SoylentNews

Bruce Schneier Recommends New Type of Technologist

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday October 13 2019, @03:11PM   
from the last-throes-of-public-culture dept.

jmichaelhudsondotnet writes:

https://public-interest-tech.com/

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.

---

Original Submission

• Re:Don't need any technologist (Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Monday October 14 2019, @04:31AM

  by deimtee (3272) on Monday October 14 2019, @04:31AM (#906839) Journal

  He should have known better than to say the stuff he did, and maybe he would have, if he had more awareness and respect for social mores. Perhaps someone from academia could do it, but who? By the time a top computer scientist achieves some fame, he or she is likely too old. Maybe an actor, such as Wil Wheaton? Or, should it be an organization such as the FSF or the EFF?

  If you read the transcripts without taking them out of context what he said was not objectionable. It was on a private list and was leaked and misquoted deliberately to knife him in the back. Office politics I guess.

  --
  No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10⁻²⁵ Mercury Sulphide comes close.

  Parent

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+1
  Informative=1, Total=1
  Extra 'Informative' Modifier		0
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		3

Privacy Policy: We don't track anyone except on this site, so DNT requests aren't relevant and are ignored. We don't collect any personally identifiable information from you except your email address, which: you can change at any time, never has to be real in the first place, is only used to contact you if necessary or requested, and we share with nobody.