[HN Gopher] The hacking of culture and the creation of socio-tec...
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The hacking of culture and the creation of socio-technical debt
Author : BorgHunter
Score : 142 points
Date : 2024-06-19 12:14 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.schneier.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.schneier.com)
| alextheparrot wrote:
| Really enjoyed the piece.
|
| A passing thought: the ethe of individuals in the 70s and 80s is
| important because of the people it informed in subsequent years.
| While many people still like to hack, code, etc., the relative
| proportion of people doing this and working in tech continues to
| diminish as the popularity and importance of the sector grows. I
| wonder if debt without values / a more cohered zeitgeist is
| better or worse?
| siliconsorcerer wrote:
| "The history of the tech industry and culture is full of this
| tension between the internet as an engineering plaything and as a
| surveillance commodity."
|
| Great article, wish it talked about how we might address the
| issue.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| I think the hints are in there, and I have my opinion.
|
| 1) Chinese Tiktok scaring the US government: Sure OUR corps can
| mentally rape our citizenry, but someone else?
| Nononononononono. This may provoke the first real debate on
| pernicious ubiquitous algorithmic manipulation.
|
| 2) Are we really out of "think of the children" political
| movements? With the polarity of Democratic and Republican
| parties changing, we may be ripe for protections for children
| (I mean, the tactics that childrens games use in the app store
| are utterly depraved: gambling games, social payouts, a litany
| of PTW strategies for fleecing adults applied to children) that
| may bleed into general society and adult welfare
|
| 3) fear of AI: AI is a boogeyman, and will continue to be. AI
| is just an algorithm, the next mass corporation/state
| algorithmic weapon to be deployed.
|
| 4) democratic institutions. maintain a functioning government
| and the core aspects of western "free" society such that they
| maintain a massive competitive advantage over totalitarian
| states in the long run.
|
| One thing I will say is that people are smarter from the first
| (pre-social-network/mobiles) internet, and the initial stages
| of mobile/social network internet. I think people are educated
| at a rapid rate to deal with advertising and manipulation, and
| from an early age. I think it is making saavier people, even if
| in the short run your kids will get swept up in some
| manipulation/scam at some point. Better they get manipulated
| and conned early on by the Nigerian prince before they have
| real money to lose.
|
| We shall see with AI.
|
| What is abundantly apparent with the later stages of
| social/mobile internet is the massive distrust users of social
| networks now have of the platforms, even if they continue to
| consume it. This is what is underlying the very very correct
| distrust people have of corporate AI: if the social network
| corps have gone to such depraved degrees with the last round of
| algorithms, what will they do with new AI weapons? We already
| know: nothing remotely good.
|
| The larger social network companies are firmly in their
| ossification phases: the biggest hallmark, publicly and openly
| having contempt for their customers. They are all ripe for
| collapse.
|
| In a perverse gradiose manner, consider Conway's Law applied to
| the entire internet: the current internet mirrors the open
| trade period provided and maintained by post-WWII US hegemony.
|
| Many many many people predict that globalization and trade is
| coming to an end, and the internet will change to reflect a
| less global and guarded real world.
|
| We are also in a world of first-world demographic decline.
| Despite the rise of AI, people are about to get MORE important,
| because there will be less of them in the peak/prime years. If
| regard for human rights tracks the economic value of a
| productive human, it may increase substantially in the coming
| decades.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Sure OUR corps can mentally rape our citizenry, but someone
| else? Nononononononono. This may provoke the first real
| debate on pernicious ubiquitous algorithmic manipulation.
|
| It will not, in any way, because it is only a pretense. The
| original push to ban Tiktok was for the government to get
| access to Tiktok moderation. After they got it, the push
| petered out to a few local loudmouthed Republicans who had
| run with a hardcore anti-China stance. Then, after October
| 7th, when Tiktok _accurately reflected_ the views of the
| younger half of the American public on Palestine, the push
| was renewed by the usual arms dealers and allies, which got
| it through.
|
| Nobody cares about Tiktok's algorithm. They care that people
| are anti-Israeli on Tiktok. When all of those people move to
| another app, they'll suddenly be concerned about that other
| app, or young people's access to social networks in general.
| Tell them girls are killing themselves over social networks,
| they don't care, tell them that arms dealers incomes are
| threatened by girls talking on social networks, our
| government gets very concerned.
| dgfitz wrote:
| > Then, after October 7th, when Tiktok accurately reflected
| the views of the younger half of the American public on
| Palestine
|
| Probably 2/3rds of the younger half, at best.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Do you believe that governments might want to use social
| media platforms to try to divide the population within
| enemy countries?
| briantakita wrote:
| Do you believe that governments might want to use social
| media platforms to try to divide the population within
| their own country?
|
| Only saying this because it's how people in power
| legitimize their own power over everyone else. External
| boogie men help as well. Of course foreign influence is a
| real factor that works against people in their own
| country. The USA has done many foreign influence
| operations that has been detrimental to those people. I'm
| not surprised that foreign governments would do the same
| over here.
|
| All in all, the general population often suffer
| downstream from these games of power.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Yes I believe people in government often spread divisive
| messages, both internally and externally. My personal
| belief is to train people to respond to such divisive
| attacks with love, feeling even more united with people
| after. To let people speak, and learn how to respond to
| how they're speaking.
|
| However, i have some ability to influence my government
| in how it influences social media platforms and which
| messages it spreads. I might have much much less, if any,
| ability to influence foreign governments in how they
| influence social media platforms and what messages they
| spread. And most non-Americans realize how helpless they
| have been to influence American laws and decisions, and
| maybe it's just a time when Americans also realize this
| helplessness in the face of foreign corporations.
| lmm wrote:
| They can want all they like, doesn't mean they're going
| to be effective. Again, no-one cared until the arms
| dealers' incomes were threatened.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I think they (meaning US government officials) started to
| care a lot when they realized a non-American social media
| platform had significant attention from a significant
| majority of Americans, especially young Americans.
|
| Prior to that, most, if not all, social media platforms
| were American run, which allowed Congress to have more
| influence on how they were run and more power to
| investigate and learn how they were run, compared to one
| owned by a foreign country, especially one we haven't
| considered to be a close ally.
| CMCDragonkai wrote:
| This is interesting because it's like saying I would
| rather be oppressed by my government than by foreign
| governments. But if that's true for you, why is not true
| for the citizens of other countries? Taking this to the
| logical conclusion, all foreign influence should be
| prevented for being potentially destructive and all the
| history's isolationism would be justified.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Or it can go the other way, not more isolation but rather
| more integration. If the goal of many foreign governments
| (the US included) may be to divide the population of its
| enemies, what if had an overarching, supranational, dare
| I say global, government that united people?
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Adversary countries also have a deeply wrong view of a
| population which views dissent as a sign of weakness
| instead of a process which grants strength. What they
| want is misleading. They would want to use it even if it
| was in fact, good for the "victim" country.
|
| It brings to mind declassified documents that revealed
| how the KGB basically pissed money away trying to
| destabilize the US economy by engaging in large
| irrational trades. All they really did was make money for
| those who had the fortune to be on the opposite side of
| the trades.
| corimaith wrote:
| Gonna have to go against the grain here. That younger half
| of the youth you are referring to here are also the same
| people the article is referring to that get all their news
| from social media, aka mainly from Instagram and TikTok and
| distrust MSM. And I think it would be correct to say that
| those social media sites did more to shape their views than
| reflect it, considerng how statistically speaking the
| majority of people had no opinions on such a complex topic
| before 10/7.
|
| This very much would be a prime realization of the "social
| debt" the author is talking about, the mass polarization
| and instability caused by the overreliance on such
| networks, and the divestment can be argued to be an direct
| attempt to restablize things onto a common ground. In many
| ways it's already quite a liberal approach by divestment
| rather than a straight ban.
|
| For me personally, I've unfortunately turned to the opinion
| that the "accuracy" of what consumes ultimately is going to
| be defined by the individual, not the source. I'm reminded
| of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, in that yes, of course these
| networks can influence one's views, but it's not
| deterministic. If one seeks the truth, one can easily just
| read from other sources freely availiable on the internet.
|
| The problem here is that most people, including many in
| this thread and in HN I'd argue and perhaps myself, are not
| interested in the truth. The problem isn't that people are
| using TikTok or Instagram, the problem is that they are
| ONLY using TikTok or Instagram. Nobody reads actual
| articles instead of headlines. And that's because for most
| people, including many in this thread and HN and myself,
| we're here just to consume for entertainment, or to confirm
| our own priors. Why would we question our own beliefs? It's
| hard work, and there no real consequences if we get it
| wrong. We can retreat into our social circles and be told
| it's okay for it. Face it, the majority of people ARE
| easily manipulable, most in this thread included. People
| are only going to seek the truth if their job depends on
| it, and that is only going to include a narrow slice of
| domain knowledge. Outside of that, everything really is
| just noise.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _after October 7th, when Tiktok accurately reflected the
| views of the younger half of the American public on
| Palestine, the push was renewed by the usual arms dealers
| and allies, which got it through_
|
| I was involved with this effort. Gaza was immaterial in the
| Senate and worth maybe a handful of votes in the House
| (where they weren't needed, but helped).
|
| The binding energy came from Bytedance pushing a political
| message to its users, including children [1], and the
| Chinese embassy lobbying against the bill [2]. (Keep in
| mind this has been a multi-year effort of iteration and
| refinement [3].)
|
| [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/krishnamoorthi-gallagher-
| tiktok...
|
| [2] https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-
| influence/2024...
|
| [3] https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-timeline-ban-biden-
| india-d...
| mistermann wrote:
| > Chinese Tiktok scaring the US government: Sure OUR corps
| can mentally rape our citizenry, but someone else?
| Nononononononono. This may provoke the first real debate on
| pernicious ubiquitous algorithmic manipulation.
|
| Also that western politicians and journalists are chronic
| purveyors of untruths/lies, mis/disinformation, etc.
| just_steve_h wrote:
| I find Schneier to be one of the most cogent observers and
| commentators on the influence of technology and corporate
| organization on our society. His writing is compelling.
|
| Agree with others that I'm left wanting for solutions to the
| challenges he so clearly articulates.
| janalsncm wrote:
| The trends he is discussing are so macroscopic that it's hard
| to even identify a single thing that can fix the system. For
| example privacy, yes it would be nice to have some basic
| privacy laws but there are entire industries dependent on the
| status quo, and government/police as customers. So as a
| politician doing "the right thing" immediately makes entrenched
| national security interests into enemies.
|
| We need to find opportunities for more and better means of
| civic engagement. Democracy can't just be a thing that happens
| every 4 years. One small example: maybe something like a
| "customer service hotline" at a local level. Local government
| could also send out "UX" people to better understand local pain
| points. Hyperlocal representation at the subdivision or even
| block level would also be interesting.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >Agree with others that I'm left wanting for solutions to the
| challenges he so clearly articulates.
|
| The solutions have always been the same, and that makes them
| boring.
|
| Organize, vote, act, lobby, educate, learn.
| janalsncm wrote:
| It is an interesting thought, what would the world look like if
| these global trends continue, if the role of the state continued
| to dissolve under the influence of multinational corporations.
| Perhaps Liberalism (individual rights/political equality) will
| turn out to be only a passing fad in 1000 years' time.
| Corporatism allows transnational groups of people to coordinate
| in ways and at fidelities that have only recently been possible.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| See also _The Space Merchants_ (1952)
| eep_social wrote:
| And Snow Crash (1992)
| leobg wrote:
| Wikipedia summary:
|
| > In a vastly overpopulated world, businesses have taken the
| place of governments and now hold political power. States
| exist merely to ensure the survival of huge trans-national
| corporations. Advertising has become hugely aggressive and by
| far the best-paid profession. Through advertising, the public
| is constantly deluded into thinking that the quality of life
| is improved by all the products placed on the market. Some of
| the products contain addictive substances designed to make
| consumers dependent on them.
|
| Hmmm...
| Mathnerd314 wrote:
| I disagree with most of the examples. When newspapers are
| struggling, for example - it is just that, a struggle. It is not
| "socio-technical debt". Newspapers in 1830 sold maybe 148 million
| copies annually, 0.4 million per day. Comparing that to the
| Census number of 12,860,702, we see that only 3% of people read
| the newspaper. In contrast daily newspaper readership today
| (print+digital) is 20.9 million, compared to 333.3 million
| population, 6.3% of people. Whatever social function newspapers
| serve, it is clear that they are still serving it. Actually,
| technical debt is when you _don 't_ replace old, crunky stuff -
| arguably, if traditional news stories make up only 3 percent of
| social media content, then the social media companies should be
| figuring out how to refactor their platforms so as to be able to
| completely replace these old, legacy businesses.
| ipv6ipv4 wrote:
| In 1830, I believe most papers were weekly. So your percentage
| is missing a multiplier that could be fairly substantial.
|
| And by 1850 the number of newspapers (still mostly weeklies)
| nearly tripled with an annual circulation of 500 million.
| Mathnerd314 wrote:
| https://www.pewresearch.org/short-
| reads/2017/06/01/circulati... says it is at around the 1940's
| level in absolute terms. If you do per capita it works out to
| 30% for 1940 vs. 12% in 2015. I think it's safe to assume
| that per-capita or not, the circulation curve is [?]-shaped.
| But naturally, the historical timeframe that today's level of
| news readership is most comparable to is a matter of debate
| and speculation - all that matters is that it has not yet
| regressed to the point where it is nonexistent, and the
| decline/stagnation started before the internet.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| > _emotionally binding citizens to a self-understood identity_
|
| In the vocabulary of Kurt Vonnegut, creating a "granfalloon".
|
| https://granfalloon.indiana.edu/what-the-heck/index.html
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