And people are suddenly surprised there is strong anti-vaccine movement. This kind of things is the real reason for it.
From the producer who decides to reduce the amount of good in a box, while keeping the packaging and price tag the same, to the grocery store clerk that sells you meat that was already twice washed with dishwashing liquid to appear fresh (a very common practice), to the company that regularly sends you 4W LEDs when you order 5W hoping you won't notice, and if you challenge them they'll tell you it was a factory labeling mistake, to the smartphone vendor that tells you about amazing experience and then sells you equipment loaded with so much crapware that you cringe every time you turn it on - everyone around you is out there to get you. So many businesses try to fuck you over, all the time, and they totally get away with it.
And then everyone is surprised people have trust issues. It's hard enough to get people to install any kind of updates in the first place - and how we're expected to have a secure Internet if people have a very good reason not to install new versions of things?
Seriously - companies like Oracle, like Ask.com, like Lenovo, SuperFish, like Uber and like so many, many others - start-ups, mom&pop's, medium companies, big corporations - they all found a very profitable business model: taking the common value of trust we have in society and burning it to earn money. And I guess it works well - if you're an executive who's going to get a pay raise and maybe a promotion for literally shitting on the faces of your customers, when why wouldn't you do it? Well, except of having any decency at all?
Whoever decided to bundle this crapware with Java Runtime, if you're reading this - you're actively contributing to one of the biggest problems our civilization is facing. You should feel responsible. The next time someone dies because he refused to follow established procedures out of lack of trust, this is - in a small but important part - on you.
It may feel like I'm exaggerating here, but just look around and think for a minute. The collapse of trust we see in contemporary society is raising to the level of becoming an existential threat for our civilization. And I wish I knew a way how to reverse it...
Not at all. OP is pointing to a common underlying social dysfunction. We live in a hierarchically exploitative society, which contributes to the global collapse of trust.
I'm sure if it were somehow possible and legal to bundle some kind of mind-control adware into a vaccine that forces you to buy the sponsor's brands, someone would be doing it.
> We live in a hierarchically exploitative society, which contributes to the global collapse of trust.
Indeed. And I think people sometimes don't realize that this trust on society-level is literally the one thing that separates us from being savages. Not our technology, not our military, not the scientific advances, not the democracy, but bonds of trust are what keeps civilization from falling apart.
> I'm sure if it were somehow possible and legal to bundle some kind of mind-control adware into a vaccine that forces you to buy the sponsor's brands, someone would be doing it.
Then it would be detected, someone would get fired, company would pay some huge fines to FDA of WHO or whomever, at best maybe regulations would also be updated, and then everything would be business as usual. Everything, except the trust people just lost - because seeing the corruption everywhere, what possible reason would they have to believe that the new regulations will be effective at preventing such event from happening again?
> ...seeing the corruption everywhere, what possible reason would they have to believe...
This is a fundamental truth that needs to be realized now if there is to be any hope of preventing our slide from a democratic republic into a new form of feudalism. More specifically, a financially stable democratic republic into a feudal society that dissembles, victim-blames, and makes shows of force to hide a useless economy and defaulted obligations.
The trust and respect that being destroyed by both business and government is also what the finance pundits refer to when they talk about "confidence in the market". When many people start observing that "rule of law" and "meeting of the minds" as used by everyday business interactions have become a double-standard that will be enforced in only one direction, the rational conclusion[1] is to respond with the same lack of trust and respect.
I am of the opinion that we already reached this point. A lot of people already deeply mistrust large business, and w4 only have to look at the evening news to see the level of confidence most people have in the economy. We're simply waiting for a spark to ignite the situation. I actually thought the fast-food employee situation[2] was going to be that spark last year, but it seems that problem has been put on hold for the moment.
Meanwhile, we get to deal with the collaborators that work to maintain the current situation by trying to explain away bad behavior like this Lenovo/Superfish stupidity. I hope they like the future they are creating...
[1] why? see the "tit-for-tat" solution to the iterated prisoner's dilemma
This text from [2] was one of the most heart-breaking pieces I read recently. I knew the situation was bad, having a friend who used to work in restaurants - but the article has really driven the point home for me.
> When many people start observing that "rule of law" and "meeting of the minds" as used by everyday business interactions have become a double-standard that will be enforced in only one direction, the rational conclusion[1] is to respond with the same lack of trust and respect.
I've been thinking about the names we use in law and economics and I realized many have become just misleading labels. It's like a variable named m_iNameCount that points to a global array of instances of Thread class. And this leads to the common trick of those "collaborators" you described, the "motte-and-bailey"[0]-like argument. They will defend bad practices by saying, e.g. "it's value-added; surely adding value is good?", where everyone knows that value-added doesn't actually mean adding any real value for your customer.
>actively contributing to one of the biggest problems our civilization is facing.
Lets tone down the reddit style outrage politics and hyberbole eh? This is a common practice, while ugly, is barely noteworthy. This kind of fan-service tying it to vaccines is really out of bounds as well. There's no relationship here between the two.
It's not about outrage politics. I honestly believe there is a relationship between two and that this is a big problem.
Of course getting slapped in the face by a crapware-bundling Java update won't make you skip your kid's vaccination, but where do you think the lack of trust for doctors comes from? It's from living in a society where almost every organization you interact with tries to pull a fast one on you (if you don't believe that, go and talk with some antivaxxers - you'll quickly realized that they're not stupid - they're afraid and don't trust authorities because they see themselves getting constantly abused by them). So if you decide to abuse your user's trust for a quick buck because "it's a common practice", you're part of the problem - just like the girl who sold you that twice washed meat or the guy who insists that it's the factory that mislabeled the lightbulbs, even though your handy multimeter confirms what's on the label (EDIT: both are real examples I have direct knowledge of; heck, because I'm nice to the people working in my local grocery store, they discreetly signal me to pick something different when I want to buy meat that is old and was washed).
I do no such thing. Please read more closely. For the sake of clarity, let me explain this in other form.
1) Anti-vaccine movement = public health problem = dangerous.
2) Anti-vaccine movement comes from declining levels of trust in authorities.
3) Tricking your users into installing crapware = abusing them = making them trust your company less.
4) Being lied to and abused like that by pretty much every company all the time, in all sectors = people lose the general level of trust in organizations.
5) from 1), 2) and 4), lack of trust leads to actual danger.
6) from 3), by abusing your users you're contributing to actual danger.
"Contributing" doesn't mean you're fully responsible for the outcome - it means you're as responsible as your contribution is. It's a tragedy-of-commons thing.
> Anti-vaccine movement comes from declining levels of trust in authorities.
I'll just leave this relevant episode of [Last Week Tonight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQZ2UeOTO3I). While anti-vaxxers are clearly wrong let's acknowledge that health care, at least in the US, has been partially corrupted.
The thought that medical workers might be offering unsound advice in this one area when it's known they behaved unethically in that other area suddenly does not appear so unreasonable.
>> You are literally equating a toolbar with parents not vaccinating their children. I think you've lost a basic sense of perspective here.
He's saying:
1) Anti-vaxers don't trust corporation or the government - which is why they don't vax.
2) Corps/govs are repeatedly seen doing stuff for themselves at the expense of the public - this is where that lack of trust comes from.
3) Crapware and unwanted toolbars are an example of #2
It's a fairly direct contribution from 3 to 2 to 1. It's not that the crapware makes people fail to vaccinate. It's that the crapware is part of a widespread problem reinforcing the appearance of #2 which leads people to #1.
If the root cause of vaccination refusal is declining trust in institutions, and established corporate brands can be considered institutions, then intentionally diluting or weakening an established corporate brand can be seen as contributing in a very minor way to vaccination refusal.
If a person has never once encountered an institutional representative that is trustworthy, it is natural by human psychology (but not by formal logic) to conclude that such people do not exist. Then, when someone approaches, and relies upon institutional trustworthiness to accomplish a certain purpose, such as by invoking the CDC, the AMA, and medical colleges around the world to convince parents to vaccinate their child, what you absolutely do not want is for them frantically searching the paperwork for the checkbox that has to be unchecked in order to not give the kid autism (especially the Ask.com toolbar form of it) with their immunity.
It may be obvious to you that Oracle and physicians are different. But to many people, medicine and software are just different types of magic, and equally confusing. They might as well be alchemy and thaumaturgy. For them, using software is like following a recipe or performing a ritual. Everything they do not understand is equally magical.
Oracle contributes to the undermining of trust in the same way as the quick-lube mechanic that charges to refill the blinker fluid, or the home renovation contractor that does a bait-and-switch with the estimates, or the banker that issues a bunch of liar loans, or the public retirement plan administrator that invests in businesses owned by friends of the mayor, or the fed-cop who uses parallel construction on illegal surveillance data to catch a crook.
It creates an atmosphere of mistrust. That alone is not sufficient to bleed over into medicine, but the health care industry in the US is an enormous, corrupt clusterfuck. Anecdotes are not data, but a well-told story shapes public opinion in a measure far beyond statistical significance. One video documentary on YouTube is more impactful than a 200-page CDC report. If the CDC has no inherent trustworthiness, people will preferentially believe the thing they can understand.
It isn't Oracle's fault, in any measurable way, but they certainly are not helping. We need to be able to trust someone to not sell us out for a fraction of a penny.
Indeed. And so I'm not saying that it's Oracle that is destroying the trust in doctors - I only want to point out that they are contributing to the problem, via the mechanism you described. And that everyone else who's "selling you out for a fraction of a penny" is also contributing, and all those contributions add up to a very serious problem we're facing.
It's funny, because the kind of rip-offs you mention in your first paragraph seem to have been around for as long as trade existed. See for proof this 3,700-year-old sumerian clay tablet:
Yeah, I remember seeing it posted on HN. I wonder what methods they had back then to keep fraud in check, and how effective they were compared to ours, from the point of view of an average citizen.
Still, I think that our complex technological civilization needs a higher base level of trust for it to work than the civilization of Sumer, because we depend on it much more than ever in history.
From the producer who decides to reduce the amount of good in a box, while keeping the packaging and price tag the same, to the grocery store clerk that sells you meat that was already twice washed with dishwashing liquid to appear fresh (a very common practice), to the company that regularly sends you 4W LEDs when you order 5W hoping you won't notice, and if you challenge them they'll tell you it was a factory labeling mistake, to the smartphone vendor that tells you about amazing experience and then sells you equipment loaded with so much crapware that you cringe every time you turn it on - everyone around you is out there to get you. So many businesses try to fuck you over, all the time, and they totally get away with it.
And then everyone is surprised people have trust issues. It's hard enough to get people to install any kind of updates in the first place - and how we're expected to have a secure Internet if people have a very good reason not to install new versions of things?
Seriously - companies like Oracle, like Ask.com, like Lenovo, SuperFish, like Uber and like so many, many others - start-ups, mom&pop's, medium companies, big corporations - they all found a very profitable business model: taking the common value of trust we have in society and burning it to earn money. And I guess it works well - if you're an executive who's going to get a pay raise and maybe a promotion for literally shitting on the faces of your customers, when why wouldn't you do it? Well, except of having any decency at all?
Whoever decided to bundle this crapware with Java Runtime, if you're reading this - you're actively contributing to one of the biggest problems our civilization is facing. You should feel responsible. The next time someone dies because he refused to follow established procedures out of lack of trust, this is - in a small but important part - on you.
It may feel like I'm exaggerating here, but just look around and think for a minute. The collapse of trust we see in contemporary society is raising to the level of becoming an existential threat for our civilization. And I wish I knew a way how to reverse it...