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- lukus_W0
A company like Facebook stands to make more money from behavioural data (how we use the site), than any other possible revenue stream.
Why is this important? Maybe it isn't so important now, but I reckon it will be in the future. The possibility of society heading towards some kind of low-rent 1984 knock-off dystopia is pretty compelling. Human nature pretty much guarantees it. We're pretty much sitting ducks.
While it's naive to believe that there are nameless entities out their filtering through all our shit - it's also naive to believe that all these companies aren't making the most of all commercial opportunities available to them.
There is a gap between big business and a lot of consumers - and it's caused by ignorance.
- airey0
how does this create an orwellian dystopia? you know what creates this - fucking mindless fear and the lack of acceptance of difference.
what this can lead to is more like minority report than orwell. imagine fucking billboards talking to you personally at shopping malls and bus stops. it would be years before you realise you were actually schizophrenic and these billboards aren't that advanced yet.
- lol - yeah .. mental illness would become the normlukus_W
- lukus_W0
"how does this create an orwellian dystopia?"
Because digital technology has the potential to creates an inequality of power.
In one sense, at the moment it's difficult to lay down the law, restrict and control the things a person does - because geography and physicality makes it very expensive.
In digital spaces, it's simple and straight-forward to have this kind of control. Right now, if someone wants to moderate someone's behaviour on a site - or read through their emails or private data .. it's possible.
Lack of privacy (or total access to a person’s thoughts and ideas) gives any unacceptable amount of power to the person or organisation which has access to it. Any government or corporation - even when set up in a benign capacity - operates via interactions with regular people .. and these people have flaws like you or I do. Without a doubt, some will choose abuse power
When corporations are unaccountable to no-one but shareholders - they're tacitly restricted to only really caring about profit. This means that they're sometimes going to do stuff that's ethically dubious, if they can get away with it.
Take this propensity for corporations to go for profit at any cost, add increased power (due to the majority of our meaningful transactions being carried out online on sites controlled by private organisations) and I reckon potentially we could have a dystopia.
I reckon the only way to deal with potential bad stuff, is to think about what might happen and ensure that there's legislation (or at least general consensus) in place to stop it.
- airey0
at what stage in history has power ever been equal? power has never been equal and never will be. if it was equal it wouldn't be power would it?
seriously, 1984 was written to warn of the police state through our own inactions. v for vendetta also whistled this tune much more obviously and simplistically (in the movie version anyway). our failing-ability to close our minds and submit to so-called safety when we perceive a threat to our staus quo. a parallel to our ongoing war against a noun (terrorism) overlays perfectly to 1984, think of all the freedoms ditched in the usa in the years following 911. a battle against a bogeyman that can never actually be finalised.
as for the points you mentioned, privacy has always been a fragile thing and in many cases more imagined than real. and in places like social networks, people are literally sharing their shit with the public domain, so it's a tad rich for them to then complain or even concern themselves with the lack of privacy. if you worry then don't use facebook, twitter or whatever comes next.
the corporations statement is a capitalist argument and honestly, it might be a shit system but it's about the best we have presently. the irony i like is that people complain about the shareholders expecting profits right up to the point they buy shares and then guess what, they want a return on their investment. illustrating the point that people are the issue not some evil corporation.
i see your point on the whole thing i just don't really agree but that's the point of these threads and places i think.
- lukus_W0
Well - we can disagree about dystopia, but would you at least say there's a danger that needs to be avoided?
I'd say that this is most certainly the case.
The immediate solution is:
a) make lobbying impossible or at least very difficult.
b) legislate to moderate the behaviour of corporations to preserve our rights.During the industrial revolution, laws were eventually introduced to help protect the worker. Similar legislation needs to be developed for this newer digital age we're moving towards.
At the moment, due to the lobbying powers of corporations - laws are being introduced which _moderate_ the behaviour of the public and _protect_ the rights of corporations (e.g. the recent UK Digital Economy Bill).
It's absolutely the wrong way round.
- mrghost0
http://www.qbn.com/topics/627004…
tried to tell you guys
- FredMcWoozy0
Please see: