pyjammas

It feels like Spotify keeps recommending the same few somgs to me unless I go for the weekly 'Discovery' playlist.

This is some next level theater.

It's what I suppose both the 'left' and 'right' call "lib shit". It's at the heart of what's gotten me very confused politically: I'm probably proper left, but find myself oddly sympathetic of the the pretty bad part of what is called 'right'. So which am I, 'politically realistic' and as a result 'a lib', or do I just want to simultaneously tune out and 'fuck shit up' and feel both guilty and apathetic about /that/ too. There are only so many turtles I can go down a day.

I don't necessarily disagree, but I can't help but wonder if the increase in peace and progress, assuming that's actually true (imperialism has caused quite a bit of suffering, just often not in our back-yard), cannot be explained by factors other than the 'leviathan'.

Furthermore, there's no reason to assume that a less centralized, less coercive approach might not be the next step in our 'progress'. Our technological developments, among other things, might make that more possible.

(I think that any such change would might not work very well if implemented revolutionary-style though, and I'm unsure what other approach might work)

What makes you think the problems of immigration are not just Trumped up (heh) to distract from the much bigger problem that is the very hierarchy and filthy-rich class (that your president represents) of people that has steadily been fucking over the lower- and middle class, and reduced much of your country to a pretty shit place for the latter compared to more socialism-inspired countries?

Scapegoating is an age-old tactic used by the powerful and there's tons of evidence that inequality on the level seen in the US is not a good thing. On the other hand, the evidence that immigration is terrible and that stronger elements of socialism (at least Europe-style) don't work is quite lacking.

I'm not saying we should go for full on state socialism USSR-style, but there's a lot in between.

Apologies if I misinterpret your comment, but aren't we arguing the same thing?

Thank you for elaborating. Truly.

Is there any way I could continue this conversation via email or some other form of communication? I very much would like to pick your brain on some of this in a more personal form.

EDIT: my email is my username at gmail.com

I see your point. It's depressing, but still.

If I were in charge of company that does what CA does, I'd specifically hire 'IT guys' that I have dirt on that is worse than any of this... Or I'd find dirt on people that my IT guy cares about.

I might be giving CA more credit than they're due in the smarts department, but considering that I'm just a dude making up scenarios, I find this particular one pretty plausible. And assuming the worst seems like a sensible approach in this case.

How would you define 'fringe', and how does this not include views that are less pro-state?

Railing against "the state" or "our corporate overlords" is not a mature political position

Why not? Historically anarchists played a mentionable role in this whole leftist thing.

EDIT: Also, could you elaborate on what you mean with 'a mature position'? I've found that kind of statement to be an effective but dishonest way to dismiss things.

How much of that relies on the raided party to have a desire to remain in business and to avoid criminal charges?

I can't help but feel that those individuals who really 'matter' in this situation have insulated themselves appropriately from CA as a corporate entity that whatever happens to CA specifically is just a minor inconvenience.

I understand this line of reasoning from a butt-hurt nerd perspective, but surely we can agree that it's a good thing that the consequences of 'all this' is finally hitting the mainstream?

And if so, what is the value of such an attitude other than some kind of petty 'told you so' need? Do we demand badges for our wokeness?

Too early to tell. It took almost a week to get a warrant to raid the CA offices, and while I do sort-of understand why, it's not promising. Furthermore, the Snowden revelations didn't have as much of an effect as I'd hoped, and once it 'blew over' it largely stopped being a public concern.

The same could happen here. Perhaps Zuck will be fired or we'll stop hearing about his (alleged) ambitions to enter politics, and that will be the end of it.

Let's not forget that CA is just one company. As long as Robert Mercer can continue doing what he does under various shell companies that are easy to register, we really haven't gotten anywhere unless regulations are implemented, and somehow applied globally.

It is historically accurate to identify the extreme left with the ComIntern, i.e. the Soviet communist party, ruled during his lifetime by Stalin.

No, it is absolutely not.

The historical record of the left is extremely pro-state, pro surveillance

I think the problem with your comment is that you're flat-out misrepresenting the 'reeeally left wing'. There are plenty of 'leftist' movements that are just as opposed to 'the state' as they are to our corporate overlords. Arguing otherwise is either plain stupidity or intentional misrepresentation.

If by public information you mean 'information a friend has shared with you', then yes.

I would not exactly call that public, though.

I can't seem to edit my comment, so I'll comment on my comment instead:

To put this in a broader perspective, because I'm tired of the comment-sniping that doesn't seem to lead anywhere:

I find myself already a bit uneasy with the whole idea that an individual can write away their freedom to spend their daylight hours tethered to an employer to the point where their every (productive, sunlit) hour needs to be accounted for.

At the same time I can understand that this is how things are, and we are trying to be human within that sphere, and perhaps for many this is not so bad as long as they can live in a microcosm of society within this world. That includes gossip, complaining, semi-secret conversation, and even romance (while that's often not smart).

I'd really prefer to engage with those who employ and get to dictate the behavior of said employees, instead of comment-sniping where we never bridge that 'gap' between me, a self-employed, individual (because I reject all that), and someone who actively is 'in charge' of people who submit to it.

I do realize that my wording in itself is not neutral, but I hope acknowledging that helps bridge that gap a bit at least. And I have counted those 'in charge' as friends in the past, plus I know I'm not a typical 'person', so I'm open to learning to understand this whole thing.

While I sympathize with that concern, I do really believe that actively preventing employees from employing natural means of 'private' conversation is squarely in the 'panopticon' sphere of employment. I find it difficult enough that people can be 'owned' for full work weeks as far as their physical presence, but I suppose I'm pragmatic enough to accept that this is the status quo. But the thought that they are actively monitored during this time, preventing them from even private venting and communicating in a way that is not monitored, is much harder to accept.

We're talking about people here. While I personally have never understood how anyone can accept being under the thumb of an employer for such long periods of time out of their productive years, I've learned to see that this is bearable within the relative freedom that this usually entails (complaining about x colleague, grumbling about the boss with the support staff, after-work beers with a manager who grumbles about his manager), I truly cannot understand how one can have a dignified life as an individual when all your forms of communication are being watched by your overlords.

I remember not thinking much of the whole CA story back when I read about it (few years ago?), but what makes me less certain about this is that they might have vastly more data to work with than I initially thought.

I'm not a data scientist though, so I'd really like to hear why that is/isn't a problem. Basically: assuming one has massive datasets that can be combined, how dangerous can even basic analysis be?

Furthermore, the whole "no data collected" has any value from the perspective of the user only when using real names.

That might be true for you, but I've more than once had to ditch an old nick because over time I'd let slip enough specifics that identifying me would be (theoretically) possible. It's all a matter of degrees, but 'no data collected' is definitely valuable.

Isn't all that end-to-end encrypted?

Most people I know have switched to WhatsApp exactly for the reasons you mention. I'm not a very social person, yet I'm already in multiple chat groups: 'family', 'siblings', 'social groups', 'activity groups'. It's the same for almost everyone I know.

Feature-wise, I'd much prefer everyone switch to Telegram, but I wouldn't be surprised if these features come to WhatsApp soon. Main reason I think they haven't is that Facebook might still try to make their main product 'work', or perhaps some kind of anti-trust issues?

The 'why is this news' sentiment is understandable, but people underestimate how much this kind of public /mainstream attention can matter when it comes to action being taken.

The only analogy I can think of is smoking. IIRC there was already a consensus about their dangers in the fifties, but it took decades, in part by strong lobbying efforts, before the public accepted/internalized this truth.

Similarly, the #metoo thing might cause shrugs among those who were in the know for a while, but I'm sure the public outrage will have lasting effects. I mean, Cosby's crimes were an open secret until suddenly it wasn't (a comedian went viral, or something like that?).

I've been curious about what the effects are of people moving to Instagram and WhatsApp.

I'm not too familiar with the former, but am I correct in assuming it's less useful, compared to FB proper, for both ads and information gathering?

And with WhatsApp, if everything is indeed end-to-end encrypted, would this not be even more the case? Instead of a steady supply of chats, photos, location data, FB would 'only' have metadata to work with. And ads are probably not really a realistic option at all.

Unless I'm wrong about all that, I imagine the value of these two platforms is significantly lower than the original value of Facebook (to them, anyways)

You're quite possibly right, but don't underestimate the huge difference between 'some friend telling them about risks' and 'media hysteria'.

Chipotle had tremendous negative press years ago from food poisoning issues and hasn't recovered since.

Chipotle is an excellent example of how this might affect Facebook.

I think Chipotle could have recovered from this scandal if not for the fact that many people were already less into the 'chain restaurant' thing (in particular 'millennials', I remember reading somewhere).

Of all the people I know, a shockingly small percentage actually uses Facebook actively. And just looking at my FB feed, it's become a ghost town compared to what it used to be. Many have moved to WhatsApp/Telegram/Snapchat/Instagram/etc. for their regular interactions, and mostly use Facebook for overt marketing/self-marketing purposes, if at all (events, business pages, etc.). And there's a surprising amount of grumbling about WhatsApp and Instagram being owned by Facebook, by people who I wouldn't characterize as the 'type' for this kind of grumbling.

The fact that Facebook is still used for some things, and that they own WhatsApp/Instagram might end up saving them, but I still wouldn't be surprised if, similar to the Chipotle situation, this is just that last push that many people need to ditch the FB ecosystem, or at least actively look for alternatives. And so far I get the impression that the WhatsApp/Instagram 'moats' are much more sensitive to disruption than FB is, or used to be.

We once had a Hitler. Therefore any warnings of genocide are just convenient bullshit stories, and people just need to grow the fuck up.

Bitcoin, or rather the bitcoin ecosystem, strikes me as the existing system on steroids. Let's cut out the few checks and balances we have and see the resulting clusterfuck.

You'd think Uber would be extra-vetted before they were allowed to do something like this.

all the more baffling that you feel a need to go out of your way bucket your work into 'mediocrity'.