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Mr. Schneier and friends have created a new website to promote a change to the socio-economic technical milieu we are currently facing.
He suggests we need to have "public interest technologists" to help the situation.
He writes:
"We need technologists who work in the public interest. We need public-interest technologists.
Defining this term is difficult. One Ford Foundation blog post described public-interest technologists as "technology practitioners who focus on social justice, the common good, and/or the public interest.""
Is he right? How can this be implemented without becoming as riddled with government agents, spies and mafias as the key positions of our corporations and institutions are right now?
Full disclosure: this writer has been a public interest technologist for a while now and I have actually alluded to the need for something like what is being suggested on multiple occasions, 'a different kind of organization' is the way I put it, way back a few months ago.
Discuss.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Sunday October 13 2019, @05:36PM (1 child)
But are not the "evil fatcat technologists" (or whatever we should refer to them as) still going to come out on top since they actually invent and own the tech. So this is just some kind of feelgood-funnel of taxmoney into their mouths? Since the public interest technologists are not owning anything, inventing anything or producing anything. Possibly or at best they are refining already existing products to fill some public good niche and using tax-money to pay for it, which there probably is a need for since the corporate overlords are not interesting in solving problems that doesn't generate profit -- after all that is why they are companies and it's their goal.
I don't think they are somehow going to come up with free hardware and software solutions that they hand out to anyone that wants it? Free as in paid for by taxmoney as actual free stuff doesn't actually exists when you add together the whole production chain.
Reading the site and a random selection of the links it seems that the common theme is that they want more interdisciplinary education, people can't just have one education anymore but it has to be a cross between multiple distinct fields. Beyond that it mostly comes of as the usual feelgood crowd trying to covet yet another job market, where they may or may not belong. Cause things have just turned out so swell in all these other tech projects as soon as the feelz-people come along with their codes of conducts and such important aspects of development ... hopefully it's not that again.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 13 2019, @05:43PM
Tax money for this can eat a dick. If the public thinks it's a good idea, appeal to the public directly. You know, like we do here. If they don't, then your monkey asses are not valued by society and need to fuck right off with taking society's wealth by force.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.