alt Hacker NewsIt's not really about the individual people. They're probably all pretty normal interpersonally. Our systems reward this behavior, so people do it. Surveillance is desired by the politically and economically powerful, and the contravening forces are weak and largely unorganized. Do we punish politicians or businesses for bad behavior? No? Then they'll engage in whatever behavior advances their interests.
You could purge the world of every single person with evil intentions, and things would maybe get better for a little while, but without fundamentally changing the underlying rules of the system the same thing would play out again with different actors.
Replies
> It's not really about the individual people. They're probably all pretty normal interpersonally. Our systems reward this behavior, so people do it.
Sorry, but people who do things they normally wouldn't because they are rewarded are not good people. They may be 'normal' in a distribution sense, but that doesn't mean the behavior becomes acceptable through it becoming commonplace.
> Surveillance is desired by the politically and economically powerful
It's also desired by consumers. Parents love tracking their children, spouses track each other. Everyone wants to get a camera to catch porch pirates. Let's not pretend this is something being forced on us by some external evil. The evil is coming from inside the house.
> They're probably all pretty normal interpersonally.
have you seen the cult like statements they make you emit if you want to pass the interview?
I had a colleague that interviewed there (and was accepted)
over the space of that month he completely changed
(and not for the better)
I like your take. I see this same thing playing out across many parts of the world.
Dont hate the player hate the game
It is about incentives and rules of the "game" that drive things. Sure, there are a few evil people but the vast majority of it is normal people responding to broken rules/incentives. Probably you and I both fall in this category :)