The open source revolution is coming and it will conquer the 1% - ex CIA spy

a reply to: onequestion

This topic has been around for a long time, the open source revolution. I used to be a big believer. Now my view of it is a lot more nuanced.

The main defining tech trait of our time is "the cloud" (aka someone else's computer). For storing files and doing things. The iPhone celebrity nude leak was an example of some information on the cloud that would have only been available to apple administrators being "open sourced", and people were averse to that. In other words, people will choose situations where less people have compromising information on them. Take that fact and couple it with the fact that data mining techniques make almost any information on them compromising because of what can be deduced from it, and you have people averse to data being collected on them at all, especially if its available to the public in any form. Yet vast data collection on the lives of individuals for the improvement of all IS the open source revolution. We're already incredibly conditioned to fight against it in that form.

But its not hopeless, in fact there's all kinds of interesting things going on. There was this DARPA project I stumbled across some time ago... They pose questions about the future, and you get points for right predictions, and I think even money. I didn't participate much because it was all stuff on foreign affairs I don't know much about, but the idea is super strong: Its about using stock market/casino like principles for the evaluation of truth, and making that truth available. I think that kind of thing is the way forward, you get this really strong core of open source info, then you have private services that aid with life choices. Sort of personal intelligence for the masses, delivered through IT. That paradigm allows for the compartmentalization of private data and open data in the right way.

But as far as the 1%? These guys are sitting next to their new hires from the NSA with friends back there, they own the infrastructure this stuff is running on, and they could probably influence the consultancy services provided. Nothing about any of this will reduce their power. What I think could happen though, is it could awaken them to human potential of the masses as an untapped resource, and we could see things moving in a less predatorial direction, as they become more invested in human beings. That would be good.