The Power of Awareness: Overcoming Surveillance Capitalism
scottrlarson.com149 points by trinsic2 19 hours ago
149 points by trinsic2 19 hours ago
I am intrigued by the header, and it seems like this has some good points. However, I'm struggling to parse this content. There's a full image in between almost every sentence. In most cases, I don't find the image adds significantly to the point of the preceding or following sentence, so it just looks like filler for colour.
I could put this into an AI but then what's the point of the article in the first place?
Beyond the stated changes the author believes are necessary for citizens to make: stop externalizing responsibility, stop going along with social norms that perpetuate surveillance capitalism, and indulging in anger as a substitue for action; the other actionable takeaway to me is: "Unless we have real representation in our government. Companies don’t have vested interest in protecting privacy."
I interpret this as meaning citizens need to support advocacy groups that lobby elected officials to create/improve regulations that would limit the ability to implement surveillance capitalism. This aligns with the author's own words: "Responding to National or Regional calls for safety: Calls to support initiatives, or bills to increase security at the expense of freedom, make us less safe. Trading security for freedom reduces our ability to act."
> what's the point of the article in the first place
Jump to the end, to the summary.
The position of the submitted is that there would be psychological constraints in that certain type of population that inhibit the perception of risk.
And he seems to be wanting to trying to built it up as a creeping subconscious notion through a "story", instead of going "TL;DR" (which is part of facts and of a different "psychology") and clarifying the points immediately.
He believes that that would be the way to deal with the non-adults.
I read and read and read and he never got to a point other than some nebulous "this is wrong and we can change it" without specifics. DNF
That is the point. Nebulous however that has more to do with the multifaceted approach of those behind these activities trying to show that there is not just one bad actor. The purpose is to get you to click on those links at the bottom to learn more. If you got that far and did not feel the need to learn more then you have already chosen a side in this discussion.
Talking about this specifics is illegal. You're not allowed to talk about anything that will displace the Epstein class, because they own us.
I wonder why people are downvoting when people in the US have been sentenced to decades for handling zines, sometimes being extradited to the US for helping fund Palestinians, and the administration is pursuing antifascists as "terrorists".
tangent but i vibe coded a webapp that pulls article texts and runs tts via kokoro. Its interface allows me to read the article text while the current paragraph is highlighted + autoscrolled while the audio is playing. All of this runs on a cheap vps. Works surprisingly well, as long as you are fine with consuming it "later" (conversion needs some minutes)
I've been very happy with @voice aloud on Android to convert a page, (but most often for me) a PDF into spoken audio, sometimes I'll watch it auto scroll what it's converted. It's robotic but I've gotten so used to it I don't really worry much anymore (though I have played with voice clone stuff some and have really been tempted to use that). Anywho just reminded me of the app I have been using for probably a decade (don't quote me ;)).
Having the option on my desktop might be nice tho!
How is your voice handling pipeline emojis and "leftwards rounded arrow with hook" bullshit any AI slop will contain and any reader will insist on fully reading aloud? I gave up reading webpages because of this, I can't focus on the actual text because of all formatting embellishment. I sought and sought but haven't been able to find an Android app or browser extension able to AI-filter through webpage garbage yet - and I'm too lazy to try to vibe-code something for myself.
Awareness is not sufficient to overcome a well financed organized business enterprise.
So, I disagree.
Awareness and giving a shit.
Most people don't care enough about this. They know that their phones are profiling them and delivering ads based on what they do, what they search for, or where they've been. They think it's maybe a little creepy but not really a big deal. Advertising has always been psychologically manipulative, so that part is nothing new. It's just a bit more targeted now.
Indeed. Vital to the solution yes, but if it was all that was needed then the surveillance systems would have been dismantled and prevented each time enough people became aware. The fact that we are here now is it’s own evidence
Awareness is what is missing now in order to do anything substantial.
> what is missing now
Unfortunately what is missing (in the large part of the population) is the perception of Dignity, and the unawareness of the consciousness of their action (people are accepting and feeding the machine).
It is not just the awareness of the historic context that is missing: it is the awareness that what was built is bad, and that that they are partially to blame in every act of acceptance and omission in stating the "red lines".
A better awareness of human rights would go a long way to solving the conditions which make surveillance capitalism profitable.
Folks only accept these heinous abrogations of their human rights because they don't understand human rights.
"Human rights" is a binary abstraction over nonbinary human needs (needs aren't binary because sometimes you need some amount of water and sometimes you don't need any...but you may be fully hydrated while needing to clean a wound; that's just one example). Being stuck in binary thinking means being stuck in a mental model that can never accurately portray the world, despite rampant evidence the model doesn't work. Being stuck in a system founded on binary thinking is being stuck in a system of stupidity.
We focus on "human rights" because we've been propagandized into myths while never taking full responsibility for our own selves in it.
This is why humanity lives in a mythocracy, as Sun Ra called it. We are currently collectively governed by myths of money, debt, ownership, life, death, rights, wrongs, Earth, patriarchy, egos, liberty, and more. Until humans start collectively learning to craft/choose/embody myths for centering the conditions that sustain life and relating to all things as kin, we'll continue in the current direction.
There is also courage. You know if you are caught angle-grinding a Flock pole, your life ends there.
Your life doesn't end. Your perception of your life along this current trajectory and within this current system could end, but it could start you on another much more powerful path. I don't just mean this in relation to flock camera's but rather direct action.
I'm talking about the most likely outcome which is that the judicial system takes away all of your remaining freedom.
That's if you get caught. YOU won't get caught because you're smarter than that and you know what a plan is.
That's what everyone thinks when they get caught. What are you gonna do about the ubiquitous surveillance? The very same cameras would track you from your house all the way to the one you cut down, even if you changed clothes.
No, it's incentive. Always has been. Always will be.
Awareness may (or may not) help with incentive, but by itself it does jack all, as any nerds that have been actively showing their relatives how they are tracked will tell you.
Snowden's revelations did diddlely jack for the common person, nor wikileak's. Knowing smoking is bad never prevented smokers to smoke, knowing exercice is good is not enough to make somebody do it.
You need more: social pressure, conformism, dopamine, lower friction, etc.
Safety belt didn't become common because the average person were aware of the benefits. People screamed about it, complained, refused to use them.
It's the push from insurances to get them into law that turned into car manufacturer making it a feature, cops giving away fines, and social contracts pressuring you into using them that made them ubiquitous.
The myth that awareness is what is missing is one of the reasons so many topic never move because it's talking on the internet about it is easier than doing something about it. So people choose awareness as the virtue signaling easy way out of their guilt.
It's interesting, but it sounds more like a political/societal theory rather than actual events or state of the society. It would be much more interesting and largely shareable if it contained more documented facts rather than generic affirmations.
Pretty sure a lot of people would need a fainting couch if they learned that they might need to avoid restaurants that only have QR-code menus. We seem to have an incredibly-infantilized stock of people these days, which is why I don't know that awareness will really help much.
I think the argument would be more persuasive if it stayed closer to things people can verify themselves
Awareness is the first step, but very far from the final one. (I am sure the author knows this, but worth reiterating.)
Surveillance Capitalism is fueled by large institutions with vast depths of wealth and implemented by world-class supercomputers and algorithms. Fighting surveillance capitalism by individual action is like fighting climate change by drinking through paper straws and bringing totebags to the supermarket.
"neither party is willing to stop it"??? Oh please eff all the way off with this "both sides" crap.... one party is POWERLESS to stop it, the party in power is willingly complicit in the shift towards fascism. There's a MASSIVE difference. Implying the Democrats are somehow willingly allowing this is almost propagandist.
Many Democrats support surveillance bills, like the KIDS act (https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/119-2026/h228) 104 Democrats supported and only 85 opposed (and 23 abstained).