unless the soldier had somehow personally invested time and energy into making the robot do or act the way that it does
right...this is *at the most*
it's the same as a favorite gun or hat or w/e...I know in high school if you'd have asked me if I had an emotional attachment to my lucky black socks, I'd have said yes, and probably answered a damn Likert Scale questionaire in a way similar to this...
fuck I hate what passes for PhD work these days...
this study **might** have been worthwhile if she'd done some actual science by comparing her results with the bomb bot to things like favorite *boots* and *rifle* and then to drone pilots and their craft...that'd be the start of a PhD worthy researxch project
In other words, my scheme is this: (machination?) -> physical laws -> (machination) -> evolution -> (machination) -> human beings -> (machination) -> artifacts -> (machination) And here it stops for now, until we manage to develop general AIs, at which point their own machination will lead to something else.
right and it picks up when the Angel Moroni visits pre-Columbian Native Americans and gives them the formula for the World-Tesseract
Suppose, for an hypothesis, that the questioning "machination?" above comes as this: (machination?) -> math laws -> (machination) -> physical laws -> (...)
yes, I get it...therefor (machination)->alchemy (?) -> lead + machination (alchemy) -> gold
totally makes sense...
lastly, you really nailed me here:
AIs will escape the grips of our explicit instructions once we tell them how to reprogram themselves
right, in your ridiculously far-flung hypothetical scenario, we could program machines to write programs...which exactly proves my point that AI is all an expression of human choices
in the end it just instructions executed on a box made by humans...doing nothing humans did not tell it to do
Believing in 'souls' has nothing to do with the 'singularity'
The singularity as envisioned by Kurzweil and others is a complete figment...arising from making disctinctions where no differences are present.
Your brain is a machine. It can be understood, decompiled, analyzed, improved and reimplemented.
man / machine: that's the key distinction in your line of logic and it is a false distinction...
first, by this logic all of nature is the same as any machine...if our brains are 'machines' then so are bees, flowers, thunderstorms, rocks, etc....this alone renders the distinction useless by your definition of terms...if **everything** is a machine then the distinction is **pointless**
2nd, the universe is more complex than mathmatics can describe by definition....humans invented math to communicate meaning...it is a **reflection** of the universe we see....all of science, even the speed of light itself is dependent on human perception...math will always be limited by the humans using it
3rd, All artificial intelligence is human will expressed by a programmed machine. AI is incapable of doing anything a human didn't decide for it first programtically in the code. just b/c some dude on a grant at MIT says that 'X' defines 'life' in computation doesn't mean you can then get a team of undergrads to program a box to do 'X' and call it 'Artificial intelligence'
is it possible to, one day in the far future, make a machine that mimics the human brain to such a minute detail that human society grants that machine with rights like humans...that sure is theoretically **possible**...but that is a question of politics and material science, not anything to do with the singularity dogma
singularity nuts confuse 'scratching the surface' with 'total understanding'...we've just scratched the surface on how the brain works...psychology still doesn't even have accurate language, and the best neuroscience can do is match brain waves with percieved stimulus...it's in its infancy and no matter how it progresses it will yield nothing more than a description of how the brain works as observed
Isn't it nice to hear that some are curious enough and adventurous enough to do this, instead of simply being focused on entertainment and producing more humans?
no
put it this way, "isn't it nice to hear that some mothers care so much about providing for their kids they will engage in something as dangerous as prostitution?"
yeah, really life affirming...
people are desperate for 'meaning'...it's one of the defining characteristics of modern humans
using that desperation and reframing it as a 'win-win' is total bullshit marketing language tricks
this crap is dumb and wrong and actually hurts the cause of real manned space exploration by putting false ideas into the public's head about what is really possible
that's a comment from this very thread, and it includes an actual policy suggestion...that's kind of what you're claiming the comments section is 'full of'
it's weird that you took the time to type out your comment
I'm wondering what the/. community would do differently on this issue...if you were president, in charge of the FCC & whatnot, what would your policy be on this issue?
it's not...well, I guess it's 'bold' in the same sense as saying that the Prequels were better than the Original Star Wars...but not in the academic sense
in the popular scifi consciousness Commander Data is just around the corner...but see, tell that to a control system programmer...
it's funny but I don't really **disagree** with you however...I can agree with this statement:
My position is that the laws that govern the universe (whatever they may be), do lead to consciousness (since we're here and conscious)
it really is about how you define 'consciousness'...because however you define it, some guy on a NSA grant at MIT is going to get a team of undergrads to program a box to do it...then claim they 'created AI'
I'm going to check out Max Tegmark and Julian Jaynes thnx
if it is possible for consciousness to arise from an abstract function, as the function's existence is perceived by itself.
Right! I agree, it's about the idea that an abstract function (something humans can make) can lead to a 'conscious' entity!
So here's what I say: Consciousness cannot arise from an abstract function. Or any kind of function or mathematics or set of commands, or algorythm.
'consciousness' is an inherently **human** characteristic...the perception of it is entirely dependent upon humans
if we make a thing and want to call it conscious, because of the social construction of reality (perceptions), there is no way to definitively prove a thing has consciousness...the best you could get is "consensus"
does consensus make consciousness?
no...
despite the social construction of reality as a concept, there is a 'real' reality...if every person in the entire world said a pile of shit was a T-bone steak...it would still be a pile of shit
if we make a thing...soemthing non-human...and call it 'conscious' really the best case scenario you could say we made a 'new' thing...something that is as 'conscious' as a human (as far as we can tell) but not human
'it' would have w/e rights humans and their justice system confer upon it
but it would still not be human, and therefore forever it's 'consciousness' would be an abstract question of opinion
It is only more accurate or useful, not more or less real.
are you hinting at the Platonic notion of forms and how according to him a 'real' thing is better than the idea of the thing therefore 'god' exists?
i am surely butchering the whole thing but I think you might know what I mean...
personally, when we covered that in Intro to Philosophy back in college, I never understood why something being 'real' is in any way better than not...it's utterly dependent upon context...a real tiger in your shower is probably almost always worse than just the idea of it
to me its a distinction w/o a difference...
IMHO we can't 'prove' we are real (and not just a simulation) any more than we can 'prove' god does or does not exist...
as I said above the intellectual exercise is nice...I could also add that I agree mostly w/ the other respondent below...
And no, they don't go to the same school as him, they just use the same bus, as it is the main bus line downtown.
I don't know how a teacher will solve this, though it is definitely school related.
you **litterally** described the very scenario I described, in the post you replied to, that I gave that would falsify my statement...here it is again for you
to falsify my point, if a kid was getting bullied by neighborhood kids who don't attend his school and they don't have bruises or speak up to a teacher about it then yes that would be a scenario that wouldn't be solvable by the teacher...
so you agree with me, that YES any problem in school is solvable by a teacher...and you agree with how I falsify the statement...
*EVERY* problem in the classroom is solvable with a properly trained and experienced teacher.
Great, but this problem is happening outside the classroom.
no, every school-related problem is solvable in school by a properly trained teacher...
to falsify my point, if a kid was getting bullied by neighborhood kids who don't attend his school and they don't have bruises or speak up to a teacher about it then yes that would be a scenario that wouldn't be solvable by the teacher...
what you people have to understand is that teachers (and probation officers) are the catch-alls of our society...you **wouldn't believe** the problems a standard public school teacher is expected and trained to handle unless you've worked in the system
the thing is, the training works but the teachers get burt out
By entrepreneurs eager to cash-in on wealthy school districts and the helicopter parents.
This is privacy invasion plain and simple.
I used to be a high school social studies teacher. *EVERY* problem in the classroom is solvable with a properly trained and experienced teacher.
You can blame all you want but in a capitalist society if you pay teachers like union bus drivers you are going to get what you pay for...teachers will still come but they won't stay...paying teachers poorly just burns out idealistic, well-prepared teachers.
the universe was abstract until we became conscious, which funnily enough seemed to have occurred about 4000 years ago (you would think that religious folks would jump on something like this, but no, they seem to prefer sticking with their talking snakes story)
i like where you are going with this...the universe existed before humans of course, but i don't think there's anything wrong with looking at humanity as sort of a mathmatical certainty of the universe
also, I like how your idea of consciousness is a counter-point to those ridiculous "What if the universe is a simulation" things...
again...like with the work on black holes, i like that they think strange thoughts, but wondering if the universe is just a simulation of your mind is only intellectually profitable for so long until you just are chasing your tail again
thanks man...I mean thanks for reading and taking my idea seriously
i am a lifelong scientist and i'm trained academically as a research designer and do mostly HCI and cybernetics work but I have always loved this stuff!
i **love** what we are learning, especially in the last 10 years, but it seems something rotten out of Cambridge has an axe to grind
I don't buy it. Not to be reductive but I think the whole '4-D' thing is hogwash and a lazy way to keep adapting the same equations. IMHO.
**maybe** you can say 'time' is a 4th 'dimension' but only abstractly...and really time is just our perception of change in the universe...how forces change matter...if there was no change we'd have no 'time'...just like when 'time' is frozen on Star Trek
Nope. Branes are kicking the 'ex nihilio' can further up the publishing and thesis chain. "Where did the branes come from?"...'super branes' of course...it's a cop out...kill me now
Black Holes are bubbles of nothingness in quantum foam. The really are true 'black bodies' were the event horizon destroys everything and scatters the forces left behind across it's plain which makes it bigger.
Believe it or not, what I just typed goes against alot of Stephen Hawking's work on Black Holes but it's true. We've been chasing our tails with over-analyzing black holes b/c the implications of them being true 'black bodies' means that the universe dies a heat death, meaning that **other** parts of Cambridge dogma are wrong.
Physics needs get over this notion that when cosmology can't explain something we just gather it and put it in a bigger bag with a new label on it and call it a theory.
**SOMETHING** started the universe...who cares if it was God or something else...I hate that people use science to prove or disprove something like religion...it's just as bad either way...misuse of science...like using a slide rule as hammer
If we can accept that the universe exists without demanding to know how it started we can get a wholly better **description** of how it behaves...how black holes behave, for example...
instead we chase our tails around imaginary dimensions...branes are a pointless theoretical persuit
you were flat out wrong about Velcro and were using that to attack others.
wrong...show me in blockquotes where I 'attacked' someone...
i used an example to make a greater point...by *definition* an analogy will 'break down' at some point and therefore not be suitable as evidence for a statement
I made **several** statements...pointing to a greater point
those idiots blasted my greater point....and as evidence found the inevitable area where my analogy breaks down and attack that...whether it is salient or not...
it's fucking stupid and makes anyone who reads it stupid...that's the point
I used to live in the Goss/Grove area of Boulder and even taught at Boulder HS for a short time...I hope everyone is getting things sorted out...what a mess...
to the point, IMHO a web software type 'startup' is probably the easiest of all industries to 'cope' with this kind of thing...that's why working in it is awesome...
really for most 'web startups' you don't need offices at all, except to project an image
not all startups are 'web' and floods are an IT and t-com nightmare...that's a given...
my greater point relates to Marissa Meyer at Yahoo getting rid of telecommuting...I think the 'web startup' world does itself a tremendous disservice by forcing itself into the geographic boxes of old companies...
for comparison sake, I run a tshirt screen printing company...if my shop got flooded and I didn't have time to prepare I would be completely finished...you can't 'backup' inventory
They certainly discover and develop a lot of new things trying to get to their end goals
yep, *that's all I was ever trying to say*, just one point among many to lead to a thought question about human space exploration....**ONE** point among many...I wasn't myopic in any way
you ever play the game 'telephone'?
you know, it's a kids game: you get in a circle and each person whispers a story to the next and you see if it is the same as when it started
YOU AGREE WITH ME...read my original post
go on...read it...this is a lesson for you and anyone who continued reading this far...there **IS** a reason why human spaceflight isn't where it could be...and this exchange is **definitely** part of the problem!!!
exactly...it was the seed of an idea that kind of worked...THEN...b/c of *necessity* someone at NASA developed it into the fully functional, fashionable product we have today
The entire idea of an "exit strategy" exemplifies what's wrong with startup culture.
Yep. I agree.
It is an intractable problem, because it the 'exist strategy' short-term notions of business you describe are not being balanced by the free market. There is a lack of regulation that is causing unfair competitive advantage to the extreme-short term investor (think high volume traders). The finance world defines itself on gaming the system faster than it can adapt to the feedback loop.
IMHO the only real ways for a non-wealthy person to combat this are to become some sort of consumer advocate or start your own business.
I *am* starting my own internet related business...not to prove a point or b/c I'm some economic justice crusader...its to profit. However, it is precisely because I agree with you and I think I can make a profit *AND* build a lasting company
Essentially, I am banking my business on that concept. I believe customers, when properly informed, will agree with your sentiments as well.
Slashdot Mirror
yep just 'no' is kind...
i'd call the research total bullshit...
right...this is *at the most*
it's the same as a favorite gun or hat or w/e...I know in high school if you'd have asked me if I had an emotional attachment to my lucky black socks, I'd have said yes, and probably answered a damn Likert Scale questionaire in a way similar to this...
fuck I hate what passes for PhD work these days...
this study **might** have been worthwhile if she'd done some actual science by comparing her results with the bomb bot to things like favorite *boots* and *rifle* and then to drone pilots and their craft...that'd be the start of a PhD worthy researxch project
bah!
right and it picks up when the Angel Moroni visits pre-Columbian Native Americans and gives them the formula for the World-Tesseract
yes, I get it...therefor (machination)->alchemy (?) -> lead + machination (alchemy) -> gold
totally makes sense...
lastly, you really nailed me here:
right, in your ridiculously far-flung hypothetical scenario, we could program machines to write programs...which exactly proves my point that AI is all an expression of human choices
in the end it just instructions executed on a box made by humans...doing nothing humans did not tell it to do
glad you agree?
right...good question
the 'Geometry' to which you refer is an expression of relationships
it tells us how matter and energy relate...which is how physicists say 'how things really work'
imagine a simple ratio: x/y
as x increases, y increases...that can be mapped on a graph...
now thrown in every fundamental particle relationship we've observed, graph it, and it comes up with this geometric figure
it's like using a stencil to paint a 'no smoking' sign vs painting each by hand
Believing in 'souls' has nothing to do with the 'singularity'
The singularity as envisioned by Kurzweil and others is a complete figment...arising from making disctinctions where no differences are present.
man / machine: that's the key distinction in your line of logic and it is a false distinction...
first, by this logic all of nature is the same as any machine...if our brains are 'machines' then so are bees, flowers, thunderstorms, rocks, etc....this alone renders the distinction useless by your definition of terms...if **everything** is a machine then the distinction is **pointless**
2nd, the universe is more complex than mathmatics can describe by definition....humans invented math to communicate meaning...it is a **reflection** of the universe we see....all of science, even the speed of light itself is dependent on human perception...math will always be limited by the humans using it
3rd, All artificial intelligence is human will expressed by a programmed machine. AI is incapable of doing anything a human didn't decide for it first programtically in the code. just b/c some dude on a grant at MIT says that 'X' defines 'life' in computation doesn't mean you can then get a team of undergrads to program a box to do 'X' and call it 'Artificial intelligence'
is it possible to, one day in the far future, make a machine that mimics the human brain to such a minute detail that human society grants that machine with rights like humans...that sure is theoretically **possible**...but that is a question of politics and material science, not anything to do with the singularity dogma
singularity nuts confuse 'scratching the surface' with 'total understanding'...we've just scratched the surface on how the brain works...psychology still doesn't even have accurate language, and the best neuroscience can do is match brain waves with percieved stimulus...it's in its infancy and no matter how it progresses it will yield nothing more than a description of how the brain works as observed
no
put it this way, "isn't it nice to hear that some mothers care so much about providing for their kids they will engage in something as dangerous as prostitution?"
yeah, really life affirming...
people are desperate for 'meaning'...it's one of the defining characteristics of modern humans
using that desperation and reframing it as a 'win-win' is total bullshit marketing language tricks
this crap is dumb and wrong and actually hurts the cause of real manned space exploration by putting false ideas into the public's head about what is really possible
really? can you list 2-3 examples?
here's an example of what i'm wanting you to provide: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4227219&cid=44882981
that's a comment from this very thread, and it includes an actual policy suggestion...that's kind of what you're claiming the comments section is 'full of'
it's weird that you took the time to type out your comment
I'm wondering what the /. community would do differently on this issue...if you were president, in charge of the FCC & whatnot, what would your policy be on this issue?
haha i meant NSF not NSA...however the overlap is probably fairly substantial...esp in artificial intelligence research
it's not...well, I guess it's 'bold' in the same sense as saying that the Prequels were better than the Original Star Wars...but not in the academic sense
in the popular scifi consciousness Commander Data is just around the corner...but see, tell that to a control system programmer...
it's funny but I don't really **disagree** with you however...I can agree with this statement:
it really is about how you define 'consciousness'...because however you define it, some guy on a NSA grant at MIT is going to get a team of undergrads to program a box to do it...then claim they 'created AI'
I'm going to check out Max Tegmark and Julian Jaynes thnx
Right! I agree, it's about the idea that an abstract function (something humans can make) can lead to a 'conscious' entity!
So here's what I say: Consciousness cannot arise from an abstract function. Or any kind of function or mathematics or set of commands, or algorythm.
'consciousness' is an inherently **human** characteristic...the perception of it is entirely dependent upon humans
if we make a thing and want to call it conscious, because of the social construction of reality (perceptions), there is no way to definitively prove a thing has consciousness...the best you could get is "consensus"
does consensus make consciousness?
no...
despite the social construction of reality as a concept, there is a 'real' reality...if every person in the entire world said a pile of shit was a T-bone steak...it would still be a pile of shit
if we make a thing...soemthing non-human...and call it 'conscious' really the best case scenario you could say we made a 'new' thing...something that is as 'conscious' as a human (as far as we can tell) but not human
'it' would have w/e rights humans and their justice system confer upon it
but it would still not be human, and therefore forever it's 'consciousness' would be an abstract question of opinion
are you hinting at the Platonic notion of forms and how according to him a 'real' thing is better than the idea of the thing therefore 'god' exists?
i am surely butchering the whole thing but I think you might know what I mean...
personally, when we covered that in Intro to Philosophy back in college, I never understood why something being 'real' is in any way better than not...it's utterly dependent upon context...a real tiger in your shower is probably almost always worse than just the idea of it
to me its a distinction w/o a difference...
IMHO we can't 'prove' we are real (and not just a simulation) any more than we can 'prove' god does or does not exist...
as I said above the intellectual exercise is nice...I could also add that I agree mostly w/ the other respondent below...
And no, they don't go to the same school as him, they just use the same bus, as it is the main bus line downtown.
I don't know how a teacher will solve this, though it is definitely school related.
you **litterally** described the very scenario I described, in the post you replied to, that I gave that would falsify my statement...here it is again for you
so you agree with me, that YES any problem in school is solvable by a teacher...and you agree with how I falsify the statement...
yet your post is worded as if you disagree...
*EVERY* problem in the classroom is solvable with a properly trained and experienced teacher.
Great, but this problem is happening outside the classroom.
no, every school-related problem is solvable in school by a properly trained teacher...
to falsify my point, if a kid was getting bullied by neighborhood kids who don't attend his school and they don't have bruises or speak up to a teacher about it then yes that would be a scenario that wouldn't be solvable by the teacher...
what you people have to understand is that teachers (and probation officers) are the catch-alls of our society...you **wouldn't believe** the problems a standard public school teacher is expected and trained to handle unless you've worked in the system
the thing is, the training works but the teachers get burt out
By entrepreneurs eager to cash-in on wealthy school districts and the helicopter parents.
This is privacy invasion plain and simple.
I used to be a high school social studies teacher. *EVERY* problem in the classroom is solvable with a properly trained and experienced teacher.
You can blame all you want but in a capitalist society if you pay teachers like union bus drivers you are going to get what you pay for...teachers will still come but they won't stay...paying teachers poorly just burns out idealistic, well-prepared teachers.
capitalism = you get what you pay teachers
that's the end of this whole discussion...
i like where you are going with this...the universe existed before humans of course, but i don't think there's anything wrong with looking at humanity as sort of a mathmatical certainty of the universe
also, I like how your idea of consciousness is a counter-point to those ridiculous "What if the universe is a simulation" things...
again...like with the work on black holes, i like that they think strange thoughts, but wondering if the universe is just a simulation of your mind is only intellectually profitable for so long until you just are chasing your tail again
thanks man...I mean thanks for reading and taking my idea seriously
i am a lifelong scientist and i'm trained academically as a research designer and do mostly HCI and cybernetics work but I have always loved this stuff!
i **love** what we are learning, especially in the last 10 years, but it seems something rotten out of Cambridge has an axe to grind
This is it. Then we get into Branes.
It gets the name from 'membrane'...sort of like a defined more by its edge than what it is made of or what is inside of it...
I don't buy it. Not to be reductive but I think the whole '4-D' thing is hogwash and a lazy way to keep adapting the same equations. IMHO.
**maybe** you can say 'time' is a 4th 'dimension' but only abstractly...and really time is just our perception of change in the universe...how forces change matter...if there was no change we'd have no 'time'...just like when 'time' is frozen on Star Trek
Nope. Branes are kicking the 'ex nihilio' can further up the publishing and thesis chain. "Where did the branes come from?"...'super branes' of course...it's a cop out...kill me now
Black Holes are bubbles of nothingness in quantum foam. The really are true 'black bodies' were the event horizon destroys everything and scatters the forces left behind across it's plain which makes it bigger.
Believe it or not, what I just typed goes against alot of Stephen Hawking's work on Black Holes but it's true. We've been chasing our tails with over-analyzing black holes b/c the implications of them being true 'black bodies' means that the universe dies a heat death, meaning that **other** parts of Cambridge dogma are wrong.
Physics needs get over this notion that when cosmology can't explain something we just gather it and put it in a bigger bag with a new label on it and call it a theory.
**SOMETHING** started the universe...who cares if it was God or something else...I hate that people use science to prove or disprove something like religion...it's just as bad either way...misuse of science...like using a slide rule as hammer
If we can accept that the universe exists without demanding to know how it started we can get a wholly better **description** of how it behaves...how black holes behave, for example...
instead we chase our tails around imaginary dimensions...branes are a pointless theoretical persuit
man...screw you twice..
you **claim** to have productive ideas to add to the discussion...and express anger that 'your side' is misrepresented...
so, you type a post to bitch about pedantic shit unrelated to the main point...
instead of just **TYPING YOUR IDEA** and letting the community judge
typical attitude of space enthusiasts...mimicking NASA's administration...chasing your tail instead of doing something that *matters*
wrong...show me in blockquotes where I 'attacked' someone...
i used an example to make a greater point...by *definition* an analogy will 'break down' at some point and therefore not be suitable as evidence for a statement
I made **several** statements...pointing to a greater point
those idiots blasted my greater point....and as evidence found the inevitable area where my analogy breaks down and attack that...whether it is salient or not...
it's fucking stupid and makes anyone who reads it stupid...that's the point
I used to live in the Goss/Grove area of Boulder and even taught at Boulder HS for a short time...I hope everyone is getting things sorted out...what a mess...
to the point, IMHO a web software type 'startup' is probably the easiest of all industries to 'cope' with this kind of thing...that's why working in it is awesome...
really for most 'web startups' you don't need offices at all, except to project an image
not all startups are 'web' and floods are an IT and t-com nightmare...that's a given...
my greater point relates to Marissa Meyer at Yahoo getting rid of telecommuting...I think the 'web startup' world does itself a tremendous disservice by forcing itself into the geographic boxes of old companies...
for comparison sake, I run a tshirt screen printing company...if my shop got flooded and I didn't have time to prepare I would be completely finished...you can't 'backup' inventory
yep, *that's all I was ever trying to say*, just one point among many to lead to a thought question about human space exploration....**ONE** point among many...I wasn't myopic in any way
you ever play the game 'telephone'?
you know, it's a kids game: you get in a circle and each person whispers a story to the next and you see if it is the same as when it started
YOU AGREE WITH ME...read my original post
go on...read it...this is a lesson for you and anyone who continued reading this far...there **IS** a reason why human spaceflight isn't where it could be...and this exchange is **definitely** part of the problem!!!
exactly...it was the seed of an idea that kind of worked...THEN...b/c of *necessity* someone at NASA developed it into the fully functional, fashionable product we have today
'THANKS NASA'
is the mother of invention...
exactly my point...pushing ourselves to other worlds is the next logical step
you really proved my point for me there...
Wrong.
The '55 patent covers a variation on the 3-hook bra closure.
Thank you for playing "Fraudulent Evidence that I provided no links for."
Please take your place behind blah blah your an idiot
The customer and I are with you...
Yep. I agree.
It is an intractable problem, because it the 'exist strategy' short-term notions of business you describe are not being balanced by the free market. There is a lack of regulation that is causing unfair competitive advantage to the extreme-short term investor (think high volume traders). The finance world defines itself on gaming the system faster than it can adapt to the feedback loop.
IMHO the only real ways for a non-wealthy person to combat this are to become some sort of consumer advocate or start your own business.
I *am* starting my own internet related business...not to prove a point or b/c I'm some economic justice crusader...its to profit. However, it is precisely because I agree with you and I think I can make a profit *AND* build a lasting company
Essentially, I am banking my business on that concept. I believe customers, when properly informed, will agree with your sentiments as well.