So much this. When my son turned 12, I told him how some of the various social media sites and smart technologies work, and he’s avoided social media altogether ever since (he’s now an adult). He always uses ad blockers and content filters, and he generally made good decisions around phone use, and other tech use from a privacy respecting perspective.
Prior to this discussion, he was eager to be on social media apps because other kids his age were on them. People respond to knowledge about these topics, but there isn’t a mainstream popular individual talking about it. Everyone is so silo’d, it would be quite difficult to reach people, and depending upon the political leanings of such a person, half the population would reactively go the opposite direction… on what really shouldn’t be partisan.
No, this is not the way to go. Consumers cannot possibly understand all potential ways in which they can be screwed over, and even if they could, it is entirely likely that there are no good choices because consumers will have to choose between e.g privacy violation or environmental destruction, or privacy violation of some degree vs another degree.
And one wonders why there is a large amount of rhetoric toward anti-government is being thrown around nowadays. Cannot have the money train being controlled.
Now with super sized data centers (touted as primarily for 'AI'), you don't even need to choose between privacy violation and environmental destruction!!! So efficient!
> Consumers cannot possibly understand all potential ways in which they can be screwed over
In a democracy, consumers and the government are the exact same thing. Since they ostensibly do not understand all of the potential ways in which they can be screwed over, how is calling themselves government going to magically change that? Maybe you are imagining a dictatorship instead, where the government is only a subset of all consumers, but even then the dictators are still just feeble consumers themselves remaining within the subset of all consumers. Being a dictator doesn't make you omniscient; still only human like all the others.
Government exists to clean up the outliers who are not behaving in line with the wishes of the consumers, but that cleanup can only occur when their undesirable behaviour is out there for all to plainly see. You cannot enforce what you don't recognize.
> consumers will have to choose between e.g privacy violation or environmental destruction, or privacy violation of some degree vs another degree.
Temporarily, perhaps, but in a functioning market one of those consumers feeling underserved will rise up to offer what's missing, eventually satisfying consumers again. However, ironically, consumers often consider that undesirable behaviour and use government to block that rising from occurring. For some reason consumers prefer to protect the market incumbents even when they claim to not like what the incumbents are doing.
> In a democracy, consumers and the government are the exact same thing.
This is a straw man. Consumers are represented by representatives who should have their interests in mind, e.g the consumer votes for someone who in turn votes for outcomes. This means that there can absolutely be a difference in knowledge between the government and its citizens, and so no, they are not the exact same thing. One group is trying to do their job of being a citizen, while the other group should be doing their job of representing the interests of the citizens that voted on them in whatever is relevant. One job clearly should not involve making sure your privacy isn't constantly and covertly violated by foreign nationals, and one job clearly should. Which is which is an exercise for the reader.
> Consumers are represented by representatives who should have their interests in mind
Exactly. Representatives are merely messengers, so they can only represent the consumers when sharing the message of the consumers to the extent that the consumers have already recognized. Furthermore, representatives are only consumers themselves, so even if you imagine them not as representatives but dictators who step up and act for the people based on how they believe the people want to be overseen rather than from working with citizens they still have all the same blind spots.
> Great! Where can I find me one of those?
Where consumers don't like protecting the market incumbents. But, make no mistake, consumers love nothing more than protecting market incumbents. It gives them something to complain about when idly chatting with each other. Great? Something tells me you wouldn't find it great at all.
So much this. When my son turned 12, I told him how some of the various social media sites and smart technologies work, and he’s avoided social media altogether ever since (he’s now an adult). He always uses ad blockers and content filters, and he generally made good decisions around phone use, and other tech use from a privacy respecting perspective.
Prior to this discussion, he was eager to be on social media apps because other kids his age were on them. People respond to knowledge about these topics, but there isn’t a mainstream popular individual talking about it. Everyone is so silo’d, it would be quite difficult to reach people, and depending upon the political leanings of such a person, half the population would reactively go the opposite direction… on what really shouldn’t be partisan.
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No, this is not the way to go. Consumers cannot possibly understand all potential ways in which they can be screwed over, and even if they could, it is entirely likely that there are no good choices because consumers will have to choose between e.g privacy violation or environmental destruction, or privacy violation of some degree vs another degree.
This is why governments exist.
And one wonders why there is a large amount of rhetoric toward anti-government is being thrown around nowadays. Cannot have the money train being controlled.
Now with super sized data centers (touted as primarily for 'AI'), you don't even need to choose between privacy violation and environmental destruction!!! So efficient!
> Consumers cannot possibly understand all potential ways in which they can be screwed over
In a democracy, consumers and the government are the exact same thing. Since they ostensibly do not understand all of the potential ways in which they can be screwed over, how is calling themselves government going to magically change that? Maybe you are imagining a dictatorship instead, where the government is only a subset of all consumers, but even then the dictators are still just feeble consumers themselves remaining within the subset of all consumers. Being a dictator doesn't make you omniscient; still only human like all the others.
Government exists to clean up the outliers who are not behaving in line with the wishes of the consumers, but that cleanup can only occur when their undesirable behaviour is out there for all to plainly see. You cannot enforce what you don't recognize.
> consumers will have to choose between e.g privacy violation or environmental destruction, or privacy violation of some degree vs another degree.
Temporarily, perhaps, but in a functioning market one of those consumers feeling underserved will rise up to offer what's missing, eventually satisfying consumers again. However, ironically, consumers often consider that undesirable behaviour and use government to block that rising from occurring. For some reason consumers prefer to protect the market incumbents even when they claim to not like what the incumbents are doing.
> In a democracy, consumers and the government are the exact same thing.
This is a straw man. Consumers are represented by representatives who should have their interests in mind, e.g the consumer votes for someone who in turn votes for outcomes. This means that there can absolutely be a difference in knowledge between the government and its citizens, and so no, they are not the exact same thing. One group is trying to do their job of being a citizen, while the other group should be doing their job of representing the interests of the citizens that voted on them in whatever is relevant. One job clearly should not involve making sure your privacy isn't constantly and covertly violated by foreign nationals, and one job clearly should. Which is which is an exercise for the reader.
> but in a functioning market
Great! Where can I find me one of those?
> Consumers are represented by representatives who should have their interests in mind
Exactly. Representatives are merely messengers, so they can only represent the consumers when sharing the message of the consumers to the extent that the consumers have already recognized. Furthermore, representatives are only consumers themselves, so even if you imagine them not as representatives but dictators who step up and act for the people based on how they believe the people want to be overseen rather than from working with citizens they still have all the same blind spots.
> Great! Where can I find me one of those?
Where consumers don't like protecting the market incumbents. But, make no mistake, consumers love nothing more than protecting market incumbents. It gives them something to complain about when idly chatting with each other. Great? Something tells me you wouldn't find it great at all.