Shameless plug but I am creating a startup in this space called cleanvideo.cc to tackle some of the issues that will come with fake news videos. https://cleanvideo.cc
I used to be on your side but now that I live as a minority where the locals are increasingly becoming hostile and their very abusive rhetoric is accepted on social media and forums like reddit I actually want them to face the consequences of such speech and be deterred from uttering anything like that with their devices. (They can do so privately at the bar I have no problem with that.)
Another example is the recent nepal protests.
More abstractly I think that a multi-cultural or multi-ethnic society at scale is not able to handle anonymous and private communication without collapsing. If we dont go in the direction of benevolent censorship like China and Singapore I think the west is going to see some dark times.
And how are you supposed to exist as any sexual, gender, religious, or political minority when Gestapo's listening in on every phone? And also, we were talking about private conversations, not Reddit, not any less private than what is spoken in your own home.
I am sympathetic to whatever made you believe that, but if you advocate for such evil, inhumane, reckless systems, you are not a good ally to anyone, including yourself or your community.
Honestly I am on the edge about this, but for the sake of argument how is it evil or inhumane to de-anonymize certain types of rhetoric from digital communication. I dont think freedom of speech includes anonymity in it.
> I used to be on your side but now that I live as a minority where the locals are increasingly becoming hostile and their very abusive rhetoric is accepted on social media and forums like reddit I actually want them to face the consequences of such speech and be deterred from uttering anything like that with their devices. (They can do so privately at the bar I have no problem with that.)
It's interesting that a member of a minority would not see that this is exactly how minorities get oppressed. Sure, let's make trans hate speech illegal (and completely fuck privacy online in order to make it so)... then we block criticism of Israel... then we block criticism of The Party... now let's block anything that might "corrupt our children"... Actually we don't need that narrative anymore; we just block whatever The Party says to block. I hope being trans stays socially acceptable!
To say nothing of the fact that one country fucking over privacy for its citizens means fucking over citizens of many other countries too, who didn't agree to it.
No to clarify I didnt say make it illegal, I said to de-anonymize it. If you are gonna say controversial things they just have to be tied to your name.
This just does not work and it has been tested in practice. I can't link studies right now, but as a simple example: How many of these horrible things were said by publicly known people (e.g. politicians, celebrities,...) and there were little to no actual consequences?
I fail to see how that makes it any less prone to abuse. And I don't see how it would help things. People say horrible shit all the time in person too.
An assumption I disagree with wholeheartedly. People say and do even more heinous shit in person all the time. You yourself said your locals have become more aggressive. Do you think that if we were like, "Hey, if you wanna continue to talk shit, you have to tell us your name" they'll just be like "oh okay you know what you're right I was wrong I love minorities" or do you think they'll just become even more aggressive? Do you think that'll lead to more understanding between people? Or just more violence against minorities?
If you deanonymise, you'll have to do it on a general basis. This would include investigative journalists, whistleblowers, protesters etc. Surely you can see the net-negative we'll get from that.
> More abstractly I think that a multi-cultural or multi-ethnic society at scale is not able to handle anonymous and private communication without collapsing. If we dont go in the direction of benevolent censorship like China and Singapore I think the west is going to see some dark times.
Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither and will lose both.
It works remarkably well at scale. In fact, this is the defining trait of all cities, states, and nations that became historical points of reference like Troy, Athens, Rome, Constantinople, Venice, London the US and possibly China in the future.
Each of them thrived because they embraced diversity and freedom, etc. giving themselves access to a much larger pool of skilled talent.
Venice offers the clearest example. At its height, they could appoint someone as unconventional as a sub-Saharan Muslim to command their fleet (think of Othello). But the moment they shifted to a locals-only approach for key positions, their dominance began to crumble.
The problem is that usually locals feel cast aside. And while they too get the benefits, they rarely see them as such… They feel entitled and screwed. Don’t care about the big picture.
Ps. Of course this is very high level as each of these cities / states / etc collapsed under slightly different circumstances.
That's true in the world without budget constraints. Sometimes minimal changes in the design result in drastic changes to the implementation effort. Sure, I can build anything, but the client may not be happy if I spend a couple of months rewriting entire front-end just to accommodate designer's dream.
Can someone help me understand when this bifurcation happened. As a Mechanical Enginneer who worked their way through college doing software, and then... just kept going for the next 30 years, I find this increasingly role based demarcation difficult to understand/accept. I came out of an era where we called ourselves engineers, but we were designers too. And a whole lot of other things. And the mantra regardless of label, was to solve the right problem for the right people.
I feel like software creation in this decade is increasingly about the creation of beauracracies. Different roles. Different processes. More people than ever before. Everyone vying that their contribution is essential, and that others need to stay in their lanes. I miss the old days honestly. I told myself I would not be like this as I aged. I'm struggling to execute on that hope. :|
I often call them the D's of organizations. Doers, Deciders, Discussers. We seem to have less and less respect for the plight of the Doer, and more and more desire to legitimize the others in disproportionate amounts. Pournelle's Law I guess.
> Can someone help me understand when this bifurcation happened
The distinction is as old as art and design. If I had to pick modern moments that articulated it well I'd go with Arts and Crafts followed by Bauhaus.
> solve the right problem for the right people
Solving problems is the core of design and a design can be evaluated on the basis of how well it solves a problem. Whereas art is free to simply exist. Many works have elements of both, but if you hire someone to solve a problem and they believe their job is to make art then you'll both be disappointed.
I'm unsure what motivated the rest of your post though I can feel your frustration. I will say that bureaucracies and processes have been around for centuries, they just shift language every decade or so. There has also always been a tension between the people who Do and the people who Decide but both are necessary for a functional organization.
But doing away with that crap was what drew lots of old skool coders in in the first place. Myself included. Now I need 10x the resources to do anything compared to my Delphi 6 and PHP 3 days. It sucks.
