[alienfilesystem]

I'm going to come across here as an odd outlier, and that's OK. I accept it. Being in IT for 20 years has shown me that none of these companies can be trusted. Since I have to have a mobile phone, I chose Apple. I don't believe that there are "lesser evils". You're evil or you're not. Full stop. I do my best to use open source tools (save iPhone) in my house. Granted, there are no open source TVs, Roku's, etc, but they are not tracking me. My TV is set to be dumb, I don't use "real" information when I sign up for transient things. I use email aliases for everything with Fastmail. I have no apps save the ones that ship with the phone and I don't use the health app. I use the phone, texting, and camera. That's it. I don't have an iCloud account.

The field of companies is narrowing with FAANG buying up everything of value or anything that may threaten them. I get it. It's all about money. While I don't agree with everything that Richard Stallman says, he's right more often than not. We are increasingly giving our lives to FAANG. The tracking is insidious. The sharing of information is insidious. We can fight back should we wish. But how many people are willing to give up their conveniences for their freedoms? I'd wager not too many. I'll admit I bought a flip phone for the purposes of avoiding any virus apps that may be required in future should that happen. I just want to stay off the radar and I have a right to do so.

[ilikepi]

> Granted, there are no open source TVs, Roku's, etc, but they are not tracking me.

Generally our views are broadly aligned, though the above sentence gave me pause. Are you suggesting specifically that Roku doesn't monitor ("track") what you watch? If so, you should really spend a little time with Roku's privacy policy[1] wherein they say quite explicitly that they do.

I chose Roku pretty early on for our household, and I have regrets about that choice, but I can't bring myself to replace our Roku hardware with Apple TV hardware given the latter is quite a bit more expensive, and then I'm left to decide whether to spend more money on a third-party remote or be stuck with the terrible one that comes in the box.

[1]: https://docs.roku.com/published/userprivacypolicy/en/us

[propogandist]

Just get pihole and put it on your network. Roku and Amazon Fire Stick are constantly calling home. Even every interaction with the remote is logged and sent back.

You can see it happening and block it. Roku also shuts down and stops you from using many apps if it can't call home for a long time.

[ilikepi]

Er...so the solution is to block the traffic, but then eventually that makes the device stop working unless you allow the traffic again?

[throwaway_pdp09]

Mine is to be an opinion-only post but...

> You're evil or you're not. Full stop.

... I'm afraid I can't agree.

[zadkey]

At the individual level I agree that people are not 100% good or 100% evil. Corporations may have good people that work there and help with tasks that are mostly evil. But companies that are truly evil and offer no product, no benefit, no public good, no service, do not exist. A truly evil company offers nothing and expects everything in return. So from my perspective it's impossible for a company to be 100% evil. But some larger companies will get as close as they can.

Any for profit company that is sufficiently large enough will eventually behave in ways that are evil.

The problem here is corporate bylaws and shareholders. Many Corporate bylaws state the only purpose of the company is to pursue profits, everything else is secondary.

These things create a perverse incentive to continuously show growth.

It's not enough to be profitable as a company. The company is expected to continuously expand their market share.

If they own a relatively small market share they can innovate, improve their product, get better at marketing or sales and expand their share that way.

But eventually if they are already the dominant player in a market, to continue to grow they must snuff out competition with anti-competitive behavior and expand into to new markets often by buying companies already in those markets. And If a C level executive or board member refuses to put profits over people, they can be ousted by shareholders or sued for securities fraud.

This behavior pattern of infinite expansion of market share is the symptom created by the perverse incentives of shareholders and will eventually drive any for profit company that is large enough and has shareholders to behave in ways that we consider evil.

And while I am sure the solution is likely reclassification into B Corporations or non-profits, getting companies to reclassify is not going to be easy.

[alienfilesystem]

I appreciate your comment, but let's be honest, good and evil are binary like night and day. I don't cotton to the idea that one's morals can be suspended in "twilight". There are ways to make tons of money and be completely moral.

[tasuki]

> let's be honest, good and evil are binary like night and day.

Now why would you think that?

In fact I'm pretty sure you're wrong: good and evil are various shades of gray, never white nor black. In real life, there aren't entities (corporations or humans or whatever) that are "pure good", nor are there entities that are "pure evil".

[sidibe]

Furthermore by not differentiating between shades of gray there's no way to encourage good behavior from companies/people because they're all equally bad so you treat them the same even if one is making more efforts to do the right thing.

[tasuki]

Indeed. Saying that good and evil is binary might be... evil ;)

[read_if_gay_]

In a philosophical sense yes, but there’s degrees to both of them, and once you consider practical issues your options will often be a mix of good and evil.

[alienfilesystem]

Thank you for your comment, but please clarify how a moral person can see "degrees" of evil and allow themselves to make money with a conscience, knowing full well they are not being lawful good (Sorry, my D&D youth)?

As for myself, I work for non-profits largely because I want to do good for others. I cannot see taking advantage of another's data, for instance, without their consent (real or imagined) to make a profit and then share it with them. Perhaps I'm a goody-two-shoes, but I'll accept it. I cannot fathom working a job where my existence is to bleed out as much profit from others without them knowing, or if they do know, them not having a voice or a way out short of not using the devices of modernity.

[nxc18]

Do you work for a non-profit in the United States, Canada, the UK, France, or another western country and pay taxes?

Do your taxes contribute to murdering foreigners in a desert far away?

Are you evil?

This isn't a personal attack, I just really struggle when I see moral absolutism and binary thinking. The world isn't binary even though our work with computers and human systems often lead us to pretend that it is.

[throwaway_pdp09]

Do you eat meat? I don't, for moral reasons. If you do does that make you evil in my eyes? Are you in fact evil?

I could do this all day. A clear and unambigious view of what's wrong and right is a risky thing - you will be compelled to fix it, without limits to your interference.

That was provocative and I think you're a good person but I don't think it's so easy, or safe, to draw a dividing line. But that risks not drawing a dividing line, so more dangers lurk.

[alienfilesystem]

Thank you for your comments. I agree with you that this can be taken to the nth degree and it benefits no one. I guess I could say that I do my best to avoid "grey" areas if at all possible. If I don't stand for something, I fall for anything.

As far as meat goes, I don't eat red meat. Fish, yes. Chicken, don't really care for it. I could easily get by on fish, rice, beans, salads, etc. I see your point. My eating fish would be evil to someone else since a life is lost in doing so. Beef is nasty to me because I hate even seeing fat on food. As an aside, to me, nothing is better than fried fish or a salad made from chilled chickpeas, lime juice, cilantro, diced Roma tomatoes, and red onion. Add Serrano or Jalapeno peppers if you like spicy.

[dbliss]

So there's no nuance to anything people do, there are only good or evil people? That's quite an extreme view.

[6gvONxR4sf7o]

I think the idea of morality being a spectrum is pretty self evident. There's good, great, bad, worse, and neutral (like the action of me sitting in a chair right now). The reason it's important is in avoiding "'perfect' is the enemy of 'better'" issues.

[walterbell]

> I'll admit I bought a flip phone for the purposes of avoiding any virus apps that may be required in future should that happen. I just want to stay off the radar and I have a right to do so.

iOS 13.7+ can track your location for Covid contact tracing, even if there is no "virus app" installed. There should be an opt-out setting.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/01/tech/apple-google-contact-tra...

[alienfilesystem]

Yes, mine is turned off. Look at some European countries now. England has QR codes at the entrances to all public spaces. Download and install the app or provide your details that they hold for 21 days. No, thank you. Will. Not. Comply.

[walterbell]

Germany is introducing a fine for providing incorrect contact details to restaurants. Former East Germans have living experience with "papers please".

We need all test statistics to be normalized, e.g. with transparency on PCR cycle threshold used by the test vendor and laboratory.

Given Bluetooth security weaknesses, it's only a matter of time before a legal challenge occurs against an iOS proximity assertion which has a large economic consequence, e.g. person returns to country B with PCR CT30 after being near a person in country A with PCR CT40 "positive" test result.

Should Person B be quarantined (e.g. they are expected to perform in a high-value sporting event) if they have no symptoms and there's a broad discrepancy in PCR cycle thresholds? Lawyers will sort this out after enough money is at stake to justify thorough collection of scientific evidence to challenge local policy assumptions syndicated by global iOS.

[RonanTheGrey]

> Germany is introducing a fine for providing incorrect contact details to restaurants

The older I get, the more true the adage "those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them" becomes to me.

Why is it that every few generations we have to repeat the mistakes of the past, in versions ever more vicious and horrific, in order to learn (for a couple of generations maybe) that it was a bad idea?

[RonanTheGrey]

To preface, I agree with your stance.

But it leaves me wanting more. I mean -- we know, to be blunt, we know that the vast, vast majority of people will never stand up and agree with you, even if some unidentified part of them wants to. The world is marching in lockstep toward authoritarianism again, and cheering it along the whole way.

Where does all this go? What can we do? Disappear into a countryside somewhere and live off the land? What's the endgame for those of us who don't want to play anymore?

I don't have an answer to this. And without an answer, symbolic acts of rebellion become meaningless to me and I suspect, is 99% of the reason nobody else stands up either. Without an alternative - there's no point in fighting back.

So how do we create an alternative? Not just advocate for one... create it. So that people flock to it.

[alienfilesystem]

I think one of the best voices in this regard is a man named Dave Cullen out of Ireland. His YouTube channel, Computing Forever, has always been spot on in regard to the plandemic and other authoritarian happenings. He has some fascinating guests as well. I've yet to find him wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/user/LACK78

I don't know what the answer is as far as getting people to wake up. Most people are utter sheeple when it comes to adhering to the diktats of government. They implicitly trust government and they shouldn't. Very few governments are really in lockstep with their people. Iceland is one, the Swiss do fairly well in this regard, as does Finland and Denmark. Again, very few.

[RonanTheGrey]

Someone didn't like my question heh, just wanted to say thank you for your reply. Will check him out.

[Bedon292]

Would you consider something like the Shield TV open source? There are some proprietary drivers, for things like Dolby Vision I think, but probably as open as you can get. [1] Or you could certainly set up a Pi / NUC to run Linux and Plex to have more control.

[1] https://developer.nvidia.com/shield-open-source

[DrPhish]

As an anecdote, I previously tried to run Plex without any connections back to the mothership, and they were doing some super crazy stuff (server _and_ client side) to ensure that it wouldn't work if those servers/IPs were blocked.

If you really want to avoid external parties, you should probably be running Kodi, compiled yourself, and firewalled off from internet access for good measure. (This assumes you _are_ worried about tracking, and so only use offline media, and not Netflix etc)