The Power of Awareness: Overcoming Surveillance Capitalism
114 points
14 hours ago
| 5 comments
| scottrlarson.com
| HN
newsomix9xl
8 hours ago
[-]
Awareness is not sufficient to overcome a well financed organized business enterprise.

So, I disagree.

reply
fsflover
4 hours ago
[-]
Awareness is what is missing now in order to do anything substantial.
reply
inigyou
37 minutes ago
[-]
There is also courage. You know if you are caught angle-grinding a Flock pole, your life ends there.
reply
mad_tortoise
9 minutes ago
[-]
Your life doesn't end. Your perception of your life along this current trajectory and within this current system could end, but it could start you on another much more powerful path. I don't just mean this in relation to flock camera's but rather direct action.
reply
mdp2021
3 hours ago
[-]
> what is missing now

Unfortunately what is missing (in the large part of the population) is the perception of Dignity, and the unawareness of the consciousness of their action (people are accepting and feeding the machine).

It is not just the awareness of the historic context that is missing: it is the awareness that what was built is bad, and that that they are partially to blame in every act of acceptance and omission in stating the "red lines".

reply
aa-jv
2 hours ago
[-]
A better awareness of human rights would go a long way to solving the conditions which make surveillance capitalism profitable.

Folks only accept these heinous abrogations of their human rights because they don't understand human rights.

reply
BiteCode_dev
2 hours ago
[-]
No, it's incentive. Always has been. Always will be.

Awareness may (or may not) help with incentive, but by itself it does jack all, as any nerds that have been actively showing their relatives how they are tracked will tell you.

Snowden's revelations did diddlely jack for the common person, nor wikileak's. Knowing smoking is bad never prevented smokers to smoke, knowing exercice is good is not enough to make somebody do it.

You need more: social pressure, conformism, dopamine, lower friction, etc.

Safety belt didn't become common because the average person were aware of the benefits. People screamed about it, complained, refused to use them.

It's the push from insurances to get them into law that turned into car manufacturer making it a feature, cops giving away fines, and social contracts pressuring you into using them that made them ubiquitous.

The myth that awareness is what is missing is one of the reasons so many topic never move because it's talking on the internet about it is easier than doing something about it. So people choose awareness as the virtue signaling easy way out of their guilt.

reply
two-sandwich
12 hours ago
[-]
I am intrigued by the header, and it seems like this has some good points. However, I'm struggling to parse this content. There's a full image in between almost every sentence. In most cases, I don't find the image adds significantly to the point of the preceding or following sentence, so it just looks like filler for colour.

I could put this into an AI but then what's the point of the article in the first place?

reply
lbrito
11 hours ago
[-]
Seems like slides from a presentation talk.
reply
mdp2021
4 hours ago
[-]
> what's the point of the article in the first place

Jump to the end, to the summary.

The position of the submitted is that there would be psychological constraints in that certain type of population that inhibit the perception of risk.

And he seems to be wanting to trying to built it up as a creeping subconscious notion through a "story", instead of going "TL;DR" (which is part of facts and of a different "psychology") and clarifying the points immediately.

He believes that that would be the way to deal with the non-adults.

reply
malfist
10 hours ago
[-]
I read and read and read and he never got to a point other than some nebulous "this is wrong and we can change it" without specifics. DNF
reply
functionmouse
10 hours ago
[-]
Talking about this specifics is illegal. You're not allowed to talk about anything that will displace the Epstein class, because they own us.
reply
_def
11 hours ago
[-]
tangent but i vibe coded a webapp that pulls article texts and runs tts via kokoro. Its interface allows me to read the article text while the current paragraph is highlighted + autoscrolled while the audio is playing. All of this runs on a cheap vps. Works surprisingly well, as long as you are fine with consuming it "later" (conversion needs some minutes)
reply
onaclov2000
5 hours ago
[-]
I've been very happy with @voice aloud on Android to convert a page, (but most often for me) a PDF into spoken audio, sometimes I'll watch it auto scroll what it's converted. It's robotic but I've gotten so used to it I don't really worry much anymore (though I have played with voice clone stuff some and have really been tempted to use that). Anywho just reminded me of the app I have been using for probably a decade (don't quote me ;)).

Having the option on my desktop might be nice tho!

reply
Paradigm2020
8 hours ago
[-]
Link please
reply
Pawenniag
3 hours ago
[-]
I think the argument would be more persuasive if it stayed closer to things people can verify themselves
reply
ale42
3 hours ago
[-]
It's interesting, but it sounds more like a political/societal theory rather than actual events or state of the society. It would be much more interesting and largely shareable if it contained more documented facts rather than generic affirmations.
reply
agnishom
7 hours ago
[-]
Awareness is the first step, but very far from the final one. (I am sure the author knows this, but worth reiterating.)

Surveillance Capitalism is fueled by large institutions with vast depths of wealth and implemented by world-class supercomputers and algorithms. Fighting surveillance capitalism by individual action is like fighting climate change by drinking through paper straws and bringing totebags to the supermarket.

reply
fsflover
4 hours ago
[-]
Which is why we need to support https://eff.org and https://edri.org
reply