the people building datacenters don't want to go through the normal process. they want special exceptions to do whatever they like and put the externalities on other people.
Did social media REQUIRE to subvert democratic norms or is it just that social media was so good/powerful that it ended up inadvertently hurting democratic norms and that social fabric?
I didn't think your Facebooks and Twitters required shady data center deals and circumvention to actually establish a viable business model.
>I didn't think your Facebooks and Twitters required shady data center
there were years of debate on whether or not a lot of the things early social media groups did constituted violations of, and not limited to : FTC Act Sect 5, the electronics communications privacy act, the CFAA, the video privacy protection act, and us state privacy laws from coast to coast.
they just did what they wanted, lawyered up, got big enough to lobby, and became legal ..
point is, these groups aren't stranger to 'shady deals'.
Neither. Governments and other politically aligned entities realized social media was useful and it was intentionally used to hurt democratic norms and the social fabric. It was neither an accident nor an intentional part of their business model (with Facebook being a possible exception.)
It's heresy to say here but related content algorithms aren't inherently evil.
Your point would make even more sense if you realized that not everyone cares about capitalist goals when developing software. Some people want software to work for everyone, not just those with money or means.
I also want software to work for anyone. I never said anything about capitalist goals. I pointed out that the person building calibre can still be considered an "outsider" in the art sense, since they are not part of the mainstream who hires designers. Work on your reading comprehension bud.
No, you only want software to work in a specific way that requires more resources than necessary. Just because you don't understand the outcomes of your beliefs doesn't mean others do not.
Why are you upset that citizens have a right in how their communities are developed? Do you not understand that a majority of people do not care about helping capitalists get slightly richer and would rather have a life of quiet dignity?
Use to work at one org in a bloated financial company that was paying Postman nearly $40,000 a month for a license provided to every person in the org. Regardless if they were a dev or not. I suspect the sales pitch pushes for unnecessary licenses because out of around 500 employees in the org, only 80 were developers and out of those 80 only one single team used postman. So this one org was overpaying by nearly >95%, doubt this org is truly unique regarding this.
I suspect that nearly every single public corporation are likely overpaying for software products, it's a waste of capital and extremely inefficient. All it shows is that corporations are too loose with their money and can probably deserve to get their tax obligations increased by a good 20-40% if they're this okay with wasting it.
Why not? The government is allowed to destroy private enterprise as much as the government is allowed to destroy society. Just because you personally disagree with it doesn't mean society doesn't have the right to destroy companies they find to be damaging to society.
Destruction isn't the opposite of bail out, it's just destruction. The government is obligated to do what society wants. From this destruction would come creation by freeing up capital to do more productive things than waste money chasing fantasy rather than providing free school lunches or free university instead (you know the actual things that would generate economic value).
No, they have not. They have incentives to do so, but they are only obligated to follow the law and in the US, even that obligation is relaxed by a lot.
You are arguing against literally this because the idea of being ruled by democratic means may lead to democratic outcomes you do not want to partake in. For that I say you're free to start your own society while people are allowed to engage in creative destruction if they choose so.
Let's not act like the VC world is against creative destruction when it comes to enriching themselves, there's no reason why the public can't destroy things to benefit society either.
George Washington routinely abused the office of the presidency and ignored provisions of the fugitive slave act where he compelled members of the Treasury Department to kidnap a free African woman, Ona Judge, in New Hampshire multiple times (failing each time).
I don't think hero worship is acceptable in any form. We shouldn't be elevating individuals above us but championing how capable any of us could be if the time comes.
I notice you don't mention much about physical social interactions.
How do you meet new people and engage with your community if you don't have a phone or aren't using to use the corporate media apps? Is in person enough to get you by? Generally curious because not having a cellphone seems really hard or maybe that's just a misplaced anxiety on my part
Turns out all the methods humans used for the few hundred years before smartphones still work!
I met most of my friends at hackerspaces, board game nights, conferences, giving conference talks, parties, bars, etc. Put yourself out there in spaces where human beings of likely overlapping interests exist and you will make the friends that matter most. I first had a conversation with my wife of over a decade by tagging along with a bunch of strangers to a random pizza place. My wife did not use dating apps at all, so in person was the only way a guy could have met her.
I also open my house once a week to anyone I know, and host events every month or so. Met a lot of friends-of-friends that way.
And look, I get it. Doing all that is scary. I still have a lot of anxiety about hanging out with people I do not live with, and I do it anyway. Never regretted it once.
Spending time around other people in person makes us better people.
In many developed countries, the hacker events and board game nights are organized over Facebook groups; Facebook itself is dead, except for the events niche because people don't see a better place to announce these things; people aren't necessarily doing flyers posted on a message board like in the 1990s.
Also, in not all countries is it acceptable to talk to strangers in public, like your pizza place example. In Finland this will make people very uncomfortable, though you might get away with it if you are a obvious clueless foreigner (or an unusually charismatic foreigner). About the only place it is acceptable is bars after a certain level of inebriation, but that is not the kind of interaction many people will find worthwhile.
The Nordic countries have been like that for long years, but I think this taboo is spreading because young people in some Central and even Southern European cities, even with a history of cafe culture and large student populations, are complaining online about the difficulty of meeting anyone when out and about. Telling someone that they should just take the first step isn't necessarily a solution, because like climate change or recycling, this is maybe something that cannot be solved by idealistic individual action but requires policy changes.
Life is too short to wait on policy changes. Everyone has to take responsibility for achieving their own goals.
I moved a lot growing up, and had to make friends quickly. I got pretty damn good at magic. When a stranger suddenly starts complaining about how spicy the burritos are and blows an actual fireball randomly, you end up in fun conversations with strangers.
My version of it these days is giving tech talks even when they terrify me, because it helps me find the select few people who share my interests faster.
But also if 9/10 strangers blow you off when you try to chat them up, who cares? That is their problem. The 1/10 are going to make it worth it.
I made new friends through an open source project. I attended BUG/LUG meetings and other tech events. There are plenty of alternative social events that you don't need a phone for. Email and even irc will do. I am a phone minimalist so its similar situation as I have no social media accounts.
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