Is Elon Musk the greatest visionary or the greatest snake oil salesman of our age?
- Thread starter tim
- Start date
Lurdan
old wave
Tesla and Chinese rivals signal EV price war truce in ‘socialist values’ pledge - Financial Times (archived)
The version on the front page of the print edition includes this (missing from the online version)
The version on the front page of the print edition includes this (missing from the online version)
Despite this, he has previously posted on Twitter that he is “a socialist”, writing in 2018: “By the way, I am actually a socialist. Just not the kind that shifts resources from most productive to least productive, pretending to do good, while actually causing harm. True socialism seeks greatest good for all."
Tesla declined to comment on the pledge. The Chinese market is very valuable to the company, accounting for just under one-third of annual sales.
Tesla declined to comment on the pledge. The Chinese market is very valuable to the company, accounting for just under one-third of annual sales.
Cid
Proper break this time
Test (just a link to a random guardian 'thread' to see how it shows up here/what it links to in-browser):
www.threads.net
Also has a 'get embed code' option but couldn't work it out before looking at the clock and realising I'm posting pointless shit on urban instead of doing stuff I have to do.
The Guardian (@guardian) on Threads
Do you agree teammates shouldn’t be friends? Read Donald McRae’s interview with breakout star of Netflix’s Drive to Survive, Guenther Steiner, on winning more, swearing less and why he won’t watch himself until he retires 🏁
www.threads.net
Also has a 'get embed code' option but couldn't work it out before looking at the clock and realising I'm posting pointless shit on urban instead of doing stuff I have to do.
a_chap
When the world came apart, where were you?
Where'd you get that fact from?
(I'm a fairly prolific Twitterer with a surprisingly large following but I use Twitter 99.99% from my PC)
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
That, basically. Apps let you be much more intrusive. I guess they might change their mind on this one but probably not.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
They’ll promise something I’m sure but the priority is an app to lock you in and slurp as much sweet data in as possible, even when you go to websites via the app.
General PSA:
If your downloading a third party app remove as many permissions in your phone settings as possible and always try to use a browser instead, incognito mode if possible
Not always possible I know
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
This might be a daft question but is there a practical (rather than philosophical/political) reason why I shouldn't just let them get on with trying to target ads etc. with my data?
I mean, superficially, I really don't give a fuck if they know I've been browsing Urban and the football gossip. No skin off my nose as it were.
I mean, superficially, I really don't give a fuck if they know I've been browsing Urban and the football gossip. No skin off my nose as it were.
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
The weirdest things can keep you from getting a job. I saw a story the other day, where a woman forgot to return a video years ago. For years, she wondered why she couldn't get a decent job. Turned out that the video company had filed theft charges against her. It kept showing up in background checks until they actually arrested her for it recently.
I'm pretty sure employers will be accessing this data, if they aren't already, and making hiring decisions based on it.
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BigMoaner
What A Load of Old Bollocks
Very much yes for your first para i.e there are philosophical (and I would dare say spiritual/metephetaphysical) and political objections, but a no for your second para
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chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Oh I know they are. In my line of work it's pretty up front. We kinda have to take that as read now.
I'm more interested in the background data collection, the stuff harvested in the multimillions of browser hits, clicks and so on. What are the practical implications of this?
BigMoaner
What A Load of Old Bollocks
None. Freedom to use them, freedom to not use them.
But there's so many layers to it. I'm rereading Heidegger at the moment and his work for example throws up so much praxis and thought in regards where we are at with this stuff.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
In the UK we at least get to see what they might have on us
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
I believe that deep in the guts of Facebook is a feature that allows you to see your profile. Finding it is a different matter.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
I was talking about background checks for employment.
I’m not sure I care what FB knows about me.
Yes. You are a human being, whose brain has evolved to respond in certain ways to certain cues. With this data, they aren’t just cleverly anticipating demand. They are manufacturing demand. And you’re not immune from that process just because you know about it and you’re self-aware and clever. Clever people are arguably more vulnerable to the process. You think you made the decision to buy goods or services just because the time was somehow right? The more somebody knows about you, the more they can curate your subjectivity.
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Yes, because it is focused at and supremely good at forming an atomised neoliberal subjectivity, whose anxiety and alienation are the origin of the demand they are manufacturing. Advertisers have always tried to do this, sure, but they’ve previously been comparatively weak at succeeding.
Storm Fox
Trying the find the next noun to verb
Same here. It's the winning combo.Just installed a pi-hole plus Ublock Origin, haven't seen an ad since
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
A thing that one should always remember about data gathering is that it's not all about you. In fact the greater significance is when it's not about you, but about constructing a pattern of how people behave and interact. The fact that it doesn't affect you personally much, at least not directly and/or when it comes down to specific instances, is how they get away with it.
The most recent and famous example I can think of around this is all the stuff about Cambridge Analytica which was treated as a terrible shock but actually was just standard advertising profiling techniques applied to politics, and already used frequently in the States. This information gives far greater power to those who are in a position to pay for and exploit it.
If data are being gathered on your interactions they are being gathered relating to you plus all the other people and the interactions are the point. Facebook talks about the "social graph".
The most recent and famous example I can think of around this is all the stuff about Cambridge Analytica which was treated as a terrible shock but actually was just standard advertising profiling techniques applied to politics, and already used frequently in the States. This information gives far greater power to those who are in a position to pay for and exploit it.
If data are being gathered on your interactions they are being gathered relating to you plus all the other people and the interactions are the point. Facebook talks about the "social graph".
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
Same here. It's the winning combo.
Fuck me though it took me a long time (my own fault completely), and I wasn't sure it was working properly at all for a few days.
ddraig
kicking against the pricks...
Spotted on threads, of course
Maz 🐐 (@roadmanvoiceovers) on Threads
Who’s responsible for this 😂😂. 1.3K likes, 72 replies.
www.threads.net
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Here's a very much not impossible scenario: you have an interest in abortion rights and post various articles and join groups on FB that are related to that. You are connected downstream by a couple of hops, maybe even across networks, to person X in a state that has now banned abortions. With the support of Meta's data the state government runs analyses of who is at a high risk of having an abortion, and their association with you boosts X's rating. This gets pulled into police systems and referred to when they're pulled over, driving fast, trying to leave the state. The cops get a ping from their iPad saying "high abortion flight risk" and arrest them to do blood tests.
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