It’s actually been over thirty years since most of us had to get up off the couch to change the channel. But who’s counting? I take the point.
We have an Alexa Echo that sits on the kitchen counter. I put it through its paces for a few months before deciding I had no real use for it, but my wife appreciates being able to say “Alexa, play bebop jazz” as she starts to cook. One sentence, and the hundred-dollar device puts out pretty decent sound for a couple of hours. I’m not too concerned about my privacy being invaded. When I started investigating, I realized that my consumer profile long ago became so massive that there’s no point in getting paranoid now. They’ve already got me.
I worry about the new norms without knowing exactly how this tech will be used in the future. I do know that we are myopic. We surrender our info too easily—like all these people giving their DNA away through Ancestry.com, or people allowing their faces to be scanned on their smart phones. At first all of it seems harmless. I don’t imagine some horrible dystopia engineered by a central power. I imagine different interests using our medical history against us or industries altering personal credit ratings, moment by moment, to condition behaviors. Information is the new currency. I left Facebook because police were using it to monitor protestors and because agencies were tracking immigrants to find undocumented immigrants. Our information leads to other people’s information. Cambridge Analytica analyzed friends of friends of friends. I want no part in that. Twenty years all of this common sense would sound like paranoia. I have a student who used Ancestry.com for a DNA map. This student has a inherited disease. Such data could impact her future children’s chances of getting insurance.
Steppenwolf’s Monster on the loose at full speed with an invitation from many people.
The IOT is only a method of allowing the government to control us against our will, turn off our electric when they want (and we don’t even need to live in California), shut off the hot water, only allow the washer and dryer to operate during certain house, and much more. Once connected we give up all rights. Oh, and cars never needed any on board computer now with the new ones connected to the internet they could be hijacked, hacked, or disabled by governments or evil powers.
Have a windows notebook PC with a web cam? Easily hacked to observe whatever and whomever is within the field of view, and the microphone can be hacked also.
I am more suspicious of companies than the government, but your example of the fires does reflect a larger concern about the future. Any instance in which resources become scarcer, causing large migration and general panic, will lead to government intrusion. I can see the logic in it—the greater good, etc. The problem is that governments comprise people, and people can be utterly incompetent and/or corrupt.
The Untimely Typewriter:Daily Writings Against the Tides of Distraction 
It’s actually been over thirty years since most of us had to get up off the couch to change the channel. But who’s counting? I take the point.
We have an Alexa Echo that sits on the kitchen counter. I put it through its paces for a few months before deciding I had no real use for it, but my wife appreciates being able to say “Alexa, play bebop jazz” as she starts to cook. One sentence, and the hundred-dollar device puts out pretty decent sound for a couple of hours. I’m not too concerned about my privacy being invaded. When I started investigating, I realized that my consumer profile long ago became so massive that there’s no point in getting paranoid now. They’ve already got me.
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I worry about the new norms without knowing exactly how this tech will be used in the future. I do know that we are myopic. We surrender our info too easily—like all these people giving their DNA away through Ancestry.com, or people allowing their faces to be scanned on their smart phones. At first all of it seems harmless. I don’t imagine some horrible dystopia engineered by a central power. I imagine different interests using our medical history against us or industries altering personal credit ratings, moment by moment, to condition behaviors. Information is the new currency. I left Facebook because police were using it to monitor protestors and because agencies were tracking immigrants to find undocumented immigrants. Our information leads to other people’s information. Cambridge Analytica analyzed friends of friends of friends. I want no part in that. Twenty years all of this common sense would sound like paranoia. I have a student who used Ancestry.com for a DNA map. This student has a inherited disease. Such data could impact her future children’s chances of getting insurance.
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Steppenwolf’s Monster on the loose at full speed with an invitation from many people.
The IOT is only a method of allowing the government to control us against our will, turn off our electric when they want (and we don’t even need to live in California), shut off the hot water, only allow the washer and dryer to operate during certain house, and much more. Once connected we give up all rights. Oh, and cars never needed any on board computer now with the new ones connected to the internet they could be hijacked, hacked, or disabled by governments or evil powers.
Have a windows notebook PC with a web cam? Easily hacked to observe whatever and whomever is within the field of view, and the microphone can be hacked also.
Orwell was only off by a few years.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am more suspicious of companies than the government, but your example of the fires does reflect a larger concern about the future. Any instance in which resources become scarcer, causing large migration and general panic, will lead to government intrusion. I can see the logic in it—the greater good, etc. The problem is that governments comprise people, and people can be utterly incompetent and/or corrupt.
LikeLike