
Techno-skeptics’ objection growing louder - Jerry2
https://www.washingtonpost.com/classic-apps/techno-skeptics-objection-growing-louder/2015/12/26/e83cf658-617a-11e5-8e9e-dce8a2a2a679_story.html
======
Animats
You can now get phones that don't break. Nokia was once the leader in that
area. There are now good rugged smartphones.[1] I have a smartphone from Cat
(yes, Caterpillar Tractor has a phone brand), and can drop it on cement
repeatedly with zero damage, or wash it off with a hose.[2]

Apple has been struggling in this area. Their sapphire screen debacle set them
back on the ruggedness front.[3] They've made some progress on water
resistance, but they're not at IP67 yet.

[1] [http://mobiloscope.net/en/hardware/smartphones/waterproof-
ru...](http://mobiloscope.net/en/hardware/smartphones/waterproof-rugged-
smartphones-IP67-IP68.html) [2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVPku-
xItv8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVPku-xItv8) [3]
[http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/19/7250941/the-inside-
story-...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/19/7250941/the-inside-story-of-why-
the-iphone-6-doesnt-have-a-sapphire-screen)

~~~
sandworm101
I don;t think anyone really wants a rugged iphone. The latest models are like
delicate jewels, too thin and wide to be believed. Ruggedizing an iphone would
be like ruggedizing a teacup poodle: it wouldn't be a teacup poodle anymore.

~~~
digi_owl
Except that people already buy iPhones just to stuff them into rugged cases
(often sporting a window just for the logo).

------
lkrubner
About this:

"Taylor is a 21st-century digital dissenter. She’s one of the many
technophiles unhappy about the way the tech revolution has played out.
Political progressives once embraced the utopian promise of the Internet as a
democratizing force, but they’ve been dismayed by the rise of the
“surveillance state,” and the near-monopolization of digital platforms by huge
corporations."

I recall many years ago I would sometimes write comments at places like
Slashdot. And I recall pointing out that so long as governments have armies
that can find ways to be repressive. I recall being down modded as if I was
some kind of irrational troll. At that time, and in those forums, the people
who got upvoted were the ones who made the argument that the Internet could
never be censored, because the Internet would route around censorship as if
censorship was a form of network failure. During that era, a lot of people
made some fairly naive libertarian/utopian arguments about the Internet was
changing the world. Some people still make these arguments even now. There
were some places (I'm thinking of places such as BoingBoing) where the utopian
editorial tone was the only tone that was allowed. Places like BoingBoing have
gotten much better at documenting the ways that governments are undermining
the Internet, but many of these places started off denying that such
undermining could ever happen. I am happy that these people finally revised
their view of the world, though I wish the dangers had been more widely
appreciated at an earlier date.

The reality we face is now much as it has always been: there is no
technological solution for repression. The only way to establish a free
society is to mobilize and fight for it. That was true 2,500 years ago, when
the Plebians were demanding fair treatment from the Roman upper classes, and
it remains true today, and it will probably remain true for as long there is a
species that you can recognize as homo sapien.

~~~
tim333
OK there's no automatic technological solution for repression but the advance
of tech probably helps overall. If you look at something like the polity data
for democracy things seem to have gotten better since 1800 and I doubt human
nature is that much different
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polity_data_series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polity_data_series)

------
Vexs
> Astra Taylor’s iPhone has a cracked screen. She has bandaged it with clear
> packing tape and plans to use the phone until it disintegrates. She objects
> to the planned obsolescence of today’s gadgetry, and to the way the big tech
> companies pressure customers to upgrade.

There's a lot of problems in the tech industry, and I wouldn't be shocked if
there was a lot of planned obsolescence in hardware, but breaking a phone
screen isn't planned obsolescence. That's you breaking a screen. People like
to talk about their mother's grandmother's washing machine and how it never
broke, but if you dropped it off a cliff it would break.

Also, a couple things I've read on reddit that made me rethink my thoughts on
planned obsolescence:

It used to be that hardware engineers had to plan for errors in manufacturing,
etc, and not knowing exactly how much stress this part would place on this
part, and as such, had to over-engineer their products to make sure they would
work. These days, we have CAD tools, and can almost exactly figure out how
thick this particular piece can be to work, and exactly how strong that motor
needs to be. Products aren't over-engineered anymore, and as such will fail
sooner.

Additionally, when your grandmother bought a washing machine, it might have
cost a larger % of your income than now. If you scale the price of older
machines, they're significantly more expensive than what we have now.

Final note: You never hear about your grandmother's stuff that broke now, did
you. You only saw the stuff that worked forever.

As it stands, I'm actually really concerned about the direction modern
technology is going, but at the same time, hopeful. It's easier than ever
before for a young inventor to create something wonderful and make sure
everyone has access to it. With the same power that allows them to get their
ideas to everyone else, more malevolent powers can keep an ever-closer eye on
everyone, and much easier.

~~~
wycx
I have heard the following regarding you are describing re. manufacturing:

"So much engineering effort has gone in to making this product _just_
functional".

~~~
CamperBob2
Or the old saying, "Any idiot can design a bridge that will stand up.
Engineering is designing a bridge that will _barely_ stand up."

~~~
wycx
I was thinking more along the lines of: "This cordless drill would be so much
more robust and durable if the manufacturer had not ruthlessly wrung every
last cent out of the BOM."

See also: the shitty power supplies in almost all consumer electronics.

------
endgame
> They dream of a co-op model: people dealing directly with one another
> without having to go through a data-sucking corporate hub.

We used to have this. Then GMail took over email, Facebook took over most
people's communication, reddit replaced usenet and so on. We let the general
masses sleepwalk into corporate data silos.

~~~
cwyers
The thing about e-mail, for instance, is that it was and is terrifically
flawed. And those flaws have been exacerbated by two things:

1) Hostile use of e-mail has increased at a rate higher than exponential, to
the point where spam prevention is an incredible chore, and the things that
make it to your spam folder on Gmail isn't the whole of it, particularly if
you aren't cautious in how your e-mail address is used. 2) People no longer
have just one computer. They have a work computer, a home computer, a
smartphone... and they routinely change those devices.

Gmail solves those problems. Gmail takes care of all kinds of spam prevention
and other infrastructure tasks. You can access it from almost any computing
device you have. And it does so nearly painlessly. You don't have to delete
e-mails on your remote server because you're running out of space. You don't
have to sync anything. There's no configuration. There's no cost. Can you get
most of the way to a solution as nice as Gmail on your own? Yeah. But it's not
as low-effort or low-cost, and I think people underestimate the expense,
difficulty, or shortfalls of the best non-Gmail options for personal use,
especially for people who are not either professionals or hobbyists when it
comes to using computers.

The general masses didn't sleepwalk into corporate data silos. They went there
because the open Internet is a shitshow. It is filled with incredibly
dedicated and hostile people who want to run scams, spread malware, do DoSes
and all sorts of intentionally hostile things. It is also filled with a lot of
more innocent hostility -- nominally compatible software that in practice has
weird corner cases, bad documentation, bugs, and so on and so forth. And
decentralization is a real hard problem in software. Look at Aphyr and Jepsen.
Look at IRC and its interminable netsplits. What you call "corporate data
silos" are things that managed to solve problems people really have. Those
solutions, yes, have other harms. But people didn't make bad choices or wrong
choices, they made entirely sensible choices based on a different set of
wants, resources and priorities than the typical commenter at Hacker News.
That doesn't make them dumb or "sleepwalking," and condescending about real
people with real needs is not going to solve anyone's problems.

~~~
digi_owl
Yes and no.

The thing about gmail is not its services as a email server, but that you
basically have to use Google's site or apps to access the email.

Yes, there is imap support. But as best i understand it, the implementation is
"idiosyncratic" to put it mildly.

Similarly, Google used to run a IM service using XMPP. But then they killed
the federation feature (allowing other XMPP services to communicate with
Google's users), and then phased the whole service out for Hangouts.

Facebook also used XMPP for their IM service, but has since also disabled it.

Thing is that as long as they were using XMPP, i could have Pidgin sitting in
the corner and keep up with friends and family on either service. Now it have
to run 2-3 apps (and non of them are available for desktop Linux) to do the
same.

While it may not be a sleepwalk, it sure edges close to "bait and switch".

------
refurb
_She says she’d like to see more government-supported media platforms — think
public radio — and more robust regulations to keep digital powerhouses from
becoming monopolies._

Really? That's the solution? Have the organization that is trying to invade
your privacy take over more of the communication methods?

~~~
13thLetter
It's a weird blind spot a lot of people have. As if a government agency whose
budget depends on a perception of ever-bigger threats will be more reluctant
to violate people's privacy than Facebook is, or a government agency run by a
single political party will report the news more evenhandedly than Fox News
does. Large bureaucracies don't magically become trustworthy just because you
painted a flag on their side.

~~~
cowpig
> a government agency whose budget depends on a perception of ever-bigger
> threats will be more reluctant to violate people's privacy than Facebook

What makes you think that a public ISP/whatever would rely on 'ever-bigger
threats' for budget?

As far as actual examples, I'm pretty confident in saying that some of the
organizations that produce the highest-quality media content are publicly
funded. NPR or the BBC are two examples that pop into my head.

~~~
jlarocco
> As far as actual examples, I'm pretty confident in saying that some of the
> organizations that produce the highest-quality media content are publicly
> funded. NPR or the BBC are two examples that pop into my head.

That's a poor argument because it's simply your opinion and you're not giving
any evidence to show your opinion is more valuable or more correct than
anybody else's.

I can claim the Criterion Collection represents the highest-quality media
content ever released, and it's just as valid an opinion as yours.

~~~
RobertKerans
That's not really your opinion though, it's you publically restating one of
the explicit aims of Criterion.

------
n0us
It seems to me that the centralized internet has simply grown to be very
popular because most people are indifferent to having their information stored
in a centralized place.

This has not precluded a decentralized internet from existing. (At least
decentralized in the sense that it is not run by X mega tech company or NSA
controlled.) You can run your own email server, you can run an irc server, we
have tor, you can run a server out of your home and serve web pages or even
run a reddit clone to organize like minded people. In a certain sense all of
this is more accessible than ever. The problem that these people have is that
as the internet grew, it expanded to the wider population of non-technical
users who had no need or desire for the aforementioned technologies. They are
perfectly fine with Facebook and Google and not knowing or caring how it works
because that is good enough for them and censorship will likely never be a
problem they will have to face. They don't mind the ads because for the most
part they are relevant and the privacy invasion that more technically inclined
users perceive has no real affect on their lives.

The internet has not necessarily closed and centralized, it is just that the
centralized closed portion of it has grown very popular while the rest has
just stayed small and limited in its appeal.

------
chadk
Remember, it isn't just about planned obsolescence or the Web 2.0
centralization of everything. Read the books. Those are just the _symptoms_.
All of these "digital dissenters" are not anti-technology... that is an
oversimplification... many of them love tech (look at J-Lan!)... it is the
underlying neoliberal political and economic system that _drives_ the current
tech industry that they object to—aka. the California Ideology. That is what
lies at the foundation of their criticism.

Really surprised Evgeny Morozov isn't also tagged as a "digital dissenter" in
this piece. Or Richard Stallman for that matter.

~~~
digi_owl
RMS would probably resulted in a long rant about the inaccuracies of the term.

------
themartorana
"If I only had an enemy bigger than my apathy I could have won." [0]

I do have trouble not feeing apathetic. I want to cover my laptop camera, but
I don't want duct tape on my equipment! (Nor one branded "Rand Paul.")

I know planned obsolescence is maddening (my iPad 1 is as good a paper-weight
as anything) but I love crunchy new technology!

I would love a decentralized Internet, but the one we have right now took a
long time to get to where it is. Am I really ready to start from scratch?
(Probably not, in the end...)

Snowden made this stuff scary for sure, but I'd rather learn to properly
encrypt the Internet we have.

Maybe I'm part of the problem?

[0]
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tKQeIzGu6hQ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tKQeIzGu6hQ)

~~~
merpnderp
The iphone 4s is 5 years old and runs the latest OS and takes a few seconds
and $40 to replace the battery. My ipad2 is still working perfectly. Battery
lasts days and runs all the things it used to and then some. Fragility is not
the same as planned obsolescence.

~~~
nprz
I owned an iPhone 4 up until a couple months ago. It worked fine for most of
its life but near the last months most apps on it became unusable. Everything
just ran so slowly. I remember google maps being particularly bad, the app
would run incredibly slow and eventually crash about 30 seconds into using it
basically every time I opened it up. You could still use the phone I suppose,
but it would require a good amount of patience.

~~~
digi_owl
Would not surprise me that this happens because the apps expect more RAM to be
on hand, and so are not as carefully optimized for low RAM circumstances.

I am seeing something similar over at Android. Where earlier versions of the
Play store app worked without a hitch on my aging tablet, now it seems to
crash left and right whenever i want to look at longer lists of search results
or similar. And this seems to happen when it tries to load the app icons or
similarly asynchronously, meaning that i can enter the search, get a list of
results, and then see the app stutter and crash as it tries to load the
graphics.

------
incompatible
Um what, you can have an iphone and laptop but you are a "digital dissenter"
because you haven't upgraded the iphone recently?

~~~
incompatible
I suppose I misinterpret "digital dissenter" as somebody who doesn't use
digital equipment, which isn't really what the article is about.

~~~
joshu
I agree.

I don't upgrade my phone because the one I have is fine. It isn't a political
statement, though.

------
andrewclunn
Not really sure if people concerned about government / corporate spying are in
the same category as those concerned about machines replacing people. I felt
like the article jumped around a bit too much. Wanted it to go deeper rather
than simply assume that the reader was already familiar with all the ideas
present.

~~~
0fx
Agreed. There's a lot wrong with the article. It touched on mass surveillance,
capitalism, government regulation, the gig economy and other issues without
really tying them together in any coherent way.

In addition, I wouldn't characterize someone who owns an iPhone and a laptop
as a "digital dissenter" or a "techno-skeptic", but the story uses both of
these terms to describe Taylor and some of the other subjects of the article.
I think these are both poorly chosen terms that smack of Luddism and,
unsurprisingly, Taylor & co. are likened to Luddites later in the article. The
article itself suggests that an appropriate term for them might be
"humanists", but I guess that wasn't as likely to get clicks as "techno-
skeptics."

I was also amused by the criticism of Lanier's idea of micropayments for
content creators. The objection was that it might encourage people to record
clickbait or "hey, y'all, hold my beer and watch THIS!" stunts, as if Youtube
isn't already teeming with exactly that sort of content.

------
MikeNomad
In spirit, I am with the "digital dissenters." It is a shame that the term for
what they are, luddites, has been corrupted, almost from the start...

Luddites are individuals who are against the adoption of technology when it
will destroy the connections individuals have with their family, friends, and
community. Plenty of Kirkpatrick Sale, E.P. Thompson, etc. about for those who
wish to dig deeper.

However, in practical terms, I find the digital dissenter's mistrust to be
somewhat misplaced. The technology does not set itself up in a women's
restroom to take up-skirt video any more than a gun pulled its own trigger
recently in San Bernardino.

The soap box, jury box, and ballot box are all failing, in part because all
the mistrust, anger, and energy are not being focused on creating substantial
penalties for inappropriate use of the technology.

------
joshu
I wonder what platform these kids organize on?

------
toadham
I feel the arguments against old vs new tech or humanness vs automation are
missing the point.

A meaningful debate is the choice between supporting technologies that
centralize power or those that distribute it.

The notion that decisions are being made for the benefit of "machines" is
nonsense. If that appears to be the case, it's likely for the benefit of those
who control the machines.

It's strange that free and open source software was not mentioned, since
visionaries (albeit flawed) like RMS predicted the power shifts we see today.

------
microcolonel
A cracked screen is not "planned obsolescence", it's bad procurement. If she
wanted a device which wouldn't have that problem, she could easily get a less-
dainty one. She could also protect it better.

I recently let a smartphone go all the way to EOL (~5 years, not bad in my
opinion). I don't see what these snoots are bragging about. If they don't want
to use a device which is state-of-the-art, and don't want to pay for one which
is durable, they'll get one which is old and broken.

They do have options though.

