Re: Openness amplifies Inequality?

Posted by glen ropella on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Fwd-Major-bug-called-Heartbleed-exposes-Internet-data-tp7585135p7585174.html

On 04/10/2014 04:31 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> Yes, there are still big distinctions between the haves and the
> have nots, but there are more ways to move up.  That's way more
> interesting than worrying about the cretins that Ms. Taylor has
> observed.

We've been here before:

   Re: using openness as a tool for opacity
   http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/2013-October/020821.html

While I agree that openness increases the kind and degree of
opportunities to "move up" (or move in, out, down, and through), I
maintain that openness allows for _more_ exploitation by the "haves" of
the "have nots".  The increase in opportunities simply changes the
landscape (another buzzword I hate but can't avoid).

We can analogize with the industrial revolution.  Instead of being
exploited by wealthy landowners with good blood, the serfs in the newly
formed US were exploited by clever tricksters who knew how to "move up"
and then game the system so that they "stayed up" ... they even engaged
in sophisticated propoganda schemes like donating money to construct
libraries and such for the "public good".

The asymmetries being amplified by our new openness are simply different
from those that dominated before the openness.  Our new masters will be
(are, actually) people like the brogrammers ... people like Musk and
Schmidt.  And it's not really money that the "haves" have... it's the
agility (and other salient attributes) to manipulate the new social
manifold.

Overall, openness is used by the morally corrupt contingent of these
tricksters to achieve and maintain hegemony ... or simply to engage in
perverse behavior:
http://www.cultofmac.com/157641/this-creepy-app-isnt-just-stalking-women-without-their-knowledge-its-a-wake-up-call-about-facebook-privacy/

--
⇒⇐ glen

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