A decent percentage of Gen X and early millennials grew up familiar with computers. You kind of had to be, to some extent. Stuff didn’t always work smoothly or easily, so some tinkering and understanding of how things work beneath the surface was required.

We’re moving towards a future where a computer becomes just like an appliance, like a TV. Both the hardware and software will be locked down and set up to work. You just tap and press buttons to get it to do its thing.

Eventually, we may even get to the point where computers are required to be locked down “for our safety”.

If we get that far, then I can imagine those who want to build their own and have full freedom to install and customise it any way they want could be considered the very fringe/fanatical elements of society.

“Hey, you want an illegal unauthorised computer, why on earth would you need that, are you a terrorist or criminal or something?”

I hope things don’t go quite that far. But I don’t think it’s out of the question.

It’s a good point/observation.

Makes me wonder how different things might be if the mainstream media were more neutral and less prone to sensationalising everything and stirring outrage.

Social media just adds another layer on top of this.

This would be a win for Facebook and Twitter/X.

Damn, haven’t thought about that book for many years.

The concept behind the story seems a lot less fictional/unlikely than it used to 20yrs ago!

“Analyzing several high-profile accidents involving complex and automated socio-technical systems and the media coverage that surrounded them, I introduce the concept of a moral crumple zone to describe how responsibility for an action may be misattributed to a human actor who had limited control over the behavior of an automated or autonomous system. Just as the crumple zone in a car is designed to absorb the force of impact in a crash, the human in a highly complex and automated system may become simply a component—accidentally or intentionally—that bears the brunt of the moral and legal responsibilities when the overall system malfunctions. While the crumple zone in a car is meant to protect the human driver, the moral crumple zone protects the integrity of the technological system, at the expense of the nearest human operator.”<

Great. Humans taking the fall for technology.

Thanks for sharing.

All too often the free and open alternatives (or these days even just the non-subscription alternatives!) involve compromising some features or convenience.

But not always.

Same as Australian carriers. Mine is $A10 /day (about $7 USD). If you’re travelling for a long time the cost can eventually add up and it’s possible to get some cheaper travel sims. But it’s just so much easier to not do anything and use your phone as normal.

Big improvement from the old days of roaming.