group).

That, and c) what you get when you let media spin the "Muslim == terrorism"
narrative ad nauseam for close to two decades now.

------
neom
This paper, Natural Monopoly and Its Regulation Richard A. Posner (1968) gives
a really good overview of how (and why) this might play out.
[http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...](http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2861&context=journal_articles)

------
idlewords
Text version here:
[http://idlewords.com/talks/notes_from_an_emergency.htm](http://idlewords.com/talks/notes_from_an_emergency.htm)

------
gojomo
Ceglowski wants internet companies to be brought under stronger regulatory
authority of local European governments, to protect societies and elections
from pernicious forces in those companies and on the internet generally. He
hopes there's a spillover benefit to people in other countries.

"Regulate, regulate, regulate!", Maciej urges.

Erdogan of Turkey says, "OK, Maciej!" – blocking Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp,
& Wikipedia in the name of social order.

Putin of Russia says, "OK, Maciej!" – running the Zuckerberg-of-Russia (Durov)
out of the country, blocking protest websites, and moving Russia towards a
Chinese model of internet content control.

Newly-elected Macron of France says, "OK, Maciej!" – following previous French
initiatives to fine Google for failing to delete truthful news worldwide under
EU 'Right to be Forgotten' rules, and to ban 'terrorist' websites by
administrative decree, Macron pledges further regulations to "stop fake news".

Theresa May of the UK says, "OK, Maciej!" – unveiling a manifesto to make
Britain "the global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and
the internet", penalizing internet companies that "direct users – even
unintentionally – to hate speech, pornography, or other sources of harm".

~~~
idlewords
Obviously there is good and bad regulation. I go into specifics about what I
want in the text version of this talk, and here:

[http://idlewords.com/six_fixes.htm](http://idlewords.com/six_fixes.htm)

~~~
gojomo
But how often are snarky but otherwise mild-mannered technocrats like yourself
able to set the agenda for internet regulation, as opposed to actual
demagogues like (in varying degrees) Macron, May, Erdogan, and Putin?

Your "regulate, regulate, regulate" chant about the evil influences of the
American internet will in practice drive more censorship then privacy
protection – even when, as with the Tories' new internet-regulation manifesto,
the censorship is itself dressed up in "data protection" guise.

~~~
monknomo
Despots gonna despot regardless of what idlewords (or anyone else) does

------
jakozaur
Celgowski got one of the most original and accurate view of the world. He see
the big picture.

------
grkvlt
I think that the phenomenon of rich people investing in life extension
technology is inescapable - it's the one thing that having a billion dollars
still can't fix right now, rich people die just the same as everyone else...
But I agree with the sentiment that the world doesn't really need an immortal
Larry Ellisson ;)

------
cjauvin
"Now some dopey kids in Palo Alto get to decide the political future of the
European Union based on some coding bootcamp that they went to. This doesn't
seem right."

------
Animats
Summary?

~~~
gcr
Here's a transcript of the talk:
[http://idlewords.com/talks/notes_from_an_emergency.htm](http://idlewords.com/talks/notes_from_an_emergency.htm)

~~~
Animats
_" The emergency I want to talk about is the rise of a vigorous ethnic
nationalism in Europe and America. This nationalism makes skillful use of
online tools, tools that we believed inherently promoted freedom, to advance
an authoritarian agenda. ..._

 _There are five Internet companies — Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and
Facebook. Together they have a market capitalization just under 3 trillion
dollars._

 _And please regulate, regulate, regulate this industry, while you can. "_

The trouble for calling for regulation is that what you get is Theresa May's
version.[1] Or the Great Firewall of China.

[1] [http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/new...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
tech/news/theresa-may-internet-conservatives-government-a7744176.html)

~~~
maxerickson
A simple workaround is to regulate the collection, storage and use of
personally identifiable information.

There's nothing especially horrifying about Facebook not being allowed to use
demographic profile information to target advertising.

~~~
dasmoth
How do we regulate in a way that limits the power of the big five without also
hurting small businesses? Otherwise, the end result will almost certainly be
to bolster Google and Facebook.

~~~
alphonsegaston
By creating strong regulations to curb the worst practices of ad company
tracking, then dismantling these monopolies the same way we did with Microsoft
in the 90s.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
The regulation of Microsoft is what got us where we are today in terms of loss
of privacy.

The Microsoft model was:

1) Money from selling useful software that people buy

2) The web as an information source. Apps are actually software that is (paid
for and) installed

3) The PC as hub for the user's digital Life

Instead, with help from the DOJ, Microsoft lost, and now we have the Google
model

1) Software and services given away as enticement for user data which is then
sold to advertisers.

2) Primacy of the web app over installed apps.

3) A central service as the hub of a user's digital life.

These together have eroded privacy and user's control over their data.

~~~
alphonsegaston
That's an interesting point. How do you think we should go after Google and
company then?

