[HN Gopher] A cyberpunk bathroom in the middle of nowhere
___________________________________________________________________
A cyberpunk bathroom in the middle of nowhere
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 132 points
Date : 2023-03-22 11:44 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (taylor.town)
(TXT) w3m dump (taylor.town)
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| I've traveled from the Midwest to Utah on Interstate 80. It was
| interesting to see all the different kinds of gas stations and
| truck stops. I stopped at many of them to fuel up and eat.
|
| Iowa 80 boasts claims to be the world's largest truck stop, but
| nothing in particular sticks out in my mind about that place but
| big signs and lots of fast food. You could always spot Sapp Bros
| truck stops miles away from the giant coffee-pot sculptures or
| neon signs.
|
| Then there is Little America in the southwest corner of Wyoming.
| Starting about 200+ miles east, you start seeing billboards.
| Fifty cent ice cream cones! The place to relax! Welcome Home!
| After seeing what seemed like fifty signs for it, I figured I'd
| stop, top of my tank and get one of those ice cream cones. It's
| surprisingly nice for a truck stop with the hotel resembling a
| small-town New England street complete with well-manicured lawns
| and park benches.
|
| I can't leave out the truck stops with amusing names like Fat Dog
| and Stinker. Fat Dog was quite an experience. As I walked in the
| door thumping dance track was playing on the PA system and the
| cashier was bopping her head to the beat as she exclaimed
| "Welcome to Fat Dog!". The dance club vibe was at odds with the
| joint's unnecessarily bright lights and the garish signage.
| Having walked in at about 9:00 PM after being on the road for
| 10-12 hours, I left before my eyes even had time to adjust. I was
| glad to make my exit!
|
| P-games aren't for me, but I could see how they would appeal
| after a long and boring day of driving. Little America was really
| nothing to write home about, but it was a nice respite after a
| ton of driving. I'd definitely stop there again.
| pengaru wrote:
| Then you do a road-trip in Italy and get served what would be a
| Michelin-starred Italian meal back in the US, at some random
| dingy truck stop, complete with wait staff and white
| tablecloths.
|
| I haven't road-tripped in other parts of Europe, but Italy
| easily trounces the Americans in this department...
| scruple wrote:
| Maybe it's because Americans don't have any real time off in
| their lives, I don't know, but I don't find the thought of
| sitting down to a "fancy dinner" while road-tripping
| appealing at all.
|
| I've criss-crossed the country a few times, both north-to-
| south and east-to-west, and I always packed a cooler up with
| food and ate out of it for the majority of my meals.
| owlninja wrote:
| I've done both. Sometimes a diner, drive-in, or dive is just
| as good or better than some white cloth service.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| A long time ago in the early 1980's I was making a trip from
| Four Corners to the SLC area. As it happened I needed gas and a
| restroom break by the time I found the intersection at Crescent
| Junction, on I-70/191.
|
| Back in those days it had the appearance of a truck
| stop/service station where one could have a real mechanic fix
| any problems the driver might have before they headed out of
| "town".
|
| I gassed up the old Bronco and headed for the bathroom which
| was accessible from outside the building like a lot of gas
| station restrooms back then. Inside, I found pissed-on floors,
| dirty walls, and a typical poorly cleaned commode with a sink
| stained with lots of things I didn't need to get in touch with.
| After finishing everything I washed my hands, carefully dodging
| the goo on the sink surface and then looked for a place to dry
| my hands.
|
| I found one of those old-time electric hand dryers, which was
| certainly better than the recycled hand towel spinner so that
| was a bonus for that facility.
|
| As I looked for the start button to get the air blowing, I
| noticed a scribbling in fountain pen from some prior visitor up
| near the manufacturer instructions.
|
| It said - "Press button for your personalized message from
| Carter." A later visitor had used a magic marker to scratch
| through Carter and add Reagan.
|
| This was the first time that I had seen this particular
| restroom graffiti. Thanks for the reminder.
| mattpallissard wrote:
| Don't forget; Wall drug or bust.
|
| For real though, little America is probably the least abrasive
| truck stop.
|
| Although, I personally prefer the little filling
| stations/general stores you can find away from the interstate
| in Utah. Or maybe the diner/fuel/casino's that feel like you've
| stepped out of a time machine in Nevada. Slow paced.
| bombcar wrote:
| On I-15 into Utah I think it was, there are a line of
| billboards advertising the _restrooms_ at a particular gas
| station, claiming they 're best in the state.
|
| Well, I had to stop, and I will say, they were the fanciest
| I've ever seen outside of pictures itself. That kind of stuff
| make a difference when you have something like +/- an hour to
| choose where to stop.
| csa wrote:
| Eddie World has cleanest bathrooms _and_ Tesla supercharging on
| the way to LV from both Bay Area as well as LA.
|
| It can get crowded on weekends, but it's a perfect stop off peak.
| sys32768 wrote:
| After you play pee games, wash your hands, and buy something from
| their overwhelming collection of candies and nuts, you can visit
| the site of the first Del Taco restaurant a mile away:
|
| https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=184830
| cyberpunk wrote:
| I can confirm that only about half of my bathrooms are like
| this...
| tomcam wrote:
| Username gloriously checks out
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Leave it to the British to find a clever way to take the piss out
| of you. Just imagine the sit down toilet analog of this, timing
| your bowl movements to drop bombs out of planes. Explosive
| diarrhea? Extra points! At least you can feel good about that.
| tclancy wrote:
| Cluster munitions are prohibited under the Geneva Convention.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I'm not too worried about the cameras.
|
| Nobody wants to steal something which the market is saturated
| with already which is not only free, but sometimes seeks you out.
| (If you're a lady with a cell phone)
| cwkoss wrote:
| Weirdos will make demand for pictures of celebrities peeing,
| supply is only limited by the credibility of attribution.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I'm friends with a woman who's part of this discord group which
| is a bunch of other women who share unsolicited dick pics from
| other known discord users and gamers around and they all make
| fun of them
| thegabriele wrote:
| "I've dwelt among the humans. Their entire culture is built
| around their penises. It's funny to say they are small. It's
| funny to say they are big."
| raspyberr wrote:
| >Nobody wants to steal something which the market is saturated
| with already
|
| The market is not saturated with authenticity.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I can't imagine the market for authentic pics is all that
| big. I mean, probably a perfectly respectable size but still.
|
| I'm sure demand goes up and down. Sometimes, really hard
| spikes in demand, which once satiated goes back down again.
|
| But in all seriousness: Ew.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I was having a talk with some friends and we were talking
| about penises and vaginas, particularly the different
| kinds. We googled pictures of penises and I'm sure I saw
| more penises that day than I had in my life previously. We
| then googled pictures of vaginas and ... did not get
| vaginas. It was kind of a bummer because one of the women
| in the conversation was trying to explain something and no
| one wanted her to pull down her pants.
| Fatnino wrote:
| Your Google is broken. It's very easy to find both of
| those things.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I should clarify "vaginas without a penis or porn".
| tomcam wrote:
| Well, wasn't expecting this sub thread today
| piceas wrote:
| Image search without much ability to filter or give
| context is rather limiting for such a task.
|
| A web search for some sort of museum/art related topic
| would have been more fruitful. Mona, Tasmania or The
| Great Wall of Vulva are example results.
| Erwin wrote:
| Many years ago, on the Womens' International Fight Day,
| the Goethe Institute in Copenhagen set up a specialized
| photo booth just for this sort of thing and the pictures
| are online. You'll find some more info if you search its
| Danish name, "Kussomaten".
| owlninja wrote:
| It appears it just uses infrared sensors, not cameras.
| JoeDaDude wrote:
| I knew it! For ages I speculated that those blinking red lights
| on auto flushing urinals were part of a camera system taking
| pictures of men's junk for an FBI database. In fact, that was
| probably how they obtained the evidence they used against Michael
| Jackson in his child abuse case.
|
| For better or worse, we've been living in the future, and it will
| probably get worse.
| paulkrush wrote:
| Hasn't pee-hacking been covered hundreds of times on HN?
| makmanalp wrote:
| Story time: I went to a small and pretty nerdy tech school (WPI),
| and there was an IRC channel at the time. One day I noticed that
| there were messages coming from a user named, IIRC, "compooper".
| Later I learned while visiting one of the regulars' student
| housing that they had an upstairs bathroom with an old vt-100 or
| somesuch wired to it. Not quite the same but got a laugh out of
| me :-)
| brodouevencode wrote:
| Buc-ee's should pay attention
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| I Piss this game all the time.
|
| I drink the largest soda the gas station has in Las Vegas and
| hold in my pee until I get to Eddie's to go for a high score.
| (Ghosty Brotato if you see me)
|
| Yes touching the screen is dirty, but we are all washing our
| hands right after going to the bathroom, right? So I can tolerate
| the germs for a second or two.
|
| They also have insanely good maintenance at Eddies, I wouldn't be
| surprised if that glass is getting wiped down every two hours.
| surprisetalk wrote:
| Come to my tech conference in SoCal this August!
|
| (Sorry, we won't be offering any pissing games.)
|
| [1] https://outland.sh
| tomcam wrote:
| Not sure if this is my favorite or least favorite answer ever
| given HN. I am leaning toward the former
| tomcam wrote:
| Okay, favorite
| jmagaro88 wrote:
| I pity the janitors that have to clean up after all the action
| tomcam wrote:
| I was hoping someone on this thread would address the issue of
| weather the games are effective or not. I am thinking the
| intention was to keep everything inside the urinal.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| I've stopped at Eddie World at least half a dozen times, but I
| never needed to pee so I've missed out on this. I'll check it out
| next time.
| p_j_w wrote:
| I once took an overnight bus trip from LA to Las Vegas. The bus
| must have left LA around 4am. We stopped at Eddie World somewhere
| around 6. It was a real experience waking up and being greeted by
| that place. It felt like an acid trip. I don't remember any games
| that I controlled with my dick, though.
| greenhearth wrote:
| The piece is pretty hard to read; it is a little histrionic. I am
| guessing it's AI generated.
|
| Also I am not sure how this bathroom is "cyberpunk" by having
| some screens in it. There's an Applebees here that has TVs in
| front of urinals. Cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that is
| usually characterized by futuristic and dystopian elements. It
| also uses those elements to create a pessimistic satire of
| current society. This bathroom is neither futuristic nor
| dystopian, just trashy and kind of dumb.
| surprisetalk wrote:
| Author here!
|
| _> The piece is pretty hard to read; it is a little
| histrionic. I am guessing it 's AI generated._
|
| This essay was crafted by 100% organic free-range meat.
|
| But glad to know I don't pass the Turing Test :)
|
| Feel free to shoot me an email at hello@taylor.town with any
| writing suggestions you have!
|
| _> Cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that is usually
| characterized by futuristic and dystopian elements._
|
| I'm still growing as a writer, but I personally see urinal
| touchscreens and a magnificent highway interstate system laden
| with ads as exceedingly "dystopian" and "futuristic". I tried
| to convey that feeling, but may have missed the mark. The only
| reason I didn't have to write satirical fiction is that it's
| already here.
| sneak wrote:
| Two-ish hours from the largest city in the US is not the middle
| of nowhere. I know people who drive LA-LV on a weekly basis.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Surely the second largest city (after NYC)?
| noduerme wrote:
| Just a couple blocks away from that new Tesla charging spot, in
| the old part of Yermo, is the site of the original Del Taco.
|
| Tita's Burger Den https://maps.app.goo.gl/AqY65SgTDcz23yrC9
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| What about this qualifies as cyberpunk?
| st_goliath wrote:
| I find the irony here quite amusing: While we usually marvel at
| the cyberpunk dystopia laid out on paper/screen in front of our
| eyes, the characters in the story typically never stop to
| question any of it. They take the world they live in completely
| for granted, making it clear to us, the reader/viewer, that
| they don't know any different, adding to the extend of the
| dystopia on display.
|
| And here we are discussing a toilet that probably films you
| piss, analyzes the data and uses it as input for a video game,
| all using a built-in computer and display mounted on top. A
| touch screen no less, because the team involved in developing
| this, despite probably countless meetings, never even gave a
| second though towards hygiene, I guess.
|
| A marvel of technology that I could imagine the likes of Neal
| Stephenson describing in loving detail over at least two pages,
| describing how the data is hauled off to some remote machine in
| a data center, collecting statistics of no use to anyone, from
| hundreds of such installations, all secured only by a couple
| default passwords.
|
| And our reaction to this is: So? What off it?
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| That was not their reaction. They just wanted to know how it
| qualifies as "cyber punk".
| inanutshellus wrote:
| FWIW - I thought st_goliath went to great lengths to point
| out how it's "cyber punk".
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| Agreed, I was merely pointing out what their initial
| comment was saying.
| Eiriksmal wrote:
| The cyberurinals coupled with the bleak sculpture garden[0]
| outside Eddie's truly do make for a great Stephenson aside,
| come to life. It's only missing Gibson's combat hovercraft
| tanks parked by the statues, instead of Ford Raptors.
|
| 0: https://www.google.com/maps/@34.9079089,-116.844012,3a,75y
| ,9...
| goodpoint wrote:
| > I find the irony here quite amusing
|
| No, you are confusing cyber*punk* with boring dystopia.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| A large chunk of cyberpunk is "the ramifications of new
| technologies mashing together in unplanned ways when humans get
| involved."
|
| Toilets exist, touchscreens exist, cameras exist, and motion
| tracking exists, but nobody who developed those techs expected
| this application.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| And here I was thinking I was a bearded mid 30's software
| developer in europe.. :/
| matbilodeau wrote:
| "Let's pray they're not connected to Wi-Fi." After getting out
| of the bathroom, Bob noticed he was being served a noticeable
| amount of ads for male enhancement.
| philipov wrote:
| They should remove the word "punk". There's no punk here. It's
| just a cyber bathroom. They could get someone to egg the joint,
| and then they would have a cyber bathroom punk, but still not
| cyberpunk.
| pharmakom wrote:
| "Neonliberal"
|
| It's "cyberpunk" in that it would fit in a world of cyberpunk
| fiction.
|
| Maybe some punk can hack them as a practical joke.
| stametseater wrote:
| Personally I'm not a fan of this term "Neonliberal" because
| neon lighting doesn't really have anything to do with
| cyberpunk. The neon lighting aesthetic is a retro 80s
| thing, only indirectly related to the cyberpunk genre by
| way of dated cyberpunk media from the 80s. Cyberpunk media
| made today shouldn't feature neon lighting, it should have
| LED lighting. Focus on neon is missing the point of
| cyberpunk, it reduces cyberpunk to little more than a retro
| aesthetic.
| pharmakom wrote:
| What about Blade Runner, Neuromancer and Cyberpunk 2077?
| blowski wrote:
| The blue light flickers to green, showing I've eaten below
| my regulation level of fat and sugar. Thank fuck for that,
| I can't take another visit from the Doctors. The last
| examination hurt so much I couldn't sleep.
|
| I hear the dusty modem connect to the Authority's servers,
| where it sends my data and calculates the price of my piss.
| It seems it's a good one today - it's given me enough
| credits to buy a shot of orange juice. Must be Chloe's
| cooking.
|
| The goons take the guy in the cubicle next to me. Too much
| nicotine.
|
| Seems I pissed slower than usual today as I'm seeing the
| prostate transplant advert. I remind myself to drink more
| water.
| realworldperson wrote:
| [dead]
| HopenHeyHi wrote:
| If for Christmas they get a handsome Santa to hum a Wild
| Cherry cover while egging the place it would be a chunky
| hunky cyber bathroom punky funky.
| vlachen wrote:
| While the objects on their own aren't exactly "cyberpunk," they
| are very much a digital-dystopia kind of thing. A seemingly
| innocuous use of tech that could very easily be used to shatter
| the privacy of any individuals that come into proximity of it.
| gspencley wrote:
| I hadn't even thought about the privacy implications. My
| first thought was "All I want to do is empty my bladder and
| the people hogging the urinals are moving slow because
| they're playing games."
| surprisetalk wrote:
| They may be using IR or ultrasonic sensors to detect the
| urine streams, but I wouldn't be surprised to find full-on
| cameras in there.
| XargonEnder wrote:
| Aside from a layer of grime, what's missing from the standard
| cyber punk formula?
| surprisetalk wrote:
| Cyberpunk stories often illustrate technology and capitalism
| taken to absurd extremes.
|
| A good example of this is the coin-operated door handle from
| Ubik.
|
| [1] https://infovore.org/archives/2015/02/17/joe-chips-
| problem-w...
| pascalxus wrote:
| I sympathize with the article's criticism of all those things it
| mentioned but someone's gotta like it (gas stations, cigarettes,
| junk food, bible versus, lawyers, etc), otherwise it wouldn't be
| everywhere, and probably a whole lot of someones, perhaps even
| the majority of people.
| gibspaulding wrote:
| Nobody has to like those things, they just have to pay for
| them.
|
| I might think a gas stations sign is an eyesore, but if it
| makes me glance at my gas gague and decide to stop, then it's
| served it's purpose.
| ahoy wrote:
| The appeal of cigs/junkfood/etc is obvious. No one enjoys the
| autoplaying video ads at the gas pump.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| A tangent, but what i still can't believe is that at gas
| stations like WaWa or Royal Farms that have made-to-order
| food inside, why can't you order the food at the screen on
| the pump (and pay for it!), to pick it up inside after you're
| done pumping? I keep expecting this to be a thing, haven't
| seen it yet.
| kevingadd wrote:
| "otherwise it wouldn't be everywhere" is not reasoning that
| holds up in practice. Startups pitch investors a compelling
| argument for why they're going to be the next big thing, then
| spend millions (or billions) on scaling up and out in order to
| prepare for the inevitable hockeystick growth that is going to
| ensue.
|
| So we may just be seeing some point in the "spend and grow"
| phase of the startup that precedes it collapsing when it turns
| out nobody actually wants to play video games at a urinal.
| scythe wrote:
| In the case of the toilet games, I would expect the real goal
| is to (subtly) induce men to pay attention while they urinate,
| to prevent what is referred to in radonc as a "geometric miss".
| yieldcrv wrote:
| you can aim the tank with your pee stream
|
| I knew this had to be about Eddie's World
| ar_lan wrote:
| > This is a true story. This actually happened.
|
| > Everything in this essay exists.
|
| I can't read this and believe that this article wasn't written by
| Nathan Fielder.
| maximinus_thrax wrote:
| I respectfully disagree, I don't believe the literary quality
| matches someone who graduated from one of Canada's top business
| schools with really good grades.
| surprisetalk wrote:
| Author here.
|
| Frankly, I don't believe the literary quality even matches
| the graffiti scrawled in the stalls of that bathroom.
| kraquepype wrote:
| It would be fitting, there is an episode of Nathan For You
| where he devises a scheme to advertise a restaurant to a
| bathroom stall's captive audience.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I drive by that place almost every month; never stopped there
| though.
| surprisetalk wrote:
| If you're in the area, come to my tech conference this August!
|
| [1] https://outland.sh
| jordan_bonecut wrote:
| There's a lot of weird stuff between Vegas and CA! The weirdest
| one is an abandoned Nuclear bunker which I believe was built by
| AT&T 30ish years ago off Razor Road. Eddie World is up there too,
| something tells me not to trust a giant ice cream cone in the
| middle of nowhere :)
| surprisetalk wrote:
| You can also find the ruins of an abandoned water park!
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Dolores_Waterpark
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j-2NfY45XM
| eggy wrote:
| A giant ice cream cone in the desert, no less!
| stateofinquiry wrote:
| Unreal. Cameras in bathrooms are generally a no-no. Wouldn't this
| require consent from the user? Seems ripe for [legal] trouble,
| though the whole concept might be amusing to many.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| If data or data derived from it is not stored or sent
| elsewhere, do you need consent? It would be like asking consent
| for installing a mirror.
|
| Anyways, it seems like it actually works using a heat detecting
| infrared sensor, presumably similar to motion detectors used in
| alarm systems and automatic light switches rather than a
| camera.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| >heat detecting infrared sensor
|
| ie a (possibly low resolution) IR camera.
| ale42 wrote:
| Some people at MIT media lab were working on similar stuff 20
| years ago.
|
| Paper: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/765891.766108
|
| Other info: https://blog.siggraph.org/2021/02/a-look-back-at-
| past-emergi...
| gs17 wrote:
| Also notable, Sega Toylets, which I was surprised Yakuza Kiwami
| 2 didn't make up: https://www.wired.com/2011/01/sega-urinal-
| games/
| ModernMech wrote:
| I feel like a lot of people read cyberpunk fiction and didn't
| realize that it's a dystopia, and tried to make it real because
| it was fun to read.
|
| Like... people had to make these things. They put a lot of work
| into them. Someone had to come up with this idea, then they had
| to prototype it, then actually manufacture it, and install it....
| and all the people in that chain resulted in advertisements being
| fed to you while you pee. That's what all those people spent
| their time doing.
|
| If you ask any of the people in the supply chain, they'll tell
| you this kind of thing is stupid and probably shouldn't exist.
| And yet, it does, while other more pressing things we urgently
| need don't. The incentives of society are totally backwards. This
| is a priority inversion, which is the kind of thing that can
| cause a system to fail.
|
| It started out cute ("Alexa, I need TP!"). Now it's getting
| dystopian while still having a cute outer shell (tracking your
| genitals and selling you ads while you urinate... but it's a
| game!). Soon it's going to get real, and we'll end up in Cube
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_(1997_film)). No one was
| having fun in that cyberpunk future.
|
| > I fear the implementation details. Cameras are ~$15 and
| computer-vision is free. Let's pray they're not connected to Wi-
| Fi.
|
| If it's not now, it will be soon. We need a new Moore's law for
| privacy. It states that anything that is private now, will be
| opened up and made public in the future if it can be monetized
| through advertisements. It starts with your biographical info on
| Facebook; it moves on to tracking your body through its location,
| how often it moves, its weight, and now urination in public
| places (soon there will be a scale under the urinal and they'll
| know how much you weigh); and it will end at your medical
| records, financial records, religious records, and even what you
| do in your bedroom. If the trend continues, if corporations can
| find a way to make money off of those records and data, it will
| be monetized and it will become public information when it's (of
| course) hacked and leaked.
| schiffern wrote:
| >Soon it's going to get real, and we'll end up in Cube. No one
| was having fun in that cyberpunk future.
|
| I wasn't sure what this meant, despite having seen it when it
| came out. But upon re-watching, this scene[0] hits like a ton
| of bricks.
|
| It's a reminder that these trends have been building for a long
| time now.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boDgkH7Yw-0
| zacharycohn wrote:
| As Cyd Harrell says, "Cyberpunk was a warning, not an
| instruction manual."
| jhbadger wrote:
| William Gibson himself has said that he finds it odd when at
| talks and book signings people come up to him to thank him
| for inspiring them to pursue a career in technology. What
| about the futures he imagined where there was no middle class
| and everybody who wasn't super rich were criminals trying to
| get some of the wealth from the super rich made people think
| "yes, that's what I want to be a part of"?
| xwdv wrote:
| > Soon it's going to get real, and we'll end up in Cube
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_(1997_film)). No one was
| having fun in that cyberpunk future.
|
| I disagree. We always see cyberpunk dystopia stories from the
| lowly peasant consumer side, but I bet the people actively
| _building_ the technology behind the dystopia are having fun. I
| know I would.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > a lot of people read cyberpunk fiction and didn't realize
| that it's a dystopia
|
| People can be really dense but this is puzzling.
| karaterobot wrote:
| This feels like an archetypal bad product idea I would have
| worked on in my contractor days.
|
| It's always some dude. Usually they made money doing something
| else, and they had a (really dumb) idea one day, involving
| gamifying something, or putting ads somewhere, or both.
|
| If by some miracle they get the right people around them, and
| don't just waste all their money, they can actually put
| something on the market. 99% of the time, it goes nowhere, once
| in a great while it does.
|
| I'm not totally convinced this product will be a success --
| they are probably just burning runway.
|
| But your overall point is valid, because there will always be
| some dude who will keep trying this kind of thing until
| eventually, by statistical oddity, it sticks. Then, it will
| stay around, and we'll be on to the next fresh hell.
|
| You talk about a Moore's law for privacy. My mental model is
| more like a ratchet: it takes a some force to advance the
| mechanism, but once it clicks into place it is locked there
| forever. There's no going back, only forwards, so you should be
| extremely careful about anything that pushes you ahead.
| ModernMech wrote:
| > Then, it will stay around, and we'll be on to the next
| fresh hell.
|
| Yes exactly, and your ratchet analogy works here too. Because
| in our society, the guy who does end up making a billion
| dollars on a genital surveillance network is lauded as a
| genius hero meant to be emulated. His business model will be
| remixed and rerun by countless others, and will spread to
| other countries. Once something is shown to work, it will be
| tried and tried again.
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