In the case of the state, to ensure security — of all kinds
Especially of the kind that means "we are secure in our power, and nobody can oppose us, whatever we do".
In the case of big organizations to (i) learn about the user so as to improve the product
Where "improve" may mean "extract more value from the user".
So, if the intentions are good,
That's one towering "if" right here.
They cannot admit to surveillance/collection of data
If you can not admit what you are actually doing, you may not be in the good guys territory anymore.
The cached meaning of 'surveillance' in the minds of the people is ... erm ... not good. They need to invent a new phrase.
The term for this is "euphemism treadmill". It's not a new thing. If you started to call crap "candy", the crap doesn't stop stinking, but the word "candy" would start stinking.
Cc: 'global warming' needed to be jetissoned for 'climate change'.
And that changed everything. Wait, it actually didn't. It changed nothing.
You've been banned for this and other threads for 7 days. Not because your conduct was particularly egregious here but because you could use a little bit of time to lurk more and get better acquainted with this site's expectations. You joined only a month ago but in the intervening time you've created 6 top-level threads, almost all of which have been heavily downvoted and reported multiple times (mostly for low effort). Check out the quality contribution threads to get a better sense of what kind of effort is expected.
Why are you writing a set of copy posts? This is the second one you've done in the formula of "X is overrated. The problems with the discourse around X are framing¹ (cached meanings of words in the minds of the populace)" and then gone on to show why some other thing is the best.
In the case of big organizations to (i) learn about the user so as to improve the product, and (ii), learn about the user to recommend better ads.
and (iii) manipulating users away from information and behavior inconvenient, and towards information and behavior convenient for the big organizations and the state.
So, if the intentions are good, why is everyone wary of data collection by central organizations?
Because the intentions aren't good, and even if they started off this way the temptation to abuse the power would probably be too great for anyone not to succumb.
There are unloaded terms for these activities: census or polling statistics.
They are opt-in and don't infringe on privacy, and only the most hardline small government libertarians usually object to them.
People are generally uncomfortable with widespread/automatic surveillance because it's
opaque; inspecting the methodology and ethics thereof can often only done post-hoc, often with leaks and after non-trivial social costs are already borne
surprisingly effective and perceptive; see how much information can be gleaned from metadata with phone calls, or IP connections that are encrypted with TLS, but not routed over TOR
susceptible to abuse; you want to shift the framing to gloss over this, but is that logically honest? is it reasonable to assume organizations have individuals best interests in mind? it is always tempting to label dissidents as terrorists and crack down on them with the full force of the state, but does that lead to a productive and free society? would you rather live in China, where discussions about the CCP are mired in doublespeak/downright avoided, or the US, which has pretty robust protections of speech that don't have clear National Security dynamics (see Snowden and Assange as obvious counterexamples)?
I think it's also important to understand the unease around privacy is not necessarily utilitarian and logically consistent: Alexa listening in on your sex life and giving you sex toys recommendations based on orgasm frequency is certainly useful, but would make almost anyone I know very uncomfortable.
(iii) Doing whatever they need data collection for greatly, building trust from the get-go, and never deliberately violating it.
That would be enough for me. Too bad I don't see it happening.
Until there are trustworthy intermediaries that look after my wellbeing while connecting me to various services/products, I'll stick with anonymity. Present-day advertisers don't meet that standard, which is unsurprising given their incentives.
If someone created a "shopping agent" industry, I'd strongly consider it. They would (by definition) have my best interests at heart, so the more info I shared with them the more efficiently they could help me.
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
1yr ago·Edited 1yr ago
So as I understand your argument is:
Knowing more things leads to more efficient outcomes
Central organizations are well intentioned
Therefore Central organizations knowing more things leads to better outcomes
Let us for a moment assume this is correct.
Better outcomes for whom? You assume, incorrectly that the interests of individuals and organizations are aligned, when nothing could be further from the truth. It could very well be in the interest of the organization you work for or live in the jurisdiction of for you to be a slave of them, which I don't believe would be in your interest.
You propose more power be given to organizations. What makes you think it will be used to improve outcomes for anybody but those organizations?
A fascist would here simply stand by the idea only the welfare of organizations matter. But fascism is an insane ideology that holds the existence of the individual is mental illness.
This argument is not necessary because your premise is flawed.
Central organizations are not well intentioned. They, in fact, do not have the ability to be well intentioned and are necessarily pushing for worse outcomes by virtue of their existence.
An organization does not wish to accomplish any goals, it wishes to survive and grow in size. This means that it has, to a degree, to pretend to accomplish a goal to convince people to let it live and give it ressources. Any power given to it will be used to service this pretending only if it is absolutely necessary and all the rest goes to growing it's influence. As has happened to every organization throughout history, because the game theory of power requires it.
Organizations unfortunately have to exist despite these deadly flaws because their pretending to care about something scales, and individual conviction does not.
But any power given to them at the expense of humans is just one more step down towards the inevitable goal of all human power structures: totalitarianism. That state where the one power manages to absorb all competition and wins the ultimate prize of politics. And then proceeds to destroy itself because it has to handle an infinitely complex world with finite information.
As you know this process usually involves millions of deaths, and people aren't too keen on it. Hence we've invented guidelines as to when power should stop being given to organizations. These are commonly called "rights" and they include privacy because we've noticed that learning all about a person's life gives organizations such a tremendous power over humans that the slide to total control is easy to see from there.
I hence enjoin you to renounce this silly idea, lest you be enslaved and murdered by systems that seek to make sure your thoughts are what they want.
This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a
court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to
optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.
The weekly Culture War threads host the most
controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are
appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy;
if in doubt, post!
Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts.
You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.
Why are you called The Motte?
A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently,
it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey",
originally identified by
philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial
but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens
this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for
the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired
propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."
On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.
New post guidelines
If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it.
A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts
such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a
submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).
Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or
significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Especially of the kind that means "we are secure in our power, and nobody can oppose us, whatever we do".
Where "improve" may mean "extract more value from the user".
That's one towering "if" right here.
If you can not admit what you are actually doing, you may not be in the good guys territory anymore.
The term for this is "euphemism treadmill". It's not a new thing. If you started to call crap "candy", the crap doesn't stop stinking, but the word "candy" would start stinking.
And that changed everything. Wait, it actually didn't. It changed nothing.
More options
Context Copy link
You've been banned for this and other threads for 7 days. Not because your conduct was particularly egregious here but because you could use a little bit of time to lurk more and get better acquainted with this site's expectations. You joined only a month ago but in the intervening time you've created 6 top-level threads, almost all of which have been heavily downvoted and reported multiple times (mostly for low effort). Check out the quality contribution threads to get a better sense of what kind of effort is expected.
More options
Context Copy link
Comrade.
I would like to suggest slowing down your rate of posts. You will probably get better engagement if you do.
More options
Context Copy link
they are not actually good
They can and will just survei whatever the fuck they want, as it is happening now.
More options
Context Copy link
Why are you writing a set of copy posts? This is the second one you've done in the formula of "X is overrated. The problems with the discourse around X are framing¹ (cached meanings of words in the minds of the populace)" and then gone on to show why some other thing is the best.
the problem is that they failed to do this
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
and (iii) manipulating users away from information and behavior inconvenient, and towards information and behavior convenient for the big organizations and the state.
Because the intentions aren't good, and even if they started off this way the temptation to abuse the power would probably be too great for anyone not to succumb.
More options
Context Copy link
There are unloaded terms for these activities: census or polling statistics.
They are opt-in and don't infringe on privacy, and only the most hardline small government libertarians usually object to them.
People are generally uncomfortable with widespread/automatic surveillance because it's
opaque; inspecting the methodology and ethics thereof can often only done post-hoc, often with leaks and after non-trivial social costs are already borne
surprisingly effective and perceptive; see how much information can be gleaned from metadata with phone calls, or IP connections that are encrypted with TLS, but not routed over TOR
susceptible to abuse; you want to shift the framing to gloss over this, but is that logically honest? is it reasonable to assume organizations have individuals best interests in mind? it is always tempting to label dissidents as terrorists and crack down on them with the full force of the state, but does that lead to a productive and free society? would you rather live in China, where discussions about the CCP are mired in doublespeak/downright avoided, or the US, which has pretty robust protections of speech that don't have clear National Security dynamics (see Snowden and Assange as obvious counterexamples)?
I think it's also important to understand the unease around privacy is not necessarily utilitarian and logically consistent: Alexa listening in on your sex life and giving you sex toys recommendations based on orgasm frequency is certainly useful, but would make almost anyone I know very uncomfortable.
More options
Context Copy link
That would be enough for me. Too bad I don't see it happening.
Until there are trustworthy intermediaries that look after my wellbeing while connecting me to various services/products, I'll stick with anonymity. Present-day advertisers don't meet that standard, which is unsurprising given their incentives.
If someone created a "shopping agent" industry, I'd strongly consider it. They would (by definition) have my best interests at heart, so the more info I shared with them the more efficiently they could help me.
More options
Context Copy link
So as I understand your argument is:
Knowing more things leads to more efficient outcomes
Central organizations are well intentioned
Therefore Central organizations knowing more things leads to better outcomes
Let us for a moment assume this is correct.
Better outcomes for whom? You assume, incorrectly that the interests of individuals and organizations are aligned, when nothing could be further from the truth. It could very well be in the interest of the organization you work for or live in the jurisdiction of for you to be a slave of them, which I don't believe would be in your interest.
You propose more power be given to organizations. What makes you think it will be used to improve outcomes for anybody but those organizations?
A fascist would here simply stand by the idea only the welfare of organizations matter. But fascism is an insane ideology that holds the existence of the individual is mental illness.
This argument is not necessary because your premise is flawed.
Central organizations are not well intentioned. They, in fact, do not have the ability to be well intentioned and are necessarily pushing for worse outcomes by virtue of their existence.
An organization does not wish to accomplish any goals, it wishes to survive and grow in size. This means that it has, to a degree, to pretend to accomplish a goal to convince people to let it live and give it ressources. Any power given to it will be used to service this pretending only if it is absolutely necessary and all the rest goes to growing it's influence. As has happened to every organization throughout history, because the game theory of power requires it.
Organizations unfortunately have to exist despite these deadly flaws because their pretending to care about something scales, and individual conviction does not.
But any power given to them at the expense of humans is just one more step down towards the inevitable goal of all human power structures: totalitarianism. That state where the one power manages to absorb all competition and wins the ultimate prize of politics. And then proceeds to destroy itself because it has to handle an infinitely complex world with finite information.
As you know this process usually involves millions of deaths, and people aren't too keen on it. Hence we've invented guidelines as to when power should stop being given to organizations. These are commonly called "rights" and they include privacy because we've noticed that learning all about a person's life gives organizations such a tremendous power over humans that the slide to total control is easy to see from there.
I hence enjoin you to renounce this silly idea, lest you be enslaved and murdered by systems that seek to make sure your thoughts are what they want.
More options
Context Copy link