It's not snarky. It's good natured, and justifiedly awesome and elegantly mocking the bullshit of these ridiculous JS afficianadas/os. I was hinting the hype in 2014 with shadow v0 and the promise has been broken.
Come on, think. Society doesn't seem very "cool" at all the last ten years. Color revolutions in Latin America and MEA. HK. US v China. ISIS, Bataclan, Charlie Hebdo. Twitter Mobs, Me too, Times up, incels. Antifu, Proud Boys. Snowden, Assange, Alex Jones, Qanon, Disclosure.
I'd say that Big brother's technical panopticon has increased "heat" in society. Either that, or it's had no effect, or if it has cooled things down, thank you to the eternal watchers for keeping all the crazies in check.
I think everybody just needs to adjust to this new normal, and be okay with there not really being any privacy. Privacy anyway is probably an industrial revolution invention, because village life was way less private with gossip and smallness.
If you think "privacy" is your natural state, you're wrong and I'm not sorry. If anything privacy is an "invention" of tech companies to sell you it, while selling the watchers not-it. Or a sort of a sci-fi mass delusion born of the isolating power of tech and the frontier thrill of having your own megaphone to the world. All the little nasties out there in userland plotting, ever plotting on the next dangerous idea they will unleash gloriously on the world. How did that ever seem like a good idea? In a village you would be a trouble maker, and rightly condemned to the stocks for quarrelling, upsetting the serenity and maybe witchcraft. You never had privacy, and thinking you did, as if it was some sort of "shield" to mean now you can stir the pot and speak without filters, everything be damned, with impunity, what the hell kind of good idea was that ever going to be?
All these idiots, thinking privacy affords them freedom from consideration. No. The tech revolution, simply means you have stepped into a world with greater responsibility, because you can have far reaching effects. So instead of being babies, and demanding a return to zero consequence actions, start getting woke to the ripples your events have in the world, and act with consideration, now for the whole world.
That's the blessing. A great power and connectedness and all you privacy morons want to squander it on speaking whatever you like, consequences imagined away by a fantasy of a pre-surveillance utopia that never existed, and even if it did.... You don't get to be free of your karma for what you've done.
Don't be like the village crazy. You speak now to the world. Privacy doesn't absolve you of any responsibility, and surveyed or not, you should consider your actions online. Not just from the demented "privacy-conscious" perspective of self preservation, but from the global perspective of other people because you live in a connected world. Don't blame people listening. Blame your tongue. And fix it. Speak consciously.
Do you want to "speak consciously" on WeChat or risk facing the consequences of your "responsibility" in front a Chinese Communist Party court?
The very same tools that can enable your utopia can also very quickly turn into a dystopia. As you say, they are a powerful magnifier, transforming this world into a global village where every action has far-reaching unpredictable consequences. This means that we should be incredibly cautious when deploying these tools as they give great power to users and an even greater power to their makers.
Speaking consciously on WeChat means being conscious of all the consequences of your actions including with regard to your relationship as an individual to the state. I'm very happy to adopt that consciously, and have tried to be aware of these things and I have no problem with that at all.
Just like I'm not going to say something to hurt the feelings
of and make trouble for the family that's invited me to have dinner at their house, I'm not going to say things to hurt the feelings of a whole people, and double so when I'm a guest. And I'll try considering the unique culture of a place and how appropriate types of criticism, before opening my mouth. And triple so when I'm a guest with a megaphone.
Would you?
I consider doing it in a less considerate way is not very empathetic but also it's not good for me. It's self-destructive so I think people adopting this attitude under some misguided sort of heroic mythology are, stupid.
I'm okay speaking in more critical terms about countries where open criticism of their systems is culture. But even then there are lines. Assange, Snowden, went too far. To me, ignoring for a second the possibility they are limited hangout psyops, they are stupid men. Useful idiots, whose idealism, whether initially designed or not, had been co-opted by the states they posture at critiquing.
And then other countries are a different set of sensitivities again. Being conscious of that is good for everyone i think.
But the unexpected benefit of this for me was I actually got a deeper understanding of different places unique ways and thinking, precisely because I deliberately withheld judgement and tried to look at things from multiple perspectives, not just from my inherited Western biases, which I consciously tried to be aware of and see more than.
So you're judging WeChat but what gives you the right?
I don't think it's very empathetic for people to say, well Western culture do it this way therefore we should impose our cultural values on others.
But... these sort of one-sided culture v culture attacks open you up to a whole lot of interesting counter criticism such as: the credit score, "stasi files", and criminal history checks you have in Western countries basically equate to the social credit system in China, when you think about job opportunities, freedom of movement, access to capital, freedom from harassment and intimidation.
For me, I admire the Chinese transparency about what it is and technological efficiency. I believe such openness makes it easier for people to deal with and is the way forward long term. Whereas the covert harassment and secret tracking and "free press" propaganda in the West, under the guise of a "free and open society" I believe tips the scales of power less in the individual's favor, engages in needless deception, and is a more abusive aspect of the state-individual relationship than I think works.
I don't understand what people find so difficult about the level of consideration that is just like, I don't have all the answers, I'm not perfect, who am I to judge others? but I think in the West it harkens back to some sort of anti authoritarian distrust of the state.
Did you mean deploying the communications tools? That's an interesting if Luddite take: We should fold back to isolation because we're not ready. In essence I agree, to a degree, but I think that siloing is already handled and taken care of by various state and regional level blocks to some extent.
If you meant or were trying to confuse it deliberately with the survey tools then they are not what makes the world a village. They just enhance the watchers.
I agree we need to watch for dystopias and avoid them, but are you really so sure that China is, or is becoming one, while being so sure the West is not?
I think we need to watch, and learn from both places. Neither is a dystopia right now. But neither is perfect either. What's important is to learn, improve, and not think you've already achieved the pinnacle of civilization, nor take it for granted that you'll get there. You have to keep learning from what others are doing and inventing improvements. I just don't think framing the debate as privacy versus almost everything else is a very useful way forward.
I'm with Zuckerberg on this one even though it's kind of hackneyed. The world really should get more open and connected and I think eventually the relationship between people and their states should become closer. In my intimate relationships I get privacy by what I choose not to disclose. In my relationship with states I get privacy by what I choose to only think or feel. There's still a lot there... I think with the externalization of minds onto devices people are forgetting the power of their own brain and their own emotions.
What might be scary for me is if the entire world has one standard of acceptable ideas and acceptable behavior. I might feel restricted in that case because there'd be no country I could go to that was more conducive... so I think that any world government has to be widely tolerant of many things. But then again maybe I'm wrong and if I was in that situation I'd probably just make the best of it and think well what can I still enjoy and how can I adopt myself to fit in with where I'm at. But I think the reality is that when world Government comes it will be something that is tolerant of regional differences because that will be how a world government has to be introduced that's the only sort of way it's possible.
I wasn't expecting such a long answer, but thank you for it because it is a rather unique point of view in my filter bubble.
First, yes the difference between survey tools and communication tools is always confusing for me in the privacy debate. But ultimately, they are deeply linked [2] with many cases that fall in between. In particular, the surveillance of communication tools is incredibly pervasive.
> double so when I'm a guest
Yes, when I was in China, I was more careful to approach discussions with an open mind and cautiousness for the legal repercussions. However, I'm not talking about being a guest, I'm talking about either being a citizen or an outsider. In both cases I think it's very important to think critically and express the potentially resulting criticism. (More below)
> So you're judging WeChat but what gives you the right?
Certainly not the CCP, lol. But seriously, more than WeChat/Tencent, which is just another interesting tech company, I'm judging the state control over it. And more than judging (but which I'm also doing), I'm formulating criticism based on observations of harm to people (I consider it evident that shutting up would be immoral) and (but this is our main point of disagreement) mind control by the state.
> Assange, Snowden, went too far.
It seems your threshold might be the word of law, but in that case they exposed illicit state actions. In any case, they did go far. To say they were co-opted is only partly true if not outright false: thanks to them, a significant portion of the population is defending itself and pushing for more scrutiny and changes.
> And then other countries are a different set of sensitivities again. Being conscious of that is good for everyone i think.
States and governments do not have sensitivities. You can not hurt their feelings.
> these sort of one-sided culture v culture attacks open you up to a whole lot of interesting counter criticism such as: the credit score, "stasi files", and criminal history checks
I'm using the nazi culture as an experience that enables me to construct criticism of other cultures. Whenever I see something that looks like it, I'm indeed judging it very much.
And yes, credit scores and criminal problems have their own problems, thank you for helpful criticism/judging/insert the word you prefer. You absolutely have the "right" to say it thanks to the millions of people who fought for freedom against kings, tyrannies, authoritarian states and even normal governments. But beyond what the current laws say, the fact that you have functioning brain is enough to justify judging. How and when you express that judgement should reflect the potential negative and positive consequences of that. Here I think that in the long term, censorship has more negative effects than offending, and call me insensitive, but I think that people (including myself) should really get better at receiving criticism and society would be overall better for it.
> Did you mean deploying the communications tools? That's an interesting if Luddite take: We should fold back to isolation because we're not ready. In essence I agree, to a degree, but I think that siloing is already handled and taken care of by various state and regional level blocks to some extent.
Yes, these tools, and I did not say "fold back to isolation", but to be cautious when expanding the existing relative isolation, because we can not foresee all the consequences of doing that. See the increase in mental health problems linked to the use of social networks for example. This, other issues like [1] and higher-level thinking like this very good talk on surveillance capitalism [2] makes me think that no, this is not "already handled and taken care of".
> you really so sure that China is, or is becoming one, while being so sure the West is not?
Nope, absolutely not. We need to watch both and the West has its fair share of issues, see [2] for one of the many examples.
However, I do think that China is closer : more outright lies from the government, concentration camps for Uiguhrs and muslims, press controlled and manipulated by the state, systemic censorship, disappearing journalists and whistle-blowers, etc.
You can find examples of this in the US (except for concentration camps I guess), but they will be rarer and more subtle, mostly because the system was designed to distribute power more evenly and minimize potential for harm. Which beautifully comes back to my first point: giving more power/communication tools to individuals should not be taken lightly.
> For me, I admire the Chinese transparency about what it is and technological efficiency. I believe such openness makes it easier for people to deal with and is the way forward long term. Whereas the covert harassment and secret tracking and "free press" propaganda in the West, under the guise of a "free and open society" I believe tips the scales of power less in the individual's favor, engages in needless deception, and is a more abusive aspect of the state-individual relationship than I think works.
I really see that point and myself I can not help but admire some of these aspects of China. However, systematic censorship of alternative views is one of the many other things China is not open about. The reason tracking is "secret" in the west is precisely because the individuals have more power, so saying it tips the scale doesn't really make sense. And because we have more power, we can work towards abolishing it. So if we think it's bad, we should. You aren't explaining why surveillance is good (see [2] on why it's bad), but you are essentially saying we should embrace it and it's not a big deal if we impose it on everyone.
> In my relationship with states I get privacy by what I choose to only think or feel. [..] What might be scary for me is if the entire world has one standard of acceptable ideas and acceptable behavior. I might feel restricted in that case because there'd be no country I could go to that was more conducive... so I think that any world government has to be widely tolerant of many things.
I encourage you to watch the german movie The Lives of Others (2006) for a closer look at what privacy and surveillance mean in an authoritarian state. You can not "change countries": there was a wall in Berlin where people were shot on sight.
You start by arguing for more respect and consciousness towards different cultures and ended by saying that it's okay for states to choose what you think and discriminate for thinking differently, because that is what the sentence "In my relationship with states I get privacy by what I choose to only think or feel" means. Restricting speech restricts what you can hear which restricts what you can think.
[1] https://medium.com/@monteiro/designs-lost-generation-ac72895...
> "Bobbi Duncan was “accidentally” outed by Facebook when she was a college freshman. When Bobbi got to college she joined a queer organization with a Facebook group page. When the chorus director added her to the group, a notification that she’d joined The Queer Chorus at UT-Austin was added to her feed. Where her parents saw it. Bobbi had very meticulously made her way through Facebook’s byzantine privacy settings to make sure nothing about her sexuality was visible to her parents. But unbeknownst to her (and the vast majority of their users), Facebook, which moves fast, had made a decision that group privacy settings should override personal privacy settings. Bobbi was disowned by her parents and later attempted suicide. They broke things."
I recommend the entire article, it's completely opposite to your point of view and makes a good case in favor of individual discernment followed by actions.
This is good but it's a bit too long for me to reply here, plus HN is saying my other account is posting too fast. I'd like to write something longer form addressing what you say because I think it's interesting. do you have a blog or an email that I could post it to you in reply? You can hit me up on WeChat/Gmail: cris7fe :) or just say here
I think people take Naval much more seriously than he takes himself - but, I don’t follow him on Twitter (where he said he’s something of a troll) - that’s just the sense I got from talking to him.
I think people like me just like how he puts some complex things into simple words. Don't understand why people gets pissed off someone tweeting into the wild, like he never asked anyone to follow him or listen to him.
Mmm. I think part of it is I'm just sad it's not me. I'd love to have people hanging off my every word. But I also think most of his stuff is just ok, not great.
If podcasts were solely promotions of speakers, no one would listen.
Mike Tyson or Bernie Sanders or any other guest on Joe Rogan's podcast doesn't need further promotion.
If you're a guest on Joe Rogan's podcast you already are a celebrity.
To state the obvious: people listen to Joe Rogan podcast because they are interested in what the guests have to say about things they are experts in and Joe Rogan is a good interviewer who asks good questions and lets the quests talk.
Not to mention that interviews with people are just a subset of podcasts.
> If podcasts were solely promotions of speakers, no one would listen.
A podcast isn't solely self-promotion, that's like a TV show only with ads. Of course they give you "content" as well. But the purpose, from the perspective of the participants, is to grow your audience. Ie. increase your celebrity. Which is why I thought his advice to avoid celebrity while at the same time actively trying to obtain a greater level of it was p funny.
> Mike Tyson or Bernie Sanders or any other guest on Joe Rogan's podcast doesn't need further promotion.
Yet they go on for specific promotional purposes. Mike was returning to fighting, Bernie was in the middle of his campaign for President.
> If you're a guest on Joe Rogan's podcast you already are a celebrity.
Again, this has nothing to do with seeking further recognition / celebrity.
> To state the obvious: people listen to Joe Rogan podcast because they are interested in what the guests have to say
Ok you're just repeating the same thing over and over.
Thailand used to be land of smiles, but it seems there's a backlash against tourism, and the Thais are not so happy as once thought, not just tourism but everything.
I actually loved it. I found it very entertaining.
Tangent: surprises me how often comment people lose their shit when you utter the slightest word of criticism about some pet {language,code, tech}, but are absolutely fine, supportive and enabling when someone verbally eviscerates the living shit out of another human based on what they said, or their opinion.
How is attacking a non human idea and no one in particular bad, but attacking a specific person viciously ok? I don't get that and I never did.
If this is part of the conversation of expecting better standards of behavior by both people in relationships then yes that's a good thing but if it comes to the point where as I think the articles suggests that behavior in relationships becomes codified, archaic gender stereotypes are preserved under the guise of dismantling them, relationships become narrated primarily as a threat, and people expect complete safety at all times...
Then it sounds to me there's not going to be enough room for people to really get really close authentically, which is the point of intimacy and relationships.
> Even happy relationships involve moments of discomfort, disappointment, conflict—and even amicable breakups are rarely pain-free. Yet young people are now being taught to expect absolute emotional safety in sex, love and courtship at all times
Doesn't that seem a bit like we're sort of being prepared as a market for perfect AI and virtual reality partners that can be sold to us in future because you know ordinary people are too threatening so we may as well embrace expensive and upgradable perfectly safe AI relationships?
I think this phenomena is a symptom of a larger sort of social malaise where people are becoming less willing to take personal responsibility for their own emotions which I think is a key boundary within relationships.
Just because I feel joy or sadness, doesn't mean someone else did something good or bad. Of course it can overlap and it's important to recognize when you can alternately appreciate or give feedback, and stand up to, people for their behavior which works or doesn't work, but what I think is happening is somehow the zeitgeist discourse is normalizing externalizing, projecting, displacing ... in other words blaming other people for however you're feeling.
Of course this is being misused to try to get power over people by accusing them of doing something wrong just because of an emotion you have... or in some cases even don't have, but you can make it their fault anyway. But I think the consequences are deeper and worse than that...
"Infantilizing", as the article says, telling people that they are victims under the guise of empowering them, making us all less capable of dealing with our own internal states and emotions without trying to find someone to blame or displace onto... I mean to me it's a sociological and psychological crisis in the making and I don't really understand how we got here....
But I know that in order to get out of the negative implications of this it's going to be very hard to overcome the attachment of people who are benefiting from this "open season" on blaming others.
The only kind of theory I have about it, aside from considerations about how these phenomena are being used to manipulate the public in some way, is that sort because of postmodernism psychoanalytic notions of blaming your parents for all the issues you grew up with somehow became less popular as traditional notions of family or authority decayed, but people still needed something to fill the gap in other... In other words something to blame their problems on and we're not allowed to blame the media or the state because those groups require for their own preservation that we don't effectively blame them so the only option is we had to find ways to blame each other and some low-hanging fruit there is to blame each other in personal relationships. It's not extremely clear or fleshed out but that's an idea that I have.
but if this momentum can be directed towards demanding that everybody behave a little bit better and with more integrity in relationships not just in the workplace but across the board then I think that's a super positive development but there's certainly seems to be some negative aspects that I think this article talks about interestingly....;):p xx
Rather than watching the goats movie which is pretty bullshit, search the CIA library for "CENTER LANE SPECIAL ACCESS PROGRAM" which was the DIA's remote viewing, remote influence program utilizing psychoenergetics.
It resulted in at least "3 intelligence community firsts", was rated by Joint Chiefs of Staff as producing intelligence qualitatively the same as other sources, and (even tho it continued long after) until 1983 50% of the collection missions produced actionable intelligence while 85% had accurate target information.
So it's neither "silly", nor for "crazies" nor disparagingly "New Age". But it requires critical and unbiased thinking to engage with it without falling into the "feel good" trap of baseless ridicule.
The program developed methods and training for remote collection and influence, and the CIA reading room has an abundance of formerly SAP classified information about this, which I think is just crazy that it has been released, but it has.
To people reacting like this is made up...you can sit there in your armchair and feel better by telling yourself this has to be bogus, because that's what you've been told to think, or you can discover the information that's been put in front of you but not widely publicized if you can escape your trained bias. This is an incredible story.
Speaking as someone who has seen evidence that remove viewing actually works, put simply: we don't know. But it certainly implies that we don't know everything about the universe and how it works.
I would also point out that any non-obvious technical advancement wouldn't have a plausible mechanism of action, until we learn enough to figure it out.
It's a puzzle I would certainly like to figure out. But it's also a puzzle with far-reaching implications for both physics and society. It would have massive implications for privacy, and even calls free will into question. (If it's possible to remote-view the future, is that just one possible future, or is it /the/ predetermined future?).
You know what? On second thought, even having seen it work, I would be more comfortable staying in denial and assuming it's bullshit. (And THAT is why all this is classified.)
Exactly, except for your last sentence I totally agree. I wish this was a more widely held view. How interesting would it be to build devices that interact with this effect, among other benefits that could come from research and wide use.
I don't know if there's classified accepted theories about how this works, but I think there's no public info that has been supported by science.
Your last sentence I think it's maybe a factor why it's classified... But I think the fact that this is a weapon and intelligence source must be the main one. But given that, why would there be so much unclassified from center lane? I think it only makes sense logically if they have a countermeasure... Which is super interesting in itself.
About the future I don't think it changes it or affects free will as much as people think and not more than anything else. For instance say you're driving down the highway and you're trying to get to some place and what can you do you don't have a map you can just read the signs and try and make the right turn offs and then find your way there. But if I stop your car and give you a GPS suddenly you know exactly how to get there and maybe the information is not always accurate but it's better than not having a map at all. It lets you see down the highway and down the path much further than if you didn't have that augmented information. I think this ability is just like that. Did the GPS change your future because it told you that there's traffic up ahead or this particular route is going to be quicker than this other route or does it mean you don't have free will because it showed you the correct turn off starts here and you then take it, whereas if you didn't have this GPS you were going to miss it.
I think every creature needs to have some idea of the future in front of it so I think everybody's always getting some sort of model of or information about their possible futures and they're making choices with regard to that.... does that information or them having choices mean that the future is predetermined or there's multiple paths...I think that's a separate maybe philosophical question. But I think all that this kind of ability does is augment and provide more information about those possibilities. I don't think it's fundamentally changes the game on the question of free will or predetermination.
I have my own theory about how it works. That there's the informational field, which contains all information about everything that ever exists, and you can tune into, and query this. I think there's quantum structures in our brains that are transceivers to access this. I wonder what's the overlap between consciousness and this informational field.... And is the informational field encoded in particles/fields we can already detect, or something else.
Well, to be honest my last sentence was a bit tongue-in-cheek. I truly do want to know why and how it all works. I'm just not comfortable with the idea that anyone with the know-how to do this can invade my privacy, and there's nothing I can do about it.
And I'm not comfortable with the idea that a skilled enough person can use remote viewing to predict the future with near-100% accuracy. Firstly, it just doesn't seem fair. :) Secondly, it makes me question my own free agency in the world. For example, imagine I remote-view your future 5 years from now. Today you might scoff, thinking it's likely to be bullshit. But imagine that ALL my predictions eventually come true. It would feel like the exact opposite of the butterfly effect... as if the moment I viewed your future, it was "observed" and thus became reality. Every decision that you make (or anyone in your life makes) was, from the moment of my prediction, set in stone. I would like to think that the world doesn't work like that... but strangely enough, that's what I've experienced.
That's really interesting. Does predicting it alter the path and fix it more than if you didn't know? I suppose you can always, "choose against" once knowing... But i think most people can relate they have moments of free will and moments where they felt out of control, such as suddenly overcome with emotion in the moment and said or did something they might not have had they thought more. Interesting, I wonder if no matter how far you try to run from your "fate", these little moments of "giving in to temptation" drag you back to the predicted path... Who knows
Anyway, I'm really curious to know the story and details of what happened. If you don't feel like sharing here, you could email me if you still wanted to tell it :)
I don't understand how consciousness works and I can't say I have first hand experienced your consciousness, but I don't assume your having consciousness is bullshit... I suppose because you're a person... and I can see the effects of your consciousness.
