[ExI] disruptive technologies and tobacco products: was RE: (no subject)

Sat May 7 17:26:56 UTC 2016

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki
Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2016 9:24 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: [ExI] (no subject)

Evil attacked again:

http://www.empr.com/news/new-fda-rule-extends-regulation-to-e-cigs-hookah-cigars/article/494629/?DCMP=EMC-MPR_DailyDose_rd <http://www.empr.com/news/new-fda-rule-extends-regulation-to-e-cigs-hookah-cigars/article/494629/?DCMP=EMC-MPR_DailyDose_rd&cpn=Copaxone69726&hmSubId=&hmEmail=dgaoEN5eY-8KzeZ5fFb0Xi0gb47GIyfLMhkOjt7-LyE1&NID=1841350915&c_id=&dl=0&spMailingID=14410983&spUserID=MjQzMDE0MjAxMDIxS0&spJobID=780377744&spReportId=NzgwMzc3NzQ0S0> &cpn=Copaxone69726&hmSubId=&hmEmail=dgaoEN5eY-8KzeZ5fFb0Xi0gb47GIyfLMhkOjt7-LyE1&NID=1841350915&c_id=&dl=0&spMailingID=14410983&spUserID=MjQzMDE0MjAxMDIxS0&spJobID=780377744&spReportId=NzgwMzc3NzQ0S0

>…Note how they lie - they say "tobacco" products in relation to things that have absolutely no connection to tobacco at all.

Dr. Rafal, note carefully sir: the “hookah” regulations apply only if it contains tobacco.  In California and a growing number of states, hookahs are fine, welcome even, so long as they contain marijuana.  As dope drifts towards legality, tobacco is meeting it coming the other way.

Sheesh how did we get here?  Is this really the government we deserve?  What did we do?

Think on this, my disruptive technology friends: are not we all guilty of cheering for every disruptive technology?  We don’t really even think all that much about whether it is good or bad, just so long as it is disruptive.  I plead guilty.  I love the smell of disruptive technology in the morning.  It smells like PROGRESS!  Woohoo!

OK fine, but disrupting has its consequences and not all of them are good.  One day we wake up and simultaneously exclaim in appalled exasperation: Wait, what?

Think about it, all of us who were openness advocates, those tempted by that catchy phrase: information wants to be free.

Cool!  Sure, so now anything anyone does or makes, any intellectual property, any performance, can be copied and posted to the internet, so anyone can access it free.  So now, we must say goodbye to all those big polished corporate efforts at entertainment, such as… the big headline rock groups from the 1970s for instance.  You couldn’t really have anything analogous to Fleetwood Mac today.  Reason: those big productions were paid for by album sales.  Now… they couldn’t create a credible business model from that.  So, all these new entertainment forms have a common requirement: they must cost almost nothing to make.

OK then, that gives us rap, hip-hop and reality TV.  Pretty soon, we get a reality TV star running for high office, which ordinarily would be OK since it would laughed away and forgotten… except when his opponent is the head of a crime family.  Then we get the classic alarming Wait What moment, when we realize that disruptive technologies disrupt things, and there are consequences.

You bring up the hookah business.  It has never been at all clear to me that the Fed has the constitutional authority to regulate plants.  I can’t read that authority into anything in the enumerated powers.  Anyone?  I don’t easily see where I can even derive a constitution-based law against hacking by guessing passwords.  That secure in letters and effects business refers to what the government may not do, not what hackers may not do.  Ja?  Dr. Rafal?

Stop, think please: we have this Romanian hacker guy who is serving hard prison time for guessing passwords.  Prison, for guessing passwords!  One of our own leading POTUS candidates is arguing that we should not believe his very plausible comments because he is in prison for guessing and exploiting a security weakness created by the victim.  At the same time, this candidate says we should believe her, after she offers one silly contradiction after another, such as: “…I don’t know how it works digitally at all…” while simultaneously assuring us her unsecured server was never hacked.  Simultaneously, those who really do know exactly how it works digitally at all tell us this non-intrusion cannot be determined, while this Romanian guy who knows how it works digitally at all tells us he did hack it, that it was easy, that anyone could do it, even without any particular motive or special training.

Meanwhile… the person who “does not know how it works digitally at all” assures us by offering evidence the hacked didn’t get in: he didn’t leak anything.  But he offered a perfectly plausible explanation for why he didn’t leak anything: he wasn’t interested in that, it was just political junk, no bikini photos of hot Romanian bureaucrats.  The person who doesn’t know how it works digitally at all has been telling us about vast other-wing conspiracies for so long it is just inconceivable that everything really isn’t about some vast conspiracy.  Indeed?

Oh evolution, the next follows the next, and there are no exit ramps here that I can find.  A former Secretary of State did state business on an unsecured server while not knowing how it works digitally at all, the server was apparently hacked by any amateur and most probably multiple foreign military IT teams who damn sure do know how it works digitally at all, in such a way that leaves no footprints, or if so, the footprints were intentionally wiped while under subpoena, which is destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice.  And yet… our reality TV voter base still doesn’t get why this is such a threat.

How hard is it to imagine a 3am call:  POTUS, I need a little favor over here that will require a couple of good divisions of US Marines, no make it three, and an air wing, and toss in a carrier please.  I have a neighbor state bugging me with yooooga routines and wedding plans, that sort of thing, you know, really private stuff.  I need some of your best troops on the ground to deal with that. Now.

How did we get here?  Is this scenario so implausible?  Why?  Do reassure me please, those of you who do know how it works digitally at all.

Congratulations disruptive technology fans.  We did this to us.  Disruption is cool.  But it has its consequences.

spike

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