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Who is really watching us?

Discussion in 'The Dungeon' started by Orvis, Aug 13, 2017.

  1. Orvis

    Orvis Well-Known Member

    We go about our daily lives having fun, arguing with each other, just simply living normally but, how many of us actually think about, and study, all the ramifications of what we do without knowing what can happen without our direct input? Most of us have read the stories about how some kid is playing and innocently told "Alexa" that they want a playhouse, or some other item, and it magically appears at the front door a few days later much to the surprise of the parents. How far does this kind of technology dig into our lives? Farther than most people think. Maybe it's time we learn.
    What do you folks thing?



    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article166488597.html
     
  2. onenut

    onenut Well-Known Member

    I see no real benifit to the user at all. Its almost as this is the biggest scam that people willingly ask to be part of.
    But then again, there's s sucker born every minute and common sense is getting less common.
     
  3. crashman

    crashman Grumpy old man

    Maybe my tinfoil hat is a bit too tight but I really do not like the idea of devices like Alexa "listening in". There is way too much potential for something like that to be misused.
     
    turtlecreek likes this.
  4. SGVRider

    SGVRider Well-Known Member

    I've been saying it for a while. Don't worry about the government spying on you. They're irrelevant and will be largely swept away this century. Worry about what Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple are doing with your data. The potential for what they can do is so much more insidious.
     
    TurboBlew likes this.
  5. ryoung57

    ryoung57 Off his meds

    Yes and no. How about when the police get a warrant for what Alexa has compiled on you?
     
  6. Phl218

    Phl218 .

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    badmoon692008 and 418 like this.
  7. auminer

    auminer Renaissance Redneck

    I've said it before, I was in high school in 1984, and read the book then.

    I always wondered how in the hell the government got those spy devices into peoples' homes in the first place. I think we even had some classroom discussions on that topic.

    I don't think that the concept of, "The populace eagerly purchased them." was ever brought up.

    Truth is stranger than fiction.
     
    Phl218 likes this.
  8. beac83

    beac83 "My safeword is bananna"

    The Dalek is a nice touch
     
    Chango likes this.
  9. beac83

    beac83 "My safeword is bananna"

    A number of years ago when the Internet was young (maybe in the Clinton Administration?) there was some public discussion of consumer privacy. The general public did not seem to grasp the importance of personal data privacy, and therefore Congress did not act to make all data about you your personal property and under your control. That was a failing that we may never fully recover from, as now the corporate value of all that personal data will keep the corporate lobbyists funded to not give us back the right to our own personal data.
     
  10. dtalbott

    dtalbott Driving somewhere, hauling something.

  11. Orvis

    Orvis Well-Known Member

    One of the first experiences of personal intelligence being compromised was when my family got it's first telephone. That was in about 1954 or so and it was a four party line. Talk about embarrassing! You're talking to your girlfriend was a hit or miss event because you had to really be careful of what you tell your sweetie. I learned the hard way. My neighbor (nice but nosey Inez Martin) marched to our house and told my mother what I was saying to my girlfriend. Even though I was 16 at the time, I displayed some sternness, and told mother to tell Inez that if she listened to another phone call of mine I would rip her phone out and throw it into the street. Mom just laughed.
    I said that to say this; we are overrun with technology and it's advancing so quickly that us mere mortal men cannot possibly keep up with all it's inner workings. We are of course, fighting with entities that are snooping into everyone's lives because of the mighty dollar. That is a tough foe.
     
  12. Venom51

    Venom51 John Deere Equipment Expert - Not really

    I will once again state the obvious...if someone is providing you "free" services or devices then "you" are the product. They are selling your information to anyone who will buy it.
     
    TurboBlew and beac83 like this.
  13. dtalbott

    dtalbott Driving somewhere, hauling something.

    "If only we could have cameras everywhere to see everything..."

    "We'll put cameras in smartphones."

    "But how will we encourage people to record everything?"

    "Marketing. We'll make it cool for a video to be uploaded to the internet and go viral. People will do this because they will think the more likes they have or the more followers they have, the more important they are."

    And we all called BS, and then it happened.
     
    Hollywood and Capitalview like this.
  14. Mongo

    Mongo Administrator

    Yep. And I for one don't care. It's just more information in a huge ass pile and nothing that in any way could compromise me.
     
  15. SGVRider

    SGVRider Well-Known Member

    Here's the essential difference between people who are politically liberal or conservative and people who are libertarian. You think the government and its laws matter. They'll be in the dustbin of history or pretty much ignored and totally irrelevant within a few generations. Government ultimately will never stop or change the irresistible tides of economic and technological development. Our government is pathetic, and is powerless to stop the onrushing singularity. No law overcomes economics or the force of history. This would happen no matter what the government said. Google and Amazon and their ilk are creating the future, the US Government is composed of sad bureaucrats who lack the intelligence or vision to contribute. That's why they work in drab government offices making their sad salaries while the relevant people accumulate real money and power. The US government has reached he apex of its power and influence over world and domestic society. They'll try to hang on by their claws, but it's already in a downward spiral and it's quite obvious.
     
    terminus est likes this.
  16. SGVRider

    SGVRider Well-Known Member

    The police have been exploiting new technology to catch criminals for years, I'm not concerned about them. How many idiots have they nailed because of text messages? Tens of thousands I'm sure. This isn't any different. The state will be reduced to being one player among many soon, maybe not in my lifetime but close to sometime tomorrow in a historical sense.
     
  17. SGVRider

    SGVRider Well-Known Member

    You're impressively prescient and open minded for someone of an older generation. I don't mean that as a backhanded insult. I mean that many older people don't want or can't face the truth staring us in the face.

    Our descendants won't be mortal, and they won't be men, at least in the way we know. The last generation that will die of old age may have already been born. If it hasn't, it will be soon. Technology has reached a tipping point, what it's tipping to I haven't a clue. I do know the future doesn't belong to unenhanced meatbag humans. There are many, many technological pathways to immortality and super humans, at least one of them is going to succeed, and soon.
     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2017
  18. beac83

    beac83 "My safeword is bananna"

    So your argument is that corporate anarchy already exists?
     
  19. SGVRider

    SGVRider Well-Known Member

    If you insist on narrowly classifying it in some current form of philosophical thought, absolutely.
    Want proof? Technology is advancing so fast that the government can't regulate it. The government is decades behind, and getting further back. While the pace of innovation accelerates daily. Who determines how the technology is used? Its inventors and users. Government doesn't have its finger on the pulse of anything. Bureaucrats in offices are useless turds in offices trying to reign in and control what brighter minds have created. They can't and they won't succeed. Even if they write some rule in their precious books 15 years too late, people will work around it or ignore it. What the fuck are they going to do, shut them down? Think the government can kill Google? I don't.

    The power of the state came from control of resources and a monopoly on violence. The state is losing control of resources faster every day. Today there are numerous power centers whose resources might not equal, but definitely challenge those available to the government. Those are growing while the state's power diminishes every day. Technology is the driving force that allows the growth of non-state power centers. Eventually the state will lose its monopoly on force, and that'll be all she wrote. I don't characterize it as a positive or negative development, it just is. The corporate nation state had its time. It's over. Anarcho capitalism or some cousin of it will likely reign among the remaining and dwindling meatbag masses. The form of societal organization among whatever creatures or constructs inherit our civilization won't be comprehensible to us.
     
    Last edited: Aug 13, 2017
  20. galloway840

    galloway840 Well-Known Member

    I'm not going to suggest you're wrong in any of this, but you didn't happen to be high when writing it, did you?
     

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