
Data Dictatorships: The Arms Race to Hack Humankind - borjamoya
https://borjamoya.com/DataDictatorships/
======
allemagne
People make the mistake of assuming that a more assertive authoritarian state
means a more confident authoritarian state, when the inverse is more often the
case.

China's growth is slowing and its leadership will always have the specter of
Soviet collapse haunting them. The actual potential for Chinese growth and
innovation will always be out of reach because creative destruction is
unacceptable to entrenched interests.

The CCP aren't the future, they're dinosaurs clinging to relevance by using
technologies usually invented overseas as crudely wrought instruments of
power.

~~~
nix0n
I've always read "this is the future" in a different way.

For those of us in the USA, seeing increasing militarization of local police,
plus PRISM etc revelations, the CCP looks like it might be our future.

~~~
api
We have a few dinosaurs of our own.

------
naringas
> we have the capacities to centralize this data

but we also have the technical capacities to descentralize it (federate it?)

interestingly enough, it _is_ getting more centralized. Is this due to
economic incentives?

~~~
borjamoya
Hi, I'm the author of the book.

I believe decentralization in theory could work. But our current situation is
so chaotic that there's no clear solution. However, the key here is to
understand the full picture.

In the book I argue that there's a big shift going on--not only an economical
shift, but also geopolitical and social. And this is going to be a surprise
for a lot of people, but this shift is coming from social credit systems and
the establishment of a new economic model based on social behavior.

Now, I know this is too complex to explain in a paragraph, but that's why we
have books.

~~~
excalibur
> Liberal democracy is going to die. Data is becoming the raw materialization
> of power, and this is making dictatorships more efficient than ever before.

Why not make the data public? If data is power, you criminalize the hoarding
of data, and require it to be shared openly with all. We would still be headed
toward a surveillance state, which comes with a high risk of authoritarianism,
but at least we would have a shot at keeping it democratic.

~~~
bilbo0s
> _at least we would have a shot at keeping it democratic_

If by democratic you mean freedom to form outrage mobs then I'd agree, but I
don't think that would be a good thing. Having thousands of people in some
community screaming for the head of some kid who said something dumb about his
school and his dad's rifle on a Call of Duty discord is not going to end well
for the kid.

I'm not sure I believe in completely open data because entire populations with
access to it are not completely rational.

~~~
excalibur
Weird that we're having the same discussion on two different threads, I
suppose I started it.

> If by democratic you mean freedom to form outrage mobs then I'd agree, but I
> don't think that would be a good thing.

I don't think it would be an objectively good thing either. I only think it
may be better than the alternative. Given a choice between an authoritarian
dictatorship and an authoritarian democracy, I lean toward the latter.

Additionally, I think you may not be giving people enough credit. Devolution
of democracy to mob rule is certainly a danger, but I don't know that it's a
foregone conclusion. I don't how to go about preserving individual liberty
without privacy, but as long as the common man has power it should be possible
in theory.

~~~
bilbo0s
I mean if you're going into this whole thing with your eyes open and you're
saying, "I know that I'm just replacing authoritarian dictatorship with
authoritarian democracy." Then we have no debate.

You're fully aware of the danger of what's coming. Just be aware,
authoritarian democracy with full open access to the totality of everyone's
data is not really authoritarian democracy.

It's totalitarian democracy. Just that small nit pick but other than that, if
you know what you're getting into, go for it.

I just disagree with that trade off.

------
borjamoya
By the way, in the website there are links to download for free the book Data
Dictatorships.

~~~
afpx
Do you have a summary of your conclusions (for those of us who haven't read it
already)? Are we doomed, or is there a bright light?

~~~
borjamoya
The problem with summaries and TL;DRs is that they don't allow you to start a
conversation. So I can't provide you with a short answer because everybody is
going to interpret it with their own filter.

That's exactly why I wrote the book. You can't change people with a tweet.
Sometimes not even through an article. But that's the magic of books.

Is it all gloom and doom? That depends on how we react. But I have the feeling
that if we don't spend some time thinking about these issues--collectively--
then it'll be gloom and doom for sure.

~~~
donclark
Actually, I am wondering if its both. Could you create a 'buzz' around your
book/topic via a short synopsis/tweet/TLDR/etc. while promoting a larger
conversation with a link to that forum/etc.

~~~
borjamoya
That's up to you to decide.

But I do want to create "buzz" around the conversation. We need it. The book?
That's secondary. I don't make any money of out it. That's why I'm giving it
away for free.

But again, I can't answer that for you.

------
age_bronze
If regimes like Iran manage to stay alive despite all the sanctions and
international isolation, while having the power to meddle in other countries
despite having such a dire situation at home, I think the odds of real
revolutions in modern age are really really low. If Iran stays alive like
this, I doubt China will have any problem staying alive ad-infinity, with all
their surveillance tools.

Just because democracy might be a little bit better, getting there includes
civil war, violence, and other costs people aren't willing to pay if their
lives aren't incredibly bad.

------
pimmen
One of the things that's keeping liberal democracy safe is the inefficiencies
of governments and businesses, with "not invented here" being one of the
biggest ones. What makes Palantir scary is not necessarily that they work with
ICE but that they're probably delivering something that adds value. As we get
better at machine learning and data engineering, these solutions will not only
get much more powerful but also plug and play. That's what I'm really afraid
of, at that point they can be rolled out over night.

------
zachguo
Two biggest weaknesses of centralized political systems are 1) incompetent
leadership 2) the principal-agent problem.

Better data collection and monitoring alleviate both weaknesses and prolong
such system's longevity.

~~~
borjamoya
Probably. But we have entered into an arms race mentality--especially since
2016. The "if we don't do it they'll do it" makes this an unlikely scenario.

------
kmlx
i was born in a communist country and lived thru the downfall of the USSR. the
level of censorship and control that we have now is nothing compared to what
the soviets were doing. that's why my impression of the paper is very
negative. we're the generation that has the most access to information in
history, we can travel like no other human generation travelled in history.
and we have so much money and access that obesity is a thing. and yet people
still prefer to believe in myths and propaganda. i wonder how will this pan
out once we colonise other planets. i imagine the disconnect between planets
will be much much greater than the disconnect we now have between
countries/cities/etc

~~~
nx2059
The fact that kmix was downvoted indicates with the problem with a LOT of the
youth today. I grew up in the 80's during the cold war. I remember the
freedoms we "had" in the USA, and how people defected from the communist
"utopia" of the USSR. When I was young I learned that our constitutional
republic is based on the assumption that people in power are corrupt. And
believed in quotes such as "When the government fears the people there is
liberty, when the people fear the government there is tyranny", which gives a
rather obvious interpretation to the second amendment. You can have the type
of weapons that will cause the government to think twice before taking away
our rights. Or "People who give up liberty for safety and security will have
nor deserve neither" A deliberate nod to the fourth amendment. The war on
drugs is due to completely ignoring fact that the federal government has
enumerated powers. Probation in the 1920's was only legal because a
constitutional amendment had to be made. We have things like "Enhanced
Interrogation" and Prison Rape, a deliberate ignoring of the law against
"cruel and unusual punishment" which is just accepted with out second thought
today. I could go on and on, but it's become clear that something that my dad
told me years ago is true. In a Democracy, you get the government you deserve.

~~~
kmlx
i learned the hard way that it doesn't matter if it happened yesterday, people
will 100% forget about it.

Stalin? Misunderstood. USSR killed more people than the nazis? Impossible.

------
Nasrudith
That sounds a lot like claiming planned economies will obsolete capitalism
once they solve the valuation problem. Only this time they have that precedent
and fail to address it.

Propaganda has always had large societal influence and I am not denying that
better data could in theory be used to make it worse. But just as in practice
targetted advertising works about as well as trying to seduce someone with
information gathered by digging through their garbage practice seems highly
dubious.

Dictatorships are kind of dysfunctional shitholes because the concern is
holding onto power for the few over advancement for many as loyalty trumps
competence. The succession lines are intentionally horrible just toand vagur
just to reduce odds of assassination. Overcoming that with "data" isn't even a
plan - especially since the dystopian vague data tools can be jacked or
dismantled by the successors.

Not to mention the arguement ad inevitability. Disclaimer - not having read
beyond the initial pitch page: To be frank this seems like an attempt to tap
into the zeitgeist to sell alarmist books on topics they know little about
that will have less shelf life than Y2K books in 1999. Not exactly the best
impression.

