... yet we're fine running Google Analytics on our own site, of course. Please like and share this article using the <i>f</i> button on the left.<p>(Of course it's better being a hypocrite than being completely indifferent but there's no excuse for not fixing their own site.)
Herbert Simon, Nobel laureate in economics and one of the fathers of AI, wrote one of the better treatments of the possible future of computer-based data systems in his 1977 essay "What Computers Mean for Man and Society". In it, he addresses concerns:<p>"The privacy issue has been raised most insistently with respect to the creation and maintenance of longitudinal data files that assemble information about persons from a multitude of sources. Files of this kind would be highly valueable for many kinds of economic and social research, but they are bought at too high a price if they endanger human freedom or seriously enhance the opportunities of blackmailers. While such dangers should not be ignored, it should be noted that the lack of comprehensive data files has never been the limiting barrier to the suppression of human freedom. The Watergate criminals made extensive, if unskillful, use of electronics, but no computer played a role in their conspiracy. The Nazis operated with horrifying effectiveness and thoroughness without the benefits of any kind of mechanized data processing."<p><a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a9e7/33e25ee8f67d5e670b3b7dc4b8c3e00849ae.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a9e7/33e25ee8f67d5e670b3b7d...</a><p>There is, of course, one slight problem with Simon's argument: The Nazis <i>did</i> make heavy use of mechanised data processing, provided and supported by IBM. Edwin Black documents this meticulously in his book <i>IBM and the Holocaust</i>:<p><a href="https://ibmandtheholocaust.com" rel="nofollow">https://ibmandtheholocaust.com</a><p>Whether or not it's possible to transact genocide at similar scale without computerised data records, it's quite clearly far easier to do so <i>with</i> them. Worse, with comprehensive records and rapid identification of any particular meddlesome priest, activist artist, or woman who was warned but nevertheless persisted, it's possible for such regimes, state or non-state, to dip in and retaliate with pinpoint effectiveness. Even the mere suggestion that this is possible can be extraordinarily chilling.<p><a href="https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/103059230160200494" rel="nofollow">https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius/103059230160200494</a>