I am just quite old enough to remember the late 90's/early aughts dotcom craze. The vibe in software feels very similar to me - back then I remember ad-riddled pages that'd spam you with popups and sometimes malware, all in the same fever pitch to eek out every possible penny so they could show revenue for their overpriced valuations. The web was seen as a gold mine that if you weren't pillaging, you were actively losing - until it all imploded.
The look and feel of a lot of web pages today (invasive ads taking up disproportionate amount of the page) reminds me a lot of that time, even without going to the dotcom parallels we have with the current hype cycle.
vanschelven · 6h ago
Keep Control of Your Computing, So It Doesn't Control You!
For all his idiosyncratic traits, Stallman was remarkably prescient about many things.
fipar · 2h ago
Absolutely, though I think sadly his idiosyncratic traits played against his message (and I say this as a big rms fan).
I think it's similar with the original post. Regardless of how I feel about present-day computing, I think comparing it with war devices designed to maim and kill people, and that can (and do) keep maiming and killing people long after a war is over isn't going to be very effective.
thomastjeffery · 14m ago
It seems like most of those traits stem from an overall consistency in ethical perspective.
I think Stallman figured out early on how much he valued collaboration over competition, and liberty over authority; and moved on naturally from there.
theK · 5h ago
Gold point! But, the real world is so far gone by now that fully GPLed computing isnt realistic right now. I would first try to push for more users of non corporate OSes for the beginning, let's say more /e/ more lineage more graphene OS users. And maybe cool alternatives to Maps applications like OSMand
fmajid · 6h ago
Not a good term. Anti-personnel mines do exactly what they are intended to do. These devices/software do something against the interests of the user in the process of doing something the user actually wants (otherwise why would the user even get them?).
Perhaps "Faustian computing"?
ygjb · 54m ago
Well, anti-personnel mines should function as expected for the primary user. The classic "Front Toward Enemy" is the basic UI that illustrates who the primary user is. The secondary users may want to file a ticket about the user experience.
That said, I think more lovecraftian horrors that have taken on their own life, aided by the human creation of corporations...
I don't recall where I first saw it, but this is fairly apt :P
---
Did anyone notice how quickly the internet turned into a Lovecraftian horror scenario?
Like we’ve got this dimension right next to ours, that extends across the entire planet, and it is just brimming with nightmares. We have spambots, viruses, ransomware, this endless legion of malevolent entities that are blindly probing us for weaknesses, seeking only to corrupt, to thieve, to destroy.
Add onto that the corrupted ones themselves, humans who’ve abandoned morality and given up faces to hunt other people, jeering them, lashing out, seeing how easy it is to kill something you can’t touch or see or smell. They’ll corrupt anything they think could be a vessel for their message and they’ll jabber madly at any who question them. Their chittering haunts every corner of the internet. They are not unlike the spambots in some ways.
Add on top of that the arcane magisters, who are forever working at the cracks between our world and the world we made. Some of them do it for fun, some of them do it for wealth, others do it for the power of nations unwise enough to trust them. There are mages who work to defend against this particular evil, but they are mad prophets, and their advice is almost never heeded, even by those who keep them as protection.
Zambyte · 5h ago
Anti-personnel computers also do exactly what they're intended to do. The interests of the subject are not considered a priority, just like with mines.
> otherwise why would the user even get them?
Why does a moth fly into a flame?
Modified3019 · 22m ago
Moths (and other insects) evolved to use transverse orientation to fly level at night by using distant bodies of light (stars, moon), essentially trying to fly perpendicular to light above.
Sources of light which are physically close disrupt this instinct.
Thinking of the complex systems terms of "coarse-graining" (moving up into higher level systems/astronomical/above scale) and "fine-graining" (moving down into human/biological/below levels).
Utility of anti-personnel mines is at system level of state war (no human-level participant meaningfully "wants" its effect on another human).
Utility of anti-personnel computing is the same -- compute resources used to benefit of system, but to detriment of human actor below.
The difference is we don't equally understand the battle damage we take to our minds the way we understand battle damage to our biology. This might change though
EDIT: but yes, there are some differences thru this lens that make the metaphor a bit strained
bestouff · 3h ago
This is because you got the "user" part slightly wrong. The real users of your smartphone are countless ads companies, media giants or even some government services.
webdoodle · 1h ago
Yep. Big tech is the user, you are the product. The smartphone is just the interface.
sifar · 1h ago
I was discussing this with my son the other day. We have a Faustian bargain with technology in general, not just computing.
red_trumpet · 4h ago
> Anti-personnel mines do exactly what they are intended to do. These devices/software do something against the interests of the user in the process of doing something the user actually wants
Actually, I think you got it backwards: Anti-personnel mines are highly problematic especially when they are not needed anymore. They often linger in the ground for extended times after a conflict and are a cause of death and injuries in civilians, who just want to live their lives. Contrary to this, anti-personnel computing is problematic in the times when civilians are incentivized to use it.
liotier · 3h ago
> Anti-personnel mines are highly problematic especially when they are not needed anymore
When immediate survival is at stake, the future is heavily discounted. Slow and channel the attacker now, and consider the demining cost later - if you survived the war.
rixed · 5h ago
At the contrary, to me the term evoked exactly what the author meant.
And after the series of detonations of the communication devices in Lebanon some time ago, the analogy with anti-personnel mines takes an even more concrete and sinister meaning.
cess11 · 5h ago
Where in this do you see the connection to worldly, scientific, knowledge?
The word antifeature can describe a feature that the designer doesn't want. That's usually the scenario I experience it in, and it's a good fit for it.
Anti-personnel describes more precisely, the perverse prioritization of a 3rd party's goals over the end user's goals.
Tepix · 7h ago
It's all in the software. Avoiding systems that work against you is harder than ever. Even our brains betray us, falling for the dopamine rushes expertly assembled by the exploiters.
An unchecked drive for profit maximisation is often at the source of this evil. Cory Doctorow has expertly described the phenomenon in his essays¹ about enshittification, a term he coined. He has raised a lot of awareness, yet we're still in a timeline where non-profit, decentralised services have small market shares. Perhaps the Leidensdruck, i.e. the degree of suffering, is not yet great enough?
> Even our brains betray us, falling for the dopamine rushes expertly assembled by the exploiters.
I had this discussion with other people who deleted their account at some website that can be considered "social media" in a broader sense. They told me that the reason why they deleted their accounts was that they realized that these bursts of dopamine rush that they got from the respective site was not good for them.
I, on the other hand, have never felt this kind of dopamine rush, even though I was a likely even more active user on the respective site. My reason for really wanting to delete my whole account was "purely logical" (I hated a lot of decisions that the respective company made).
What I want to tell with this story is that I thus see strong evidence that the "sensitivity" of people for dopamine rushes from websites/games varies a lot between people (and I am very likely one who is at least "mostly" immune to them).
Really: if I had to name one thing that gives me dopamine rushes that are so much more intense (I would say: "multiple magnitudes more intense") than any dopamine rush that I got from any social media site that I visited, then I would say "understanding deep mathematical proofs and strongly simplifying them" (but I agree that these dopamine rushes are earned much more toughly :-) ).
flobosg · 2h ago
> the Leidensdruck, i.e. the degree of suffering
A literal translation (the pressure of suffering) sounds more meaningful to me.
pjc50 · 7h ago
Eh. I think "user hostile" or "hostile architecture" (like unsleepable benches) is a better analogy, reserving anti-personnel for those cases where computers are used in genuinely dangerous ways. Like the Chinese ethnicity-recognizing security cameras.
alabastervlog · 3h ago
Or certain pagers.
keisborg · 5h ago
I love term how it plays on the words and the negative association we have with anti-personell mines
If we could have a ban on anti-personell computers…
casey2 · 4h ago
anti-personal computing: data collection, closed ecosystem, dark patterns, opaque programs, central control
anti-personnel computing: the use of a computing system to target, harm, control or neutralize individuals
The look and feel of a lot of web pages today (invasive ads taking up disproportionate amount of the page) reminds me a lot of that time, even without going to the dotcom parallels we have with the current hype cycle.
from https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/keep-control-of-your-computin...
I think it's similar with the original post. Regardless of how I feel about present-day computing, I think comparing it with war devices designed to maim and kill people, and that can (and do) keep maiming and killing people long after a war is over isn't going to be very effective.
I think Stallman figured out early on how much he valued collaboration over competition, and liberty over authority; and moved on naturally from there.
Perhaps "Faustian computing"?
That said, I think more lovecraftian horrors that have taken on their own life, aided by the human creation of corporations...
I don't recall where I first saw it, but this is fairly apt :P
---
Did anyone notice how quickly the internet turned into a Lovecraftian horror scenario?
Like we’ve got this dimension right next to ours, that extends across the entire planet, and it is just brimming with nightmares. We have spambots, viruses, ransomware, this endless legion of malevolent entities that are blindly probing us for weaknesses, seeking only to corrupt, to thieve, to destroy.
Add onto that the corrupted ones themselves, humans who’ve abandoned morality and given up faces to hunt other people, jeering them, lashing out, seeing how easy it is to kill something you can’t touch or see or smell. They’ll corrupt anything they think could be a vessel for their message and they’ll jabber madly at any who question them. Their chittering haunts every corner of the internet. They are not unlike the spambots in some ways.
Add on top of that the arcane magisters, who are forever working at the cracks between our world and the world we made. Some of them do it for fun, some of them do it for wealth, others do it for the power of nations unwise enough to trust them. There are mages who work to defend against this particular evil, but they are mad prophets, and their advice is almost never heeded, even by those who keep them as protection.
> otherwise why would the user even get them?
Why does a moth fly into a flame?
Sources of light which are physically close disrupt this instinct.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44785-3
Utility of anti-personnel mines is at system level of state war (no human-level participant meaningfully "wants" its effect on another human).
Utility of anti-personnel computing is the same -- compute resources used to benefit of system, but to detriment of human actor below.
The difference is we don't equally understand the battle damage we take to our minds the way we understand battle damage to our biology. This might change though
EDIT: but yes, there are some differences thru this lens that make the metaphor a bit strained
Actually, I think you got it backwards: Anti-personnel mines are highly problematic especially when they are not needed anymore. They often linger in the ground for extended times after a conflict and are a cause of death and injuries in civilians, who just want to live their lives. Contrary to this, anti-personnel computing is problematic in the times when civilians are incentivized to use it.
When immediate survival is at stake, the future is heavily discounted. Slow and channel the attacker now, and consider the demining cost later - if you survived the war.
https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2007/fall/antifeatures/
Anti-personnel describes more precisely, the perverse prioritization of a 3rd party's goals over the end user's goals.
An unchecked drive for profit maximisation is often at the source of this evil. Cory Doctorow has expertly described the phenomenon in his essays¹ about enshittification, a term he coined. He has raised a lot of awareness, yet we're still in a timeline where non-profit, decentralised services have small market shares. Perhaps the Leidensdruck, i.e. the degree of suffering, is not yet great enough?
--
¹ https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/
I had this discussion with other people who deleted their account at some website that can be considered "social media" in a broader sense. They told me that the reason why they deleted their accounts was that they realized that these bursts of dopamine rush that they got from the respective site was not good for them.
I, on the other hand, have never felt this kind of dopamine rush, even though I was a likely even more active user on the respective site. My reason for really wanting to delete my whole account was "purely logical" (I hated a lot of decisions that the respective company made).
What I want to tell with this story is that I thus see strong evidence that the "sensitivity" of people for dopamine rushes from websites/games varies a lot between people (and I am very likely one who is at least "mostly" immune to them).
Really: if I had to name one thing that gives me dopamine rushes that are so much more intense (I would say: "multiple magnitudes more intense") than any dopamine rush that I got from any social media site that I visited, then I would say "understanding deep mathematical proofs and strongly simplifying them" (but I agree that these dopamine rushes are earned much more toughly :-) ).
A literal translation (the pressure of suffering) sounds more meaningful to me.
If we could have a ban on anti-personell computers…
anti-personnel computing: the use of a computing system to target, harm, control or neutralize individuals