The greatest display of activism in human history

So that you have to pay them to fix them, of course. It’s Apple’s “walled garden” approach. Everyone’s doing it now.

I’m a capitalist. On Wednesday I just got chided by my accountant for being too generous with my staff so how good of one depends on who you ask. :joy:

But I’ve long thought that while capitalism has been the best system under the prior circumstances there are two setups that it isn’t well suited for: scarcity and post-scarcity.

In scenarios in which a resource or resources are scarce you can’t just let the invisible hand divvy up said resource(s). In a world in which everything is in an extreme abundance the mechanism of profit as what motivates decision making ceases to work.

And it seems to me like we are heading for a hybrid of those two. Not likely until robots are in full swing and the power constraints have been solved by fusion or a ton of fission coming online. So we may have a little time but we’re quickly approaching an era when those things not restricted by the natural order will be at your fingertips and cost virtually nothing. But bc of that we’re also nearing a world in which things bound by the natural order are extremely vulnerable bc we can’t speed up some of those natural processes and the speed in which the society of abundance can deplete those resources will be terrifyingly unprecedented. You can deforest the globe in days rather than decades.

So we’re going to need a cohesive societal plan. Something that merges opposing approaches to opposing forces. And these tech leaders aren’t built to solve those problems. They have always been about disruption. That is how they became fabulously wealthy. We will need coordination, compromise, organization, skilled communication, etc. It’s a separate set of skills from separate pool of leadership. A pool of leadership which we have yet to see emerge.

1 Like

And if you say something against the agenda online they can shut your car off. Shut your stove off. Shut your AC off.

Shut off your digital wallet the CBDC

Them crypto dorks thought they were the revolution

They were psyoped bad… they ushered it in and did all the work and promo for free!

Eh, there’s plenty of people speaking out against everything, but it just gets shifted into noise so that nobody cares. No reason to shut anything off, they still gotta collect your data.

… for now

The next phase is shut it down.

1 Like

Nah, that would be working against themselves. Unless they’re famous or influential, individuals aren’t threats. Frankly if you could get some of this smart shit turned off by speaking out, more people would do it. That’s a REWARD currently. Now will it be enshittified to the point of failure? Yeah, absolutely, but that’s not targeted and plausibly deniable anyway.

I like how the world has careened so far toward a parody of itself that’s it’s literally become The Onion irl.

1 Like

HaHa

Aways reminds me of the joke at the Tom Brady roast.

Gronk-”me know it not real money” :rofl:

1 Like

Tom & Gronk & Kraft roastings were next level greatness

1 Like

I see plenty speaking out about it but I can’t find anyone suggesting a coherent plan. All I’ve seen is UBI. Some have suggested impossibly large sums of UBI which is in all likelihood poppycock. Especially when considering the particular source that I am thinking of.

The toothpaste isn’t going back in the tube. So let’s just slow down enough to find a coherent plan.

For me personally, “well, yeah but China” is not a good enough reason to accept a ready, fire, aim philosophy to something of this magnitude of importance.

They exist though, their message is just throttled. Or still in the spitballing phase. True sometimes it takes some digging, and I certainly have no idea how to fix things aside from getting rich people to “be less greedy,” but I know a lot of smart people have a lot of good ideas. Or if not good, at least worth discussion.

I don’t think that is right either. Slow down and plan this out better. The problem is that the world of finance and tech got so over their skis and integrated this so deeply into our financial system such that if they don’t win big and win relatively fast then all hell breaks loose. And with the rate at which open models are catching up all hell is likely to break loose soon. Which is why Anthropic is suddenly rushing to go public asap. It IMO why Altman just used safety as a reason for them stopping frontier training (the super expensive part for now). It’s why IMO we’ll likely have shenanigans with the S-1s to make these businesses appear more ready for sustained profit than they actually are. Amazon owns 21% of Anthropic. Google owns 14%. Microsoft owns 27% or OpenAi and Amazon owns 6%. You telling me they won’t take it on the chin in their cloud business so those companies for a quarter or two so those companies can tap the public markets for much needed capital. Of course they will. Stakes are too high. And that’s another problem here. A few actors put a huge portion of general society’s chips into the middle of the table. They should have never had the power to do so but we made this bed with years of accepting runaway greed in exchange for convenience and some modest standard of living gains for many but not all of society.

Tough spot but I’m heartened that it appears people are finally waking up enough to want to at least try to make a stand here.

Go back and watch Idiocracy and pay complete attention. No distractions and focus, think critically about every scene that comedy movie from 2006 had in it and compare it to modern times 2 decades longer. We are now living there.

Tim And Eric Mind Blown GIF

1 Like

.

.

Doug was right…. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

.

https://tenor.com/YBc2.gif

1 Like

Just to play devils advocate here. What exactly is it that folks think is going to happen from this growing camera (flock) use that could be used to harm you?

On a side note, and kind of as a tongue in cheek mindset I had, I keep my Google Timeline on. For one I reference it after taking a walk or riding my bike to see how far I went. I know there are other apps that can do that, but I would use my Google Timeline tracker. The tongue in cheek part of that is that I would say that if I was ever falsely accused of something I could go back to that exact date and time and reference my Google Timeline to see exactly where I was (or wasn’t). Google maps has since restricted history access to only the last 3 months of data. So a bit limited on my ability to use it as an alibi now.

As another aside……….Seattle is currently going through a thought change / struggle on the CCTV cameras that are already dispersed throughout the city, but currently deactivated by direction of the newly elected Mayor, Katie Wilson.

Crime, Open Air Drug Use, and recent shootings are starting to sway public opinion on those cameras. Recent polling has shifted to a crazy 75% now supporting those cameras being activated. At least at major events and troublesome areas.

So I guess one of my questions is what is the cause and effect of that thought shift. What has caused the folks of Seattle to now be in support of this “Surveillance”?

And my other question, again, is what harm are you actually afraid of from these cameras? And if public safety is being compromised due to other factors can you really blame folks for being willing to cross that line to actually now supporting this public surveillance?

I’m curious to see what Mayor Wilson decides to do on this. There is a lot of public pressure on her right now about public safety, as well as some City Council pressures, and the beginnings of a recall effort on her, all focused on public safety. Folks are sick and tired, even in Seattle, with their cities being taken over by crime and open air drug use, and they actually see these cameras as a solution.

1 Like

Because of things like Flock cameras, they no longer need a phone signal to track someone. They are selling it to the public as a simple law enforcement tool that only does a few simple things AND IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN TO DO THE OTHER THINGS THAT IT IS FULLY CAPABLE OF. What they don’t tell people is how powerful those cameras really are, and that they DO have facial recognition. That’s part of the reason law enforcement officers have been getting in trouble lately for accessing the deeper parts of the system for “non-official police business.” Wife cheating? Just upload some pics and access a wide range of cameras that track her everywhere she’s been. If she left the phone at home, did “location spoofing” or got in someone else’s vehicle…it doesn’t matter. Once officers saw the real capabilities of the system during serious cases, a few have decided to open the box for personal use.

I think people in this thread have wisely said “follow the money.” Local authorities do not have the money to put up cameras covering the amount of ground Flock cameras are covering “just in case" a crime happens. There isn’t enough return on investment for that, and its too altruistic to believe in the first place. Banks and insurance companies have put alot of money into the system. They use it to access information to repossess vehicles and recover stolen vehicles. That’s part of the reason why the system is able to “think" instead of just blindly read license plates. They have a return on investment that justifies the money they put into the system. Local law enforcement does not. They are just beneficiaries of the system, with a little skin in the game to make it look legit and not what it really is.

3 Likes

Wow you really are cutting off your nose to spite your face on this one.

You really think leaving your phone at home stops them from tracking you if they really wanted too?
So you leave your phone at home when you go places, so why have a “mobile phone”?
What you going to do if you break down somewhere? Or worse there is an emergency?

Nobody cares where the majority of the people are going on an every day basis if you have nothing to hide.

Are there back doors in phone apps, Software programs, and even hardware platforms that are commercially sold? Damn right there is, and you can bet your house that most of those back doors were funded by the government. But it wasn’t to monitor the average Joe Blow.

I lived 30 years without it and haven’t had any issues the past year, so I think I’ll be alright. Thanks for the concern though!

2 Likes

Yea same here as far as living since the 60’s without, difference was there were pay phones on every corner back then.

Kind of ironic you discussed the lengths your friend is taking…

Then you leave your “Mobile” phone at home

Sorry just find this whole discussion a little amusing

1 Like

We all have to find our personal lines. It’s easy for me to leave my phone at home except when I go to a concert or game that requires it, I’ve never used it for directions, my car plays CDs I can still burn, I have conversations at restaurants, etc… Pay phones being around wouldn’t help if your car broke down in the boonies, it’s the same risk now it was then.

1 Like