From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: cigar562hfsp952fans@icebubble.org To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> References: <86h9fl14ln.fsf@cmarib.ramside> Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2016 02:30:21 +0000 In-Reply-To: (Giacomo Tesio's message of "Fri, 1 Apr 2016 22:53:00 +0200") Message-ID: <86mvpb5sqq.fsf_-_@cmarib.ramside> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Subject: [9fans] OT: Ubiquitous data vs. Reality, WAS: Re: The Plan 9/"right" way to do Facebook Topicbox-Message-UUID: 8c714aa8-ead9-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 Giacomo Tesio writes: > physical tool. Now, we "know that a programmable computer is no more and no > less than an extremely handy device for realizing any conceivable mechanism > without changing a single wire", but are we sure we really want to remove > the awareness of the wires? I don't think people are necessarily aware of the "wires", anymore. Many millenials think of the Internet as a resource that just sort of floats around in the air, kind of like oxygen. (I once built a little, "mini-Internet" for a cryptography demonstration I did for a group of millenials. One of them expressed to me his confusion that the network actually contained a wired hub!) When people use the Web, send a text, or make a call, they assume that their information is private because they can't see the radio waves. They have little, if any, concern with how the technology actually works, just that it somehow "magically" does something useful. > Google glasses scare me even more: we are going to look the world through > some one else eyes. In the long run, our brain will start to accept the That's one of the reasons why it's so important to maintain control and ownership of OUR OWN data. My data + my programs = my image of reality. > some one else eyes. In the long run, our brain will start to accept the > virtual baloons like the other physical entities that really exists. I think we already have one foot planted firmly in that mine field. People already mistake what they see on social media for reality. A little over a year ago, I attended a Mensa* meeting in Portsmouth, NH (the same city that the treaty was signed in). Our discussion focused on how to get more people to join Mensa, and how to encourage existing members to participate in chapter activities. (Less than 1% of people who qualify for Mensa are actually members, and the overwhelming majority of those don't participate in any of our calendered events.) As is wont to happen when discussing promotion of ANYTHING, these days, someone offered the perennial suggestion of using social media. I posed this group the question, (paraphrasing) "If someone was invited to an event by someone who they knew in real life, as opposed to someone they only knew from Facebook, would they be more likely to attend?" Another member there answered my question by saying that she saw her friends on Facebook as BEING real friends. I was just blown away by that answer. On social media, you have no idea who you're talking to, if what they say is true, or if they're even a real person. Not long ago, it was revealed that the U.S. government has actually paid contractors to create hundreds of fake social media profiles. It had never before even OCCURRED to me that people might acutally mistake what they see on social media for reality. I could probably list half a dozen other annecdotes that illustrate how social media have distorted people's perceptions of reality. But this one is perhaps the most compelling, because it is so unexpected and so foreboding. If a member of Mensa (whose IQ must be at or above the 98th percentile) can mistake social media for reaility, then that same mistake can be (and most certainly is) made by the other 98% of the population. That's terrifying. > We are already trained to be suspicious about the truth even when it's > clearly evident, now we can even start to ignore the information from the > physical world, while accepting the virtual information that someone else > feed us. Maintaining a strong sense of skepticism might be a healthy way to engage with the dubious world of social media. Whenever you listen to a politician speak, for instance, you do so with a healthy dose of skepticism. Perhaps we could treat everything we see on social media like we treat politicians. If we were to adopt a popular predisposition to consider anything on social media as "quite likely false", then the damage to reality might be limited. Earlier in this thread, ... lucio@proxima.alt.za writes: > to publish. Stupidly, we still demand that people be consistent, but > that will drift away over time, of that I'm pretty certain. There is some creative merit in doing that. Then again, an inability to tell what's true at all could be an emerging trajedy of these commons. *Mensa is a trade name, and Mensa does not necessarily agree with or endorse any of my kooky views. They should, though. ;) -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | human | |Any sufficiently high intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity.| +----------------------------------------------------------------------+