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saddleblasters
8 months ago
I suspect that, without ebooks, coming to China would have isolated me a lot more from English-language literature than it has. I'd be restricted to the kinds of books at the foreign language bookstores here, mostly either classics or recent "airplane bookstore" type stuff -- though at the same time I'm not sure if being restricted to the classics would be all that bad...
saddleblasters
8 months ago
also I'd probably have more motivation to read Chinese novels. Due to how much effort it takes, I generally only read Chinese stuff that feels "important." Maybe if I were cut off from English language entertainment, I'd read more "low-brow" Chinese literature, which in the long term would probably do a lot for my language skills
bright-eyes
8 months ago
A little epilogue to the Amazon problem - a few years ago, I bought a couple of digital albums from a band that I like from Amazon music - one of them was never released on cd at the time it was supposed to have been (there was some wrangling with their record label, among other things, so it was never released, on cd, other than a single and songs put on to a greatest hits compilation.) and the other album I -
bright-eyes
8 months ago
couldn't find on cd. I discovered yesterday that Amazon have started inserting ads between the songs when you listen to it on their website. This wouldn't be a problem if 1. I'd not bought the albums, and 2. if you could listen to anything on Amazon music without a subscription, which you can't do.
bright-eyes
8 months ago
This doesn't bode well for Audible and there are other issues at stake other than rights of ownership because many people with disabilities and illnesses which mean they can't read books could lose access to books and this is a problem for disabled kindle users too.
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the reaction to edward snowden's leak was the most deafening display of de-evolution i've ever seen: first everyone freaks out "oh no they're monitoring everything what'll we do?!" then alarm fatigue set in and now people are like "okay boomer, let's get you back to the home".
Not to sound pessimistic but I think we've been living in a technological dystopia ever since the introduction of computers into the family home.
yeah, bg1g - it went from "ah, shit", to "so what tel. companies (=feds) has in job (and we pay them for)"
@palmistshouse i wouldn't say it is inherent to consumer technology but that it definitely saw a turn for the worse since companies found out how to profit off of mass surveillance
@projectc190 - Why 2010 though? @palmistshouse - David Burnham, the investigative journalist, would have probably agreed: https://youtu.be/3H-Y-D3-j-M?si=4KX04-jONTUcQHBN&t=487 As @badgraph1csghost and @oldkidz-newblockz point out, it seems to have dramatically increased since then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9-3K3rkPRE
After the so-called "Patriot Act", things like "Project Shamrock" grew exponentially. The "PRISM program" showed that most companies have their own "Room 641A" and feed data to the UDC in Bluffdale so that alphabet orgs can train "AI" and do "war game simulations": https://www.theregister.com/2007/06/23/sentient_worlds/ "Military intelligence" then trickles down to the "police state" through "fusion centers".
But we can go back further. Most of "Silicon Valley" grew out of miltary research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo And many of the earliest computers were developed specifically for military applications...Perhaps one of the most egregious examples was their use in the automation of genocide done during WWII: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
However, that is still done through "information warfare": https://web.archive.org/web/20250220150818/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html Or carried out "by proxy", like with "stochastic terrorism" spread through "memetic warfare": https://www.start.umd.edu/news/new-zealand-terrorists-manifesto-look-some-key-narratives-beliefs-and-tropes
The "average joe" may not realize how prevalent all of that might be. Hypothetical Exampe: The "terminally online" on an anonymous imageboard are tricked into doing "OSINT"...But when they start uncovering the *real* darkness through their "weaponized autism", will that corruption get it shutdown by "flaming" it with CSAM and painting their findings as a nonsensical "conspiracy theory"?
Currently, "e/acc" is aiming for the "technological singularity", but what exactly is humanity working towards? There is danger in computers becoming idols for worshiping the "Solid State Entity" https://web.archive.org/web/20241009072404/https://seankerrigan.com/john-c-lilly-and-the-solid-state-entity/ So, don't be corralled into a Brave New World-like "smart city" or help make a "world in chains scenario".
All of that might sound incredibly depressing or scary, but don't worry. None of it will ever succeed. There is an Intelligence infinitely greater than the "artificial" and it communicates with us directly through genuine virtue and kindness. Sincerely strive to hear it by tuning out all of the "noise". 💜
@letslearntogether i mentioned the 2010s because of significant incidents i know of, such as the 2012 google street view fcc investigation, but thats not to say that similar indications of tech dystopia didn't happen earlier than that