Isn't that kind of the point of the regulation arguments though? These companies literally have a significant conflict of interest because of that. Plenty of the people that are cheerleaders for this model are the same people that grumble and suspect doctors of doing the same thing to their patients. Why is it ok for a company to do it on such a large scale, but not a doctor on a tiny scale? Personally in my eyes both are completely evil actions.
What I can agree with is from a company stand-point they are correct; this may not be a sustainable business model. The difference for me is that I argue you should take this out of their hands then and put it in the hands of an entity whose primary vested interest is keeping people alive and improving their lives at as low a cost as possible without worrying about profits. One could argue that the government is not the entity for that, which is a valid argument, but in my opinion they are at least the better option. If you've got a better idea bring it to the table, but bottom line our current models for healthcare are woefully inadequate and potentially down right dangerous.
Yes, because we need to trot that trope out again. Just because there are example countries that fucked up with that system badly doesn't mean all countries that do anything like it will suffer the same fate. False equivalency is not a good method for arguments. That would be just like comparing the other half of ideologies to Nazi Germany and using that as your reasoning for not doing it (yes I know some people do, but I they're just as wrong). Those three countries have WAY different factors for why they have failed.
The same types of systems are used throughout most of Europe and Canada and work quite well. Their healthcare costs as individual countries are a fraction of ours, people don't have to choose between treatment for disease and financial security, and a large swath of studies show their people are way happier than the US population on average. Finally, people actually do flock to those countries for treatments when they have the option or wherewithal. There are quite a few articles about people being able to fly to Europe, have a procedure done, recover in their facilities, and fly home for less than half the equivalent cost in the US.
Except I work for a POS manufacturer and actually write software for a living. What part of I have had actual training on this do you not understand? You know what go ahead and continue to buy into the false bill of goods you're being sold and ignore people that have literally years more experience in a field than you do. I'm sure you know better after reading the Wikipedia page for 10 minutes.
Did you read half of what I said? I have actually had full training on what this legislation entails and how to comply with it. You are completely idiotic if you think this is going to harm a bunch of clubs and not for profits.
First, private citizens don't determine if someone was acting recklessly, they still have to follow the EU version of due process. Second, how much data do you think these clubs are collecting on members? If you have a damn sign up form and take down information about a person you put a fucking disclaimer at the bottom and they e-sign. Done. Unless your club is collecting a bunch of information related to the user's offsite browsing habits this isn't much of an issue. It does make sure you actually handle the data responsibly and not leave it sitting on an open AWS server for any idiot to stumble across.
Moving on to your next hand waving bullshit, more data collected? Really? You do realize if they collect MORE data then they are creating a greater risk for themselves to mishandle it, abuse it, or draw a serious fine for it even accidentally (which is the point, this is to disincentivize mass data collect). What it has ACTUALLY done is to force the companies to reveal the data they were already collecting because they couldn't stop quick enough due to loss of revenue and/or strategy. Furthermore there are penalties for them not allowing a user to turn off data collection that is considered non-essential for the business services. If what you are saying is true all those companies will get some nasty fines levied against them very soon.
Anyone who called it quits because of this is basically as chicken shit and uninformed as you are given the fact that most of your statements show a complete lack of understanding about what the GDPR is actually regulating. Basically you sound like one of the last people I mentioned before and you are parroting what some talking head told you. Please stop posting, locate your brain, use it to do some basic research, critically think about it, and then try again. If you can come up with some informed arguments come back and talk to me, otherwise stop supporting the shadow dragnet of Corporate America just because some pundit told you to.
I call your bullshit. I know what the regulation requires and this is nothing but a bunch of arguments that some asshole executive at Google would parrot out. Small companies can easily comply with a large swath of the regulations without that much more effort. Most of my software and infrastructure I have at my HOUSE, developed exclusively by me, can comply with the regulations. The only people that have issues with this are people that were recklessly throwing out hot garbage to snag a quick buck at someone else's expense, companies that make most of their money from dragnet style data collection of users, or people that heard some talking head drone on about "undue hardship and government overreach."
I plan to start a software company (without some random jackass giving me free money) within the next decade and I fully support these regulations being implemented in the US.
Except it really isn't that difficult to comply with GDPR regulations. I've had training on it since I work for an internationally present company, and it basically amounts to only a few tenants for most software.
First, gather only information necessary to perform the tasks or services being offered. Any information gathered should be clearly stated in a way the user can understand and they should have easily accessible and granular controls for that information (i.e. don't bury the privacy toggle under 100 menus that don't even seem related) unless it is absolutely essential for basic operation. Finally, the user has a right to that information and should be able to get a copy of all of the data related to them and easily be able to request the irreversible deletion of that data at any time.
There are other recommendations and compliance guidelines, but none of it is that complicated. Really it just protects users from having massive data harvesting efforts go on without their consent, gives some teeth to the courts to enforce the restrictions, and creates transparency about what a company is actually doing. I'm really not sure why people are so against it. Small companies don't even have the resources or wherewithal to be violating a large portion of the regulation without ill-intent from the start, and the violation penalties are based on the size of the company, users affected, and scales down based on their revenue. Hell, it hasn't even changed most of our development process at my job because we weren't violating this shit to begin with.
Really probably depends on how the money was being handled once in the hands of the foundation. If it went to a sizable salary for the founder, yea pretty much sounds like the scam every sane person assumed this company to be anyway. If it went to something else that was in line with their mission statement (no matter how insane their mission statement may have been) then no not really.
If someone took a serious look at their financial records, wouldn't surprise me in the least to find a lot of scammy shit going on, but innocent until proven guilty has to apply still. At least the company went belly up before they got to the stage of Russian space race Wylie Coyote blasting people off strapped to rockets. Forget killing people on Mars, these idiots were going to end up killing people on Earth in fiery death traps.
Kind of my thoughts. If the right script were used this is essentially a massive rainbow table... Even if they have brute forcing limitations, with the right proxies and such it could be circumvented. Hell even a group of hackers could do some coordinated efforts and essentially unmask much of their database without having to do all that pesky pre-computing or data hosting... Not sure I like this idea...
Except it will because it is already live on a bunch of Android phones. Apple's hands are tied anyway now because your average consumer would say, "Why can't Apple have 5G speeds, this sucks I'm going to Android for a faster phone!" Its a forgone conclusion now and unless someone actually takes them to court over it, the FTC gets off their ass and enforces some deceptive trade practice laws, or a number of other unlikely scenarios occur this will go live soon.
Except they already rolled this out to a number of Android handsets in production. Its just a scam on AT&Ts part and the handset makers will go along because they don't want to piss off a big partner over some pesky ethical concerns.
The comcast service and many others are actually using direct fiber connections (or I think in some cases very short CAT 5e/6 runs instead of the old CAT3 telephone runs). AT&T UVerse runs a fiber backbone to a local NID which then converts over to use the existing copper lines for most telephone service. One of my friends used to do installation for them years ago and even moved over to the fiber teams for a while. AT&T Fiber is what actually runs at the competing speeds with comcast, but AT&T has been very slow to upgrade mostly because they own so much infrastructure already.
They have little incentive to upgrade the existing infrastructure because they want to squeeze every dime they can out of the original investment, and have managed to get so much restriction put on the usage of any public utility infrastructure it is difficult for competitors to expand. It is similar to some of the extreme unions up north where you can't touch an extension cord if you're not part of the electricians union for that site. Without AT&T being there, other companies are pretty limited in what they can do to the existing stuff and are sometimes even prohibited from building their own infrastructure to "reduce clutter." Translated it is a government supported monopoly for AT&T... They're all about the free market up until it starts cutting into their profit margins.
Oddly enough though, the heavy restrictions they have on the old infrastructure created some incentive for companies to build out their own buried fiber connection networks. A different friend of mine actually runs crews for a contract company to lay fiber out and only started getting AT&T contracts like 2 years ago (hes been doing this for over 10 years in Texas... AT&Ts backyard...).
Until someone that actually understands what they are doing has something to gain in their position of power it pretty much goes unnoticed/unaddressed. It is kind of like trying to bail the water out of a sinking battleship with a solo cup...
They've lobbied the legal definitions into a complete mess that doesn't actually resemble the original technical definition. This is most of marketing for companies like them, cheat now, get caught and feign ignorance later.
Actually, I wrote a post about this a loooooooooooong time ago and the only reason they "met" the standard is they lobbied the FCC to change the definition of 4G in a legal sense. They never met the technical standard, and I'm not sure they even do now... This is normal marketing voodoo. They already rolled this crap out to several Android handsets and I've had people comment thinking exactly what AT&T wants, and then I quickly inform them they just changed the icon basically...
In fairness, we don't actually know if we aren't operating in essentially the same way. The old philosophical point, "I think, there I am" does not ever actually establish what constitutes thinking. It is also entirely possible that this is a different way of thought being achieved. For instance, you cannot know if everyone around you is even thinking or self aware because you are unable to actually get inside their consciousness. We merely assume that because they are like us and know that we have that self awareness ourselves.
We can't even guarantee all living things do or do not have that same ability, as plants have been assumed for years to have no way of "thinking," even though they somehow seem to be able to try desperately to survive ever evolving conditions and exhibit certain behavior that indicts they are actively trying not to harm certain species of plants similar to them. Animals we have argued about for YEARS about their level of consciousness and self-awareness even though we are extremely similar to other primates and we have even demonstrated dolphin's have a similar level of intelligence to humans but lack the physical ability to do what we do. Even animals like cats and dogs were assumed to only experience very primitive emotions for some time and in more recent years evidence has emerged to suggest their emotions are just as complex as human emotions.
It is incredibly arrogant and closed minded to assume that the only self awareness and consciousness in the entirety of existence is whatever the hell humans experience within our own minds, especially when we do not actually understand it ourselves. Not only that, how in the hell would you prove that something else is experiencing the same thing that you are when you cannot prove with absolute certainty that other human beings are experiencing the same thing. I don't mean for this to sound so condescending, but there really isn't another way to put it.
If it did get to that point I feel like it would spark a revolution. Repression on that level has collapsed many a government in history and this would be no different. We've already heard about rogue actors in some of the more unstable nations circumventing internet deactivation with homebrew software and devices, this would be no different. It would require a lot more up front implementation to do something on that scale.
Oh please. It takes so much effort just to get the bank's systems to work together and with merchants. To drain all bank accounts you would have to simultaneously infiltrate all banks systems at once, which are all horribly different, and then somehow drain them and stop them from simply reverting the systems. Remember, much of the banks are 1s and 0s now so if someone pulled that off they simply can say "revert to backup, lock system down" and figure out how they got in. Extreme yes, but it would be a better alternative to everyone losing all their money...
I agree with your ideas, but the question is how to implement it as such? One of the biggest constraints would be what happens if the consequences quickly bankrupt whoever tried that technology? Are they still responsible for the costs after that? If they are we have an issue of discouraging any type of risk whatsoever (which greatly stunts growth of any field) and if they aren't then it basically encourages the gambling model to become how business operates. One business, does one thing and nothing else and any other ventures are decoupled from the initial growth and capital access that is afforded by the original success of the first company.
Basically what I am saying is we would need to define clear demarcation lines of where responsibility ends and begins to prevent the system from over-correcting. I agree it is an issue that a lot of fields can get away from any negative consequences, but if we enforce it too strictly it causes a lot more issues as well.
But isn't it possible that it is still a cheaper alternative for them to buy the seeds new every year and not have to fight with some cost prohibitive issue within the crop? (Complete Hypothetical here, I know very little about GMO crops) Like if the seed is modified to have a higher output that can net the farmer a better yield or is better at using water the cost saving or increased revenue may actually outweigh the cost of having to buy those new seeds each year. As others pointed out, if you allow too much wild germination then you get mixed crops that may not exhibit those characteristics (especially after several generations) and now the problems that the modified seeds saved are right back in the mix creating more issues.
Responsible use of scientific knowledge is perfectly fine. I think most people freak out because they don't have the illusion of control to fall back on (or in this case someone else has that control instead of "nature"). We defy nature all the time though in both good and bad ways, I mean how many elements and compounds do we utilize regularly that are not naturally occurring?
I don't advocate for the government to have that control at all. I advocate for NO ONE to have that control whatsoever. The problem is the only way to do it is to pass regulations against it and have at least some good people enforce it. The government is abusing that data collection right now even if the data is held by the private sector. You don't think all the secretive courts that can compel them to release information or the illegal phone searches on basic traffic stops are not exactly that? If left unchecked both sides will abuse it, but if they attempt to regulate it at least we stand a fighting chance of slowing it down or maybe stopping it with the right people.
You don't need to use almost anything, but to live a marginally normal life within the society we have created some things are unavoidable. How are you planning to buy a house or car without any kind of credit or credit history? Sure you can save up cash, but without working ungodly hours and doing nothing else (or being born rich, which is outside of your control) by the time you save that money the house will have probably gone up in value or a million other factors make it difficult to buy. If even a quarter of the population took these steps you are suggesting society would go to shit, and it isn't just because these services fail, its because a quarter of society would be nutbag hermits.
And are you kidding me with the open source? You going to review every line of that code for privacy issues and security problems too? We've had multiple instances in the past few years of severe security issues and even some privacy concerns with the open source software. There are also rough time commitments to using that and horrible compatibility problems. Hey I have an idea, lets also go back to when everyone farmed their own food and we didn't use this thing called a centralized production model. You are basically advocating for the world to go backwards rather than apply some basic government regulations and enforcement to these companies to fix the existing problems and allow society to progress.
Hell, you posting on Slashdot is a bad idea for your privacy in a lot of ways and yet here you are. Through digital fingerprinting I guarantee you that someone can determine your real identity right now and abuse that information. It requires so much research and strategizing to keep your information safe on your own that you would have barely enough time for anything else. There are absolutely common sense things that can be done by people, but you are seriously mistaken if you think a free market can come close to solving this problem. Before that is even possible, the general education of the population would have to increase 100x at least.
Dude, I am a software engineer and know more about the solutions and tracking than 99% of the population most likely. You can avoid SOME things, but without living like a a mountain man and withdrawing from society, no you cannot entirely avoid it. Left unchecked, there will be at least one unscrupulous company that doesn't care and collects data through means you almost can't avoid without sacrificing or acting in very difficult ways. The free market doesn't fix all problems. Regulation and enforcement are required in some circumstance even though your clear libertarian mindset wants to have a fever dream that its useless. I don't mean to be insulting, but this concept of a free market being the go to solution for everything is just nuttier than squirrel shit.
How do you figure that is the last thing we need? Who the hell else is going to restrict the data collection and usage? The companies' have zero incentive to do it and even if they do, there is nothing that says they can't hold themselves to a higher standard.
No those are jobs being created right now. Seriously dude, I work in automation as a high level engineer and these were jobs that exist and are being created NOW. I only left my last position about a year ago and moved to doing internal testing automation for a different company (previously it was automation in the airline industry that has been automating since it was even a thing).
Even the internal automation we are doing now is creating new positions within the company and reducing the backlog of the QA team (because it is fucking massive). And these are not jobs that pay poorly. Even the trade jobs were making anywhere from $50 to $100 an hour contract at just journeymen/expert level. Masters were $200 plus. And don't try to say it was hearsay, I saw the fucking contracts and helped plan them. Retraining also works great, especially if these people have a modicum of ambition and drive to improve. I saw plenty of people with nothing more than a high school diploma or GED get trained to do some work on some of these system in analyst positions and excel at it.
Clearly you just have a negative view of automation and no facts or figures are going to convince you otherwise. That is your prerogative, but if the economy leaves you behind and destitute because you refused to even TRY to adapt, you have no one to complain to.
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Isn't that kind of the point of the regulation arguments though? These companies literally have a significant conflict of interest because of that. Plenty of the people that are cheerleaders for this model are the same people that grumble and suspect doctors of doing the same thing to their patients. Why is it ok for a company to do it on such a large scale, but not a doctor on a tiny scale? Personally in my eyes both are completely evil actions.
What I can agree with is from a company stand-point they are correct; this may not be a sustainable business model. The difference for me is that I argue you should take this out of their hands then and put it in the hands of an entity whose primary vested interest is keeping people alive and improving their lives at as low a cost as possible without worrying about profits. One could argue that the government is not the entity for that, which is a valid argument, but in my opinion they are at least the better option. If you've got a better idea bring it to the table, but bottom line our current models for healthcare are woefully inadequate and potentially down right dangerous.
Yes, because we need to trot that trope out again. Just because there are example countries that fucked up with that system badly doesn't mean all countries that do anything like it will suffer the same fate. False equivalency is not a good method for arguments. That would be just like comparing the other half of ideologies to Nazi Germany and using that as your reasoning for not doing it (yes I know some people do, but I they're just as wrong). Those three countries have WAY different factors for why they have failed.
The same types of systems are used throughout most of Europe and Canada and work quite well. Their healthcare costs as individual countries are a fraction of ours, people don't have to choose between treatment for disease and financial security, and a large swath of studies show their people are way happier than the US population on average. Finally, people actually do flock to those countries for treatments when they have the option or wherewithal. There are quite a few articles about people being able to fly to Europe, have a procedure done, recover in their facilities, and fly home for less than half the equivalent cost in the US.
Except I work for a POS manufacturer and actually write software for a living. What part of I have had actual training on this do you not understand? You know what go ahead and continue to buy into the false bill of goods you're being sold and ignore people that have literally years more experience in a field than you do. I'm sure you know better after reading the Wikipedia page for 10 minutes.
Did you read half of what I said? I have actually had full training on what this legislation entails and how to comply with it. You are completely idiotic if you think this is going to harm a bunch of clubs and not for profits.
First, private citizens don't determine if someone was acting recklessly, they still have to follow the EU version of due process. Second, how much data do you think these clubs are collecting on members? If you have a damn sign up form and take down information about a person you put a fucking disclaimer at the bottom and they e-sign. Done. Unless your club is collecting a bunch of information related to the user's offsite browsing habits this isn't much of an issue. It does make sure you actually handle the data responsibly and not leave it sitting on an open AWS server for any idiot to stumble across.
Moving on to your next hand waving bullshit, more data collected? Really? You do realize if they collect MORE data then they are creating a greater risk for themselves to mishandle it, abuse it, or draw a serious fine for it even accidentally (which is the point, this is to disincentivize mass data collect). What it has ACTUALLY done is to force the companies to reveal the data they were already collecting because they couldn't stop quick enough due to loss of revenue and/or strategy. Furthermore there are penalties for them not allowing a user to turn off data collection that is considered non-essential for the business services. If what you are saying is true all those companies will get some nasty fines levied against them very soon.
Anyone who called it quits because of this is basically as chicken shit and uninformed as you are given the fact that most of your statements show a complete lack of understanding about what the GDPR is actually regulating. Basically you sound like one of the last people I mentioned before and you are parroting what some talking head told you. Please stop posting, locate your brain, use it to do some basic research, critically think about it, and then try again. If you can come up with some informed arguments come back and talk to me, otherwise stop supporting the shadow dragnet of Corporate America just because some pundit told you to.
I call your bullshit. I know what the regulation requires and this is nothing but a bunch of arguments that some asshole executive at Google would parrot out. Small companies can easily comply with a large swath of the regulations without that much more effort. Most of my software and infrastructure I have at my HOUSE, developed exclusively by me, can comply with the regulations. The only people that have issues with this are people that were recklessly throwing out hot garbage to snag a quick buck at someone else's expense, companies that make most of their money from dragnet style data collection of users, or people that heard some talking head drone on about "undue hardship and government overreach."
I plan to start a software company (without some random jackass giving me free money) within the next decade and I fully support these regulations being implemented in the US.
Except it really isn't that difficult to comply with GDPR regulations. I've had training on it since I work for an internationally present company, and it basically amounts to only a few tenants for most software.
First, gather only information necessary to perform the tasks or services being offered. Any information gathered should be clearly stated in a way the user can understand and they should have easily accessible and granular controls for that information (i.e. don't bury the privacy toggle under 100 menus that don't even seem related) unless it is absolutely essential for basic operation. Finally, the user has a right to that information and should be able to get a copy of all of the data related to them and easily be able to request the irreversible deletion of that data at any time.
There are other recommendations and compliance guidelines, but none of it is that complicated. Really it just protects users from having massive data harvesting efforts go on without their consent, gives some teeth to the courts to enforce the restrictions, and creates transparency about what a company is actually doing. I'm really not sure why people are so against it. Small companies don't even have the resources or wherewithal to be violating a large portion of the regulation without ill-intent from the start, and the violation penalties are based on the size of the company, users affected, and scales down based on their revenue. Hell, it hasn't even changed most of our development process at my job because we weren't violating this shit to begin with.
Really probably depends on how the money was being handled once in the hands of the foundation. If it went to a sizable salary for the founder, yea pretty much sounds like the scam every sane person assumed this company to be anyway. If it went to something else that was in line with their mission statement (no matter how insane their mission statement may have been) then no not really.
If someone took a serious look at their financial records, wouldn't surprise me in the least to find a lot of scammy shit going on, but innocent until proven guilty has to apply still. At least the company went belly up before they got to the stage of Russian space race Wylie Coyote blasting people off strapped to rockets. Forget killing people on Mars, these idiots were going to end up killing people on Earth in fiery death traps.
Kind of my thoughts. If the right script were used this is essentially a massive rainbow table... Even if they have brute forcing limitations, with the right proxies and such it could be circumvented. Hell even a group of hackers could do some coordinated efforts and essentially unmask much of their database without having to do all that pesky pre-computing or data hosting... Not sure I like this idea...
Except it will because it is already live on a bunch of Android phones. Apple's hands are tied anyway now because your average consumer would say, "Why can't Apple have 5G speeds, this sucks I'm going to Android for a faster phone!" Its a forgone conclusion now and unless someone actually takes them to court over it, the FTC gets off their ass and enforces some deceptive trade practice laws, or a number of other unlikely scenarios occur this will go live soon.
Except they already rolled this out to a number of Android handsets in production. Its just a scam on AT&Ts part and the handset makers will go along because they don't want to piss off a big partner over some pesky ethical concerns.
The comcast service and many others are actually using direct fiber connections (or I think in some cases very short CAT 5e/6 runs instead of the old CAT3 telephone runs). AT&T UVerse runs a fiber backbone to a local NID which then converts over to use the existing copper lines for most telephone service. One of my friends used to do installation for them years ago and even moved over to the fiber teams for a while. AT&T Fiber is what actually runs at the competing speeds with comcast, but AT&T has been very slow to upgrade mostly because they own so much infrastructure already.
They have little incentive to upgrade the existing infrastructure because they want to squeeze every dime they can out of the original investment, and have managed to get so much restriction put on the usage of any public utility infrastructure it is difficult for competitors to expand. It is similar to some of the extreme unions up north where you can't touch an extension cord if you're not part of the electricians union for that site. Without AT&T being there, other companies are pretty limited in what they can do to the existing stuff and are sometimes even prohibited from building their own infrastructure to "reduce clutter." Translated it is a government supported monopoly for AT&T... They're all about the free market up until it starts cutting into their profit margins.
Oddly enough though, the heavy restrictions they have on the old infrastructure created some incentive for companies to build out their own buried fiber connection networks. A different friend of mine actually runs crews for a contract company to lay fiber out and only started getting AT&T contracts like 2 years ago (hes been doing this for over 10 years in Texas... AT&Ts backyard...).
Until someone that actually understands what they are doing has something to gain in their position of power it pretty much goes unnoticed/unaddressed. It is kind of like trying to bail the water out of a sinking battleship with a solo cup...
They've lobbied the legal definitions into a complete mess that doesn't actually resemble the original technical definition. This is most of marketing for companies like them, cheat now, get caught and feign ignorance later.
In fact, I found it: https://slashdot.org/comments....
Actually, I wrote a post about this a loooooooooooong time ago and the only reason they "met" the standard is they lobbied the FCC to change the definition of 4G in a legal sense. They never met the technical standard, and I'm not sure they even do now... This is normal marketing voodoo. They already rolled this crap out to several Android handsets and I've had people comment thinking exactly what AT&T wants, and then I quickly inform them they just changed the icon basically...
In fairness, we don't actually know if we aren't operating in essentially the same way. The old philosophical point, "I think, there I am" does not ever actually establish what constitutes thinking. It is also entirely possible that this is a different way of thought being achieved. For instance, you cannot know if everyone around you is even thinking or self aware because you are unable to actually get inside their consciousness. We merely assume that because they are like us and know that we have that self awareness ourselves.
We can't even guarantee all living things do or do not have that same ability, as plants have been assumed for years to have no way of "thinking," even though they somehow seem to be able to try desperately to survive ever evolving conditions and exhibit certain behavior that indicts they are actively trying not to harm certain species of plants similar to them. Animals we have argued about for YEARS about their level of consciousness and self-awareness even though we are extremely similar to other primates and we have even demonstrated dolphin's have a similar level of intelligence to humans but lack the physical ability to do what we do. Even animals like cats and dogs were assumed to only experience very primitive emotions for some time and in more recent years evidence has emerged to suggest their emotions are just as complex as human emotions.
It is incredibly arrogant and closed minded to assume that the only self awareness and consciousness in the entirety of existence is whatever the hell humans experience within our own minds, especially when we do not actually understand it ourselves. Not only that, how in the hell would you prove that something else is experiencing the same thing that you are when you cannot prove with absolute certainty that other human beings are experiencing the same thing. I don't mean for this to sound so condescending, but there really isn't another way to put it.
If it did get to that point I feel like it would spark a revolution. Repression on that level has collapsed many a government in history and this would be no different. We've already heard about rogue actors in some of the more unstable nations circumventing internet deactivation with homebrew software and devices, this would be no different. It would require a lot more up front implementation to do something on that scale.
Oh please. It takes so much effort just to get the bank's systems to work together and with merchants. To drain all bank accounts you would have to simultaneously infiltrate all banks systems at once, which are all horribly different, and then somehow drain them and stop them from simply reverting the systems. Remember, much of the banks are 1s and 0s now so if someone pulled that off they simply can say "revert to backup, lock system down" and figure out how they got in. Extreme yes, but it would be a better alternative to everyone losing all their money...
I agree with your ideas, but the question is how to implement it as such? One of the biggest constraints would be what happens if the consequences quickly bankrupt whoever tried that technology? Are they still responsible for the costs after that? If they are we have an issue of discouraging any type of risk whatsoever (which greatly stunts growth of any field) and if they aren't then it basically encourages the gambling model to become how business operates. One business, does one thing and nothing else and any other ventures are decoupled from the initial growth and capital access that is afforded by the original success of the first company.
Basically what I am saying is we would need to define clear demarcation lines of where responsibility ends and begins to prevent the system from over-correcting. I agree it is an issue that a lot of fields can get away from any negative consequences, but if we enforce it too strictly it causes a lot more issues as well.
But isn't it possible that it is still a cheaper alternative for them to buy the seeds new every year and not have to fight with some cost prohibitive issue within the crop? (Complete Hypothetical here, I know very little about GMO crops) Like if the seed is modified to have a higher output that can net the farmer a better yield or is better at using water the cost saving or increased revenue may actually outweigh the cost of having to buy those new seeds each year. As others pointed out, if you allow too much wild germination then you get mixed crops that may not exhibit those characteristics (especially after several generations) and now the problems that the modified seeds saved are right back in the mix creating more issues.
Responsible use of scientific knowledge is perfectly fine. I think most people freak out because they don't have the illusion of control to fall back on (or in this case someone else has that control instead of "nature"). We defy nature all the time though in both good and bad ways, I mean how many elements and compounds do we utilize regularly that are not naturally occurring?
I don't advocate for the government to have that control at all. I advocate for NO ONE to have that control whatsoever. The problem is the only way to do it is to pass regulations against it and have at least some good people enforce it. The government is abusing that data collection right now even if the data is held by the private sector. You don't think all the secretive courts that can compel them to release information or the illegal phone searches on basic traffic stops are not exactly that? If left unchecked both sides will abuse it, but if they attempt to regulate it at least we stand a fighting chance of slowing it down or maybe stopping it with the right people.
You don't need to use almost anything, but to live a marginally normal life within the society we have created some things are unavoidable. How are you planning to buy a house or car without any kind of credit or credit history? Sure you can save up cash, but without working ungodly hours and doing nothing else (or being born rich, which is outside of your control) by the time you save that money the house will have probably gone up in value or a million other factors make it difficult to buy. If even a quarter of the population took these steps you are suggesting society would go to shit, and it isn't just because these services fail, its because a quarter of society would be nutbag hermits.
And are you kidding me with the open source? You going to review every line of that code for privacy issues and security problems too? We've had multiple instances in the past few years of severe security issues and even some privacy concerns with the open source software. There are also rough time commitments to using that and horrible compatibility problems. Hey I have an idea, lets also go back to when everyone farmed their own food and we didn't use this thing called a centralized production model. You are basically advocating for the world to go backwards rather than apply some basic government regulations and enforcement to these companies to fix the existing problems and allow society to progress.
Hell, you posting on Slashdot is a bad idea for your privacy in a lot of ways and yet here you are. Through digital fingerprinting I guarantee you that someone can determine your real identity right now and abuse that information. It requires so much research and strategizing to keep your information safe on your own that you would have barely enough time for anything else. There are absolutely common sense things that can be done by people, but you are seriously mistaken if you think a free market can come close to solving this problem. Before that is even possible, the general education of the population would have to increase 100x at least.
Dude, I am a software engineer and know more about the solutions and tracking than 99% of the population most likely. You can avoid SOME things, but without living like a a mountain man and withdrawing from society, no you cannot entirely avoid it. Left unchecked, there will be at least one unscrupulous company that doesn't care and collects data through means you almost can't avoid without sacrificing or acting in very difficult ways. The free market doesn't fix all problems. Regulation and enforcement are required in some circumstance even though your clear libertarian mindset wants to have a fever dream that its useless. I don't mean to be insulting, but this concept of a free market being the go to solution for everything is just nuttier than squirrel shit.
How do you figure that is the last thing we need? Who the hell else is going to restrict the data collection and usage? The companies' have zero incentive to do it and even if they do, there is nothing that says they can't hold themselves to a higher standard.
No those are jobs being created right now. Seriously dude, I work in automation as a high level engineer and these were jobs that exist and are being created NOW. I only left my last position about a year ago and moved to doing internal testing automation for a different company (previously it was automation in the airline industry that has been automating since it was even a thing).
Even the internal automation we are doing now is creating new positions within the company and reducing the backlog of the QA team (because it is fucking massive). And these are not jobs that pay poorly. Even the trade jobs were making anywhere from $50 to $100 an hour contract at just journeymen/expert level. Masters were $200 plus. And don't try to say it was hearsay, I saw the fucking contracts and helped plan them. Retraining also works great, especially if these people have a modicum of ambition and drive to improve. I saw plenty of people with nothing more than a high school diploma or GED get trained to do some work on some of these system in analyst positions and excel at it.
Clearly you just have a negative view of automation and no facts or figures are going to convince you otherwise. That is your prerogative, but if the economy leaves you behind and destitute because you refused to even TRY to adapt, you have no one to complain to.