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Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 16:12:04 JST Aral Balkan
@strypey @trib @laura @danhon Unfortunately the “industry” (if we’re talking about Silicon Valley/surveillance capitalism) isn’t actually interested in carrying out ethical design because it would involve scrapping their hugely profitable and fundamentally unethical business model (design starts at the funding and business model of the organisation). When Big Tech says they want ethical design, they mean they want better PR.

In conversation about a year ago from mastodon.ar.al permalink
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  Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 16:46:52 JST Mastodon Migration
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  @aral @strypey @trib @laura @danhon
  Exactly. How did things get so F'ed up that every single tech product is now designed with two customer groups in mind. Those who will use the product and the F'ing data brokers who will pay for the personal information of those who use the product. In most cases this second group of bloodsuckers is the more important and lucrative customer.
  How does "ethical" fit into any part of this design paradigm?
  #SurveillanceCapitalism
  
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  Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 16:46:52 JST Aral Balkan
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  @mastodonmigration @strypey @trib @laura @danhon Because they are, and have always been, colonialists. This is the colonialist mindset. They are the white man bringing the fire. And the fire always comes with terms and conditions attached. The white man brings the fire not to share the warmth and illumination but to light his way by burning the other.
  https://www.bbc.co.uk/ideas/videos/surveillance-capitalism-has-led-us-into-a-dystopia/p06p0tdy
  #capitalism #colonialism #design
  
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  Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 16:51:25 JST Aral Balkan
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  @mastodonmigration @strypey @trib @laura @danhon (Also only one of those two groups is the customer, the other is the “user” – the person who is sold* to the customer.)
  * Rented, really. You’re too valuable to sell. If I’m Big Tech and I own you – the profile of you; the proxy, the algorithmic approximation you – I’m not going to sell that, I’m going to hold onto it forever and lease access to it to others.
  
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  Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 17:25:12 JST Aral Balkan
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  @mastodonmigration @strypey @trib @laura @danhon Exactly, yes.
  Preaching to the choir here but I’ve been trying to get folks to understand that for a decade now :)
  https://ar.al/talks/
  “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair
  In conversation about a year ago permalink
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  1. Domain not in remote thumbnail source whitelist: ar.al
    
    Talks
    
    I’ve given hundreds of talks over the last two decades and beyond. Here are a few of my favourites in chronological order so you can see how my focus and thoughts have evolved through the years. I hope you enjoy them. PS. If you want me to speak about the Small Web at your event, feel free to send a short message to mail@ar.al with the details. PPS. You can see Laura and me live every third Thursday of the month on Small is Beautiful, which we stream from our own Owncast server.
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  Mastodon Migration (mastodonmigration@mastodon.online)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 17:25:13 JST Mastodon Migration
  in reply to
  @aral @strypey @trib @laura @danhon
  Excellent video Aral!
  Another analogy that you might consider is creative vs. extractive enterprise. In creative enterprise, a product is constructed from materials that cost less than people will pay for it. In extractive enterprise, something of value taken, with the cost being the mining operation. In surveillance capitalism it is the customer base's personal data that is being mined, in an extractive enterprise business model.
  #SurveillanceCapitalism
  
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  Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 17:47:44 JST Aral Balkan
  in reply to
  @cmw @danhon @strypey @trib @laura Make it the whole damn system. If you’re founding a VC-funded startup (aka a startup), or the CEO of one pre/post exit, there’s nothing you can do to make it ethical. Venture capital is an unethical, colonial, extractive funding model that creates unethical, colonial, extractive corporations. Ethics, in the corporate model, is the purview of the public relations department.
  
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  Chris (cmw@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 17:47:45 JST Chris
  in reply to
  @aral
  So original quote by @danhon, but instead of designers make it CEOs/founders? @strypey @trib @laura
  
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  Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Sunday, 24-Sep-2023 17:55:31 JST Aral Balkan
  in reply to
  @cmw @danhon @strypey @trib @laura (In other words, you can practice #decoration, not #design, to make something look or sound ethical. Many times when folks say “design”, what they’re really talking about is decoration. Decoration is when you take something fundamentally unethical and sugarcoat it to try and mask the malodorous scent of the rot at its core and make it more palatable.)
  https://vimeo.com/281704944
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  1. Aral Balkan: Speech at IxDA Berlin – Design or Decoration?
    
    from Small Technology Foundation
    
    This is "Aral Balkan: Speech at IxDA Berlin – Design or Decoration?" by Small Technology Foundation on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and…

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