I think it is close to inevitable that government agencies will collect all data. What counts is the restrictions we place upon its use. There is an important distinction between storage and usage. I'm NOT saying that I'm in favor of this - only that I see that storage of all data will be the logical compromise with law enforcement requiri a court order to use said data. But, I fear, the data will be collected and stored unitl "needed."
We all see the horror that this can bring, the misuse, etc...
Pretty soon, in the US, the 4th A will become as much of a rallying cry as the 1st and 2nd Amendments are currently.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause...
I don't think we can prevent the data from being stored. We may be able to make so that private companies cannot keep this data - that the data must be collected and stored by the government - but I don't see how that is a significant improvement. I think we must focus our attention on limiting the power of government in general. We must not let ourselves become terrified of our governments and our politicians.
No, Einstein didn't have a computer. Technology amplifies your ability to do a task. It allows us to find research information faster, to disseminate important information FASTER. This is important. We're not only exponentially increasing the amount of information but also getting this information to people who can then use it to create something new.
I personally don't think we are in *danger* of losing this race (except for wars over resources ballooning out of control when it combines with religious fervor) but we are in a race. The population explosion (the decrease in rate does not mean a decrease in actual numbers for quite some time) combined with environmental degradation, combined with the rising expectations of 100s of millions in India, China and elsewhere) means we ARE in a race. .
So many people are worried about how technological advances are ruining the environment. What many often forget is that technology is also the answer (unless you want to go back to a hunter-gather lifestyle and I hear that the drum/smoke-signal bandwidth really sucks, it's takes forever to download the latest movie.)
We're in a race - computational speed, new materials, new efficiencies versus the rate in which we're polluting the environment. Many things make me optimistic: photovoltaic paints for one - and now processing power so efficient that it can be solar powered. Wow. We may win this race after all.
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I see. I was limiting my comment to refuting the proposition that increasing efficiency in an economic system necessarily leads to layoffs and mass unemployment. Regarding farm produce I think we could have quality products with very little additional labor. We will have to pay more for it. I think we have good news on that front as well. There are food co-ops, local farmers markets, natural food stores all over NYC now. When I travel I see them there as well from Texas to Vermont.
I haven't seen it - but what about those statistics are incorrect? Up to about 1880 (I guess that's 130 years ago) way over 80% of the population worked on farms. Now, according to the BLS, about 2 million people work in agriculture and about 138 million are in non-agricultural work.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t08.htm
ACTA cannot work without the world community (read national police forces and courts) enforcing it. If huge sections of the world - especially the technologically advanced part - are not signatories, and are not participating then ACTA cannot work. At best it would be a bad joke.
Most construction workers like technology and I think most would shake their heads in sadness and pity if they went to Mexico and saw the workers passing buckets of concrete from the mixer to where it needed to be poured. (I saw this in the 1990s.) Second, most are far more competent at math than you think. You can't frame a house and make the corners square if you don't.
Look at movies from 50 years ago and see the floors full of secretaries. Those jobs are all gone now.
Look at movies from 100 years ago. There were horses. The horse-shoers all lost their jobs.
120 years ago 80% of Americans worked in farms now 2% do. Look at all those lost jobs.
Efficiency is good. It helps.
If what you were saying was correct we should get rid of concrete mixers and pumps and have slews of people mix the concrete and carry it in buckets to where it needs to be poured.
That would be silly wouldn't it. Again increasing efficiency in the system is a general good.
Absolutely. If there is no downward pressure on prices then prices will not fall. But there is. Landlines are falling by the wayside (don't have the figures handy) and there is competition among the wireless services. Right now ATT may have a temporary windfall but I don't see it lasting that long.
Nice post. Regarding the last paragraph I couldn't have said it better myself. I fear we still have a long way to go to before we can declaw the FCC. There are too many on both the left and right who like government oversite on content. Thankfully there are now "non-public" airwaves where content producers can create and show what they want but I think the laws preventing certain types of advertising applies there as well.
I have a hard time arguing this point as I agree with you. However, when dealing with a mass market you need to deal with mass tastes. If anyone complained about the sexuality in Spartacus or True Blood or in music videos (Destination Calabria)I would say "don't watch it." But there are people (for the most part our religious neighbors) who object to such sexuality, and when we are sharing a common space, we should respect their sensibilities and not rub their faces in something they object to and then gleefully mock them for being rubes.
The SuperBowl is about football. Some sexuality is expected (see the cheerleaders) but there is a limit to the acceptable suggestfulness. My problem with Janet Jackson is not seeing her nipples for 1/2 a second but that she purposefully offended people to get some publicity. If she wanted to do a video where she got butt-naked I would defend her right to do so, and watch it as well.:-)
Let me ask you a question: if a spongebob episode had a hard-core porn clip in the middle of the show, would you side with the outraged parents or the guy who altered the viewing? Granted this is an extreme example but the analogy holds.
While I have no problem with nudity - there is a time and place for sexual expression. Is it a good thing to deliberately offend people just for a little publicity? That's what Janet Jackson did. Why are you defending her? Just as it is wrong for "moral" people to prevent the "immoral" from watching lewd acts so it's wrong to inject sexuality or violence in a presumably "neutral" environment.
You're missing the point. She purposefully exposed herself for publicity. It's the lame way she pretended it was a wardrobe malfunction. Wasn't she sued by the manufacturer for implying that they sold faulty merchandise? What's there to defend?
I think both left and right are united against this nonsense. This is something that unites both the Tea Party and OWS. I think that there are very few US politicians that can back this nonsense without getting major push-back.
Couldn't agree more. My father has Alzheimers. He was a sculptor and tool-and-die maker who can no longer tell the difference between a chisel and a screwdriver. It's a sad, horrifying disease.
Thankfully both the left and right are concerned about privacy. I have hope that the phrase "secure" in our "papers and effects" will become commonplace in judicial decisions.
You don't "need" 3d stuff made? How about you need a screw or an adapter for your laptop or mobile device. You have the requisite materials, whatever they will be (now you have black, yellow, red and blue ink); you program the printer and moments later you have the part you need without having to go to the store.
That is so true about spam polluting usenet in the early 1990s and that many people were demanding real-person accounts. I remember being a proponent of anonymity back then. I'm still a proponent of anonymity. The same arguments hold true today as then. There are some places where you need to know the identity of someone (school, work, government) and places where anonymous transactions are there for your chosing.
The rate at which data can be stored and mined is expanding exponentially and we need to balance the concerns of legitimate police work with that of the 4th Amendment where we are secure in our paper and effects against unreasonable search and seizure.
You shouldn't be so blase about your privacy.It's not simply a matter of doing something illegal - it's a matter of you controlling what others know about you. And when it comes right down to it - many times "legality" and what is right have nothing to do with each other. There were miscegenation laws for years. Gay couples still have problems.
Take a look at the 4th A to the US Constitution:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
We are to be "secure" in our "papers and effects" against unreasonable searches. The whole question revolves around the question of "reasonable." As data is getting easier to store and filter this will become an ever more important issue.
None of them were in any position of power when they started. Gutenberg NEVER had power or riches.
James Watt wasn't born poor but that doesn't mean his inventions are not to be classified as bottom-up. When a large corporation/government makes a decision and then implements that decision that is Top-Down. When an individual, on his own, without the backing of government or large institution develops something that is Bottom-Up.
There are some developments that can be considered in the middle. Tim Berners-Lee work at CERN can be argued both ways. He was working at CERN so it's Top-Down (my opinion) but a counter argument is that he developed it independently with a few others and then presented their work. Clearly Larry Page and Sergey Brin's development of Google while students are an example of bottom-up - even though they were at Stanford.
I have to disagree with that. A lot, if not all of bottom up innovation had to do with business. Gutenberg, for instance, was in business. So was James Watt (Steam Engine), Robert Fulton and 1000s of others. Sam Walton in the 1960s was bottom-up innovation. Walmart making executive decisions in 2011 is top-down.
Top-Down is when executives/politicians/rulers with money and clout make decisions, it routes through the bureaucracy and is built.
Bottom-Up is the entrepreneurial spirit in action.
I understand what you're saying: and with the technology we have right now - and what we can project into the future you *seem* correct. What I think a lot of people forget is how fast our technological breakthroughs are happening.
We're doubling our computing power every 18 - 24 months. In 20 years computing power will have experienced 10-13 doubles. In 40 years we could have 25 doubles.
In 40 years we went from the 4004 with 2,300 transistors to the corei7 with over 2000 million transistors. In another 10 doubles that 2 billion will be 2000 billion transitors and in another 10 doubles 2000 trillion.
In 40 years what will we have as regards of new materials? Will space elevators and solar sailing be something that seems as inevitable to the teenagers and 20 somethings born in the 2030s? One thing is for certain - the star trek computer will be current technology.
Where do you think we will be in 200 years after another 100 doubles?
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Amen to that.
We all see the horror that this can bring, the misuse, etc...
Pretty soon, in the US, the 4th A will become as much of a rallying cry as the 1st and 2nd Amendments are currently.
I don't think we can prevent the data from being stored. We may be able to make so that private companies cannot keep this data - that the data must be collected and stored by the government - but I don't see how that is a significant improvement. I think we must focus our attention on limiting the power of government in general. We must not let ourselves become terrified of our governments and our politicians.
No, Einstein didn't have a computer. Technology amplifies your ability to do a task. It allows us to find research information faster, to disseminate important information FASTER. This is important. We're not only exponentially increasing the amount of information but also getting this information to people who can then use it to create something new. I personally don't think we are in *danger* of losing this race (except for wars over resources ballooning out of control when it combines with religious fervor) but we are in a race. The population explosion (the decrease in rate does not mean a decrease in actual numbers for quite some time) combined with environmental degradation, combined with the rising expectations of 100s of millions in India, China and elsewhere) means we ARE in a race. .
We're in a race - computational speed, new materials, new efficiencies versus the rate in which we're polluting the environment. Many things make me optimistic: photovoltaic paints for one - and now processing power so efficient that it can be solar powered. Wow. We may win this race after all. .
We need to push back whether they have a D or an R after their names; whether their name is George W. Bush or Barack H. Obama.
I see. I was limiting my comment to refuting the proposition that increasing efficiency in an economic system necessarily leads to layoffs and mass unemployment. Regarding farm produce I think we could have quality products with very little additional labor. We will have to pay more for it. I think we have good news on that front as well. There are food co-ops, local farmers markets, natural food stores all over NYC now. When I travel I see them there as well from Texas to Vermont.
I haven't seen it - but what about those statistics are incorrect? Up to about 1880 (I guess that's 130 years ago) way over 80% of the population worked on farms. Now, according to the BLS, about 2 million people work in agriculture and about 138 million are in non-agricultural work. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t08.htm
ACTA cannot work without the world community (read national police forces and courts) enforcing it. If huge sections of the world - especially the technologically advanced part - are not signatories, and are not participating then ACTA cannot work. At best it would be a bad joke.
Most construction workers like technology and I think most would shake their heads in sadness and pity if they went to Mexico and saw the workers passing buckets of concrete from the mixer to where it needed to be poured. (I saw this in the 1990s.) Second, most are far more competent at math than you think. You can't frame a house and make the corners square if you don't.
Efficiency is good. It helps.
If what you were saying was correct we should get rid of concrete mixers and pumps and have slews of people mix the concrete and carry it in buckets to where it needs to be poured.
That would be silly wouldn't it. Again increasing efficiency in the system is a general good.
Absolutely. If there is no downward pressure on prices then prices will not fall. But there is. Landlines are falling by the wayside (don't have the figures handy) and there is competition among the wireless services. Right now ATT may have a temporary windfall but I don't see it lasting that long.
Nice post. Regarding the last paragraph I couldn't have said it better myself. I fear we still have a long way to go to before we can declaw the FCC. There are too many on both the left and right who like government oversite on content. Thankfully there are now "non-public" airwaves where content producers can create and show what they want but I think the laws preventing certain types of advertising applies there as well.
I have a hard time arguing this point as I agree with you. However, when dealing with a mass market you need to deal with mass tastes. If anyone complained about the sexuality in Spartacus or True Blood or in music videos (Destination Calabria)I would say "don't watch it." But there are people (for the most part our religious neighbors) who object to such sexuality, and when we are sharing a common space, we should respect their sensibilities and not rub their faces in something they object to and then gleefully mock them for being rubes.
:-)
The SuperBowl is about football. Some sexuality is expected (see the cheerleaders) but there is a limit to the acceptable suggestfulness. My problem with Janet Jackson is not seeing her nipples for 1/2 a second but that she purposefully offended people to get some publicity. If she wanted to do a video where she got butt-naked I would defend her right to do so, and watch it as well.
Let me ask you a question: if a spongebob episode had a hard-core porn clip in the middle of the show, would you side with the outraged parents or the guy who altered the viewing? Granted this is an extreme example but the analogy holds.
While I have no problem with nudity - there is a time and place for sexual expression. Is it a good thing to deliberately offend people just for a little publicity? That's what Janet Jackson did. Why are you defending her? Just as it is wrong for "moral" people to prevent the "immoral" from watching lewd acts so it's wrong to inject sexuality or violence in a presumably "neutral" environment. You're missing the point. She purposefully exposed herself for publicity. It's the lame way she pretended it was a wardrobe malfunction. Wasn't she sued by the manufacturer for implying that they sold faulty merchandise? What's there to defend?
It's frustrating when they do that.
I think both left and right are united against this nonsense. This is something that unites both the Tea Party and OWS. I think that there are very few US politicians that can back this nonsense without getting major push-back.
Couldn't agree more. My father has Alzheimers. He was a sculptor and tool-and-die maker who can no longer tell the difference between a chisel and a screwdriver. It's a sad, horrifying disease.
Thankfully both the left and right are concerned about privacy. I have hope that the phrase "secure" in our "papers and effects" will become commonplace in judicial decisions.
You don't "need" 3d stuff made? How about you need a screw or an adapter for your laptop or mobile device. You have the requisite materials, whatever they will be (now you have black, yellow, red and blue ink); you program the printer and moments later you have the part you need without having to go to the store.
Building a jaw like this is pretty damn close to a replicator: take the raw material and make something new from it.
That is so true about spam polluting usenet in the early 1990s and that many people were demanding real-person accounts. I remember being a proponent of anonymity back then. I'm still a proponent of anonymity. The same arguments hold true today as then. There are some places where you need to know the identity of someone (school, work, government) and places where anonymous transactions are there for your chosing. The rate at which data can be stored and mined is expanding exponentially and we need to balance the concerns of legitimate police work with that of the 4th Amendment where we are secure in our paper and effects against unreasonable search and seizure.
You shouldn't be so blase about your privacy.It's not simply a matter of doing something illegal - it's a matter of you controlling what others know about you. And when it comes right down to it - many times "legality" and what is right have nothing to do with each other. There were miscegenation laws for years. Gay couples still have problems. Take a look at the 4th A to the US Constitution: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. We are to be "secure" in our "papers and effects" against unreasonable searches. The whole question revolves around the question of "reasonable." As data is getting easier to store and filter this will become an ever more important issue.
None of them were in any position of power when they started. Gutenberg NEVER had power or riches. James Watt wasn't born poor but that doesn't mean his inventions are not to be classified as bottom-up. When a large corporation/government makes a decision and then implements that decision that is Top-Down. When an individual, on his own, without the backing of government or large institution develops something that is Bottom-Up. There are some developments that can be considered in the middle. Tim Berners-Lee work at CERN can be argued both ways. He was working at CERN so it's Top-Down (my opinion) but a counter argument is that he developed it independently with a few others and then presented their work. Clearly Larry Page and Sergey Brin's development of Google while students are an example of bottom-up - even though they were at Stanford.
I have to disagree with that. A lot, if not all of bottom up innovation had to do with business. Gutenberg, for instance, was in business. So was James Watt (Steam Engine), Robert Fulton and 1000s of others. Sam Walton in the 1960s was bottom-up innovation. Walmart making executive decisions in 2011 is top-down. Top-Down is when executives/politicians/rulers with money and clout make decisions, it routes through the bureaucracy and is built. Bottom-Up is the entrepreneurial spirit in action.
I understand what you're saying: and with the technology we have right now - and what we can project into the future you *seem* correct. What I think a lot of people forget is how fast our technological breakthroughs are happening. We're doubling our computing power every 18 - 24 months. In 20 years computing power will have experienced 10-13 doubles. In 40 years we could have 25 doubles. In 40 years we went from the 4004 with 2,300 transistors to the corei7 with over 2000 million transistors. In another 10 doubles that 2 billion will be 2000 billion transitors and in another 10 doubles 2000 trillion. In 40 years what will we have as regards of new materials? Will space elevators and solar sailing be something that seems as inevitable to the teenagers and 20 somethings born in the 2030s? One thing is for certain - the star trek computer will be current technology. Where do you think we will be in 200 years after another 100 doubles?