
Our love of technology risks becoming a quiet conspiracy against ourselves - abdias
https://theconversation.com/our-love-of-technology-risks-becoming-a-quiet-conspiracy-against-ourselves-43428
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Omniusaspirer
"But technology is not neutral – and neither is code nor numbers. There are
human, subjective judgements lurking behind the apparent objectivity offered
by algorithms and the “user-friendly” operating systems. These technologies
perform almost magically, while at the same time enabling all sorts of
organizations to easily collect information about us, something that makes it
that bit easier to usher in new forms of surveillance and control."

This paragraph relates to a thought I've had lately:

What is the software "end game"? There has to a point where there's nothing
else worth adding to most commonly used software. Obviously we're in a climate
of rapid advancement and meta shifts currently but it seems as though that
will inevitably end at some point. Proprietary software that can profitably
leverage personal information is bound to hit the market first, but even if it
takes 50+ years you have to imagine that equally competitive open source and
freedom respecting alternatives will eventually become available.

~~~
crdb
Why should there be an end game? The history of human civilization is one of
constant progress, with leaps so large they are almost impossible to imagine
by previous generations. Imagine telling someone from the era of ocean liners
that in less than a century, his descendants would be routinely flying across
continents in hours for the price of a few meals, with safety levels so high
it is massively more dangerous for them to take a taxi to work. Imagine the
surprise of the world upon discovering nuclear weapons in 1945, the hope that
came from knowing it was a clean and seemingly endless source of power. Or
look at Asimov: he was a prescient writer in many respects, probably one of
the if not the greatest SF writer there was, but his works completely ignore
the connectivity that is pervasive today (when the NSA taps every phone and
reads every email automatically, when they can recognize your face even
turned, from a million CCTV cameras whose feed is parsed in real time, you
can't have plots with people running away in cities undetected).

The most exciting part of working in technology in general, and software in
particular, is that you get to be at - or at least better understand - the
cutting edge and see those changes before they become more broadly accepted.
For example, machine translation used to be cutting edge AI research in top
secret intelligence projects, yet today you can translate entire webpages in
Chrome with right click -> "Translate to English". For free. Hell, your
portable Star Trek-like computer can take a photo of the Japanese menu for you
and convert it to something understandable, then translate your response back
to Japanese for your waiter. The Babel Fish is real! Given a bit more time,
some better brain-computer interfaces and a larger corpus, we might well be
able to converse in any language without learning it...

Software is this generation's equivalent to steels and mechanical engineering
during the Industrial Revolution, and nuclear weapons and power in the 20th
century - we have conquered the physical realm pretty thoroughly but have only
made baby steps in knowledge compared to what is possible. Even
neuroscientists will admit we know relatively little about how the brain
really works. Just look at statistical learning: the field has only really
blossomed in the last 15 years or so.

The reason for proprietary software and IP is always the same: to generate via
extremely expensive R&D leaps in knowledge and products that allow the
researching company to reap outsized returns. Yesterday, it was operating
systems and office suites. Today, it's applications that need things like
massive GPU clusters for deep learning, or knowing how to scale complex
services (like Google Image Search) to billions of users, or weak AI (self-
driving cars). I would love nothing more than a glimpse to the technology of
2060 or 2600, although I doubt I would be able to grasp even a fraction of
what it represents. Just knowing the problems they are trying to solve then,
would be fascinating.

~~~
rodgerd
> The history of human civilization is one of constant progress

A medieval peasant most likely had more leisure time than you. Having a local
technological maxima doesn't mean "constant progress".

~~~
crdb
I'm not an expert in medieval history, but I have worked in India's
countryside (specifically: Maharashtra, a few hours from Pune) with an Indian
multinational and let me assure you that the peasants there (whose conditions
of living economically mirror those of medieval peasants, although they have
slightly more rights in theory) don't have much leisure time.

It's morning to evening back-breaking physical work, undernourishment as a
matter of fact, and very high probability of death - some of the families we
talked to had been 2/3 decimated by the age of 35, from traffic accidents, a
host of diseases like cholera, snakes, you name it... There is no question
when I'd rather live.

~~~
TeMPOraL
This. I think that before the industrial revolution, we had peak leisure (for
an average individual) during hunter-gatherer times, and it went quickly
downhill when we invented agriculture.

~~~
visarga
But sill, wealthy enough people, who have access to medicine and other
resources still don't know how to be happier. They just are less sick and live
more.

~~~
crdb
I disagree, but only based on empirical evidence (and I have no idea how one
could measure it scientifically without getting into an argument as to what
defines happiness - Maslow?).

I've lived in third world, "second" world, and a host of first world countries
including the very desirable Australia, Singapore and Switzerland and I've
definitely found a strong correlation between wealth (including scientific and
political) and happiness.

Past a certain level of _personal_ wealth and regardless of the surroundings
(although they affect that level), philosophy becomes more important, but
that's another argument. Even there, I'd argue more prosperous countries are
correlated with sounder philosophies and happier HNWIs, but my sample size is
much smaller.

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mirimir
Dan Geer published a relevant column last week in The Christian Science
Monitor: "Opinion: The reasonable expectation fallacy".[0]

The lede: "The ability to delete yourself from the Web doesn't really matter.
What really matters in the age of advanced surveillance is the right to not be
correlated. Technology is always watching and capturing you, but the
correlation is where the danger lies. Laws can change that, but only if
enacted soon."

That's an interesting perspective from the "chief information security officer
for In-Q-Tel". [0] But yes, it does seem inevitable: pervasive surveillance of
everyone by everyone. Like a global village aka small town.

However, I'm not convinced that laws would be enough. Criminals (large and
small) don't care so much about laws. So arguably we're each responsible for
our own privacy.

The ubiquity of requisite knowledge and technology, facilitated by leaks, may
allow the sufficiently motivated to claw back some privacy. But sadly enough,
perhaps the most highly motivated are the criminals. Not good.

[0] [http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/Passcode-
Voices/2015...](http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/Passcode-
Voices/2015/0617/Opinion-The-reasonable-expectation-fallacy)

~~~
mirimir
I was being dense. Reading a recent post to cpunks, I get that Dan is calling
for laws to restrict surveillance and correlation by private institutions and
individuals.[0]

Now his position makes sense. He wants governments (presumably those who fund
his firm) to have a monopoly on surveillance and correlation. While I agree on
dangers from other criminals, restricting private institutions and individuals
is authoritarian, unless there's an exception for whistle-blowing.

[0]
[https://cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2015-June/008069.ht...](https://cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2015-June/008069.html)

~~~
mirimir
OK, so that's not Dan's position.[0]

> I, for one, would gladly paraphrase John Perry Barlow's declaration of
> independence of cyberspace and say that the "weary giants of flesh and
> steel" should leave me alone but only if the "technology [that] is being
> imposed on a global scale without restraint" will do likewise. A pox on
> both; may they fight to a standstill somewhere other than my front room or
> my backyard.

[0]
[https://cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2015-June/008081.ht...](https://cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2015-June/008081.html)

------
dang
Url changed from [http://phys.org/news/2015-06-technology-quiet-
conspiracy.htm...](http://phys.org/news/2015-06-technology-quiet-
conspiracy.html), which points to this.

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daodedickinson
Today I had the thought that "technology can be defined as the process of
turning people into hikikimori" but nah.

------
roghummal
Dropcam.

