23 votes

Surveillance capitalism has led us into a dystopia

9 comments

  1. [3]
    cmccabe
    Link
    "We're not sleepwalking into some sort of dystopia. We're there." This video from BBC isn't news to tildes users, but the more we can keep the discussion of this topic alive, the better.

    "We're not sleepwalking into some sort of dystopia. We're there."

    This video from BBC isn't news to tildes users, but the more we can keep the discussion of this topic alive, the better.

    16 votes
    1. [2]
      determinism
      Link Parent
      From my uMatrix summary of that BBC webpage, here is a list of some of the providers of 3rd party scripts. chartbeat.com googletagservices.com crwdcntrl.net imrworldwide.com Probably a good bet...

      From my uMatrix summary of that BBC webpage, here is a list of some of the providers of 3rd party scripts.

      chartbeat.com

      googletagservices.com

      crwdcntrl.net

      imrworldwide.com

      Probably a good bet that most of those are involved in the surveillance described in the video.

      If this makes you uncomfortable, install a script blocker like uBlock and/or uMatrix. It is incredibly rare to encounter a site like Tildes that doesn't violate your privacy.

      16 votes
      1. novac
        Link Parent
        It's pretty rich of the government-funded BBC to criticize corporate surveillance.

        It's pretty rich of the government-funded BBC to criticize corporate surveillance.

        1 vote
  2. [3]
    nacho
    Link
    I know this will be an unpopular view on tildes. This video loses me in the first 20 seconds. As most 'normal' people will blow this crazy person off as, well, a crazy person. Have you ever been...
    • Exemplary

    I know this will be an unpopular view on tildes.

    This video loses me in the first 20 seconds. As most 'normal' people will blow this crazy person off as, well, a crazy person.


    • Have you ever been to a factory farm? If you haven't, you simply can't imagine the absolute stench, the casual way suffering is treated and how emotionally draining it is to see and hear the suffering in a factory farm. Without being there, you simply cannot evoke the immersion on film.

    The claim that Google and Facebook are "factory farms for human beings" is preposterous, crazy and undermines everyone who actually lives in any form of distress. Issues of advertising and voluntary consumer tracking are first world problems. There's simply no counterargument to that.


    • The claim that you're being 'manipulated' by the 'intimate insights' garnered by targeted advertising absolves consumers of both personal agency, and personal responsibility.

    If I just can't help myself and end up buying something I shouldn't because of an ad. That's on me. As an adult, I'm responsible for spending my money, well, responsibly. I have choices. I can choose not to buy Coke even though I've seen an ad for it. I won't buy a second hot tub because I keep on getting hot tub ads after the first one.

    If there's one thing we need in today's society, it's to be able to make and take informed decisions. And to be responsible for those actions and their consequences. Otherwise we're giving everyone a free pass to collectively sheepwalk the planet into environmental catastrophe. I matter. You matter.


    • "We're not sleepwalking into dystopia. we're already there." Just fuck off, hack. Just 50 years ago people couldn't envision the absolute luxury and decadence of western civilization.

    Look back at the most luxurious hotels in the world around 1950. We're all living materially superior lives to literal kings and emperors two generations ago.

    It's revolting to have our current situation be described as a "dystopia" not just to those who've actually ever met hardships in their lives, whether that's simply because they're 80 years old today and remember tougher times. Or whether that's because they're part of the hundreds of millions of people today who'll have their lives threatened by starvation or deadly disease from preventable illness because they were less fortunate than us and weren't born of parents who happen to live in the developed world.

    We did nothing to deserve that. It's sheer and utter luck.


    Evoking hysteria like this is counter-productive. Any reasonable person will disregard this nonsense at face value, without consideration. Those three claims are all made in the first 20 seconds.

    It's asinine and sickening that someone would undermine the very real privacy concerns and lack of digital consumer rights today.

    That's all this video does. It leads more and more people to write off the privacy movement as crybabies who're disjointed from reality, and that everything they spout is crazy nonsense.

    Our privacy concerns are real. They don't need to be exaggerated or be made out to be matters of life and death. They're not. That doesn't make them any less worth tackling or any less important than they are in their own right.

    8 votes
    1. [2]
      Gaywallet
      Link Parent
      On a visceral level, I agree with your statement. However, the science disagrees and you can't argue with fact. People are more likely to buy products they see advertisements for. People are more...

      If I just can't help myself and end up buying something I shouldn't because of an ad. That's on me. As an adult, I'm responsible for spending my money, well, responsibly. I have choices. I can choose not to buy Coke even though I've seen an ad for it. I won't buy a second hot tub because I keep on getting hot tub ads after the first one.

      On a visceral level, I agree with your statement.

      However, the science disagrees and you can't argue with fact. People are more likely to buy products they see advertisements for. People are more likely to save money in a 401k when instead of opting-in they have to opt-out. There are innate human biases that while they may not affect you (or rather, you might think they don't), affect others at the least.

      It's not an ad that makes you buy a second hot tub. An ad might direct you towards a particular website when you decide to buy your first hot tub, and it might affect your perception of that particular retailer to be higher than it should be, given your lack of evidence. A company with extra money to spend on this sort of targeting might actually be offering a superior service, however, and targeted advertising in this case could be a good thing (but that's another discussion).

      If there's one thing we need in today's society, it's to be able to make and take informed decisions. And to be responsible for those actions and their consequences.

      100% in agreement here. There are no free passes. It's okay to understand why someone made a bad decision and why we're in a bad way right now with regards to the environment, our politics, and many other issues. We need to understand to begin to attack the problem, but we must also be able to take ownership of our failures and learn from them. There's a distinction here that I want to call out - it's okay to admit failure or point it out, but telling someone they are wrong or stupid and blaming them is not productive. We need to act together as humans to fix the problem so that it doesn't happen again.

      Our privacy concerns are real. They don't need to be exaggerated or be made out to be matters of life and death. They're not. That doesn't make them any less worth tackling or any less important than they are in their own right.

      I very much agree with this entire section, and why I've personally struggled with privacy concerns, especially on a bastion like Tildes. The arguments I've heard from others about why I should care more about privacy and advocate for it don't seem to really reach me. On a fundamental level I disagree with the surveillance state, but the current state of affairs doesn't have me in a state of such alarm that I feel a pressing need to act now. I want a video that explains to me, without hyperbole, why I should be acting now and not okay with the status quo of government moving slowly on this issue like all others.

      7 votes
      1. nacho
        Link Parent
        I think you're entirely right. I can't buy a product I don't know exists. I can't buy insurance from a provider I don't know is an option. Advertisers are paying for me to remember that Dr. Pepper...

        A company with extra money to spend on this sort of targeting might actually be offering a superior service, however, and targeted advertising in this case could be a good thing (but that's another discussion).

        I think you're entirely right. I can't buy a product I don't know exists. I can't buy insurance from a provider I don't know is an option. Advertisers are paying for me to remember that Dr. Pepper exists when I'm buying [soda], or [drink] or [refreshment] or whatever product category their product fits in. Doesn't mean it's the best product, but it very well might be the best product I remember about when I'm purchasing.

        I want targeted ads at me that hit my actual interests rather than ads for stuff I don't care about. I like cheese. Nothing is better than for my local brand store to hit me with ads when they get a new type of cheese I actually want to try.

        It isn't going to change my total discretionary spending much, but might get me more bang for my buck within what I spend as I like.


        I think the argument that something needs to be done with privacy concerns now is basically that we don't know what we're doing when we're giving up our data. I think that's largely true.

        Privacy regulation is outdated. Even the brand new GDPR in Europe and other consumer rights simply aren't meant to deal with 2018-technology. Or 2008-technology. So companies can basically do whatever.

        I like getting stuff free and paying with information I don't mind sharing instead. That should be an informed decision and I need to know the ramifications of what I'm sharing. I totally get why some people react to that lack of information by swinging the pendulum entirely in the opposite direction and not wanting to share anything. That's still an extreme position unsuited to all but a tiny minority of people as far as I'm concerned.

        3 votes
  3. [3]
    jlpoole
    Link
    The video was news to me and I'm a tildes user. It was excellent. And so was a companion video at the BBC site re: "Can You Love An Object". But... I wanted to share those specific videos and...

    The video was news to me and I'm a tildes user. It was excellent. And so was a companion video at the BBC site re: "Can You Love An Object".

    But... I wanted to share those specific videos and there is nowhere on the presentation a way to capture a link to the specific video, only the site as a whole.

    Thank you.

    3 votes
    1. [2]
      elcuello
      Link Parent
      https://www.bbc.com/ideas/videos/can-you-love-an-object/p062mhs5?playlist=imho

      But... I wanted to share those specific videos and there is nowhere on the presentation a way to capture a link to the specific video, only the site as a whole.

      https://www.bbc.com/ideas/videos/can-you-love-an-object/p062mhs5?playlist=imho

      4 votes
      1. jlpoole
        Link Parent
        Thank you, the "playlist=..." at the end caused me to think the URL was not unique to the video. Now I see that is not so.

        Thank you, the "playlist=..." at the end caused me to think the URL was not unique to the video. Now I see that is not so.

        2 votes