Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one

#Technology gives us #power, that is the key reason why we seek and use new technology. What is rarely discussed is how the uneven spread of this new power will affect society. When good people get it first, it can trigger huge improvements. When bad people get it first, they use this power for personal gain at the expense of everyone else.

#CriticalMass #Vienna #Praterstern

#NPR your "Data Protection Choices" screen is really disingenuous. The "Decline" button does not take you to the article even!

"Adtech's bogeymen are tracking everything - even your web visits to mental health charities, claim campaigners... So says Pro Privacy after automatedly gazing at 82,000 sites" https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/11/charity_websites_ad_trackers/

Thank you #ArsTechnica for reminding us how #BillGates made his fortune: by building a cut throat #monopoly https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/09/revisiting-the-spectacular-failure-that-was-the-bill-gates-deposition/

#philanthropy is “a form of power that is largely unaccountable, un-transparent, donor-directed, protected in perpetuity and lavishly tax advantaged" https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/08/how-philanthropy-benefits-the-super-rich

A better solution is more #decentralization, #FreeSoftware, and access to technical education. When people do not want to use software because of its bias, they can build their own using free software building blocks, rather than starting from scratch. If they do not personally have the technical skills, people can be hired to implement designs. But this is difficult because of #SiliconValley #monopolies run by quite homogeneous people control vast swathes of the #internet and #software. 2/2

https://www.projectsbyif.com/blog/how-to-measure-representation-in-a-data-set-and-protect-peoples-privacy/ this post proposes #DataCollection and measurement as a solution for #race bias in #software. But the bias comes from the people making the software, who would then be reviewing the data. They would still bring their inherit bias to the analysis. For example, Google Image Search has a race bias because it was trained that way, and very few black people were involved in the training, most likely because there are few black employees and therefore the social network.1/2

this idea matches my experience much better than "disorder":

"...biological anthropologists call on the scientific community to rethink mental illness. With a thorough review of the evidence, they show good reasons to think of depression or PTSD as responses to adversity rather than chemical imbalances. And ADHD could be a way of functioning that evolved in an ancestral environment, but doesn’t match the way we live today."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisonescalante/2020/08/11/researchers-doubt-that-certain-mental-disorders-are-disorders-at-all/

I've been having the feeling recently that search engines are getting worse and worse. For example, I'm looking to understand the #lifecycle of #basil plants to better grow it. Searching for "lifecycle of basil" gives me a number of short blog posts on the topic, that all contain pretty much the same summary. Mixed in are a litany of products for sale like bike products. I find it hard to believe there is so little in depth information on the #internet about such a popular plant.

Must good street art be illegal? I'm used to NYC street art culture, where its almost always against the law, including the #MadagascarInstitute and related events we did. In Vienna, there are large areas where painting everything in public is fully allowed. There's a festival now where murals are being painted on blank walls around the city. I appreciate the murals from previous years, but have this funny feeling that its somehow less when its allowed. Crazy or valid?
https://www.callelibre.at/2020

"As a cop, I killed someone. Then I found out it happens more often than we know... We must work toward a society where citizens and their governmental representatives – the police – aren’t so terrified of one another."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/31/as-a-cop-i-killed-someone-then-i-found-out-it-happens-more-often-than-we-know

Beware the #EU Unified #Patent Court: even if it is a good idea, they way it is being put together pretty much guarantees there will be hidden nasty surprises. Its delay is one benefit of #Brexit https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/21/uk_abandons_upc/