[re-al]

Isn't it amazing how easily people are controlled? Why force people to do something, when you can actually make money off whatever slave device or process you've got.

This comes down to education. We have been educated to follow and accept, rather than think critically and take the long term view on something, and act on it. Very few people are even able to consider just how much of how they view the world is on account of the way they have been taught. They think the values they have are their own, but it is not on a basis of truth, it is repetition and being told what is right. It is not their personality/individuality extending into the world - it is consensus thinking.

Frankly, its quite sad! And for some of us it is like living amongst the borg, with all these received opinions.

[heywherelogingo]

No, it's not amazing - just read all the i-need-facebook-because excuses all over this site, or the i-use-chrome-because, or the i-use-amazon-because, i-use-gmail-because... They're impossible to miss, and even on "hacker" news the apathy and myopia is rampant.

[Bayart]

People having different parameters than you do to their cost-benefit analysis doesn't make them myopic and you somehow more insightful.

[captainredbeard]

If those parameters are “short term” focused at the expense of long term success, how isn’t that myopic? How isn’t refusal to do the same insight?

[salawat]

Short-term informs long-term, and like it or not, most people aren't super accurate precogs. Short term is the default. Long-term has to be trained and requires both experience and a lot of effort to develop and keep accurate.

[shadilay]

I don't think this is a case of short term vs long term. Due to marketing the value of surveillance products seem obvious whereas the downsides sound like techno babble to the average user.

[minitoar]

This is a straw man argument. GP is talking about valuing outcomes differently.

[heywherelogingo]

Just apathetic?

[darkerside]

> Very few people are even able to consider just how much of how they view the world is on account of the way they have been taught.

I'd posit that the people who think this does not apply to them actually demonstrate this just as much as anyone else. We all make subconscious decisions about what we are going to follow and accept versus challenge because if you challenged everything you wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. How do I know I _really_ need to eat breakfast, or take a shower, or go to work today? Most of the time we operate on autopilot and we save our mental capital for decisions where we think we need it.

And we all prioritize the importance of decisions differently, and that's ok. For some of us, that important decision is, should I buy a device that let's a big corp spy on me. For others it might be, should I call my mother who I got in a fight with yesterday. For everyone with their own stack ranked list of priorities, other people's look "wrong".

Tldr, some people know they are being surveilled in since capacity and do not care, and that's ok.

[re-al]

I'm totally fine personally with other people doing what they want to do. Buy a phone knowing you are being spied on.

But do you forget that we did not know we were being spied on. Some of us suspected perhaps, but this only became blatant with the Snowden revelations. The point is that this is not an open, free-sharing system - it is plainly deceitful, designed to extract our most personal information, to provide it to a corporation/governance structure whether we want it or not.

And now we see the long path we are on coming to fruition - we will have to have a phone, a vax passport to simply get into shops. We are facing a world like East Germany, but on techno-steroids.

So, fine, choose what you like. But do you not think a line is crossed when the techno-snooping becomes mandatory, with smart phones, smart tvs, smart meters, etc? Must I hand over all of my information to what is shaping up to be a fascist (government+corporate) governance structure?

Most people around here would say yes.

[darkerside]

Actually, most people around here wouldn't say anything because this topic isn't important enough to them. They glance at the comment and move on.

Is this more unacceptable than people dying in a building collapse in Miami, or children starving to death in third world countries, or a loved one passing away, or someone being rude to someone else?

It's truly in the eye of the beholder.

[re-al]

There are bad things all over the world, deaths, crashes, collapses, etc.

But what does that have to do with technologists working hard to eliminate freedoms and privacy, not just for themselves but for everyone? Do technologists have the truth, do they really know what is better for everyone else?

[darkerside]

I don't disagree with your general point, just nitpicking on this particularly, because I think it might be eye opening to consider

> Most people around here would say yes.

[ganzuul]

But are you on the path of self-liberation yourself? 'The police man in your head' doesn't need the vestiges of technology to take control over your life. Just having children to care for makes being wild like an animal near impossible.

Who is in control? Who wrote the narrative of your life? Who decided to believe in that story?

[re-al]

These are great questions.

I am absolutely on the path to self-liberation - the policeman in my head is gone. Its been a work of years.

Why do you say wild animal? Are you a wild animal if someone doesn't tell you what to do? I think you need to check your assumptions. We are naturally joyful, trusting creatures, but this is used against us.

And having children personally made me double up my efforts. I needed to find answers - I didn't want to commit my children to automaton living.

I was not in control - I was not the author of my life. I was provided a story, and that is now rejected. I write my own story - and fyi here is a good essay that captures how I feel:

https://kateofgaia.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/behold-a-whit...

The job we have - as I see it - is to act according to what we know. There is a big difference between what you know and what you *think* you know. Eg, do you know your date of birth? No, you do not. You do not remember it - you only know what you are told. Knowing is personally verifying! Say what you see and don't lie to yourself or others.

If you do not personally verify the stories you are told, you will be 'lost in stories'. Someone else (not you) is controlling the narrative. Technology is just the latest iteration of the stories - we also have government, religion, law, our 'educated' peers, etc.

[ganzuul]

I tried to say 'wild like an animal' to make a distinction from the familiar concept of a 'wild animal'.

A wild human animal is not domesticated and does not care about what society thinks is normal acceptable behavior. It treats feeling as equal with reason; both mere qualia to be either utilized or disregarded...

I'm sure naturalists will gladly heap entire dictionaries of verbage on what I'm trying to communicate: all explainable in an instant by an upredictable, fundamentally not-safe look in one's eyes.

[captainredbeard]

You might have control preferences which are not shared across the population.

[ganzuul]

I would assume that control preferences form a distribution, mine one among many.

[afpx]

It sounds like you’re saying to not trust reason without evidence. For example, it’s reasonable to believe climate change exists because the news reports that climate scientists overwhelmingly state that it exists. With that knowledge, I may reason that the likelihood of that claim being wrong is little. Do I need to actually read all of their research to believe that?

[bsenftner]

I tend to think the issue is learning not to trust, not to grant unreserved trust to anything without the ability to either verify personally, or the issue at hand exists in an environment of shared verification, an environment where it is possible if not easy to verify and many do, which they then make public.

In addition, the issue of learning to live with uncertainty, being mature to the degree that unknowable answers and their questions simply set in an unknowable and ripe for exploitation category in one's mind. Grasping the power granted to others when they claim answers to unknowable questions is the true source of evil in this human society.

[re-al]

My thinking exactly! Do not extend trust - extend the attempt to try to verify, if you think the matter is important.

On living with uncertainty - this seems to be our major struggle. We can't say "I don't know", we would rather the life-raft of a comfortable story that assuages us. Most of us are both arrogant not because we know/have verified but because of stories/beliefs. It is hybris!

[captainredbeard]

That only holds water if the news orgs are truthful