
Ai Weiwei Is Living in Our Future - dirtyaura
https://medium.com/@hansdezwart/ai-weiwei-is-living-in-our-future-474e5dd15e4f
======
rasengan0
We'll all take the red pill someday, but I swallowed the blue one already. I
found the article enlightening, reminding me of the continued complacency and
abject indifference in favor of convenience and other affordances of mindless
empty rewards (yay, startups!) much like the Radiohead 1997 song, Fitter
Happier
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Computer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Computer)

I missed the whole Ai Weiwei media storm due to disinterest and made up
assumptions about yet another dissenter getting hammered down by the State;
like duh? What else is new over "there"? Well on the internets, where is there
or here? The article actually made me pause playing FTL to Google Ai WeiWei
and watch the streamed Netflix documentary:
[http://aiweiweineversorry.com/](http://aiweiweineversorry.com/) Wow, here was
someone who could have kept his mouth shut and kept kowtowing to rake in the
bucks, but instead choose a new "career path" out of politics and got a fat
tax bill for the trouble. Gutsy move or sending a message? Let's hope the next
generation gives damn.

~~~
abandonliberty
Ai Weiwei Never Sorry is surprisingly enjoyable and it does a great job of
giving some in-depth understanding of Chinese culture.

You can watch it a few minutes at a time. Ai Weiwei is a troll who has some
degree of safety due to his and his father's fame.

His arrest was encouraged by a work of art whose title could be interpreted
as, "fuck your mother Communist Party Central Committee" (NSFW)
[http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/379212-baidu-10-mythical-
crea...](http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/379212-baidu-10-mythical-creatures-
grass-mud-horse)

Less accessible, but still potentially informative and hilarious is his music
video of his detention:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ACj86DKfWs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ACj86DKfWs)

------
sp4ke
I have always been fascinated by computers and passionate about programming. I
never taught I would ever feel ashamed of my passion ... that maybe I have
been part of the decline of freedom and privacy, the same things I've always
believed in and fought for . I've finished reading again 1984 a short time
ago, and I felt sick reading this article and realizing we're making a
monster.

I stopped using Facebook a few months ago and it was not so easy as I thought.
Since then, whenever I people ask me I give them my views about keeping
privacy and such ... they always have the same reply: Why would you want to
hide something ? or We can do nothing about it, everyone does it ... it makes
me even sicker when it comes from Tech friends who understand the consequences
but just don't care about it.

~~~
ZenoArrow
You feel awful now, but what you've written is very encouraging. You're doing
the right thing.

Coding can be put to good use too. Perhaps there's an open-source project you
can contribute to that has a positive benefit to offer society? What social
injustices are you most passionate about?

I also intend to leave Facebook (again) very soon. The only reason I haven't
in the past is that I didn't want to lose contact with some people, but I
figure if I share my email address as I leave anyone that wants to contact me
can do. We don't have to employ a scorched earth policy every time we want to
change, losing everything we got from something, we often have better
alternatives.

I should move away from Gmail for similar reasons, does anyone have
suggestions of a secure email service with webmail and Android app access?

~~~
sp4ke
You're right, we should use our skills in open source projects. I think
decentralized technologies are the way to fix the problems with Internet.

Speaking of Gmail, I also want to stop using Google services. I went back the
good old times, just setup a mail server on a linux dedicated box and started
sharing my new email address. It's going to be painful but there's no way
around it. You can then setup POP or IMAP on Android like we always did
before.

I remember a discussion with a friend of mine about the source of these
problems, we came up to the conclusion that Internet was an amazing technology
when poeple could speak up their minds freely, this is how Internet itself was
built and the same for good Open Source projects like Linux. But now we let
the greedy guys run businesses with internet and they are trying to replicate
the physical world. We are basically transforming what was a door to
creativity and freedom to a mirror of our daily lives. And the common factor
to all these problems is "identity". Most internet technologies and new
startups are obsessed with identity. We are linking authentication to more
social networks. Linking our phones to online services and always giving our
identity in the process. I wonder what would be the Internet if there was no
way to have "identity" at all supported in the protocol level. Maybe it's too
late.

~~~
ZenoArrow
I can reassure you it's not too late. If you wish to get involved in the
decentralised web as a coder, could always participate in the technologies
surrounding the Darknet Plan...
[http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan/](http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan/)

Personally I believe the Darknet Plan is doomed to fail on a large scale
unless they tackle the downsides of decentralisation, but that's just my
personal opinion. There's plenty of work to do, I'm sure you could find some
tasks that interested you.

With email, you're right that POP/IMAP on a dedicated box is preferable from a
security standpoint. Food for thought, thank you.

~~~
handsomeransoms
> With email, you're right that POP/IMAP on a dedicated box is preferable from
> a security standpoint.

This depends on your threat model, and I'd argue that this statement is untrue
for the vast majority of people, even people who have the technical know-how
required to run their own email server. Running an email server, keeping it up
to date with the latest security patches, managing SSL certificates, blocking
spam, blocking malware, and blocking phishing attempts are all things that
Google is better at than you. Part of the reason for this is their access to
incredible volumes of data, which lets them analyze trends and emerging
threats across an relatively large subset of the email-using population.

The average user's threat model is much more along the lines of phishing,
malware, or spam-related fraud. Google is incredibly good at protecting people
from these threats (as is obvious when I compare the volume of spam, which
often contains malware or phishing links, that I receive on my Gmail account
against my other, non-Gmail accounts).

Of course, if your threat model is that you require protection from law
enforcement or government surveillance, then Google may be a poor choice as
they are legally obligated to turn over information about you that is
requested by such entities. If that is your adversary, however, than you
should have a lot more work to do to protect yourself than just quitting Gmail
and setting up your own mail server.

------
jgon
This is easily the most important article currently on the front page. At
times its poignancy reminded me of some of the talks by Maciej Ceglowski, aka
the guy who runs Pinboard, but this talk is a bit more direct and a bit less
funny.

The world of coveillance or sousveillance sounds attractive, but I think that
a quick look at the state of computing for the average person, and their
ability to organize photos, run their own email server, or any number of tasks
that would be somewhat analogous to the ability for citizens to have some form
of meaningful technological power against large corporations and the
government, should dispel this notion pretty quickly.

The frog is being slowly boiled right now, and I honestly don't have any
answers about what to do. All I can think is just to do what I can to use free
software, support organizations like the EFF and Mozilla, and work to make
sure that my life isn't completely captured by giant companies like Google and
Apple, as I also try to remain politically engaged at home.

Maybe that's all any of us can do.

~~~
rdrey
I would like to design my next side-project to be decentralised and federated,
giving people the option to run it on their own hardware. It's a small step in
the right direction, I think, and it makes me feel slightly happier about the
direction we are heading in. (With the frog definitely in the pot, but not
boiling yet.)

------
Punoxysm
Even if his criticisms of coveillance are correct, I still think the world is
headed that way.

Simply put, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. We passed a similar
threshold with industrialization, and the consequent removal of autonomy for
workers on several levels (is the 1800's factory of exacting time cards and
constant repetitive movements that far behind the warehouse the author
describes?). It was a tumultuous transition (strikes, revolution, communism,
etc.) but we made it through. The transformation in state and corporate power
that tools like surveillance bring will be similar, but just like in the
industrial revolution we can't turn back the clock and have to instead ride
out whatever happens.

~~~
c1sc0
Serious question: where do we start when we want to fight this? We made it
through the industrial revolution because people stood up for their rights.
I'm at a total loss for where to start. (Edit: grammar)

~~~
thaumaturgy
Like with many other causes, you start with yourself -- and that might be
enough.

These days, not participating in the latest electronics and social sites and
whatnot is enough to make people ask you questions. If you think carefully
enough about why you're making the choices you make, then you can give pretty
reasonable answers.

I don't own a smart phone, or have a Facebook or LinkedIn account. I still buy
paper books. I don't blog (much). And I don't really evangelize these choices;
I don't do any of this for attention or to try to change other people's minds.
But, when someone notices their tech guy is carrying an old-school flip phone,
they ask questions.

Usually the first thing I say is, "they're really convenient, really good
tools," immediately followed by, "but, I've noticed that people seem to have a
lot of trouble ignoring them, and I don't need another distraction in my life.
I don't really want an internet connection to follow me everywhere."

As far as I know, I haven't made anyone else give up their smart phone or
Facebook account or whatever. But a surprising number of people take a moment
to think about that. They often kinda look at their phone and go, "...huh, I
wonder what that would be like..."

And, y'know, just the fact that I get by and live pretty well without these
things I think speaks more about how valuable they really are than any sermon
I could think of.

~~~
zzalpha
Eh, by that reasoning, you could equally live without electricity or running
water.

Technology is leveraged, not because it's strictly necessary, but because it's
useful. After all, the very website we're having this conversation on isn't
necessary. You could get by just fine without it.

But it's useful, isn't it?

Frankly, I don't think quietly opting out solves anything. Would it have
helped if some folks opted out of the industrial revolution, content to sit on
their farms eking out a living? No. It was those folks participating in the
system, but determined to change it, who ultimately lead the charge and
catalyzed change.

This technology is here, and it's enormously powerful and useful. But that
necessarily means it's also enormously dangerous. The solution isn't to
attempt to convince people to abandon that technology and somehow roll back
the clock. The solution is for folks to understand the good _and_ the evil
these technologies can enable so that we can have intelligent conversations
about their use and abuse; conversations that can ultimately inform a new
generation of law makers, business owners, and citizens, so that we can
realize the advantages of these technologies while minimizing the downsides.

Fortunately, things like the NSA leaks may be just the thing necessary to
start those conversations.

~~~
thaumaturgy
I disagree that living with a flip phone instead of a smart phone is in any
way equivalent to living without electricity or running water.

You're more than welcome to fight the good fight -- good luck to you -- but
I'm not convinced that I'm so right that it should be my mission to change
others' minds, and regardless the advice I gave is a good first step for
anyone that is interested in changing others' minds.

~~~
nitrogen
I don't think the parent comment wants you to get people to downgrade. I think
the intent is to get people to demand better protections from abuses of
technology.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Maybe I'm not imaginative enough, but I can't figure how that would happen.

Who could be trusted to safeguard privacy? The government? The services that
depend on advertising revenue, which these days is most of them?

Downgrading and opting-out has been the only option that has made sense to me.
(But I'm probably weird.)

------
sabalaba
Pretty alarmist writing. "I therefore can’t resist showing a new piece of
Google technology: the military robot ‘WildCat’ made by Boston Dynamics which
was bought by Google in December 2013". And goes on to show a video of
something that was funded by DARPA well before Google purchased Boston
Dynamics. Google has already said multiple times that it won't be pursuing any
military contracts.

~~~
higherpurpose
> Google has already said multiple times that it won't be pursuing any
> military contracts.

And you so quickly trust one of the biggest corporations in the world to "keep
its promise" over following whatever its biggest interest will be in the
future?

Google also said it won't deal _at all_ with the military before they bought
the robots, and a few months later it was selling them Google Glass...so yeah.

And Google Glass is something anyone barely wants. Imagine Google's robots
were so great that it would cause a "revolution" in what we can do with
robots. Do you really believe that if Pentagon came knocking at Google's door
saying "Here, we want _1 million_ of these robots for $100,000 a piece".
Google would say "Um, no thanks buddy, we already said in public 10 years ago
(under a different CEO) that we wouldn't sell to you...but you could pay that
$100 billion to Microsoft's robot division if you like. Our shareholders won't
mind".

Is that how you imagine it going down? That said, I'm already pissed off
because Oculus/Facebook have decided to sell Oculus Rifts to the military to
make drone assassinations that much more convenient.

~~~
pcthrowaway
That's not _exactly_ the same thing though. Google glass wasn't made _for_ the
military, but of course Google isn't going to refuse to sell them a product
that they have made publicly available.

Perhaps the military will want to buy more of Google's tech, but it sounds
like Google isn't (currently) planning on building robots for the military.

------
jeffhiggins
The uncomfortable truth is that many HN readers are the ones gleefully
building these tools.

~~~
zzalpha
Do you really think said hackers are "gleefully building these tools"
specifically in order to enable a surveillance state?

Of course not.

It's been said a million times before: every technology can be used for good
or for ill. After all, the technology that enables you to drink the water
coming out of your tap, one of the most important developments in the history
of mankind, is the very same technology that makes mustard gas possible.

And of course there's that quintessential example: nuclear fission, equally
capable of saving or destroying billions.

In fact, I'd go so far as to claim that every technology mankind has ever
invented to benefit itself has eventually been turned against us. After all,
last I checked fire was a pretty common weapon of war.

So is it possible that folks at Google are nefariously turning us all into
biological components of their computing infrastructure, and in the process
deliberately and consciously empowering a government-corporate surveillance
state? Yes, it's possible.

It's equally (I'd like to believe more) likely someone just thought it'd be
cool if my phone tracked my location and could provide me sight-seeing
suggestions when I'm in a new city.

Now, this doesn't take away from the fundamental point of the article: that
technology available today is changing our lives with consequences we have yet
to fully comprehend, and will likely fundamentally change the way society
functions. But I think it's unnecessarily cynical to believe those inventing
said technology are deliberately attempting to bring about the dystopian
future the author envisions.

~~~
gurkendoktor
> It's been said a million times before: every technology can be used for good
> or for ill

But what is the "good" about what we're building? The most cringe-worthy
justification I have ever read for giving up privacy was this post by an Ex-
Googler[1]:

> Digital identity unlocks universal personalization (i.e. better ads),
> payments and commerce (i.e. Snapcash), environmental adaptation (i.e. an
> Uber that plays your Spotify music), communications (i.e. Path Talk), and
> access (i.e. Sosh Concierge). Today’s most exciting apps are barely
> scratching the surface of what will be possible when there are years of
> preferences data stored up on each of us, that we can leverage at a moments
> notice, in any context.

An Uber that plays your Spotify music and better ads! This is the "good" we
are chasing. I have never felt more ashamed to sit in front of a computer.

[1] [https://medium.com/@chrismessina/thoughts-on-
google-8883844a...](https://medium.com/@chrismessina/thoughts-on-
google-8883844a9ca4)

~~~
lazaroclapp
The general idea from that is: computer systems that know a lot about you can
provide personalized services for you or about you. Those services can be to
your benefit or detriment, depending on who controls the data, their
intentions and their priorities (e.g. quick cash grab vs sustainable customer
relations). If you want better examples: Google maps knowing your location
allows you to navigate in places where you don't know the surrounding area or
where you are exactly; Gmail reading all your mails allows you to filter crud
out of your inbox and pretty much solved the spam problem that plagued the
90s; Facebook makes a lot of your life transparent to corporations, but it
also does allow you to keep up with the lives of friends in distant places
that you don't meet often. Now, I am all for solutions that make your private
data more opaque to the services that consume it, and the way they consume it
more transparent to you. But services based on your personal information will
not disappear, and the reason is not some dark evil conspiracy to monitor your
every step (or, at least, not _just_ some dark evil conspiracy to monitor your
every step) but the fact that people find this services useful. Like the
industrial revolution, the issue is not that we are going forward with this
new uses of energy/information, but that we are doing so largely without
consideration of their harmful externalities (pollution in the case of the
industrial revolution, misuse of private data in the case of the information
one).

------
kingkawn
In the efforts to improve surveillance they have given us the tools to subvert
it. Yes, they can watch us all, but we can also all watch each other. Yes, we
have nothing to be ashamed of, and they no longer control the ability to
spread ideas about what is shameful. When they are abusing one person,
everyone can know.

Ai Wei Wei would not still be in communication with the world without the same
technology that is permitting his surveillance.

At the same time as the surveillance state is growing, we are being told that
all of the platforms that have the broadest potential reach are lame. That
facebook is not cool, so any messages you send out on it will be judged by the
medium, not the message. We have more than enough power already to reach other
with messages that spread faster than a security state can quash them. The
Chinese government's control isn't growing, its faltering. The US government's
control isn't growing. They know more about us all, and can do less to us.

~~~
thaumaturgy
> _Yes, we have nothing to be ashamed of_

I'm going to mostly side-step the de facto response to this ("surveillance
isn't about shame, it's about control, etc. etc."), because the more
interesting thing here is that there's a good chance your point of view is
going to become the predominant one in future generations.

Generations like mine were taught that privacy was important for freedom (e.g.
1984), and even though the lesson didn't really stick with all of us, I think
that there's still some clear generational divisions when it comes to privacy.

Younger people seem to see this as old-fashioned, or are completely
uninterested in privacy and happy to accept the tradeoffs for convenience.

Year by year I'm increasingly expecting that the future won't hold some kind
of social agitation for more privacy and less surveillance, it will instead
have nearly complete surveillance and absence of privacy, and everyone -- or
almost everyone -- will be glad for it.

~~~
desdiv
I disagree. Public opinion polls clearly show that the younger generation is
more intolerant of the NSA mass surveillance[0][1], for example.

Sometimes the difference can be startling:

 _Once again, there was a significant relationship between age group and
support for monitoring everyone’s online activity. Only 15% of Canadians aged
18 to 29 believed that the Canadian government should monitor online
activities if officials say it might prevent future terrorist attacks compared
with 34% of those aged 30 to 44 and 43% for those aged 45 to 59._ [2]

That's almost a three fold difference between the 18 to 29 group and the 45 to
59 group.

[0] [http://www.people-press.org/2013/06/10/majority-views-nsa-
ph...](http://www.people-press.org/2013/06/10/majority-views-nsa-phone-
tracking-as-acceptable-anti-terror-tactic/)

[1] [http://www.people-press.org/2013/06/17/public-split-over-
imp...](http://www.people-press.org/2013/06/17/public-split-over-impact-of-
nsa-leak-but-most-want-snowden-prosecuted/)

[2] [http://abacusinsider.com/politics-public-affairs/nsa-
snowden...](http://abacusinsider.com/politics-public-affairs/nsa-snowden-
canadians-terrorism-online-privacy/)

~~~
thaumaturgy
Thanks for the studies. That's good news.

I'd nitpick though that there's a substantial difference between "government
surveillance to stop terrorism" and "volunteer my personal information
everywhere because I get cool things for it". For instance, most Snapchat
users are between the ages of 13 and 25 (according to
[http://www.businessinsider.com/a-primer-on-snapchat-and-
its-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/a-primer-on-snapchat-and-its-
demographics-2014-7)).

~~~
desdiv
_most Snapchat users are between the ages of 13 and 25_

Isn't that an argument _for_ the younger generation being more privacy-
conscious? I.e. that they're willing to forgo the convenience of a message
history in exchange for more privacy in their communications?

~~~
thaumaturgy
No. Snapchat has been under fire from several directions for a while for
promising more privacy than was actually provided. They had a major account
leak, there have been applications for a while that can save received photos,
they got a pretty poor privacy review from the EFF...

Being privacy-conscious would have to include caring at least a little bit
about privacy-related news (and not just Snowden-related).

 _sigh_

Maybe we're struggling a bit here because privacy can mean so many different
things in different contexts.

There's privacy from parents. That's something that I think young people have
cared about for a long time, and that's not likely to change soon. So,
Snapchat is popular.

There's privacy from the government. This situation is harder to read because
there are a lot of nuances. You can be politically opposed to a government
spying on its own citizens without necessarily caring about personal privacy;
if you distrust your government, then politically you're resistant to giving
it more powers, even if you don't see how those powers might be abused.

And then there's personal privacy: control over who owns information about you
and what they can do with it, and that doesn't seem to be getting very much
traction in younger markets. There certainly hasn't been a revolt against
online services ([http://www.forbes.com/sites/gyro/2014/01/09/forbes-where-
are...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/gyro/2014/01/09/forbes-where-are-teens-
hanging-out-in-2014-hint-its-not-facebook/)), even post-Snowden, even after
it's generally accepted that the business model for each of those services is
to gather as much personal information about their users as possible.

~~~
Intermernet
I think the problem here, that will catch other online providers, is that
snapchat's success is still based on the flawed presumption that it's actually
private (by any of your definitions).

Hopefully the realization that these services aren't as private as advertized
will have a ripple effect in the "younger markets", but I doubt it.

------
hansdezwart
For me as the author of the piece, it is wonderful to find an informed and
critical discussion of the themes that I tried to discuss here in the
comments. I will likely try and answer some of them here in the next couple of
hours and am happy to answer any questions.

~~~
zzzeek
how about more background info on the "US Warehouse (think amazon)" that will
actually fire someone "on the spot" for taking a 31 minute lunch? (think
actual company / location names, backing documentation?) I find it hard to
believe that's not just a bit exaggerated.

~~~
hansdezwart
I got it from this podcast: [http://www.radiolab.org/story/brown-
box/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/brown-box/)

------
MichaelTieso
For those in the SF area, I highly recommend going to Alcatraz to experience
some of Ai Weiwei's work. [http://www.for-site.org/project/ai-weiwei-
alcatraz/](http://www.for-site.org/project/ai-weiwei-alcatraz/)

Never Sorry is a fantastic documentary on Ai Weiwei's life. I contributed to
documentary while it was Kickstarter and got to see it in a theater in DC.
[http://aiweiweineversorry.com/](http://aiweiweineversorry.com/)

------
LiweiZ
Sorry to digress here. Just want to comment on Ai. He is like many other
iconic/famous people in the country, who got awards aboard, do things that
seem against the ruling party in the country and basically walk away with way
less consequences almost every time. Some of them get into short-term jail
like hero and after that their experiences worth much more. This is very
interesting since average people would probably face fatal consequences, if
they did something like that, even once.

~~~
rdtsc
Good point. The government in the propaganda domain at least is bound by high
ideals and promises -- "We are for freedom. We represent the people. We don't
stiffle expression. (Unlike those other countries out there...)". So doing
anything too harsh to a public figure, known internationally, is going to
create a big hassle.

At another level you can argue that he is also a token, and thus implicitly
somehow part of the system. He is a representative example of how "tollerant
and open" the country is. "Hey look, a harsh critic of the system is still
alive and still working". So it is important to keep him around but tighten
the screw periodically a bit so he stays in check, so to speak.

On the topic of the article. I think the interesting part is how Ai tried to
manage the surveilance and how he responded to it. Installing cameras around
and basically making his life completely public, for everyone. At some level
that mocked and maybe emasculated the watchers. Monitoring, is a power play of
course too. This mocking was probably rather infuriating for them. "Oh you
want to monitor me, fine I'll monitor myself 10x better than you and will let
everyone participate".

But also this is also possible because he is already a public figure. His
public image is the only thing that shields and protects him and allows him to
do this. He knows it of course.

The other example, is him approaching the undercover officers watching him.
Also a great way to mock and in way difuse their power.

Extrapolating to how we (in US) are watched and monitored by Apple, Google,
NSA, not sure how and what can be learned here. The difference that it is
rather impersonal and mocking doesn't work in the same way. You know people
insert signatures with [al-Qaeda, bomb, president, blah blah] in their emails.
Not sure what that does. We might never know.

~~~
LiweiZ
Based on my observation of those iconic people in China, I have to say that a
sad truth is nearly 100% are performers in media. It took me a long time to
accept this. I was looking for some really contemporary thinkers in my nation
but failed. Instead, I found a "career path" for some iconic guys. I know it
sounds unbelievable, given the context of life in US.

~~~
crucialfelix
I saw the Ai Weiwei show recently and I was noting that he uses his brief
imprisonment for its performance value and I was a bit critical of this. There
was one room that was just all the artifacts laid out (police reports,
confiscated computers). This didn't seem like much of an artwork compared to
his much better and more complex ones like
[http://www.zodiacheads.com/about_exhibit_gold.html](http://www.zodiacheads.com/about_exhibit_gold.html)

But after a while I understood that this is his strategy to simply transform
all oppression and government intervention into some artistic response. Both
he and the government understand that this makes it into a stalemate. Whatever
they do, he echos it and gets publicity out of it.

But those pieces are not his major works at all.

[http://nprberlin.de/post/ai-weiweis-evidence-exhibit-
opens-m...](http://nprberlin.de/post/ai-weiweis-evidence-exhibit-opens-martin-
gropius-bau-berlin) [http://www.designboom.com/art/ai-weiwei-
straightens-150-tons...](http://www.designboom.com/art/ai-weiwei-
straightens-150-tons-of-steel-rebar-from-sichuan-quake/)

~~~
LiweiZ
The interesting part is, in my experience, his famous works in Chinese media
are all political ones and I see little art in them, if those can be called
true art. Most of what I see are just iconic man doing visual protest in art's
name. This is actually such a privilege in China, if you know the consequence
average people face by doing this. This is maybe where my bias comes from. And
he seems quite enjoy people in developed world see him as a fighter and some
in his own country see him as one of the most famous artists. I just want to
point out what I see since no one mentions this online and HN readers may be
able to accept some different point of view.

~~~
crucialfelix
I think its because that's what the media and non-art people focus on both in
and out of China. Its easier to understand than zodiac heads which has lots of
historical backstory and questions what is traditional.

But of course he is milking it. (after all the exhibit is called "Evidence")

aesthetically I'm much more impressed by this guy:
[http://www.caiguoqiang.com/projects/inopportune-stage-
two-20...](http://www.caiguoqiang.com/projects/inopportune-stage-
two-2004-north-adams-ma-usa)

but you could accuse him of being decorative and of using stereotypical
Chinese imagery. I still like it.

~~~
LiweiZ
Perhaps I'm just not into Chinese culture of the past 500 years:)

------
ekianjo
That was a painful essay. No real point hammered through, jumping from one
topic to another without clear logic, and again making it look like companies
will be ruling the world in the future, while the surveillance capabilities of
goverments far exceed what companies can hope to achieve because they cannot
centralize all channels of information.

~~~
Thev00d00
I agree, but then I noticed at the bottom it was originally a speech, and in
Dutch at that, so I let them have some slack.

------
patcon
Hm. This was a hodgepodge. I really sympathized with many criticisms, but
others lacked focus.

Specifically, I'm frustrated with the author picking on the idea of police
officers wearing cameras. I'm interested in how we can decentralize and
unpackage law enforcement services, so this hit home for me. I'd like to
expound on (de)centralization, community and transparency for a sec, if I can
be indulged.

Democracy and society today implies distributed power (citizens) mediated by
necessary centralized power (law enforcement, elected representatives,
judicial systems). This was a choice we made as our societies grew, as it was
the only one that technology (postal service, telegraph, horse, guns, etc.)
allowed at the time we were working through our options.

The small, manageable communities of our past were ones where everyone knew
everyone else. There was gossip. Secrets were hard. But this was bundled up
with the security we had in these communties. We're being dishonest if we
become nostalgic for that security and community, and yet conveniently deny
the nakedness that is implied.

Democracy has been the only way we've known stability in recent history. But
it doesn't mirror these small communities of our past. We trusted centralized
powers to mediate the trust relationships the we lost when we grew up. This
allowed us to live in a world where we didn't need to ask transparency. So we
got used to that being a norm in a society where we felt security and
stability.

But if we want to build more decentralized a robust societies, we need to
accept that sometimes radical transparency is needed for certain institutions
to lose their corruptible centers. We need radical transparency for any
institution that operates at the scale where we can't know and trust one
another through the nakedness of personal relationships. We CAN build a
decentralized society that has privacy, and we should demand that privacy for
situations where it need not be sacrificed. But we can't always demonize all
forms of radical transparency, as this is the crucial element that will allow
the most corruptible of our institutions to be reimagined.

OK, sorry, this was perhaps a bit of a rant. If you're thinking in similar
areas, perhaps the words above will resonate with you. Otherwise, it might
sound like an abstract rambling :)

------
jqm
Eh... in my experience, most people simply aren't worth watching very closely.

Favorite part of the article... "he used Craigslist to hire somebody to help
him improve his productivity. The idea was that the person would come sit next
to him and give him a slap whenever he would not be working..."

Love the idea. I recently had a talk w/ my boss about I was thinking about
leaving because I was making many times more on the side than I was with the
company. But the one caveat... I needed him to keep being my boss and check on
what I was doing. Make sure I was at my desk at 7:30 coding away and didn't go
home until 5. He laughed quite a bit and said to think about it. I am.

I'm not in favor of massive surveillance, but sometimes knowing we are watched
a little helps us at certain times....

------
brianbarker
The mentioned novels seem cool, but an even better reference is Feed.
Published in 2002 before MySpace was a household name, it pretty much hits the
nail on the head in terms of surveillance, marketing and connectedness.

~~~
hansdezwart
Thanks! I'll check it out.

------
tomaskafka
"Hannah Arendt’s understanding of the political domain of the classic city
would agree with the equation of walls with law and order. According to
Arendt, the political realm is guaranteed by two kinds of walls (or wall like
laws): the wall surrounding the city, which defined the zone of the political;
and the walls separating private space from the public domain, ensuring the
autonomy of the domestic realm.

The almost palindromic linguistic structure of law/wall helps to further bind
these two structures in an interdependency that equates built and legal
fabric. The unwalling of the wall invariably becomes the undoing of the law."

"The breaching of the physical, visual and conceptual border/wall exposes new
domains to political power, and thus draws the clearest physical diagram to
the concept of the ‘state of exception’."

"Future military operations in urban terrain will increasingly be dedicated to
the use of technologies developed for the purpose of the ‘unwalling of the
wall’.

This is the architect’s response to the logic of ‘smart weapons’. The latter
have paradoxically resulted in higher numbers of civilian casualties simply
because the illusion of precision gives the military political complex the
necessary justification to use explosives in civilian environments where they
cannot be used without endangering, injuring or killing civilians.

The imagined benefits of ‘smart destruction’ and attempts to perform
‘sophisticated’ swarming thus bring more destruction over the long term than
‘traditional’ strategies ever did, because these ever more deadly methods
combined with the highly manipulative and euphoric theoretical rhetoric used
to promulgate them have induced decision makers to authorize their frequent
use. Here another use of ‘theory’ as the ultimate ‘smart weapon’ becomes
apparent. The military’s seductive use of theoretical and technological
discourse seeks to portray war as remote, sterile, easy, quick, intellectual,
exciting and even economic (from their own point of view). Violence can thus
be projected as tolerable, and the public encouraged to support it."

Eyal Weizman

Lethal Theory

[http://www.skor.nl/_files/Files/OPEN18_P80-99%281%29.pdf](http://www.skor.nl/_files/Files/OPEN18_P80-99%281%29.pdf)

------
mmanfrin
Egger's book that he mentions, The Circle, has unnerved me since I read it.
I've noticed myself looking at things I do through the lens of that book, and
then continuing with that action. It's like I'm on a bus that's headed for a
cliff, and I've resigned myself to the fact that it's going to go over, so I
might as well sit comfortably than make a fuss.

------
XorNot
Ai Weiwei isn't living in our future, he's living in an _actual totalitarian-
ish nationstate_.

The degree to which there's this encouraged ignorance to what the Chinese
government is all about is the story which is of greater concern here: they're
never not been a brutal regime, they're just a trade partner now so the
narrative has shifted.

What they do, and what they can do isn't _enabled_ by technology. It's enabled
by the simple political and military _will_ to actually kick in doors and
arrest and execute people.

You want to not live in _that_ world? Then you inform people why the no-fly
list is stupid, for a start. _How_ such a list is distributed, generated or
updated is irrelevant.

------
ikusalic
Beautifully written and expressing most of the concerns that bother me in
today's world.

If you liked the article, I'd also suggest [1] by moxie. I really liked how he
dismantles the I-have-nothing-to-hide argument. Scary, but so true.

[1] [http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/we-should-all-have-
somethin...](http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-
hide/)

------
squozzer
Pardon me for "going meta" but it seems that power in the internet age may be
less about how much information you have than on how much information you can
keep out of the hands of others.

For example, just how transparent is Schmidt's or Zuckerberg's lives compared
to ours?

Or why the US govt seems to be classifying greater and greater quantities of
information?

And whether such asymmetries of power help or hurt our welfare.

------
Intermernet
"Your lunchtime is exactly 29 minutes. You are fired on the spot if you take a
31 minute lunch as that messes with the planning capabilities of the system."

This is meant to describe "a large shipping warehouse in the US ... (think
Amazon)" logistics system. Is this actually in any meaningful way true? If so,
I'm disgusted, naive and disappointed.

~~~
goodmachine
Abusive work practices and tax avoidance are complementary pillars of the
model. What a world we live in.

[http://www.motherjones.com/print/161491](http://www.motherjones.com/print/161491)

See also

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/01/week-
amazo...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/01/week-amazon-
insider-feature-treatment-employees-work)

~~~
Intermernet
Thanks for the links. It's always somewhat gratifying to find my cynicism
well-placed. But depressing all the same...

Is there a word for that? Something like "Schadenfreude", but including
yourself in the suffering, and taking the "joy" as some form of second-rate
consolation?

------
courtf
"According to him, we have allowed efficiency thinking to optimize our world
to such an extent that we have lost the flexibility and slack that is
necessary for dealing with failure. This is why we can no longer handle any
form of risk."

This rings true to me in many ways, particularly in the way we treat our
children. I may have to read Anti-fragile.

~~~
ibz
Please do. Not an easy read, but totally worth it.

------
j_lev
I wish I had read this before Christmas as I was stuck for gifts for younger
people.

------
deanclatworthy
This documentary looks fantastic. I'm looking forward to watching this and
Citizen Four.

A note to anyone who might be reading this before the article, don't read it
all as it contains spoilers from the documentary.

------
EGreg
I wrote quite extensively about this. For example:

[http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=169](http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=169)

------
narrator
The Pavlok is really disturbing but cool at the same time. It's such a perfect
example of technology that could be used for good or evil.

------
Kiro
That's a fantastic trailer. I need to see this.

------
drumdance
That picture of him in a cell with two guards looks like something out of a
wax museum.

~~~
hansdezwart
I actually is a piece of art he made about his experience in the cell.[1] It
is titled S.A.C.R.E.D.

[1] [http://www.wired.com/2013/06/ai-weiweis-self-referential-
wor...](http://www.wired.com/2013/06/ai-weiweis-self-referential-work-in-
venice/)

------
ageek123
We don't need to throw the baby out with the bath water. We just need to make
sure government doesn't get too much power. This doesn't have anything to do
with Google or Apple (they can't put you in jail).

~~~
droopyEyelids
I guess I'm confused. Aren't Google and Apple under the government's power?
Couldn't congress make a law mandating big technology companies give the
government access to user data?

~~~
desdiv
Arguably they don't even need to pass such a law, since national security
letters already enables the same thing.

------
knappador
I don't really buy the privacy paranoia anymore these days. It was the
internet that first grew the distance between people so that we could pretend-
anonymous say things about anything without repercussion an it will be the
internet that shrinks that distance down to where you better be talking about
what matters to you and putting your money where your mouth is.

In ten years I'll be sharing and leaking at least 10x as much information out
of all kinds of devices. 90% of my engagement will happen inside programs will
be automatically syncing data across cloud services. Security is inevitably a
growing target in the networked world, and privacy requires security.
Increasingly for the sake of productivity and collaboration, everything I use
will be sharing and syncing more and more. The desire of most people to be
connected and productive, not some autocratic slide in the worlds governments
will be the death of privacy.

One of the features of Facebook I liked in the early days was just the slight
exclusiveness that made it basically okay to talk about having a giant
hangover without fear of looking like an alcoholic to an interviewer
scratching up dirt (I think zero interviews I care about do this). When
Facebook started making the defaults public etc without notifications, there
was understandably some uproar about being unknowingly thrust out into the
public. Eroding privacy causing blunders is not the same thing as not having
privacy. For the most part anxiety about not being able to control your
privacy or security really need to be analyzed in the context of just how
hidden you really need to make your words (in the case of anti-dissent
government) or actions (in the case of socially conservative laws) to be able
to practice or advocate what it is you care about. To an almost absolute
degree, very little of things you want to see in the world that don't exist
yet are going to require going to war for the cause of security or privacy
before your end goals can be pursued, so it's just not really worth it.

EFF does great work to defend people against stupid laws and to promote better
laws with regard to IP etc. They protect anonymity for regular people that
happen to cosplay and have very odd taste in character appropriateness.
However, the area where the EFF pulled really hard to ensure that the future
of the internet would be egalitarian in the United States was about Title II
common carrier law, not about privacy. The 1st amendment protects what you
say, not some mythical right to say it without consequences; you only get that
when nobody cares about your opinion. Even in the case of socially
conservative laws, stand up for respect for individual beliefs before you
stand up for privacy as an extra-social cure.

Privacy is not close to as fundamentally important as the security that is
required to achieve it, and privacy advocacy is to an extent like whining
about how someone took your tree-house and you can't have any secret clubs
anymore. Most privacy is not used to do productive things, and few productive
things outside of already entrenched, authoritarian governments require
privacy to pursue.

~~~
teddyh
One thing which requires privacy is being an actual _thinking human being_ and
not a fearful automaton.

~~~
knappador
If you believe what you think, you can be vocal unless you're a coward.
Someone will likely be shot today because they wouldn't renounce some belief.
Privacy advocates are not winning my sympathy in claiming that being watched
all the time as opposed to being shot is bending what they are willing to say.

------
guoqiang2
Didn't go through this TLDR writing, but just briefly scrolling the page.

I was so amazed the author can connect Ai Weiwei with the WildCat robot, an
image of Obama's calling from a camp, and a kid in a car using Disney product.

How this can connect together?!

If you want to talk about surveillance or privacy, won't NSA's Snowden be a
more famous and impacting example?

~~~
Houshalter
Read the damn article. The author goes through many examples of things that
are eroding privacy.

Ai Weiwei lives under total surveillance. Google is producing technology for
the military. Obama has to use a tent in his hotel room to block surveillance.
The disney wristband tracks your movements and spending.

Surprisingly the NSA is barely mentioned at all. The author is primarily
concerned with how technology is enabling surveillance, not the organizations
currently using it.

~~~
charleslmunger
What technology is google producing for the military?

~~~
desdiv
Boston Dynamics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Google, produced the WildCat
robot for DARPA's Maximum Mobility and Manipulation (M3) program[0].

[0]
[http://www.darpa.mil/our_work/dso/programs/maximum_mobility_...](http://www.darpa.mil/our_work/dso/programs/maximum_mobility_and_manipulation_%28m3%29.aspx)

~~~
cromwellian
Most of that work was done before Google bought the company, and Google is not
renewing those contracts.

Google is not a defense contractor. As frequently beaten as a dead horse on
HN, Google sells ads, not weapons.

DARPA funds lots of projects that eventually get inherited by the private
sector. SIRI funding at SRI was provided by DARPA, does that make Apple a
defense contractor?

Guilt by association usually produces bad analysis.

------
bluekeybox
No, he's not.

------
sfeng
> The young boys that had to guard Ai Weiwei in his cell had to stand
> completely still, weren’t allowed to talk and couldn’t even blink their
> eyes.

This is complete nonsense. You can't order someone to not blink.

~~~
frabcus
Yes you can - at least my experience of seeing some Chinese guards (e.g.
outside an embassy) is that they don't blink.

This article claims 1 hour shifts of not blinking for a guard:
[https://www.recruiter.com/i/blinking-on-the-job-not-
allowed-...](https://www.recruiter.com/i/blinking-on-the-job-not-allowed-the-
demerits-and-bounds-of-extreme-job-discipline/)

~~~
knowtheory
You can order people to do all manner of things, but i think you'd be much
harder pressed to enforce such a stricture.

You're not going to shut down someone's corneal reflex obviously:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corneal_reflex](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corneal_reflex)
but that requires poking a guard in the eye or shining a bright light at them.

------
rcyn
"One of the best artists in the world." Since when do people rank artists. For
me, this ruins the whole article. Maybe successful artist or artist with a
high media profile. But best? Seriously?

~~~
buro9
The article is a translation of a transcript of a speech originally given in
Dutch.

Shift "best" to "renowned" if it helps you read it.

------
tim333
Ai Weiwei is not living our future. I'm a big fan of Weiwei but being the best
known opposition figure against the worlds largest dictatorship is something
that's unlikely to happen to most of us. Also his "Fuck your mother, the party
central committee" themed photos are obviously trying to wind them up. Here in
London we have CCTV everywhere and the secret services no doubt have the
ability to bug me and read my mail but it effects me and most people not at
all - no one is interested especially. I'd be honoured to be Weiwei.

