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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • ‘No one’s spying on me, I’m not interesting’ is more pernicious than Nothing to Hide. Most adults can kind of sense the idiocy of the latter refrain. But ask the utterer why advertising is a trillion-dollar industry if their attitudes and behaviours aren’t interesting, or why a data broking industry even exists, and you’ll typically be asked ‘why care?’

    What’s harder to work out is whether the utterance is a genuine failure to comprehend the nature of surveillance capitalism, or a grasping denial of its impact, as though they’re only 80 per cent convinced of their footprint’s worthlessness. It’s difficult to convince someone to turn down their data faucet when they barely acknowledge the faucet’s existence to start with.







  • The best thing good users can do is remain on the client for the long term, ensuring traders remain a small minority. The next best thing they can do is PM traders regularly with requests to share. Make their sessions a pain in the butt due to the private chat alert going off routinely. ‘Hey trader, please open up to non-buddies temporarily, even at a crippled speed. I’d like two items from you. You know Soulseek is a sharing platform, right?’ Some may realise the ridiculousness of their position and co-operate.

    Don’t stoop to their level by blacklisting, either. They will take that as endorsement of their behaviour. (Set 20kb/s down if it makes you feel better.)




  • You’re playing into corporate’s hands by assuming audiences cannot relate to a narrative if the actors don’t resemble them in some fashion. Their interests are served by having you buy into such a notion. They run social media sock-puppet accounts espousing it everywhere you care to look (like throwing spaghetti at a wall, if we just talk about it enough maybe some of it will stick!). The problem is that the notion is bullshit.

    I love The Wire. It’s the best show about policing. I have nothing in common with black Americans barely living above the poverty line, though. Not behaviour, not worldview, not skin tone, not dress sense. Yet these characters make up three quarters of the cast; and I empathised and sympathised with them all the same. By the same token Lord of the Rings has a broad, enduring reach well beyond the Anglosphere.

    I think much of the fuss over representation in modern media comes down to content producers trying to tailor the consumer to their product. They want us preoccupied with it. And when they’re caught out or backed into a corner on the matter, rather than fess up and admit they have industrial and institutional pressures to deal with (actor employment, Blackrock ESG gamification, etc), they suggest critics are racist instead. Perhaps that really is a better strategic approach than a policy of honesty and respect for the public’s intelligence. But it doesn’t make it true.





  • Talk about digital privacy like you talk about physical health.

    I don’t decide to consign myself to a life of fast food and video games because I’m a currently a bit flabby and sedentary. That’s called defeatism. If we thought about our health this way we’d all be better off dead. Rather, I recognise I’m at a particular point on a spectrum due to neglect, and take conscious action to move towards the optimal state: I walk to the shops. I take the stairs. I get in more greens.

    Normie has to be shown a new perspective on a domain of his life he thinks he has filed away for good (no doubt due to discomfort). His privacy is not a balloon that becomes a discardable bit of plastic once popped; in fact it’s something he can tend and hone, as diligently as he does his ab or skincare routines.

    He doesn’t care now because the issues surrounding digital privacy aren’t relevant to him. They are not relevant because the structures and technologies posing the issues are inscrutable, and condition individuals into believing they have zero agency. That’s why he’ll cede virtually anything for the sake of achieving a BAU task five minutes faster on $ProprietaryApp - he assigns nil value to those personal properties he’s convinced he cannot personally secure. He won’t reappraise his values until doubt over that comfortable certainty has crept in.

    It’s going to take charitable people modelling the change they want to see, explaining in social settings why they’re paying cash at this venue or not using Chrome or aren’t contactable on WhatsApp. And the foundation of that is suitable language. My good health is a product of my routines, my knowledge of what is harmful and beneficial to it, my awareness of the various threat vectors, and my social circle’s recognition and encouragement of healthy living. The same applies for privacy.