Professor Rocklin, kudos to you for expressing what many of us, in the
silent majority, are thinking, feeling, and fearing. I'm afraid that I
too have drunk the Kool-Aid and am hell bent on trying to come up with
the next best thing, not for disruption purposes, but to order survive
and have something to fall back on, should our social safety net fall
below subsistance levels. For I too am jobless and at my age, together
with the place where I reside, have no hope of finding a job, unless I
create one for myself.
Based on my reading of the tea leaves, the folks who are participating
in the collaborative economy -- myself personally, I haven't been
forced to stoop that low, but I admit, there are times when I have
been tempted -- do so, out of desperation. In the short term, they are
so busy trying to monetize everything they own in order to compensate
for jobs lost or reduced incomes, they are not thinking long term,
i.e., what is going to be left to pay your bills, when there is
nothing left to sell. And it appears that the users of these services
are similarly looking to make a quick (read: convenient) buck, by
saving one. Entrepreneurs, through no fault of their own, are being
forced to look for new ways to exploit their user base because that is
what they need to do if they want to satisfy the suits on Wall Street.
And round and round it goes as we circle the drain.
Most of us are so caught up in the present that we fail to consider
unintended consequence or what kind of future we're in the process of
creating.
At some point we have to individually and collectively decide what is
important to us as a society. Every day I read the news, I am appalled
at the general level of dysfunction, disintegration and
dissatisfaction that prevails. This is why I so appreciated your blog
post, it has made me stop and think. I trust there are many more out
there, just like me, feeling the same way after reading your post and
are ready to take a stand. Speaking out in a public forum is not my
usual modus operandi, I much prefer to lurk, read what others are
advocating and come to my own private conclusions but I think the time
has come that more and more of us need to stand up and be counted.
Thank you sir for giving me this opporunity.
/j
Quoting Yosem Companys <[email protected]>:
Beware of Geeks Bearing Grifts
by Gene Rochlin, professor emeritus, Energy & Resources Group, UC
Berkeley | 9/18/14
It seems as if the news media have become a wholly owned subsidiary of
the internet technology complex (ITC) these days. No matter which
seemingly outrageous new product or system is being put forth, it will
become ‘news’ in print and online, unpaid advertising that assumes
that all of us have little else to do but sit here and salivate over
the next great new development, however futuristic and socially
disruptive it is.
Do I exaggerate? Over the past few days, Apple’s latest
products/development/ideas have gotten almost as much media space as
Ukraine or Ebola (although somewhat less than ISIS). And to a close
reader of hype, what, exactly, is being promoted? The ‘new’ iPhone,
which is somewhat larger than the original iPhone (among whose
attractions was its small size)? The one you bought last year is now
so five minutes ago. The miraculous web watch, for those with very
tiny fingers and the 20-20 eyesight of youth who don’t mind their
health as well as their location being monitored? The Apple Pay
system, which will let you trade your money and credits from your
account with those from someone else’s without their consent? Or, in
conjunction with the others in the ITC, the Cloud, which provides a
neat single warehouse for data theft? Not so widely noted is Apple’s
dropping its promotion of the iPod, the small appliance that started
it all, and which now seems to have been developed in order to do a
bait-and-switch to the iPhone.
For those of us of a certain age, who disdain the label of ‘Luddite’
but still see no particular personal advantage to joining Facebook or
Twitter, who prefer to protect our privacy and identity as much as
possible, and who believe that there is no such thing as a perfectly
secure internet site (although we hope some of our banks and all of
our military sites are more secure than Home Depot), the notion that
Apple Pay will make credit card payments obsolete is absolutely
horrid. One after the other, these newly promoted ‘capabilities’ will
not only stimulate sales, but will also ensure that the market never
saturates.
And one more thing. Many of these new capabilities introduce new
insecurities, new modes of spam, new avenues for thefts of data and of
value ranging from credits to cash, and new possibilities for
blackmail, exposing us to a whole new generation of Internet grifters.
Several common threads connect these ‘modernizing’ ideas, ranging from
planes without cockpits and cars without drivers to ApplePay (or its
equivalent). One is that they are always put forth in the spirit of
idealistic innovations for the benefit of everyone. Less publicly
mentioned is the admission that without continual innovation there is
no hope of continual (and sometimes outrageous) profits. They assume
that however impractical their widespread use may be within our
present social formations, societies will simply adapt and reform
themselves in the face of technological pressure. The social costs, of
course, are never mentioned, let alone taken into account. That there
are so few challenges reflects the degree to which the early successes
of the computer industry, ranging from home PCs to LANs to the
Internet, have softened up consumer resistance. Each new model, or
innovation, can then be easily and widely promoted, even cheered, with
complaints and interference only from a group who the industry can tag
as backward outsiders.
It is interesting to note that this is often expressed as the triumph
of individuals over institutions, wrapped in a mantle of progress and
development. Some of it, admittedly, does promote efficiency and
social progress. But not all, and not everywhere. The creation of new
social and political risks without forethought is already stirring
demands for institutional control, a genuinely unfunded mandate. There
is also a redistribution of wealth and privilege, instantiated by
rapid obsolescence. More seriously, what I see being actively promoted
is the triumph of libertarianism over social coherence, the creation
of new social and political risks without giving them serious
analysis. Many of the newer developments being promised also have no
real benefits to the growing cadre of older folks, particularly those
without the education and technical skills to keep up, while
increasing their vulnerabilities in ways they cannot deal with as
individuals. Their interests are not only marginalized, but as far as
the press is concerned they are not important. No one is speaking up
for them effectively. Some of us should try.
Added note: Michael Cabanatuan reports on SFGate on Sept. 16 that
because the use of services such as Uber and Lyft have cut deeply into
San Francisco taxi rides in the past few months, the number of regular
taxis on the street has sharply declined, nowhere more steeply than in
wheelchair-accessible ramp taxis. He further reports that because ride
services are not required to pick up people in wheelchairs, municipal
authorities are considering stepping in. And so it goes.
http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2014/09/18/beware-of-geeks-bearing-grifts/
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