Is it possible and cost-covering to create an ad-sponsored service that discloses what ad networks collect about users - i.e. age, location, preferences, interests, pregnancy, illnesses etc?
Because let’s be honest - all of us know that a lot of data points are being collected about us, countless articles have been written about the insanity of cookie and user-data monetization networks - still it appears to be a privilege to few to tap into that data trove.
I personally haven’t seen an effort to try and make this transparent. Efforts like this page are commendable and informative, much like amiunique or other services - still they lack the tangible information that sharing this information with “the world” reveals about an affected individual.
Why hasn’t this been done yet? Why is this seemingly not trivial?
I'm not sure how that would work from an ad-buying perspective, from what I understand you essentially choose which buckets you'd like to show ads to? Like I don't think ad-buyers get the whole dossier for the person they're showing ads to, the platform just decides "from what you've told us, this person seems likely to like your ads"
Even if you disregard mandmandam's reply, decide to give Patterson benefit of doubt in him not being well-versed regarding how much is the world fucked up right now, and decide to only consider his academic career, he still fails to acknowledge that:
1. Competition for funding in academia is extreme nowadays. Your institute is fucked unless it has political backing. Quality of work is irrelevant, only connections.
2. Aspiring to-be PhDs are exploited as a cheap, expendable labor to help produce meaningless papers for people in Patterson's age bracket who run the departments.
3. In some countries (US especially), public sector has ramped up costs of higher education for students several times more than what could be attributed to plain inflation, effectively pricing huge swaths of population out of it.
I have multiple friends in academia. One left completely due to sexism and systemic exploitation. One hopped countries due to sexism and finally settled for Germany with best ratio of can-do-science vs. can-have-kids. Found husband with a PhD in the US and brought him here to EU, by the way. Another one only finished their PhD only due to being supported by their partner and extended family.
I also have multiple colleagues studying college and the huge amount of work they need to put into meaningless, artificial, ultimately useless chores in order to demonstrate skill acquisition in areas that are already obsolete footnote is staggering. And if they get in? If they make it? Publish or perish. Constant scoring. Keeping results secret of others, constantly looking over their shoulders so that nobody "steals their research" to get ahead. Faking results, faking data, just to stay financially afloat. With limited options to go elsewhere, because private sector is also fucked up and want you to know a framework on average 2x as long as it exists while completely ignoring your general skills.
So much elitism, so much gatekeeping, just to keep the small amount of money flowing in away from newcomers... academia (even more than private sector) is shit.
> Care to elaborate what perspective the author has been missing
Not really, no. If you have to ask, then it's practically guaranteed to be a painful conversation for both of us. It is fair to ask though, since I brought it up.
So, without writing a book on the topic, here are a few points:
* When Mr. Patterson sent his draft out to be reviewed by ten people (lesson 5!), how many of those people do you think were in the bottom 80% of household net worth? If it was more than 1, I would be shocked. Even one would surprise me, tbh.
* Mr. Patterson has largely been protected from the vast and growing gulf between productivity and wages; from the increasing inequality (now at French Revolution levels), from the economic and social effects of our illegal forever wars. How many homeless people does he even see in a day? How many disabled veterans? ... How do you think a homeless veteran would feel on being advised to "take time to have fun", or "Have good friends and a good family"? How would a single mother working three jobs feel on being advised to "look for opportunities"?!
* Did David think to pay any lip service to the devastation of nature over the last half century? To tech's role in it? To academia's role? Nah, let's just 'appreciate' it, and leave it at that.
* I didn't see any attempt to call out America's increasing war mongering, which has been directly enabled by the very companies and institutions which he says he "loved" working for. Rather, he touts his support for DARPA partnerships as an unambiguous virtue: "Ed Lazowska and I campaigned to change a new DARPA policy that would have cut academic funding nearly in half." That's certainly an opinion one can have, but it doesn't reek to me of self awareness or perspective.
* David touts his bravery with another example: "I organized a letter from 25 Turing laureates on how immigration crackdowns were driving away talent and that we should support candidates who would change that policy" ... That letter was written as an endorsement of Biden, who in fact deported more people than Trump did. Biden's previous admin as VP built the camps holding immigrant kids in wire cages, drinking toilet water and sleeping in foil blankets; a policy which only attracted liberal attention during Trump Admin I and became invisible again under Biden. The Obama/Biden admin expanded ICE by over 3,000%! Etc. There's a profound wilful ignorance there, combined with a smug superiority, that is and has been utterly impervious to the reality of the situation.
And now, after all the facts are in re Biden and immigration, Mr. Patterson cites this letter as an example of his courage. It's wretched; and that's without even considering the lack of comment on how tech and academia are now complicit in genocide.
* How much money has Mr. Patterson made for the yacht class? Certainly at least 100x more than he's earned. Why isn't that important to reflect on?
* Was there any acknowledgment of the role luck plays in our lives? Nope. Not even when we got the sage advice to "have a good family". Why not? Because people like Mr. Patterson tend to believe that they earned their comfortable well-bubbled lives entirely through virtue, merit, and hard work.
I could certainly write much more, but I think you have more than enough to dismiss my view as that of a socialist crank, or that of a jealous layabout, and continue with your day.
Apologies; your comment is so confusing that I can only guess we possess different definitions of 'luck'. Mine is the definition that can be found in the dictionary; what's yours?
yeah been off that as long as the news. reddit, HN, github, & usenet are my social now which is funny because only 1 or 2 actual friends probably even know about these sites. i am waiting for aim to make the big come back! I only go on socsh every blue moon for a couple friends that refuse to communicate on anything else and to see pictures of all my cousins and their families -usually around the holidays to spell check their names. haha.
Basically, yeah. I find that the aggregation here is a dozen cuts above what I can find elsewhere and the "news" is tends to be things that are at least tech adjacent and when they're not they're genuinely "newsworthy."
Yeah, I don’t frequent many websites. I go on Facebook occasionally intermittently, but go through phases where I deactivate it. I also go on my university website for my online learning but I don’t go on many websites.
I just read the whole 44 pages and some years ago I spent a day or two delving into Crowley’s work. (I was curious but never had the time or need to practice any of the teachings)
There’s a spooky coherence in the descriptions and that’s what makes it such a fascinating read. The spin that this work puts on the subject - calling this “technology” and likening it to programming adds to this.
To anyone honestly wanting to take this for a spin, I recommend reading the biography of Aleister Crowley first. It’s an interesting read in itself and it also illustrates the risks/dangers. Pictures speak a thousand words.
The whole guide could be retitled as: how to cultivate your own psychosis. The technology is sound but does not lead to wellbeing.
I think Buddhists figured it out (at least some of them). For example metta practice could be thought of as a magick that is specifically aimed toward wholesome happiness.
Once I could personally meet or just see people (in person or otherwise) that attempted this kind of rewiring of your synapses I realized how deeply unwell they really are.
And for the untrained eye, your point takes it away: Have a hard look at folks who tried (like Crowley, probably the most documented case) and be wary of following advice on the web that puts your mental health at risk, even on HN.
One thing that makes me wonder: how does intentionally created psychosis compare to involuntary one? Can science study those things to have better understanding of mental health and actually help people?
I also spent -much more than a day or two reading Aleister Crowly; and Dion Fortune; and other lesser known authors, and all sorts of other similar stuff.
Then I read a book called Foucault's Pendulum by one Umberto Eco, and that's how I realised all the magick stuff was a circus and the people peddling it charlatans and clowns. Sometimes you just have to look at the funny side of all the self-serious mediums and gurus and teachers and spend a few days laughing at their bullshit before your mind finally decides the "teachings" are really just garbage.
> I realised all the magick stuff was a circus and the people peddling it charlatans and clowns.
Hear hear. Your comment reminded me of when Christopher Lee said, "Never get involved in the occult. You'll not only lose your mind, but you'll lose your soul." [^0]
This is basically a chaos magic book updated for the next generation.
Like an anime/video game culture version of Peter J. Carroll - Liber Null & Psychonaut.
Crowley on the other hand is basically a trust fund kid rebelling against Victorian and Christian morality. I don't think what he was doing makes all that much sense in a secular society because much of the taboo is lost.
We all have different guts and understanding your personality, which part of your guts you can trust and with which one’s to maintain a more sober relationship with is a very individual learning journey in my experience.
Only trusting your gut is probably as bad a piece of advice as saying ”never trust your gut”.
