"Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil;
it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself
the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of
unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish
anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need
not be believed — in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical — and when facts
are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the
stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily
irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called
for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with
reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.
If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature.
This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. There
are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are
intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid. We discover this to our surprise in particular
situations. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect, but
that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen
to them. We note further that people who have isolated themselves from others or who live in
solitude manifest this defect less frequently than individuals or groups of people inclined or
condemned to sociability. And so it would seem that stupidity is perhaps less a psychological
than a sociological problem. It is a particular form of the impact of historical circumstances
on human beings, a psychological concomitant of certain external conditions. Upon closer
observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be
it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It
would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one
needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human
capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under
the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence,
and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the
emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us
to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is
dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like, that have taken
possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having
thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same
time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for
it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.
Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can
overcome stupidity. Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine
internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then
we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person. This state of affairs explains why
in such circumstances our attempts to know what "the people’ really think are in vain and why,
under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the person who is thinking and
acting responsibly. The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom
declares that the internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is
the only genuine way to overcome stupidity.
But these thoughts about stupidity also offer consolation in that they utterly forbid us to
consider the majority of people to be stupid in every circumstance. It really will depend on
whether those in power expect more from people’s stupidity than from their inner
independence and wisdom."
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (1951)
It's pretty easy, actually. Like, I'll give you that nobody secures their privacy, but securing your privacy is not at all difficult to do. All the software to do so has already been made, you just have to personally implement it. I mean, that and not literally pay for the privilege of being spied on via an Alexa etc. Maybe if you have an iPhone its harder, I understand getting access to that BIOS is much harder.
That's how I know it's pretty easy- I can do it, and I can't even set up my home network right.
But also, there's like.... its like not knowing how to drive. Like, the world runs on this machine now, if you don't know how to use the machine, you're the exploited class. The opportunity to learn how the machine works is freely available- being a victim of it is the option you chose.
I mean, you can make it stop listening to you, stop sharing out your usage data. You obviously can't stop it telling the world where it is, cause- that's how phones work. And you can't make an untappable line, cause that's how electricity works.
lol no you cant, unless you have one of the very very few phones that allows you to physically disable the hardware that does the monitoring, it is monitoring you, the settings do nothing.
No, you can max out your privacy settings on your device and for each app on your phone. It's tedious and takes a LONG time, but you can cut off a lot of their data streams.
As for the location tracking, you can turn off your phone's location, but that can make some apps not work. So what you do is define which apps can access your location and which cant. It makes sense for a map app to jave this permission so I can navigate, but it wouldnt make sense for my camera app, calendar, or some mobile game to have location access, so for those apps, I turn it off.
People have a lot of control over their privacy, but it's stuck behind a paywall of effort. That's the catch here - you can have more privacy, but it takes a lot of time and effort to change all those settings
If you're assuming that accessing the BIOS or even downloading software is an "easy fix," I'm afraid you're vastly overestimating how much the average person knows about their computer.
I frequently do these things with computers and such, and even I don't know wtf I'm doing half the time. Much less when I'm doing it on a phone. And that's even if you CAN access the bios in the phone, some carriers lock it behind some code they don't release.
People have viscerally hated windows for almost 4 decades now, and Linux is still an insignificant blip on most ppls radars.
Convincing already-tech-inclined ppl to make the switch is basically impossible. Convincing the average home-owner to set up an entirely open-source home security system is fantasy land
Convincing the average home-owner to set up an entirely open-source home security system is fantasy land
You make it sound easy. This is me and I would be interested in doing something like this, but I'm very inexperienced with anything more technical than mapping a network drive
Having an AI agent (hermes/local/etc) has been an enormous help switching to Linux. Im on CachyOS and it's incredible, but having an AI agent available to help setup and troubleshoot issues is the only way I was able to make the switch. If you're able to run a model locally on your hardware that's the best move for privacy, cloud providers are also an option
You can block windows usage data being sent just with powershell, at least in 10.
If you mean, like, secure from intrusion, thats a whole different ball game and not what I was talking about at all. I just mean secure from the ubiquitous data-mining of the present tech environment. Secure from a targeted effort is not something I am qualified to speak on.
Do you- think you're talking to a representative of the Microsoft Corporation's Marketing team? I'm not trying to sell windows, man. I'm saying, if you have Windows, and don't want Microsoft harvesting your data, windows powershell has options to disable that, which you can look up. I am not taking a stand in your OS war.
No, I think that I'm talking to someone who's saying "omg guys, it's so easy to cut windows off from all the evil shit they do"
It's not easy to do that, at all.
"But you can Google the powershell commands"
You're already assuming that the average user can competently Google and parse the correct information from the tech forums that pop up. Hell, even the assumption that they'll read tge Google AI summary and be successful is laughable
It's only easy to you bc presumably you have a CS background. The average computer user 30 years ago, who was much more tech literate than just about anyone today, found Linux and command prompts way too much to deal with
You are not gonna sell people on Linux by claiming "it's so easy" and then directing them towards fucking powershell
All of this is true but also to add: people get fucking ANGRY at tech they don't understand. If I tried to even open my mother's command prompt she would lose her ever loving mind about any number of wildly inaccurate and/or misinformed things. She's about as average a user as they come and the thought of explaining powers hell to her makes my eye twitch.
I'm not selling Linux either dude. Also I majored in history in school, and work as a carpenter. I have no CS background. What is even happening in this thread? In what way do you feel like the things you said relate to the things I said?
If reading two paragraphs and making a hundred keystrokes and two right-clicks is difficult, in your estimation, who am I to tell you otherwise? But obviously, in the general sense, reading two paragraphs, making a hundred keystrokes, and two right clicks, is what human society generally considers "pretty easy."
Like I said, I'm a carpenter. My idea of difficulty usually involves, like, physical effort which approaches my limitations, or delicate operations at extreme heights. I get that people are challenged by different things.
Ok, so you're not a CS graduate. I am, though I also work in blue collar trades.
That only makes what you're saying even more disingenuous. My TTRPG friends, the nerdiest group i interact with, aren't capable of switching to Linux without a lot of work
You can't honestly be arguing that you think what you're suggesting is reasonable for the average construction worker, who doesn't already have a vested interest in this
Genuinely, why are you still talking about Linux? What does Linux have to do with anything? You're the only person who ever brought it up. Nobody has suggested anybody use Linux, not even you, who is, again, the only person talking about Linux.
Regardless, I absolutely think learning how to secure their computer is reasonable for literally anybody, that's why I used the phrase "pretty easy."
I mean, they're all computers. They do what they're told, and they're your property. Windows can have all its data recording metrics shut down from powershell, for example (/used to? I don't know about 11, if the OS can't do it anymore, there is absolutely a program that will brute-force it for you somewhere). Browser add-ons like NoScript and AdBlock can prevent your web browser from leaking info. Phones are harder, their base programming harvests, but with Android you can just install a new OS, there are many secure options, onto them by plugging them into any computer- iPhones are much harder, I don't know the process there, its what people call "jailbreaking," I assume its hard because people pay triple-digit dollars to have it done for them.
It'd be a larger post than reddit allows to list all the things that could possibly be required, but basically, it comes down to either A) studying how your computer works more closely so you can make it do what you want, or my preferred B) find somebody else who already did A and download the software they made to automate it
I can eat dinner. I’ve done it before and I don’t need to learn a whole realm of information to do it.
Long ago, I could have explained quantum mechanics someone. I haven’t really thought about the specifics of quantum mechanics in 25 years, so my ability to explain it is most likely gone forever.
In the future, please take a second and think back to a time before you knew everything about everything. From that place where you (hopefully) have empathy and humility, that is where you should be generating your responses.
I don't know everything about everything, that's my point. You need to make an effort, same as learning how to cook. Cooking is easy once you research recipes and start learning how to do it. Personally I can't stand people who need to be spoon fed information for something to be considered easy.
Well, try investigating the things I mentioned, and see how easy it feels after you're done. I have already done it, and it was pretty easy. Maybe your opinion will be different, after you have tried. But the way it sounds, I can't really answer to.
"easy" in today's world means unclicking an option in the settings.
You're talking about 2 common devices and already you need to speculate and describe completely non-standard procedures.
That's before we get to the software in new cars recording you, the devices of other people that you can't avoid in public, the surveilence in your job, your street, public and private spaces that is also often connected to the interenet and stored in some handful of security company servers, the TVs and other devices that appear like harmless run-of-the-mill stuff but actualy record you and every iot device ever. And even if you somehow make yourself invisible to everything now, the companies you trust might change their terms in the future and you will need to be on the look out for that.
Bro if you can't handle anything more complicated than ticking a box, that's you, that's not the definition of what easy is. Typing three commands into your run field is easy. Downloading and installing a program is easy.
If you disagree, that's absolutely fine, that just means you and I have different standards of challenge, but I definitely find yours is embarrassingly low.
Everyone has a right to privacy. *Anyone" who wants to guard their privacy, but can't because of their limited experience with computers, they effectively don't have rights to privacy.
You say it takes six hours? I don't think people should need to spend a full working day to exercise their rights. Maybe the time and effort doesn't seem like much to you, but I think that any barrier to people exercising their rights should need a damn good reason.
Took you a lot longer than six months to learn to exercise your right to speak, but you don't complain about that.
Anyway, its the same as any machine. This isn't a rights thing. People aren't spying on you. Your property, which you purchased, is spying on you.
We expect the car owner to take the responsibility to learn how to drive, we don't expect the car seller to teach them, despite that they have a right to live, and they may die if they drive without knowing how.
We expect the computer owner to take responsibility to learn how to use their computer, we don't expect the computer seller to teach them, even though their privacy may be compromised if they use a computer without learning how.
I do not like the present state of tech surveillance, I just don't subscribe to the language of rights you're using. Our right was to not buy the spy camera. We bought the spy camera. Rights are out of the equation now.
Infants can't speak, and you can't secure your computer. Both of you, it would seem, need to learn some things before you have the ability to exercise those rights, not because they have been restricted from you, just as a simple matter of practical ability.
There are phones that don't listen to you. You didn't buy one of those. There are computers that can't track you. You didn't buy one of those. Even given that you chose to buy something which explicitly does spy on you, that never pretended it didn't, that brags at all its big industry showcases at how much better and more precisely it's spying on you all the time, it's still pretty easy to secure your privacy, is my entire point. You could probably have already learned how just in the time since you first responded to me, instead of browsing reddit.
I'm not talking about myself. There are millions of people that don't have the skills to do those things, example: my parent's generation.
It isn't exactly fair to say "skill issue" when common people, who would like to not be spied on by devices they are obligated to use in today's world, don't have the knowhow to install a new OS on their phone or whatever. Nobody is an expert in everything, I'm sure you wouldn't like it if a lawyer told you "bro it's easy, just read the law lol" instead of helping you with your case.
Having devices not spy on you and collect heaps of data on everything you do, should be the default not something you should download extra programs for or police your own behavior over. The only people who benefit from the current setup are the big corporations.
I mean- we have setup wizard? I don't know how to adequately convey- how easy installing a program is. Like so much effort has been invested for so long in making it truly the simplest possible task, how much harder it was to install a program even, like, ten years ago, to say nothing of 25 years ago when I started installing things. You don't have to find the CD or the floppy disc. You don't have to be subscribed to a goddamn tech periodical (that means magazine) to even know the software existed?
I've just told you the software exists, like magic, out of your computer, and you can just go to Google, type "android OS that doesn't data-mine," and download the very first one if you want. Google, the company that is data mining you, will literally give you a good way to avoid their own practices that make them money, that's how easy this is.
And you download that, it will be on a page with really well-written instructions, step-by-step numbered instructions telling you exactly how to do it, it will open a window that will also hold your hand the entire time, and you won't even actually need to read anything in that window most of the time, just keep clicking "next."
It's not the law. That hypothetical lawyer would be expecting me to do something really difficult. I am expecting you to do something that is, in fact, pretty easy.
I do agree that our shit shouldn't be spying on us, for the record. But pretending making it stop is an insurmountable obstacle, to the point of trying to publicly take the position that people shouldn't even bother to try to stop it because its too hard, is a wild answer.
First, I didn't say "people shouldn't even bother," I have no clue where you go that.
2nd. what's easy for you is not going to be easy for a 65 year old that went most of their whole lives not using a computer and who didn't even begin to conceptualize that everything is spying on them until 10 years ago. And on the flip side, a 15 year old will have been spied on for their whole life up to that point before being able to conceptualize what it means.
Your problem is that you are too blinded by your own experience, your own bubble, to properly understand why this might be a difficult thing for someone who didn't have your life experience.
Yes, clicking "next" in an install wizard is trivially easy for everyone, but to get to that point you need to have specific knowledge and learn specific facts way, before you get to that point. There are too many to list or even for me to think of, but for example:
First, you need to know that you are being spied on. Then you need to learn what that even means specifically to "be spied on"- what data is actually being shared, broadly speaking? People have different conceptions of what it is. You need to know that the remedy is some specific software. Where do you find the remedy? Obviously google it. How is that obvious? And you are just gonna download some .exe and launch it while a pop-up from your computer is specifically telling you not to do that and probably blocking it?
It is obvious to you, because you've passively absorbed all this information by being online and interacting with computers for who knows how many years. But it isn't obvious to everyone. And most people have only installed things straight from the app store. It is not obvious to them.
What's not realistic is to expect the general populace to have the time, know-how, connections, and/or money to actually do that. You just said that it would take a longer post than reddit allows to list all of the things that could possibly be required. That sounds not easy for most people.
It's all free, the only "connection" or "know-how" you need is google, and it may be unjust of me, but I actually feel like I can expect anybody to have six free hours over the course of a lifetime.
I think you're severely overestimating the average person's tech literacy as well as their ability to follow directions. Have you ever worked a help desk?
Even if someone's not going to take the steps to prevent their smartphone from tracking them... Spending money to put an Amazon device that listens to you in your home is next level insanity. And it's worth it why? Because it can play music or answer a question or purchase something without you having to tap your phone a couple times?
You could rig up your computer to do the exact same thing, and your computer is probably too old to be tracking that stuff! It certainly won't be if you don't use Microsofts voice recognition software, but probably even if you do, its old software, it was before this phase.
State powers have tried to crack IPhones, and also compel Apple to crack them, and failed in both. The IPhone is a very very secure device. Of course it's a lot less secure if you put a bunch of third party apps on it and 24/7 cell service that tracks your location, same as any other phone.
I mean- people definitely be cracking iPhones out here, though. It's a whole secondary market? I do believe you that the state has failed to do so in its legal capacity, but like, it does happen.
However, I should be clear, because this misunderstanding has happened a few times- I mean secure from Apple Inc. Not secure from intentional intrusion, secure from data scraping. I'm talking specifically about how to stop being a data crop (that is, the thing which is farmed), not about how to protect yourself from intentional hacking. Two very different categories of security, and protecting yourself from hacking is much harder, I would not call that any kind of easy.
If it was insecure from Apple the government could successfully compel Apple to reveal user data. They do this all the time to other companies that have your data.
Your financial data is all online. There is no privacy. Someone can pay a 3 dollar fee and easily get access to addresses and phone numbers, not to mention your family members.
Try using meta ai search mode to pull your information, it can compile all your facebook data and extract information like the names of your children or how old they are from previous birthday posts.
You do realize Facebook only has information you've willingly given it? Like I certainly don't like the modern surveillance state's growing power, but signing up for and willingly entering all your personal information and photographs into a public forum designed for showing all those things off publicly, and then that information being public, is not exactly an example of a security crisis. If you intentionally published all that stuff in the newspaper, would you feel your privacy had been compromised? Does any newspaper in the world have the same viewership numbers as Facebook?
I do. I’m just mentioning all the ways your privacy has already been invaded that people don’t even realize. Social media, your little grocery shopping apps, and banks/creditors have made your information very searchable as well. Like I said, privacy is gone.
To a certain extent having an iPhone is better. This way mainly Apple knows what you’re doing and even they know less. This is not about Apple being a saint, but rather how people underestimate how much data Google collects from you. By far, very far… And since contrary to Apple, they sell your data, with an unmodified Android your data is all over the place with every single data broker. And don’t even get me started on Chinese phones…
And the problem is that most people are not willing to give up their comfort for privacy. Not everyone wants to install Graphene or eOS, most just want to buy a device that just works, but there are some things that are easily doable by everyone and I tend to urge people to do so. For example cleaning the trackers from YouTube links, or how if you don’t use it to navigate in your car, you lose surprisingly little functionality if you deny Google Maps your location.
It's shockingly easy if you aren't on most social media (and skip/cheat anything verified) and use a VPN or something similar.
All my allegedly targeted ads are for stuff like czech furniture sales. I have a bit of a public presence (work website), and still a parent was annoyed they couldn't find more of me on social media or through AI (we are keeping an eye on this, but apparently they thought I was an email chatbot and not an actual carer for their child, so they tried to "find" me).
The bulk of my online privacy was improved by quitting FB and Google. VPN seems to have done the rest.
Not saying as an "I am sooo special", but more as "most of our sacrificed privacy comes down to 2-5 big companies that we can absolutely sidestep".
It’s insane the lack of privacy the future generation is going to live with.
I have a family member who has one of those cameras that surveil their own kids. Once they put them to bed, if one of them get up or are playing around, they can use their phone to connect to the camera speaker, to tell them to get in bed, all without even having to go into their room or seeing them in person.
I mean, at a certain point, many people just don't care. Yeah, they know what music I listen to, what dumb questions I ask or what my routine is, but they'll just give me more targeted ads (and I'll just use an adblocker or ignore them as always) and that's it. No one cares about specifically my data and even if they did, they already know everything.
I'm not saying that corporate spying is a good thing of course, but the data they get isn't anything important and if they wanted they'd get it one way or another.
You unique for that one. I'd bet like 95% of people have their phones always within sound distance. Guess family size matters for that one a lot though. So 95% of people with close family
What's more mildly infuriating is people gaslighting about "necessary" and how ubiquitous it is. If you cannot or will not do anything about it in your life, that's on you. The rest of us who do something about it can and should.
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u/PhotographStunning28 8h ago
Privacy is a joke for common people in today's world btw. We are surrounded with so many devices and necessary stuff.