• for: misinformation, disinformation, fake news, quote, quote - Greg Shatan, quote - misinformation, progress trap - misinformation, progress trap - digital technology, indyweb - support
• quote
  • The instinctual BS-meter is not enough.
  • The next version of the ‘BS-meter’ will need to be technologically based.
  • The tricks of misinformation have far outstripped the ability of people to reliably tell whether they are receiving BS or not
• author: Greg Shatan
  • lawyer, Moses & Singer LLP
    • not to mention that it requires a constant state of vigilance that’s exhausting to maintain.
  • I think that the ability and usefulness of the web to enable positive grassroots civic communication will be harnessed,
    • moving beyond mailing lists and fairly static one-way websites.

• for: gig economy, progress trap, unintended consequence, quote, quote - unintended consequence, quote - progress trap, quote James Mickens
• quote
  • the gig economy is enabled by technology;
  • technology finds buyers for workers and their services.
  • However, given the choice between
    • an economy with many gig workers and
    • an economy with an equivalent number of traditional middle-class jobs,
  • I think that most people would prefer the latter.
• author: James Mickens
  • associate professor of computer science, Harvard University

• for: quote, quote - Janet Salmons, quote - online communities, quote - social media, indyweb - support
• paraphrase
  • Will members-only, perhaps subscription-based ‘online communities’ reemerge instead of
  • ‘post and we’ll sell your data’ forms of social media?
  • I hope so, but at this point a giant investment would be needed to counter the mega-billions of companies like Facebook!

• for: quote, quote - Stowe Boyd, quote - progress trap, quote - unintended consequences, unintended consequences, progress trap, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap
• quote:
  • Technological change is an accelerant and acts on the social ills like pouring gasoline on a fire
• author: Sowe Boyd
  • consulting futurist on technological evolution and the future of work
• paraphrase
  • In an uncontrolled hyper-capitalist society,
    • the explosion in technologies over the past 30 years has only
      • widened inequality,
      • concentrated wealth and
      • led to greater social division.
    • And it is speeding up with the rise of artificial intelligence,
      • which like globalization has destabilized Western industrial economies while admittedly pulling hundreds of millions elsewhere out of poverty.
  • And the boiling exhaust of this set of forces is pushing the planet into a climate catastrophe. -The world is as unready for hundreds of millions of climate refugees as it was for the plague.
  • However, some variant of social media will likely form the context for the rise of a global movement to stop the madness
    • which I call the Human Spring
  • which will be more like
    • Occupy or
    • the Yellow Vests
  • than traditional politics.
  • I anticipate a grassroots movement
    • characterized by
      • general strikes,
      • political action,
      • protest and
      • widespread disruption of the economy
    • that will confront the economic and political system of the West.
  • Lead by the young, ultimately this will lead to large-scale political reforms, such as
    • universal health care,
    • direct democracy,
    • a new set of rights for individuals and
    • a large set of checks on the power of
      • corporations and
      • political parties.
  • For example,
    • eliminating corporate contributions to political campaigns,
    • countering monopolies and
    • effectively accounting for economic externalities, like carbon.

-for: quote, quote - Jennifer Jarratt, quote - progress trap, progress trap, unintended consequences, technology - unintended consequences, quote - unintended consequences, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap - quote: with new technologies come new crimes and criminals – opportunities for all! - author: Jennifer Jarratt - co-principal of Leading Futurists LLC

• for: quote, quote - Robert Epstein, quote - search engine bias,quote - future of democracy, quote - tilting elections, quote - progress trap, progress trap, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap, indyweb - support, future - education
• quote
  • The big tech companies, left to their own devices , have already had a net negative effect on societies worldwide.
  • At the moment, the three big threats these companies pose
    • aggressive surveillance,
    • arbitrary suppression of content,
      • the censorship problem, and
    • the subtle manipulation of
      • thoughts,
      • behaviors,
      • votes,
      • purchases,
      • attitudes and
      • beliefs
    • are unchecked worldwide
• author: Robert Epstein
  • senior research psychologist at American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology
• paraphrase
  • Epstein's organization is building two technologies that assist in combating these problems:
    • passively monitor what big tech companies are showing people online,
    • smart algorithms that will ultimately be able to identify online manipulations in realtime:
      • biased search results,
      • biased search suggestions,
      • biased newsfeeds,
      • platform-generated targeted messages,
      • platform-engineered virality,
      • shadow-banning,
      • email suppression, etc.
  • Tech evolves too quickly to be managed by laws and regulations,
    • but monitoring systems are tech, and they can and will be used to curtail the destructive and dangerous powers of companies like Google and Facebook on an ongoing basis.
• reference
  • seminar paper on monitoring systems, ‘Taming Big Tech -: https://is.gd/K4caTW.

• for: progress traps, progress, unintended consequences, technology - unintended consequences, unintended consequences - technology, unintended consequences - digital technology, progress trap - quotations, quote, quote - progress trap
• title: Experts Predict More Digital Innovation by 2030 Aimed at Enhancing Democracy
• authors: emily A Vogels, Lee Rainie, Janna Anderson
• year: June 30, 2020
• description: a good source of quotations on progress traps / unintended consequences of digital technology from this Pew Research 2020 report on the future of the digital technology and democracy.
  • the Pew Research Center interviewed a lot of experts in the field
  • in particular, section 5 of the report entitled
    • "Tech causes more problems than it can solve" is quite salient for the topic of progress traps
  • The Indyweb actually addresses many of these problems:
    • https://opencollective.com/open-learning-commons/projects/indy-learning-commons

• for: quote, quote - Barry Chudakov, quote - progress trap, progress trap, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap, indyweb - support, future - education
• quote
• paraphrase
  • Technology’s greatest contribution to social and civic innovation in the next decade
  • will be to provide
    • accurate, user-friendly context and
    • honest assessment of
      • issues,
      • problems and
      • potential solutions / comment - indyweb /
  • We are facing greater accelerations of
    • climate change,
    • social mobility,
    • pollution,
    • immigration and
    • resource issues.
  • Our problems have gone from complicated to wicked.
  • We need
    • clear answers and
    • discussions that are
      • cogent,
      • relevant and
      • true to facts.
  • Technology must guard against becoming a platform to enable targeted chaos,
  • that is, using technology as a means to
    • obfuscate and
    • manipulate.
  • We are all now living in Sim City:
  • The digital world is showing us a sim,
    • or digital mirror,
  • of each aspect of reality.
  • The most successful social and civic innovation I expect to see by 2030
  • is a massive restructuring of our educational systems based on new and emerging mirror digital worlds. / comment: This bodes well for Indyweb for education/
  • We will then need to expand our information presentations to include
    • verifiable factfulness that ensures any digital presentation faithfully and
    • accurately matches the physical realities.
  • Just as medicine went from
    • bloodletting and leeches and lobotomies to
    • open-heart surgery and artificial limbs,
  • technology will begin to modernize information flows around core issues: urgent need, future implications, accurate assessment.
  • Technology can play a crucial role to move humanity
    • from blame fantasies
    • to focused attention and working solutions.”

• for: corporate power, technology - capitalism, capitalism - exploitation, Danah Boyd, progress trap
• paraphrase
• quote
  • technology in the U.S. is caught up in American late-stage (or financialized) capitalism
    • where profitability isn’t the goal;
    • perpetual return on investment is.
  • Given this, the tools that we’re seeing developed by corporations
  • reinforce capitalist agendas.
  • Innovation will require pushing past this capitalist infrastructure to achieve the social benefits and civic innovation that will work in the United States.
  • China is a whole other ball of wax.
  • If you want to go there, follow up with me. But pay attention to Taobao centers.
  • We haven’t hit peak awful yet.
  • I have every confidence that social and civic innovation can be beneficial in the long run
    • with a caveat that I think that climate change dynamics might ruin all of that
  • but no matter what, I don’t think we’re going to see significant positive change by 2030.
  • I think things are going to get much worse before they start to get better.
  • I should also note that I don’t think that many players have taken responsibility for what’s unfolding. -Yes, tech companies are starting to see that things might be a problem,
    • but that’s only on the surface. -News media does not at all acknowledge its role in amplifying discord,
    • or its financialized dynamics.
  • The major financiers of this economy don’t take any responsibility for what’s unfolding. Etc.
• author: Dana Boyd
  • principal researcher, Microsoft Research
  • founder, Data & Society

• for: progress trap, unintended consequence, unintended consequence - digital technology, quote, quote - progress trap, quote - Doc Searls
• quote
  • What won’t change is people’s tendency toward gossip,
    • tribalism driven by gossip and the ability of anybody to inform anybody else about anything,
      • including wrongly.
  • The only places where news won’t skew fake will be localities in the natural world.
  • That’s where the digital and the physical connect best.
  • Also expect the internet to break into pieces, with
    • the U.S.,
    • Europe and
    • China
  • becoming increasingly isolated by different value systems and governance approaches toward
    • networks and
    • what runs on them.

• for: progress trap, unintended consequence, unintended consequence - digital technology, quote, quote - progress trap, quote - David Weinberger
• quote: I see no reason to think that the current situation will change:
  • Tech will cause problems that require innovative solutions and
  • tech will be part of those solutions.
  • Machine learning (ML) is right now an example of this
• author: David Weinberger
  • senior researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

• for: progress trap, unintended consequence, unintended consequence - digital technology, quote, quote - progress trap, quote - Jonathan Grudin
• quote: Can our fundamental human need for close community be restored or
  • will we become more isolated, anxious and susceptible to manipulation?
• author: Jonathan Grudin
  • principal researcher, Microsoft