[HN Gopher] What Does Privacy Mean Under Surveillance Capitalism?
___________________________________________________________________
What Does Privacy Mean Under Surveillance Capitalism?
Author : freddyym
Score : 160 points
Date : 2020-12-22 17:29 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lithub.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lithub.com)
| [deleted]
| blakesterz wrote:
| "Too many of those acquiring our data want it for nefarious
| purposes: to betray our secrets to insurance companies,
| employers, and governments; to sell us things it's not in our
| interest to buy; to pit us against each other in an effort to
| destroy our society from the inside; to disinform us and hijack
| our democracies. The surveillance society has transformed
| citizens into users and data subjects. Enough is enough. Those
| who have violated our right to privacy have abused our trust, and
| it's time to pull the plug on their source of power--our data."
|
| That's a decent quote, not really anything new for most of us
| around here, but I think that hits on quite a few points in just
| one paragraph. I think this post is part of her book on Privacy?
|
| It's always funny to read stuff like this when it's on a site
| that shows almost 50 things blocked between Privacy Badger and
| uBlockO. I know it's out of the author's hands, but I wonder how
| she feels about being on a site that's part of the problem she's
| writing about.
|
| "The internet is primarily funded by the collection, analysis,
| and trade of data--the data economy."
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "The internet is primarily funded by the collection, analysis,
| and trade of data-the data economy."
|
| s/internet/www/
|
| The internet is a medium. Interconnected ASNs. Cables,
| switches, routers, etc. It's hardware.
|
| Whereas the above statement -- which sounds very much like a
| media-ready soundbite from another author, Shoshana Zuboff --
| presumes that a medium is synonymous with whatever it is used
| for, e.g., a www filled with "content" created as bait in order
| to lure consumers whereupon "content providers" can then
| surveil, collect data, process and commercialise it.
|
| If the internet, the medium over which our bits travel, is
| funded by collection, analysis and trade of data, then why are
| we paying ISPs? Who is paying the costs of sending all this
| data to those who will analyze and commercialise it. Consumers
| are funding those transfer costs.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| Socialized costs, privatized profits, same as it ever was.
| [deleted]
| ruined wrote:
| there is no other space available from which one could speak.
| surveillance capitalism is a totalizing world system.
|
| https://thenib.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/mister-gotcha-...
| saurik wrote:
| I personally feel like the issue is endemic: the complaint
| isn't about a few bad apples, but that the entire Internet is
| effectively funded and operated by this stuff. The core problem
| is an incentive structure in a game that requires government to
| solve as it is a public goods problem. I thereby see people
| complaining about the issue from a website that does the same
| things being complained about as an example of how deep the
| issue is... it isn't at all strange, nor does it to detract
| from the concept: if anything, I feel like it furthers the
| argument.
| idlewords wrote:
| The point of the "bad apples" metaphor is that it corrupts
| everything.
| aww_dang wrote:
| >to sell us things it's not in our interest to buy; to pit us
| against each other in an effort to destroy our society from the
| inside; to disinform us and hijack our democracies.
|
| I liked the bit about data collection, the rest seems a little
| out there.
|
| Who says what is in our interest to buy? If people are not
| interested, they don't buy.
|
| Pit us against each other? Destroy 'our' society? What about
| individuals going their own way? Must we stay together and
| agree?
|
| Who gets to decide what is disinformation? Again, must we
| agree? Predictably, the next words are about democracy.
|
| The entire premise of democracy rests upon voters being able to
| consume and digest information on their own. If the author
| doesn't trust voters that far, then why trust them to vote on
| our lives and property?
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| > Pit us against each other? Destroy 'our' society? What
| about individuals going their own way? Must we stay together
| and agree?
|
| Politics without compromise doesn't sound like a democracy,
| or a healthy society in general.
| scotu wrote:
| > If people are not interested, they don't buy
|
| if people don't want to be abused, they won't stay near
| abusers? I think we are beyond the point where we need to
| recognize that psycology is a weapon and even knowing how it
| works won't make you immune to it
| roenxi wrote:
| When talking about issues like freedom and privacy it is
| useful to distinguish between the government/political
| organisations and everyone else.
|
| This is because a politically active group knowing your
| religion could reasonably lead to being murdered or
| expelled from a country on a mass scale (eg, the world's
| rich history of kicking Jews out of various places [0]).
| That could happen anywhere because change is quick. A for-
| profit corporation knowing my religion ranges from a non-
| issue to inconvenient except that it is likely to leak to
| political actors.
|
| The government moving in to fix these issues has a pretty
| solid risk of doing more harm than good. Countries who had
| bad SARS scares tended to do well at handling the
| coronavirus, and other countries tended to do poorly.
| Similarly I really only trust the European governments to
| handle privacy at all well because they still have recent
| scars from what happens if the government can discriminate
| easily between its citizens.
|
| The people who are of most concern in the privacy debate
| are much more likely to be hiding out amongst the vocal "oh
| no there is disinformation" crowd than a credit card
| company or medical insurer.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Expulsions_of_Jews
| godelski wrote:
| > even knowing how it works won't make you immune to it
|
| People that say "oh ads don't affect me" have always
| confused me and reminded me of a line
|
| > The greatest lie the devil ever made was convincing
| everyone that he doesn't exist.
| thegeomaster wrote:
| I don't know. I freely admit to being in this camp, but
| the ads that I get on the Internet (when I do get them)
| are so irrelevant that I'm almost never tempted to click
| on them.
|
| But I'm also from a society that's traditionally been far
| less consumeristic than the West. (Although we're slowly
| getting there, yay!) I'm often dumbfounded when I read
| anecdotes on here and other forums about the stupid shit
| Americans buy. Not casting a value judgment or anything,
| just reporting how it feels from over here.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| >I freely admit to being in this camp, but the ads that I
| get on the Internet (when I do get them) are so
| irrelevant that I'm almost never tempted to click on
| them.
|
| While the actual product being advertised may be
| irrelevant, do remember the names of the companies
| selling them? Congratulations, the ad was successful
| Mirioron wrote:
| > _While the actual product being advertised may be
| irrelevant, do remember the names of the companies
| selling them?_
|
| I can't think of any company names that I'm not a
| customer of. I can think of a few products (Raid Shadow
| Legends), but it seems like that's a pretty huge
| investment just to make me remember a product I _know_ I
| 'm not going to use.
| godelski wrote:
| So I think there's a lot more nuance to this than is
| accurately being conveyed here. I can make a decent guess
| by two important factors to your post and a third
| supposition. 1) you specify ads on the internet (this is
| actually important because it specifically refers to your
| _digital_ footprints) 2) you say you 're not in the West
| and suggest a smaller developing country. I don't think
| it is unlikely then that you aren't as well tracked
| around the web. 3) more speculation, but judging by you
| being on HN and saying "when I do get them" I'm guessing
| you use ad blockers or have some privacy preserving
| features that help. This also reduces your digital
| footprint and irrelevant ads would be a marker of success
| of these products instead of irrelevance of ads (if 3
| doesn't apply to you, I know it is applying to some here
| and they aren't thinking about it this way).
|
| But I guess some things to look out for. There are far
| more than just "you might be interested in this product"
| type of ads. There are political ads, public awareness
| ads, moral campaigns/religious ads. There are ads that
| aren't intended to get you to buy a product but rather to
| be satisfied with your purchase (see coke). There are ads
| that are used to sell prestige and status associated with
| a brand (see cars and watches). There's native
| advertising[0] which often goes unnoticed and is a
| frequent guest on HN. The tricky things of ads is that
| they come in a wide variety of flavors but people think
| "coke" is the only kind of soda. It is also a cat and
| mouse game. Old Spice created their ridiculous ads
| (called anti-advertising) to stand out because saturation
| of one type took over. Native advertising has been
| growing over the last decade and taken prominence in the
| space and the entire intent of native advertising is to
| be an ad without the reader/viewer knowing that they are
| watching an ad.
|
| Sure, maybe they don't affect you. But how sure can you
| be? Especially with the knowledge of native advertising.
| But let's _assume_ they do not work on you. Does it
| matter if they work on others? It would be an absurd
| notion to suggest that they don 't. With hundreds of
| millions of dollars being spent on ads per year (by
| single companies!) it would be a bit odd for them to be
| throwing this money down the drain. It would be a bit odd
| for politicians to do this as well. And once you accept
| the notion that political ads are a thing I think you
| have to accept that ads can persuade people to do things
| beyond buying a product. Carnegie and Rockafeller both
| used advertising to increase their public image in the
| early 20th century.
|
| It would be odd for people to spend so much money on
| something that isn't effective.
|
| Edit: I wanted to give a good example. If you watch "The
| Boys" on Amazon Prime (great show) you can see how
| Starfire's memes are all in fact a part of a marketing
| scheme and about brand awareness. This would be a version
| of native advertising, and one we've seen quite
| frequently, especially around political campaigns. But I
| don't think these types of memes even register as ads in
| most peoples' minds.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising
| Mary-Jane wrote:
| Well, yes. Who the hell would spend a few hours a day on a
| website that constantly redirected them away from content
| and towards ads they didn't want to see?
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| :-) you joke but i often wonder what the next stage is
| for places like YouTube and Instagram.
|
| On YouTube we're up to 2 pre-rolls these days along with
| an interstitial per 10 minutes, the in-stream advertising
| by the programme itself, the youtube page furniture ads
| and the obligatory roll of affiliate links in the
| description box.
|
| I see none of it because i know how to avoid it but i've
| seen family members change how they use youtube as a
| result. E.g. opening an episode of a show on their phone,
| putting the phone down to go do something else then come
| back and rewind to the start and begin watching. I
| totally see how they got there but its absurd.
| [deleted]
| godelski wrote:
| This is a strange perspective to me because then that would
| mean that ads are only about awareness of a product. But you
| have to _convince_ someone to buy your product.
|
| Not only that, but there's much more to advertising than
| goods. We have advertisements for political campaigns that
| try to persuade voters, pubic service announcements that try
| to persuade people to take certain actions, religious
| marketing, prescription ads that tell you to ask your doctor,
| etc. Ads have never been about awareness but persuasion. This
| is even more clear when you investigate why Coke has ads or
| car commercials. Coke already has the market. They advertise
| to make you feel like you're choice was good, and you to feel
| good. Car companies advertise to build prestige and years
| later when you buy a car you have brand prestige.
|
| It's never been about awareness, it's about selling you an
| idea as much as it is selling you a product.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| This distinction doesn't seem to stand up under scrutiny.
|
| "Shop at XYZ Pharmacy! Our prices are 5% lower than our
| competitors!"
|
| That's an ad, it's persuasive, but it's also about
| awareness. There doesn't seem to be any moral issue with
| it.
|
| Even if I replace our theoretical 5% savings with a picture
| of a scantily clad woman, or a group of young and happening
| business people, that's still persuasion - but we haven't
| suddenly created some moral harm.
| neolog wrote:
| The second case is not persuasion and it is a moral harm.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| On what basis is it a moral harm?
| neolog wrote:
| A transaction is good if both parties benefit, but in
| this transaction I end up with a product worth less to me
| than I paid.
| godelski wrote:
| I don't think your specific example illustrates moral
| harm. But there are definitely advertisers that do. We
| could for example say how BP spends a few million on ads
| to buy public good will and talking about how they are
| cleaning up the environment while they increase their
| pollution levels by expansion is morally reprehensible.
| Such advertising is quite common.
| godelski wrote:
| How about recent political ads:
|
| Vote for X! Y is going to destroy America! <insert
| imagery of America being destroyed under Y>
|
| A political ad is substantially more than awareness
| (which I'm not denying as being a part, I'm saying it is
| a small part). But this ad, like most, are there to
| convince you. It is still an ad.
|
| This isn't to say that there aren't awareness based ads.
| There's also shitty ads run by first year film students.
| But these aren't what people are being bombarded with on
| prime time TV, in Times Square, or on popular websites.
| This isn't a mathematical proof where a single counter
| example discredits an entire thesis, because we aren't
| working in absolutes here. Acting like it does is arguing
| in bad faith. For what it is worth, the examples I gave
| for Coke and car commercials are taught in first year
| marketing courses as well as psychology courses.
| earwaxauditor wrote:
| del
| [deleted]
| deathgrips wrote:
| >Whatever democracy we have depends on how well organized
| the general population is against elite political factions
|
| If the people making up the democracy are too naive and
| uneducated to defend against external and internal threats
| then democracy will fail. Reality is that which happens
| regardless of your political beliefs.
| medicineman wrote:
| Welcome to Athens, Thucydides.
| CaptArmchair wrote:
| The premise is based on a social contract.
|
| It's based on consenting and supporting a shared set of
| morals, values, and fundamental ideas that define how a
| nation is organized, and which rights and obligations its
| citizens have and are bound to. This is formally enshrined
| in a constitution.
|
| Why support such a framework? Because you trust that it
| will provide affordances towards personal security,
| liberty, well being, happiness,... and so on.
|
| Such a framework only works if enough people back it. This
| is what requires collective trust. You trust that your
| neighbours support the same basic principles and are
| willing to back and defend them when push comes to shove.
|
| Democracies tend to fall apart when people stop supporting
| these basic principles, and start distrusting others. This
| typically tends to happen in times of crisis when the
| foundational principles no longer are perceived as adhered
| to by other members of society.
|
| That perception can be real or false. Real as in an
| economic crisis causing millions to lose their home without
| receiving relief from the state they back. False as in
| being goaded or manipulated into believing that those
| foundational principles no longer are adhered to by large
| fractions of society. The latter typically happens by
| playing at strong emotions, and ignorance.
|
| A good example is how populists leverage polarization. You
| define an out-group, you attack that out-group and you
| describe them as not adhering to the foundational
| principles that govern the state. The twist is to use
| rhetoric that gradually shifts the goal posts that define
| those foundational principles. Each step of the way, you
| keep building and retaining consent as you refine your
| ideas. Down the line, populists win when they succeed in
| transforming that consent into legitimate authority.
|
| > Whatever democracy we have depends on how well organized
| the general population
|
| Any democratic society is self organizing. This creates a
| paradox, then.
|
| That is, it organizes itself by popular vote. And this
| includes, paradoxically, the potential to organize itself
| towards disbanding the very principles that govern it's
| democratic organization.
|
| This is why a lawful democracy can only survive if enough
| people are willing to band together and keep defending its
| very ideas and notions. Regardless of their present
| personal predicament.
| sixothree wrote:
| > If people are not interested, they don't buy.
|
| That is an immensely naive statement. I'll take a very small
| stab at why. It's not advertisements people pay for. It's the
| behavior manipulation. Calls to action and being able to
| change the way people act.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > If people are not interested, they don't buy.
|
| Unless they're convinced by persistent-enough marketing[1].
|
| [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02
| /ho...
| greenie_beans wrote:
| Yeah, LitHub is definitely a place of promotion more than it is
| a good literary publication. If you're reading something on
| that site then you're most likely being sold a book. They were
| created and are ran by publishers and publishing insiders. But
| that's not to say they don't publish good writing. So it's
| probably an excerpt from her books (as seen from the "via
| Bantam Books" at the top of the page).
| sixothree wrote:
| Imagine being a juror on one of these Google lawsuits and they
| many ways they could destroy your life.
| prophesi wrote:
| I hope the book goes in detail _how_ we are to take back control
| of our data. One person deleting their Facebook and having good
| privacy hygiene on the web won't make a dent. Telling others to
| do the same is futile as well. It's long past due for society to
| fear Big Corp instead of Big Government, as now we'll need the
| latter to tame the former.
| [deleted]
| umvi wrote:
| > It's long past due for society to fear Big Corp instead of
| Big Government
|
| You should fear both. Big Anything will eventually abuse their
| position of power after leadership changes hands enough times.
| And who is going to help you tame Big Government when they hold
| all the keys?
| brightstep wrote:
| At least government is somewhat, if minimally, accountable to
| people living in a democracy. Corporations are tyrannies,
| wholly unresponsive to the will of the people.
| amelius wrote:
| Just ban advertising. It will probably be the best thing that
| ever happened to the planet (reducing overconsumption) and her
| inhabitants.
|
| We will find another way to fund the internet. I have no doubt
| about that.
| [deleted]
| seniorivn wrote:
| will we find another way to find new customers, especially
| for new businesses?
| glial wrote:
| There is strong incentive to do so, so I would wager a yes.
| meowster wrote:
| There already is one: referrals
| simonh wrote:
| I don't think we need to ban advertising, which seems to
| carry pernicious risks to freedom of expression. All we need
| to do is take away their access to personal information. That
| will strip advertising of the vast majority of its value and
| should largely have the same effect.
|
| The important thing is to encourage mutual engagement and
| trust between sites and their users. Sites don't currently
| need to do this because personal information stripping by the
| advertisers substitutes for it very well. Take that away and
| the relationship between authors and audience get pushed to
| the front, where they should be.
| rapind wrote:
| This. Advertising is the root cause (perhaps shared with
| education and abstraction) of this problem and a ton of tie
| in problems.
|
| Obviously there are good reasons to have advertising, but
| we're so far afield at this point, big changes are required.
|
| Regulate it into the ground, and watch societies that don't
| also do so, turn into slave nations.
| meekrohprocess wrote:
| Shaming people who use mass-scale social media could help.
|
| Sort of like smoking: people used to do it because it was cool,
| even after the enormous health problems were well-understood.
| And it didn't stop being cool until enough people started to
| treat it like a gross and dirty habit.
| [deleted]
| mapme wrote:
| Theoretically this is exactly the justification political
| mobs on twitter use to go after bad behavior that to them
| feels morally wrong.
|
| I think it's one of the only ways to change society but it
| should be done with a light touch. With smoking I think
| people thought "it's gross" not that _you_ are a gross and
| morally repugnant person. So demonizing the act and not the
| person is important.
|
| Granted if people are not using social media the mobs will be
| smaller, but even if everyone is in communities the size of
| HN, it's still possible to form "mob sentiment"
| [deleted]
| meekrohprocess wrote:
| Right, exactly. The habit is gross, not the person.
|
| "Social-media-using" should be treated like an adjective
| that modifies the individual, not a noun that defines them.
|
| It's a shame that nuance seems like the first thing to go
| out the window when we use social media sites like this,
| but maybe someday we'll be able to do better.
| decasteve wrote:
| > Shaming people who use mass-scale social media could help.
|
| Start by shaming government officials and organizations, any
| official government channels, even schools and school boards,
| that require tools provided by surveillance capitalists. If a
| ToS and privacy policy to a third party is required, then
| your right to freedom of association is infringed upon.
|
| If governments make official releases only to walled gardens,
| then those who choose not to associate are cut-off from
| important information in the political process.
|
| Giving up your equal rights unless you give in to
| surveillance capitalism is a threat to democracy.
|
| Start there.
| seniorivn wrote:
| The only likely outcome for Big Government to tame Big corps is
| a full blown anti-utopian autocracy. Do u really think it will
| solve the problem of mass surveillance and etc?
| 02020202 wrote:
| Cui bono?
|
| people are people
| ivojp wrote:
| I'll start with that I am all for the idea of intellectual
| privacy and the need for safe guards, but even I could only make
| it part way through this article (and if these are the people who
| are supposed to be leading the charge for ethics in AI, we are,
| surely, screwed).
|
| This perspective (and there are many like it), firstly, tries to
| tie the problem to capitalism as if it's the engine that
| corrupts, and, secondly, tries to equate whats going on to
| surveillance since we presumably can all agree that surveillance
| is bad.
|
| If you are to make an ass out of yourself or expose something
| private about yourself in public, its not surveillance if people
| form opinions about you or gather that information (the lifelock
| guy and his SSN come to mind - no one would argue his personal
| information was hacked). I think part of this stems from a bad
| mental model of what being on the internet is: if
| Facebook/Twitter/other social media are the new town halls or
| pubic fora, it's difficult to consider you can be in public from
| the privacy of your own home.
|
| It is also not some unavoidable aspect of capitalism for your
| data to be used for potentially nefarious purposes. Consumers are
| just poorly informed of the transaction that is taking place. To
| label it "surveillance capitalism" implies that removing the
| profit motive would mean no one would ever "spy" on you or
| collect your data. Even a cursory overview of the 20th century or
| modern China shows how dishonest that implication is.
|
| For a quick perspective on the economics of your data, Google
| reported $160B in revenue on 1B active monthly users in 2019. If
| google charged each user $13/month for access to all it's
| services, it would make the same amount of money. This is on par
| with a Netflix or Spotify subscription.
|
| Should companies be forced to offer some sort of paid tier where
| your data is not collected? Perhaps. Should consumers be made
| aware of what they are giving up when they use a certain "free"
| service? Sure. There are many problems with our current system
| and our current understanding of things, but one problem that we
| do not have is being subjugating to the predations of a "late-
| stage" "surveillance" capitalist machine.
| Bakary wrote:
| Broadly speaking, we are being increasingly surveilled and this
| surveillance takes place under a capitalist machine, except
| perhaps in North Korea (although I will not venture in a
| semantic debate on that account). The winners in this world are
| getting larger and larger and accumulating ever more capital,
| so it could arguably be late-stage even if that concept is
| probably best left behind as too vague. Therefore, is
| surveillance capitalism such a bad expression to use?
|
| We can blame consumers for being unaware, or not active enough
| in defending their rights, or not careful enough in guarding
| their privacy and their mental models, but I am under the
| impression that it is more productive to work towards or at the
| very least orient ourselves towards a society where you do not
| have to be paranoid at every step instead of one that
| prioritizes simply assigning blame on an individual level and
| abandoning the idea of addressing structural problems.
|
| In a sense, arguing over what is real capitalism or not in a
| defensive posture doesn't really address the issue. Pointing
| out that a subscription model would be the same in terms of
| revenue misses the point that Google is growing too big to
| remain a positive force in people's lives. In both cases we
| start from flawed premises.
| ivojp wrote:
| I believe it is a bad expression to use because what should
| be a critique of the data economy now is impugning aspects of
| capitalism. If the end you wish to effect is better privacy
| rights on the internet, you've lost more than half of the US
| by blaming the economic system to which they owe their
| prosperity.
|
| What might be more productive is if this article equated what
| is going on to deceptive or fraudulent business practice.
| This is a concept most people can agree is bad and would want
| to do something about regardless of whether its from private
| businesses under capitalism or by the state under either
| capitalism or communism.
|
| Let me be clear here that I am in no way arguing for some
| sort of libertarian dream of unfettered capitalism - some of
| my policy prescriptions included forcing companies to offer a
| paid tier. But the author casts the collection and selling of
| data as something that is inevitably going to lead to harm in
| society. Does the author or anyone here believe that
| something like Google Search would be a quality product if
| run by the government? Or that it would be more trustworthy?
| Take the 2 American political poles' bugaboos - voter
| suppression and voter fraud - what would a state run search
| engine that supposedly didn't collect data on its users have
| to return for those queries?
|
| I think I largely agree with your sentiment although there is
| another aspect I disagree with: that Google is too big to
| remain a positive force in society. Unless I am reading that
| wrong, it implies that there is some level that once
| something reaches it, it has to be bad for us. You could make
| this same argument about governments. The US government is
| larger than Google with more power, if it can no longer be a
| positive force in our lives, must it be scaled back? If at
| it's current size, it cannot come together and regulate
| Google from engaging in "surveillance capitalism" and we must
| make it smaller, what are we to do?
| andrekandre wrote:
| > data economy now is impugning aspects of capitalism
|
| capitalism is, at a very basic definition, the utilization
| of capital to generate more capital
|
| data is just one form of capital
|
| separating "data economy" with "capitalsm" doesnt really
| work in my opinion...
| metabagel wrote:
| The Solid Project, led by Tim Berners-Lee, is attempting to
| address at least part of the problem by allowing you to control
| your own data (e.g., Facebook posts and likes, not that I use
| Facebook) and move it from one service to another. The services
| would be the commodity, rather than your personal data.
|
| https://solidproject.org/
| jart wrote:
| It's somewhat tepid to write a manifesto without a call to
| action. Here's what I think of when I read stuff like this:
| https://justine.storage.googleapis.com/privacydoom.mp4
| Bakary wrote:
| Action is usually the result of many manifestos and ideas
| glomming together into an unstoppable momentum
| bioinformatics wrote:
| Is it worse or better than Surveillance Communism?
| pmiller2 wrote:
| Try divorcing yourself from a 1950's Red Scare definition of
| the word "communism," and imagine what Karl Marx actually had
| in mind. From Wikipedia:
|
| > According to The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx, "Marx used
| many terms to refer to a post-capitalist society--positive
| humanism, socialism, Communism, realm of free individuality,
| free association of producers, etc. He used these terms
| completely interchangeably. The notion that "socialism" and
| "Communism" are distinct historical stages is alien to his work
| and only entered the lexicon of Marxism after his death".[36]
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism#Communism,_revolution_...
|
| Within that framework, it sounds like surveillance capitalism
| is infinitely worse than surveillance communism, because the
| framework of surveillance capitalism exists only to exploit and
| commodify people, in order to sell them things. Or worse,
| commoditize them in order to sell "them," _i.e._ their data, to
| others whom the subjects of said surveillance never consented
| to share with.
|
| OTOH, the hypothetical framework of surveillance communism
| would at least be intended to benefit society as a whole. I
| don't know if there's any contemporary thought on the matter,
| but Marx probably couldn't have conceived of the type of mass
| surveillance we have today, which means he probably wouldn't
| have understood the question straight away.
| ivojp wrote:
| The fact that you think "surveillance communism" would be for
| society's benefit and that the idea of communist countries
| mass spying on their subjects is hypothetical shows how much
| education in this country has failed us.
| fabianhjr wrote:
| > education in this country
|
| What country? Did you assume everyone visiting and
| commenting on this website live on one country?
| ivojp wrote:
| Holy hell, calm down, bro.
|
| I never assumed everyone, I am replying to pmiller2. And
| yes, I am assuming pmiller2 and I both live in the United
| States. There is a pretty good chance I am correct about
| that.
|
| How fun are you at parties?
| pmiller2 wrote:
| Again putting words in my mouth, huh? I did not say any
| such thing. I said that it could benefit "society as a
| whole." I highly doubt a capitalist society would adopt
| such a principle. Nor did I say that any country spying on
| their own people was hypothetical.
|
| If it is "tiring" to attempt to argue with me, it's because
| I don't fall for your pathetic rhetorical attempts to
| inflame, and you don't seem to be able to read what I said
| without making a straw man out of it. Name calling does not
| constitute argumentation. Do better, please, if you can.
|
| BTW, I am a English native speaker. I truly wish I could
| get a refund on my English language instruction, and
| instead have had the luxury of being born somewhere
| civilized.
| fabianhjr wrote:
| Do you mean Mass Surveillance like the US, UK, and China?
|
| I haven't heard of "Surveillance Communism" as a developed
| distinct concept.
| Ruthalas wrote:
| I suspect the parent post is making facetious commentary on
| the phrase, "surveillance capitalism".
| fabianhjr wrote:
| Still though, surveillance capitalism is the
| commodification of personal data by private enterprise and
| on the other hand mass surveillance is meant to convey the
| surveillance of the whole (or a big part) of a population
| regardless of the mode of production.
|
| I guess if "capitalist mode of production absolutely good
| and communist mode of production absolutely bad" is taken
| as a given then the parent comment would be "facetious" as
| in dismissive of the article being discussed.
| java-man wrote:
| Worse, I think.
|
| Surveillance communism used analog phone wiretaps and human
| agents, thus limiting the damage.
|
| NOTE: I meant a Soviet-style "communism", and not the current
| label that's widely applied to anything, and certainly not a
| Chinese-style regime. Think USSR and DDR.
|
| However, I fell into a trap: every time someone uses the loaded
| words like "capitalism" and "communism", it's safe to assume
| you are being manipulated, since the phenomenon needs to be
| clarified: is it an economic model, a model of government, or
| anything else.
| ivojp wrote:
| This is pretty narrow thinking; it assumes communism was some
| failed 1950's Soviet experiment and has no modern
| implementation.
|
| I doubt China limits it's surveillance to wiretaps and human
| agents.
| 1propionyl wrote:
| Whether or not you believe communism has a "modern
| implementation", China certainly isn't it.
| ivojp wrote:
| I hope this isn't the beginnings of a "true communism"
| type of argument. If it is, let's save some time and
| acknowledge the same can be said for "true capitalism"
| where the latter lacks the body count of the former.
|
| And whether or not you think China is not an
| implementation of communism, both their government and
| its subjects would largely disagree.
| aaron-santos wrote:
| Just curious, what do you think the body count of the
| later is?
| ivojp wrote:
| Well, counting up all the times in human history that
| governments had to violently force their subjects to
| accept private property rights or their ability to
| alienate their labor...
|
| let's see 0 + 0...carry the 1....um I've arrived at 0.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| I see. So, all the wars of imperialism of the last 300
| years didn't happen? Thousands of people don't die in the
| US alone every year because they can't afford medical
| care? You're either being deliberately disingenuous, or
| channelling your 14 year old nephew who's an "ancap"
| because it's edgy, even though he doesn't own any actual
| capital, if you think the body count of capitalism is
| really 0.
| ivojp wrote:
| Is imperialism unique to capitalism? What about
| capitalism necessitates imperialism? Was Soviet Russia
| not imperialist when it conquered much of eastern Europe?
| Is China's expansion and One-China policy not
| imperialist?
|
| Is quality healthcare tied to the economic engine of its
| country? How is universal health care in North Korea?
| Pretty good?
|
| You're conflating separate issues and presenting them as
| indictments of capitalism. That is either deliberately
| disingenuous or horribly ignorant. Either way, I suggest
| you pick up a book other than A People's History of the
| United States.
|
| UPDATE: Small addendum since you are confused as to what
| capitalism is. Your 14 year old nephew does own capital:
| their labor. Their ability, depending on labor laws in
| their state, allow them to offer that labor in whichever
| market or not. An option that would be deprived of them
| in a system that follows the prescriptions of "from each
| according to their ability, to each according to their
| needs."
| medicineman wrote:
| Communism is a woke ideology to these people here. Notice
| how the upvotes work? Communism good, capitalism bad!
| Grug mad!
| fabianhjr wrote:
| > Small addendum since you are confused as to what
| capitalism is. Your 14 year old nephew does own capital:
| their labor
|
| Their labour is a factor of production but it is _not_
| capital. Here is an introduction to the factors of
| production:
| https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Factors_of_production .
| (Notice that both in classical/liberal economics and
| marxist economics labour is distinct from capital)
|
| > Their ability, depending on labor laws in their state,
| allow them to offer that labor in whichever market or
| not.
|
| That is a commodity and _not_ capital and is normally
| discussed as the commodification of labour:
| https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Commodity (Addendum: there
| are many examples of regulated commodities like those
| containing tabacco and alcoholic beverages)
|
| > An option that would be deprived of them in a system
| that follows the prescriptions of "from each according to
| their ability, to each according to their needs."
|
| How so? They would still be able to labour (according to
| their ability) and would receive what they need (food,
| housing, medical treatment, education, entretainment,
| etc.) according to their need.
|
| Even in a capitalist mode of production you cannot
| "choose" to labour in a particular employment. The
| employer would gauge ability and the most effective
| number of employees; Lets assume that hypothetical nephew
| doesn't know how to cook and wants to work as a chef in a
| gourmet restaurant or isn't a nuclear engineer/scientist
| and wants to work as a nuclear plant operator like a
| fellow named Simpson.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| It always amazes me how ignorant most of the so called
| "capitalists" (who generally control little to no actual
| capital) are. Thanks for showing me at least someone paid
| attention in economics (or maybe history) class.
| aaron-santos wrote:
| It's a necessary condition. The curriculum is crafted
| specifically in this way. See for example A TEACHER GUIDE
| TO THE CALIFORNIA ECONOMICS STANDARDS[1].
|
| From unit 1.2:
|
| > HUMAN CAPITAL[Many textbooks discuss "labor" instead of
| 'human capital." We use "human capital" because it
| involves much more than physical attributes and helps
| students focus on the reason why they are in school.]
|
| Student's earliest exposure to formal economic education
| begins with definitions that deceive people into
| believing they are capitalists when they are in fact
| selling their labor power for wages.
|
| [1] - https://www.ccee.org/wp-
| content/uploads/downloads/OTHER_PDFS...
| pmiller2 wrote:
| And, you're deflecting. It's called "whataboutism," and
| it's a logical fallacy. Educate yourself and look it up.
| You're also straw manning by claiming I said imperialism
| is unique to capitalism, when I did no such thing. Please
| either refrain from replying, or actually engage with an
| argument.
|
| Now, back to the question I posed to you: did, or did not
| capitalist nations participate in wars of imperialism for
| the sake of economic expansion, which then resulted in
| people dying?
|
| PS: I know damn well what capitalism is. It's private
| ownership of the means of production, along with a market
| based economy and enforcement of private property rights.
|
| If _you_ understood what capitalism was, or even basic
| economics, you would know that labor is one of the
| factors of production which is completely separate from
| capital. You also grossly mischaracterize how labor works
| in a socialist framework, again showing that _you 've_
| never cracked a book other than maybe Friedman's
| _Capitalism and Freedom_.
|
| Moreover, you have no literal idea what a capitalist is,
| either, so I'll tell you: a capitalist is one who
| generates his or her living solely or mostly off of
| capital. Capital is defined as "means of production,"
| including land, tools, and other things besides labor and
| raw materials that allow for this thing we call
| "production" to happen.
|
| And, I know you have this strange notion of the word
| "voluntary," whereby because I choose not to starve or
| freeze on the street, I have to live indoors, and,
| because I can't afford to buy my own home, I have to
| rent, yet you consider it "voluntary" that I have to
| agree to a coercive contractual agreement in order to
| have an extremely basic standard of living. This is
| laughable, and capitalism deserves all the jeers it gets
| for redefining common sense terms like this.
|
| So, anyway, let's not continue to deflect, and return to.
| the main point: do you want to answer the question or
| not? Did capitalist nations participate in wars of
| imperialism for the sake of economic expansion, resulting
| in the death of even one human? One is greater than 0,
| after all, so, if you can acknowledge that, then we can
| begin a more thorough accounting of the deaths of
| capitalism.
| ivojp wrote:
| Christ, no wonder communism took over part of the world;
| arguing with you commies is exhausting.
|
| I was going to write more but consider this since you
| clearly don't know what "whataboutism" is or what the
| meaning of the word conflate is (otherwise you would have
| understood my argument): imperialist countries practice
| imperialism. You tied imperialism to capitalism. My
| argument with bringing in communist countries that
| practiced imperialism is to show you that regardless of
| how you organize your economy, you can be imperialist.
|
| You don't have evidence to show that if a capitalist
| country was communist instead that it would not have
| engaged in the conquest that it did.
|
| You should ask your city or state for a refund on your AP
| Language course.
| aaron-santos wrote:
| I don't quite understand how you get that number. Do you
| care to explain a bit more?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Ahistorical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure
| heavyset_go wrote:
| The Great Irish famine was a product of market
| capitalism[1] and private property[2], killing over 1
| million people.
|
| The Bengal Famine killed over 10 million people[3].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#
| Food_ex...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)#
| Causes_...
|
| [3] https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2014/7/17/1314447/-C
| apitali...
| stiray wrote:
| I have checked her site, it has references to Facebook and is
| full of trackers. She is just some self promoting woman that has
| found a niche in privacy, where she doesnt follow what she
| preaches.
|
| Yes Survailance Capitalism is a nightmare and a real thing but
| such fake stars should be weeded out. It is just a shame how low
| can some people go.
| eternalban wrote:
| > She is just some self promoting woman
|
| Highly doubtful.
|
| She's sitting on a perch in Oxford. _This is an establishment
| voice_ who is, no doubt, merely one voice in a (predicted)
| rising crescdendo of support for our "friends" at Central
| Banks (aka the Banksters) and their about to be unveiled (like
| it or not) Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
|
| https://hbr.org/2018/11/what-if-banks-were-the-main-protecto...
|
| Not "self" promoting. She is (ultimatly) promoting CBDC Digital
| Identity.
| albatruss wrote:
| Competence in writing and competence in technology are
| orthogonal matters, and it is not reasonable to "cancel"
| someone's contributions in one on account of their failure to
| live up to a standard in the other. Respectfully, for example,
| your spelling of "Survailance" does not call into question your
| worth as a privacy-conscious technologist.
| processing wrote:
| a luxury good sadly.
| rebeccaskinner wrote:
| And yet this article is on a page completely saturated by
| trackers, 28 items blocked by Ublock Origin, and another 14
| blocked by Privacy Badger by my count. I didn't even bother to
| check the number of items caught by the pihole, and I'm sure
| there are a few things that got through because they haven't made
| it into the relevant blocklists yet. People can bemoan the lack
| of privacy (and should) but it's empty words until we're willing
| to take a stand and not participate in the systems that are
| mining every bit of data that can be had en-mass.
| centimeter wrote:
| LitHub is a shitty leftist agitprop outlet, so don't expect
| consistency.
| medicineman wrote:
| As if the title didn't tell you everything you needed to
| know.
| ntsplnkv2 wrote:
| > People can bemoan the lack of privacy (and should) but it's
| empty words until we're willing to take a stand and not
| participate in the systems that are mining every bit of data
| that can be had en-mass.
|
| That's the problem that is so poignantly illustrated by this
| post - you can't not participate, or you lose. That's what
| makes it so insidious and why we shouldn't just dismiss good
| arguments out of hand for this reason.
| atmosx wrote:
| The most convincing and scary take on the subject comes from
| Yuval Noah Harari, author of "Sapiens" best seller.
|
| His premise that as soon as a system knows us better than we know
| our selves (e.g. facebook) then we can diverge all choices (what
| to eat, who to marry, what to watch) to the _machine_ and then it
| 's a new kind of dystopia were no decision needs to be taken by a
| human who is comparatively uninformed. Now, as he points out, if
| the system has glitches a-la Matrix and Neo comes along, we
| basically keep being the "heroes" of our story, but what happens
| if the system _really works_ for us... What if a computer can
| match mine and another one's happiness with a % of success that
| it's impossible for me to match, what happens then?
| deltron3030 wrote:
| >What if a computer can match mine and another one's happiness
| with a % of success that it's impossible for me to match, what
| happens then?
|
| It might make you happy to be in control and to be able to
| choose yourself. AIs and their benefits are largely result
| oriented, but there's also process orientation, where the way
| or trajectory to a result is equally if not more important than
| the result. That's the kryptonite for computer systems.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| I'm pretty convinced that ML produces better curated lists of
| things from corpuses that are enormous (billions of photos /
| posts / songs / dating partners / places to eat from) than a
| human curator does.
|
| I met my wife from an algorithmic match in an app. My resume
| was surfaced to my employer from a similar tool. My company
| makes money from the surveillance data economy which makes the
| originators of those funds (companies who want their ads to be
| seen by high probability product purchasers) happy.
|
| So yeah, throw me in the Matrix / Borg Cube.
| yurielt wrote:
| WHy are the neoliberals like this, like I hate commies but
| you people giving yourselves to the machine, is pathetic...
| medicineman wrote:
| Here I thought the NPC thing was just a meme.
| [deleted]
| Terr_ wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franchise_(short_story)
| gramakri wrote:
| Did he write an article about this or is it in the book?
| andrekandre wrote:
| > but what happens if the system _really works_ for us... What
| if a computer can match mine and another one's happiness with a
| % of success that it's impossible for me to match, what happens
| then?
|
| since any system has to start with a set of assumptions and
| expectations, and based on feedback loops for what works and
| what doesnt, always optimizing for what "works", wouldnt such a
| system more and more narrow itself down to a limited scope of
| outcomes and possibilities that basically we stop being peoole
| and turn more and more into basically narcisistic psycophants?
|
| wouldnt it basically be the end of evolution and society?
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| Neuromancer has a quote - "As much privacy as I can afford". That
| is exactly the answer to the question in the OP, and my personal
| answer is "none".
| IanDrake wrote:
| I for one prefer surveillance capitalism to surveillance
| socialism. At least in one system you can opt out.
| the_other wrote:
| I declined to accept all the tracking cookies and thus couldn't
| read the article.
| ignoramous wrote:
| I use archive.is as a mirror at times for exactly that:
| https://archive.is/DHKhl
| fabianhjr wrote:
| Weird, I set my browser to block all third party cookies and
| upon inspection this page isn't using any cookies at all.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| They do, get a nice GDPR notice too.
|
| You might be blocking everything.
| fabianhjr wrote:
| Yeah, between uBlock origin and other privacy stuff I get
| almost no notices nor other anoying things while browsing.
|
| That should be the default for everyone. :/
| Digit-Al wrote:
| I thought their notice was terrible. A huge list of
| companies each of which has t be turned off individually as
| there is no reject all button as many of these things have.
|
| If I had unchecked all of them it would have taken me
| longer to do that than to read the article.
| noja wrote:
| That's illegal. It should be as easy to reject as to
| accept.
| bigbubba wrote:
| Block javascript, it does you more harm than good:
| https://0x0.st/iC9f.png
| meowster wrote:
| "more harm than good" or "more good than harm"?
| NoOneNew wrote:
| Hi, you can apply current corporate surveillance issues under any
| type of economic or government system and still have the exact
| same discussion of, "oh woe is us, how terrible the people are up
| there". Or you can utilize the tools that capitalism offers
| everyone, even the poor.
|
| We set as either public practice or into law that people own
| their personal data, which is not a hard stretch. Think about
| that for a moment. What does it mean to _own_ something in a
| capitalist system... think... think hard... YOU CAN SELL IT!
| Actually license in this case, but you get the point. If you 're
| in the back of the class or still on the short bus, what I'm
| saying is this: a company can collect and sell YOUR data... for a
| fee. You get a percentage (or flat rate if that's your jam) of
| whatever they make, in perpetuity. Let's even classify your data
| as copyrighted content, just like books and other media. You do
| "create" your own data. After your death, your estate (children,
| etc.) get that fee as well for... I think it's 75 years after
| death, or is it 50... I don't remember how long book copyrights
| are. Exact number doesn't matter, but you get the point of where
| I'm going.
|
| But nay you say! Nay I say in return. Companies do this already.
| As a fond and active capitalist, I've made it a habit to get paid
| to learn new skills to great success. I've even held in shits so
| I can make sure I get paid to shit (only a few times and strictly
| so I can truthfully make this comment, again, you get the point).
| Anyways, companies do this by licensing their own data out to
| other companies. Now, since companies get taxed/treated as
| "people" (USA), there is ZERO reason actual people can't do this.
| Oh wait, I know why. "People" are better educated in the sex
| lives of celebrities, memes and what's the latest pop culture,
| superhero show/movie.
|
| The tools to solve this issue are built into capitalism and basic
| western governance in the last 100 years. Hell, it's also a
| decent way to redistribute wealth in a very fair method that's
| hard to argue in a capitalist society. No one is "overburdened"
| by letting someone else coast on someone else's work. Everyone
| thus has a "product" to sell in a mass format just like book
| publishers or movie streaming services.
|
| But hey, I'm the asshole that likes real world solutions that are
| based on centuries old established working principles instead of
| unicorn fantasies that have never worked, like communism.
| postingpals wrote:
| This too is a unicorn fantasy.
|
| You claim the reason people are not selling their data is
| because they are too obsessed with culture or something. In
| reality there is an imbalance of negotiation power. A company
| can sell their data because they understand the game and have
| leverage over other companies. They can say "buy our data, it's
| valuable and there's only one of us". A citizen cannot do that.
|
| Besides your data is already in circulation and they don't
| necessarily need it to be tied to you in order for it to be a
| generally useful human data point. How do you 'tax' that which
| has been stripped of your ownership and distributed far and
| wide?
|
| Nevertheless I don't think you're going to get this put into
| law. Legislation is an unstable and unfair method of change
| that is biased towards people who can afford to partake in it.
| andrekandre wrote:
| > Legislation is an unstable and unfair method of change that
| is biased towards people who can afford to partake in it.
|
| whats the solution then?
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| I caught a good part of this interview / discussion over the
| weekend. Years ago I read "Dragnet Nation" and this has renewed
| my fears.
|
| https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/living-und...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-12-22 23:01 UTC)