How Big Tech Steals Our Lives

[@Tawhiri-sz4wc]

This is why one of our right wing politicians wants to eliminate Treaty rights us Mãori have here in NZ because one of the principles looked at a modern framework lead to allowing us to have data sovereignty. This was so powerful that even Microsoft had to allow us sovereignty over our own data, and our data couldn't leave New Zealand shores without our permission.

[@gpugpugpu]

And yet big tech companies are selling this same sovereignty capability to western nation states like Isntreal

[@mobbcentral4675]

Oh that’s tight do you think we could manage to get a law like that on the books in the US

[@beast_pasta2392]

Kia ora, you're right that data colonialism can certainly be seen in NZ even though our media refuse to call it as such, which is ironic since they're suffering from that same right-wing politician's willingness to serve big tech, and I agree that the unending attack on the Treaty definitely plays into extinguishing Māori data sovereignty. Data is absolutely protected as a taonga under article 2 of Te Tiriti.

[@KootFloris]

This is very interesting. Perhaps a strange question. The Maori have treaty rights the Dutch have not (more often we're, or have been, the colonisers). Yet what arguments helped the Maori get Data sovereignty? Could it be an example for all peoples and or nations across the world? That would certainly hinder US colonisation and domination.

[@itsirrelevant4565]

Powers dat be got rid of assange, indigenous peoples, and they criminalized tobacco in Australia. Raised the property cost to keep people out of Australia and New Zealand because that’s where they are going to hide while they let the US & EU crumble. All part of the plan.

[@RemnantCult]

The modern IT world has me, someone who loves computers and has a career in programming, really disappointed in my field. There's so much good that can be done with technology yet all we see is that almighty worship of profit. In my field, the only true goal I have is to ensure that worship and it drains my soul. I have to focus on free and open source software and ways to use software for the betterment of communities and speak out against this age of techno pillaging and dehumanization so I don't start to break down from the weight of it all.

[@AileTheAlien]

🙂I'm hopeful for more software that exists outside of the big tech companies. Mastodon's done a pretty good job at supplanting Twitter ("X" 🤦‍♂), and I've got like, half a dozen bookmarks for projects that could replace Discord / Slack / whatever chat program. They all had slightly different features I think, and used the same federated back-end as Mastodon as I understood it. Gray jay and others can replace KZbin. My social circle basically just uses Facebook as a glorified contact-list, with occasional pictures of vacations. I think a good marketing campaign could help these corporate-software replacements be used by the average person. 👍

[@iamTakuu]

I feel you so hard- when people find out what I do, it’s always “woah! That’s sounds so cool”…and I just stare at them…if only you knew how bad it was. I studied game development, and while I love it as an art form which I think has so much much room to express so many more meaningful ideas, it’s pretty rough knowing how most popular games are just ways to pacify and extract $$$ from audiences. I love tech so much, but it’s really rough right now.

[@OutlawMaxV]

Right there with you friend, being privy to how this data is used and exploited is truly soul crushing knowledge

[@cwinchcarwash2629]

That must be really tough, but I'm so glad to hear someone like you holding that awareness and responsibility and determination to do better for the world :)

[@stoodmuffinpersonal3144]

I don't think it's half as radical as Andrew's, but. Have you seen Dan Olsen's video on the metaverse? Being basically boring slop? Andrew brings a much more, anti colonial, anarchist, political, interest frame work. Dan's is more like. A white, disappointed, IT Dad. Like. An engineer proud of his son getting into coding, only for the kid to hack Twitter so he can make Taylor Switf say "skippbidi deez 420 nutz into the brain rot toilet," from her official account. Lol. And just deep sighs from the dad. I think I'm somewhere inbetween, lol

[@andreerfabbro]

Also, don't forget that captchas you've been solving all this time are free labor for AI training. The recognition is not what makes the captcha distinguish you from a robot. Your mouse movement, clicks, pauses, time to type are tracked and that is what is actually analyzed by the captcha. The text or image recognition task you're completing is unpaid labor for big data companies used to make their AI tech work better.

[@Cnichal]

@@andreerfabbro 🫨never thought about it like that.

[@kussemeinkont]

also leaving comments on YT

[@andreerfabbro]

@@kussemeinkont !!!!!

[@Daniel-iy4zy]

Just my $0.02- (I’m only 2 min in so if you cover this, forgive me) The paywalls behind a lot of academic and scientific literature should be part of this conversation too. Something I often think about is the 2014 Ebola outbreak and how the disease had been mapped out since the 80’s, but that info hadn’t been disseminated to west African scientists and doctors during the epidemic because it was only posted among European and American academic communities, with paywalls as high as USD 40 per article

[@Siures]

Also AI is dumb because they can steal from us but not from these academic resources - not that I would recommend relying on AI anyway.

[@egresham02]

@Daniel-iy4zy you make an excellent point about paywalls. I completed my masters in library information science about 3 years ago. While in my program, I realized how paywalls hinder people from gaining certain information. As a student I had access to that information but once I graduated from my program, I no longer had access and if I wanted the information, I would have to pay to access it. There is so much information out there but when you limit access to that information by putting up a paywall it deters people from gaining knowledge. Thank you for your example!

[@oofoof4875]

great point. i used to be in a group that made historical maps for a game, and they had a hard time dealing with paywalls to get to history papers. and these guys were really passionate about history too, so it was kind of frustrating hearing that these paywalls were stopping them at every turn.

[@ultravioletcatastrophe]

are there any non-corporate scientific journals that have no profit incentive to exploit the labor and knowledge of scientists and deprive the general public of information?

[@flibberfrogman5508]

One of the things that annoys me about "AI" is the way it includes so many different bits of tech - your LLMs and your cancer diagnosis systems are very different and you don't need to harvest people's personal data to make the diagnosis system.

[@user-sl6gn1ss8p]

To be fair, that comes all the way from how the field was born, historically. I have a book from the 70s in which a couple of mathematicians discuss "AI" and they present pretty much the sub-fields we still have - I don't think the lumping of all of these things under the same name was done out of malice, but it sure helps keep things opaque nowadays.

[@loelinverse]

Ever since I saw the initialism "AI", my headcanon take never attributed that to intelligence as intelligence is based on the perspective of the policymaker. Instead, I denote any form of "AI" as *augmented* intelligence.

[@NeuroVisionProductions]

Ai is far from the problem and the solution

[@TheAzul_Indigo]

12:17 This is the intersection between Tech colonialism and Car dependence. If you’re like me, you live somewhere you can’t meet anybody because you can’t physically reach meeting places without owning a dangerous and expensive piece of capital.

[@christianchellis9057]

You tell ‘em.

[@RaggaDruida]

I think every leftist discussion about tech require a discussion about the Free Software movement. Even if other ideas by Stallman are controversial, Free Software Free Society should be top tier in reading priority.

[@AlexWilkinsonYYC]

One thing I don't get as a software dev is why devs do FOSS licenses. It is absolutely insane to me. If software engineers had defaulted the licenses to "I own this, feel free to use it but I will tell you to stop using it if I feel you are doing something I don't like with it", it would solve a ton of problems. Amazon and big companies wouldn't just steal and monetize all the open source and it'd be a much, much healthier community. That's the exact license I just put on a new programming language I'm working on. It's a ton of work, and if it becomes monetizable at some point, the contributors should share in that generated wealth. The FOSS licenses to me seem clearly like they are a mistake. They'd make sense if we lived in a utopian world, but you have to fight capitalism on it's own turf - by exercising property rights - or it will just be exploited for gain by people in positions to do so, with no "trickle down effect" to be seen. I believe there is a reason why GitHub has no non-FOSS licenses selectable. Microsoft and all the other giants gain from making all the software on it FOSS essentially by default.

[@ThePlayerOfGames]

FOSS + GNU + Linux FTW

[@petersutcliffe4927]

slavery still exists too. shit never gets better, it just changes names.

[@stoodmuffinpersonal3144]

but. Does that mean you stop trying? Idk.

[@petersutcliffe4927]

@@stoodmuffinpersonal3144 never! Not sure why I felt like pointing that out, I was just feeling it at the time. Cheers!

[@theappleboom5391]

It does get better, though. Hell, Andrewism pointed that out in how modern colonialism is not nearly as brutal right at the beginning.

[@LiveWire937]

I'm ~95% sure my Philips/WiZ lightbulbs are extracting data on *exactly where I and my family members are within my own home at all times.* Supposedly, this is a feature that can be used to turn on/off or dim or change the colors of those lights automagically, but given that it's achieved by analyzing interference patterns in the wifi signal they need to function properly anyways, I doubt my intentional neglect of this feature is even noticed. Both the data and the means to extract it exist, so I'm pretty certain someone must be collecting it... as long as I want the convenience of RGB lighting that can be controlled from the notification center on my smartphone, there's going to be a large faceless company with unrestricted access to more information about what's going on in my house than anyone outside my household should ever have. Things need to change.

[@stoodmuffinpersonal3144]

you could just go see them or text them. That's so weird. It's like buying a light bulb and those same light blubs being uninvited vouyers at your house. Like. Dude. If you're going to know every time I shit? $50 bucks. Per shit. Like. I want to see some of the value of my labour. Pay me, damn it. Lol.

[@stoodmuffinpersonal3144]

WHY WOULD YOU WANT LIGHTS THAT RELY ON WIFI ?! IF YOUR WIFI GOES OUT OR YOU. WHO WANTS HACKABLE LIGHT BULBS?! I have a packable phone, TV, and watch. AND COMPUTER. ALREADY TO MUCH. NO MORE, PLEASE. THATS ENOUGH.

[@derbaum7631]

Pi hole. There are a lot of open source home automation projects!

[@iamTakuu]

Someone mentioned free software and I think that is a key element too. Free and Open Source Software - and I mean freedom with that free; it’s okay to pay for good software. All these companies, all this ai crap, all built their monopolies off the backs of passionate nerds making open software on the internet. Don’t forget. Most people genuinely think Google is the only email service, or Microsoft Office is the only thing for documenting things. They have taken away our ability to even understand the computer by locking things arbitrary with “copyright” and the “law” as the mask, most forget this thing (the computer) is a beautiful culmination of human history, imagination, and a strong will to share knowledge. Most will never know that under all the abstraction and noise of modern tech, is just a terminal. You wouldn’t want full control of your machine now would you? You surely couldn’t handle something so scary… We have the power. Take it back. For all the people.

[@iamTakuu]

This comment was brought to you by the penguin gang 🐧

[@Koblevis]

yes finally the first comment i see about this topic

[@yjlom]

this so much also if you want to publish free/opensource or fairsource software, make it copyleft otherwise you're just doing free work for FAANG

[@TheQuietPartisLoud]

Perfect timing, and perfect context. God this one was needed.

[@Birbface]

I don't really understand this stuff in depth but it feels like the idea that data extraction is performed without violence is wrong. The society of control has plenty of non-physical institutional violence that can be visited on us if we don't 'click the box'. The threat of homelessness, underpaid tax etc., loss of job, and their consequences is what conditions us to not think twice about digging ourselves deeper into the techno- and datasphere

[@celestecassidy9383]

Abuse can take many forms. That's a good observation. There are definitely parallels.. A (seeming) lack of alternatives to an exploitative and coercive status quo.

[@Cnichal]

This got me thinking. I was very frustration last week, when I learn that the parasitic drain my car had, was caused by the OnStar module in my car. So even though it doesn't support my old ass car, I still have to pay $700+ for this. I have to pay to be tracked, even though they claim it don't track you. Lol, okay. 🤦🏾‍♀️

[@musiqtee]

Yes - I know. Anecdotally; I’m “off” every ‘platform’ except YT (premium) and Nebula, have been for a couple years now. My LAN is fairly well filtered including local cashing DNS. Indeed, the algos that still read & exploit my behaviour are quite off by now, but it’s fairly impossible to escape all of it. Nerdy IT skills are useful in our time, luckily there are way cleverer ones out there than me, willingly sharing (always learning…). I wouldn’t _recommend_ others to just “decouple”, it’s a fairly alienating and radicalising process against the grain of society - unless you have a good community around you, and fair critical skills. Good work, Andrewism - people like you _are_ that community. Peace!

[@spacecolon7760]

Can't spell Technofeudalism without Maleficent

[@malcraghill7]

You'd need the latin spelling - technofeudalismi ;>)

[@mattb.7079]

​@@malcraghill7no?

[@thezipcreator]

you also could've mentioned open source platforms that don't harvest your data; using those instead of the corporate ones could also offer a form of resistance

[@sudd3660]

i think most of the solution comes from less use of platforms, humanity comes first, not tech.

[@Nichrysalis]

@thezipcreator it's tricky because usually that data is also used to make a more convenient product. Also many open source pieces of software rely on data collection too.

[@thezipcreator]

@@Nichrysalis open source projects typically collect less data (only really that which is necessary) and if they collect more then they usually let you opt out somehow. also with open source projects it's a lot more transparent; people can just check where the data is going by looking at the source

[@TheXFireball]

Finally, not on the bus when a new Andrewism video drops!

[@LarshHill]

this is so fucking real. why is nobody else talking about this?? why doesn't it have more views????

[@Siures]

There are good videos about it. I recommend researching „dead internet theory“ - not the conspiracy videos about how the reptiloids use the internet to suppress you, but video essays about algorithms, bots, AI… there are very considerate, thoughtful essays.

[@thehuman2cs715]

I've heard it said before that the US government treats big tech companies like Google and Facebook like they were foreign countries. Their growth a happened under our noses too, just like the takeover of algorithms and social media in our lives, and like ai wants to do now.

[@funnyjuiceeffects]

any recs from specific creators?

[@Siures]

@@funnyjuiceeffects chriswaves especially as he has a very positive view about it and even cites Andrewism (also I am not sure if it’s in this video). Pseudium had also made a good video summarizing the theories and what’s plausible about it.

[@comicallylargemegaphone7579]

This is what the data stream by The Stupendium was about but more vague and without really going into the colonization part.

[@TheOnlyTaps]

Great watch as always 👊🏿

[@Andrewism]

Much appreciated

[@bruce-le-smith]

6:00 to your car, and if colonizers like Apple and NeuraLInk keep pushing into healthcare tech then your hearing aids, glasses, prosthetics, pacemakers, etc. Very few people would feel free to decline those terms and conditions given the medical benefits they would have to decline at the same time

[@astridsopinions]

you are an inspiration. you always teach me new ways of thinking and viewing the world. thank you!!

[@Andrewism]

Thank you :)

[@Xela_Redna]

Left Brain: "Colonialism never ended, it simply evolved." -Andrewism Right Brain: "Pimpin ain't dead, it just moved to the web." -Pimp C 🤷🏾

[@hlogilehlogonolo5438]

Pimp named Slick back😂

[@anju5124]

Everything is everything ; this ain't coincidental.

[@KenjiSummers]

Your drops are better than a rare pair of Jordans on the SNKRS app 😂

[@JaniPontusToivanen]

Not sure if you mentioned it, but the stage before data colonialism could be called work- or time colonialism. The biggest leap in this stage has been getting women into the work force. I've gathered that most labor today is done because of manufactured needs. They weaken and slightly poison the food and our living environment, ipso ergo we need more health care labor - physical and mental. They create a ban mainly on central plants, ipso ergo we need more policing and military labor. The West (especially USA, UK, and Israel) provoke and force conflicts, ipso ergo we need to destroy countries and peoples, ipso ergo we need more weapons and money to build up the country we destroyed. Those are just a few examples. This is built into the money system. We need money to grow, ipso ergo they write up more debt that they put money into circulation, ipso ergo we need more money into paying off that old debt. Anyways, we could work half as much and have a really great society, but the money controllers and -holders don't seem too keen on that. You can use the word Marx popularized - capitalism, but it has really been the dynamic of usury money that has driven colonialism, wars, slavery, etc. Usury is an age old banking scam that inevitably sucks up more and more money to the owning class, especially in the late stage. In antiquity they used to have debt-wiping jubilees to balance this out. In mideaval times the king used to throw out the money lenders at that stage.

[@rozennrd4802]

Women have always been in the workforce. Teen girls were crawling through mine tunnels as late as the 1800s. Only well-off families could afford to have their women stay off the workforce. Industrialisation changed this because that meant needing more skilled people, less tired people, so the need for skilled workers meant two things : paying people enough for the whole family to live off one salary, and having someone at home to do the domestic work needed to free the mind of the worker, so he can put 100% of himself in his work. That's kinda fordism applied to the family : separation of tasks in order to be more efficient.

[@Magic_monkey_man]

1:22 "poor relations with the corporations" in that accent just hit so right

[@michaeln9931]

Awesome and thoughtful as always. And a specific thanks for introducing me to the art of Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga!

[@kezzt]

Yanis Varoufakis calls it Technofeudalism in his latest book. I haven't watched the whole video yet, so you may well mention it!

[@diek_yt]

I spent the whole video waiting for you to mention using Free (as in "Freedom") Software and FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) as resistance against data collection and, therefore, data colonialism. Maybe in a follow-up video?

[@NeuroVisionProductions]

It's been said for years look it up for yourself

[@diek_yt]

@@NeuroVisionProductions And I have been using it for years lol, but it would have been important to mention for those who still don't know about it or use it

[@Its-Lulu]

Hell yeah new vid lets goooo!

[@joecitizen6702]

Nicely summarised. Always like watching your videos for a different view of the contemporary... and the reference suggestions and quotations are always refreshing... keep it up.

[@TheBlackRainWolf]

One way of refusing the terms and conditions, so to speak, is to look for FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) alternatives to what you use and interact with. Its important to note that the 'free' in that abbreviation is not as in price but as in freedom, though FOSS is also frequently free as in price too. FOSS doesn't generally have quite as thorough support (part of living in a world dominated by capitalism is that people are forced to work on capitalist software more than they're able to work on FOSS projects), but quite a lot of the time they're at least good-enough. In my case at least, they're certainly almost always good-enough that I'll happily sacrifice my access to the more well supported features and quality of life to stay away from the invasions of privacy, security, and consent that almost universally accompany the software developed by and for capitalists. In the case of 'platforms' whether they're social media or things like operating systems, FOSS alternatives are frequently held back in some ways by a lack of total number of users that have adopted them, but that's also a problem that gets (eventually) solved by people adopting them. More users means more bug reports, feature requests, and users that happen to have skills that can allow them to also be contributors; in the case of social platforms, more users also means more activity on the platform and more future-friends to find. If anyone reading this is curious about potentially trying some alternatives, I recommend doing a bit of research on any alternative that you look at, as they often come with notable drawbacks due to the less-than-ideal support, so its important to make sure that it'll actually fit your needs. For some examples that I personally use, I swapped to Mastodon instead of twitter (frequently mastodon gets over-sold by its users, know that it DOES have its own problems, but I'm certainly not looking back at twitter and missing it other than a few specific accounts I used to follow), and I use Linux instead of Windows; many distributions of Linux come with a fair few FOSS alternatives to commonly used software (such as Libre Office to replace microsoft office). For researching Linux specifically, its important to look at differences between distributions. There's a number of popular ones and a lot of less commonly used ones, and they're all a bit different in the ideas driving their development. Some wind up better for a smooth transition from Windows, some wind up better for other purposes, and different ones have different degrees with which they stick to FOSS options for software they come with.

[@yjlom]

in regards to prev's insistance on distros: note that your package manager, and to a small extant, your main package repository are the only things you can't swap out at some point and most distributions are just others with some customisation (SteamOS, for example, is just Arch with Steam preinstalled) in the end, you'll have to choose between the big 4: - Enterprise Linux (has all the IBM and Oracle bloatware, otherwise not very useful) - Arch (moves fast, has the most packages, but sometimes breaks a little) - Debian Stable (years-outdated packages, but everything is extremely battle-tested and always just works) - Debian Unstable / Ubuntu (very much a tradeoff but probably the best for newbies, just don't use third party repos though or you'll have bad surprises on major updates) later on you might look at others like void, gentoo, NixOS or whatever finally, you don't even have to choose as there's a piece of software called BedRockLinux that lets you install multiple at the same time

[@artykhaan]

Hello, where can I learn more about how some medecine breaktrough came from the colonisation of indigenous people ?

[@uncletruth4529]

Lord help us

[@VampireSquirrel]

To Andrew: I think this video is good, but It doesn't come close the scope of Data collection and abuse in some areas of the United States, like the American South. Data collection from Banks, online shopping platforms, GPS mapping apps etc are used by employers to finely tune their exploitation of their employees specifically. They police what you are able to do online, on social media. They know how much money you have in your bank account, and can adjust your pay to be sure that you aren't saving enough to switch jobs, banks will cancel your cards if you try to escape and you can be fired for building social networks of solidarity in social media.

[@TimMaxShift]

5:00 In games, it's simplified. Under capitalism (if you look from the capitalist's point of view), your job is to win the competitive race. What does your sustainability depend on? On having sovereignty in key areas. Sovereignties: resources, industry, science/technology, military, culture, human resources (ability to produce people). Just like a chain that breaks at its weakest link, so too with sovereignty, it is lost through its weakest component. No resources - it will have to buy, it will have to enter the financial system, it will be open to unequal exchange of value. You will have to give more than you gain. Weak industry - you will have to buy goods and give something for it. No science, education and technology - you'll fall behind in production or culture. No strong military - you will be physically crushed. “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” Clausewitz. No cultural hegemony - your opponents will explain to the citizens of your country that your government is evil and must be fought. Orange revolutions. Society does not give birth to children - you will have to attract migrants from poor countries, who will bring their culture with them and reduce labor productivity. Colonialism relied on physical force. Neocolonialism relies on financial instruments and culture. Why invade another country when you can simply exchange non-equivalently with the people of that country? You give me gold, I'll give you beads. Just like the conquistadors. As an example: that's why the yellow vests (Mouvement des Gilets jaunes) are fighting the franc cfa, through it the france is plundering African countries. What you call “Data Colonialism” is no different than neocolonialism. It's just that neocolonialism has a new tool in its arsenal. Profit extraction is still done through financial instruments and culture, big data only helps with that and will not replace financial instruments. So calling it date colonialism is too loud. And if we're not talking about the scale of one country, and not the relationship between different national capitals, then it's just capitalism. It is simply the result of the key characteristic of capitalism - monopolization.

[@bruce-le-smith]

Thank you, this concept makes sense and seems useful. I appreciate you helping to draw people's attention to it!

[@notaspectator]

The choices is still yours, ours. Like joining a company, service, etc. Even if it feels missing out on something, just choose different or none, whats the big deal. WHy would I blame something or someone for my choices. Though I'm glad various government initiatives to keep a check on big companies or medium, they cant police it all.

[@kokopelli314]

Conviviality is such an important part of humanity

[@Sincald]

One part of our lives that's even worse than our phones in terms of monitoring and scraping our data, and which most people seem to unaware of: our cars. Most modern cars have computers in them with microphones and SIM cards. One way the data that cars collect about you can be used is your driving telemetry & location history being sold to insurance companies to build a profile on you whether or not you're an existing customer with them yet. Connecting our phone to our car is also unwise as it can share even more data between the two.

[@Investigator86]

Thank you for your scholarship. This needs to be seen by so many people.

[@Goofy8907]

2:18 dude, you can't drop stuff like that without telling more I assume you have sources in desc, I wanna know all about this, I did not know any of this medicine history at all Please make a video on this topic only It'd be so valuable as capitalists always argue how everything good ever comes from it

[@Andrewism]

This article is a good primer: www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/traditional-medicine-has-a-long-history-of-contributing-to-conventional-medicine-and-continues-to-hold-promise

[@clive-live]

This macro-scale colonial analysis is an important base or structure in relation to big data, the dialectics of space, cybernertics, cloud capital, cloud rent, and managerial capitalism. This is the missing link that I have been searching for. Clive Burgess Thank you

[@ShizaruBloodrayne]

I miss the early 2000s internet. Even 2010 was still cool. I also miss myspace but it needed a better messenger system.

[@KevlarNinja]

I'm kind of surprised you didn't bring up some of the anarchist alternatives to some big tech staples. Like Riseup Doc as alternative to Google Docs which is made so it is deleted after a certain amount of inaction from editors.

[@mobbcentral4675]

This is just a little idea I had while I was watching the video So what if smaller communities had more readily available access to and education of how to operate radio towers , maybe these specific ones could be preset to out put useful information about the environment they’re in stuff like Warnings about the wild life , danger prone areas like flash flood zones or frequent storms, where to find clean water , what plants are safe to eat what plants have medicinal properties which are dangerous or have “medicinal properties” , how to get places , information about the local human communities and how to respectfully and responsibly interact with them and their land ,

[@iamTakuu]

I’ve genuinely been considering doing some pirate radio stuff…but that’s apparently not the most legal thing to do. lol.

[@mobbcentral4675]

@@iamTakuu of course it’s illegal

[@Men_of_Tomorrow]

Fantastic video. You unpacked and dissected a complex topic that’s affecting everyone today.

[@thequeenofswords7230]

4:52 I feel weird even referring to Sid Meier's Colonization, in any context. But I still want to figure out how to not suck at it.

[@estefencosta1835]

Love this video essay. Wonderful work.

[@piku5637]

Omg stop censoring me KZbin!! This video deserves way more views.

[@iskrabesamrtna]

Images are amazing! How did you create those, or from where you got them? Great video essay btw, this theme should be more present in general.

[@ACowboyHat]

I feel like you'd enjoy some selected works by Michel Foucault. He talks a lot about power structures, especially the penal system.

[@clive-live]

This macro-scale colonial analysis is an important base or structure in relation to big data, the dialectics of space, cybernertics, cloud capital, cloud rent, and managerial capitalism. DATA COLONIALISM: SOCIAL and ECOLOGICAL REALITY S.A.R.M • SUBJECTIVITY: DATA COLONISER • ACTIVITIES: Civilising Mission, explore, expand, exploit, exterminate, extract, disposess, appropriate. . .DATA EXTRACTION • Social RELATIONSHIPS: State ~ Private Partnerships, New Social Order, Producers, Class/Race, leading to Deep Inequalities. . . • MEANS: Physical Environment, Infrastructure, Natural Environment, Territory Clive Burgess please fill in the blanks... .

[@vanessamoye3313]

in 19:19 what did he mean by deciding the fate of real people?/gen

[@Marquarion]

Humans

[@lyndonwesthaven6623]

I know some proponents for predictive algorithms have wanted to use them for targeting individuals who are 'high crime risk', there's also been discussions of using more tech for things like deciding fines and sentences. And large companies already use algorithms to filter through job candidates and loan applications, which can have big consequences for the people concerned

[@rawbattery]

Who would be considered the dominant group in data colonialism when applied to the US? Is something I would probe further

[@NagaEvolution]

This is random, but in your last livestream, you mentioned an article with a pretty solid ending talking about the shortcomings of the Anarcho-syndicalist movement in Latin America. What was the title of it? One of my friends is interested in the history of anarchism in Latin America

[@Andrewism]

theanarchistlibrary.org/library/larry-gambone-the-libertarian-movement-in-chile

[@Idekrnbbbfdfghn]

When I move my controller I get a ad when I look up from the screen I get an ad I'm gonna read a book or something

[@seekingabsolution1907]

Your voice is so soothing.

[@schylerjanner6044]

Who is the artist of the pieces at 1:18 and 1:46?

[@Andrewism]

Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga

[@mimameta]

I have been working on solution to this problem. Hopefully will launch next year 🤞

[@karlmoore1837]

Data ownership, agency and autonomy would go along way in curbing the exploitive practices that feed machine learning (AI) tools and people's job (livelihood) insecurities/destruction. It can be applied on the national level (e.g. NHS), community level (e.g. unions, religious group, school class) and individual level (e.g. the citizen, the worker).

[@stoodmuffinpersonal3144]

Wait. The anti coloniast anarchist wasnt great at building a colonizing empire? I mean. It tracks! Maybe thats a good thing lol

[@TeannaBarrett]

This video outlines the core motivation for my research (ik a lot of tensions in CS academia smh). While the open source movement has led to big paradigm shifts if it's still led by American and European programmers and with a Western mindset, that doesn't solve data colonialism. I.e. a lot of corporations have open source tools available and the red pajama llm dataset is open source but is still built on billions of text data points taken from internet content. There definitely are Black-led data science efforts (Deep Learning Indaba has a conference happening rn) and decolonial AI efforts that get to the root of the issue more and challenge data colonialism through efforts of technical subjectivity.

[@sharonbaker3007]

Great video Andrew!!!👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

[@zeezas1241]

Omggg, I’m so so so happy this was recommended to me, I’ve been desperately craving ANYTHING on this platform that is decolonial and not a random white guy talking. Loved this video and subscribed!!

[@kussemeinkont]

plenty of random white guys support decolonisation, just like plenty of non whites sold out to their colonial masters, it's not about race, it's a state of mind

[@protobeing3999]

This is essentially my argument in the .... Ahem, AI subreddits. Of course, the general reaction on those accursed subs, is to assume superiority that turns towards progress, cultural obsolescence, and the inevitability of it all. Truly a colonial mindset

[@Idekrnbbbfdfghn]

And the way they affect how people see them selves and gaslight people into thinking its good

[@land3021]

1:04 I.e. biometrics and, the mind... "memes, the dna of the soul" 2:29 condemning people for using medication that we got from colonialism AGES AGO, is a perfect example of how "they" colonise our minds. 5:04 Ex's, damn! 5:41 Establishing indeed

[@blindalleycomics6351]

I'm wondering if there's a way to create and code small, simple social networks completely separate from corporations or even the Internet at large - they only exist between the devices of participants. Would you have to create communication devices completely from scratch? It's a tall order, but I'm trying to think outside the box and reimagine our digital lives in a way that maintains radical autonomy.

[@dadapotok]

these already exist. flawed. growing. consider looking into newdesigncongress, indieweb, fediverse, neocities for global web and p2p for local and global webs. I'm not qualified to give you an overview of various p2p device-to-device apps

[@MrToradragon]

What you describe is quite easy task, the most complicated thing would be the server side that would facilitate transfer fo the date between devices. Also unless you completely distrust the OS, you would not need to build the device from scratch.

[@notaspectator]

Ive read plenty of terms of service, yeah took half an hour, but I've declined to choose a service about 1/7 of times

[@SephWarren]

There's a distinction alluded to here that I think is interesting. The problem we have, as outlined in this video, is data colonization for the benefit of the profit motive. Though there does exist a possible benefit of consensual data collection in a post capitalist society for the benefit of all people. You make the joke about targeted ads for probiotics, but if the profit motive were eliminated, then we might be able to trust and even be thankful for the recommendation. Like with most things, the thing itself isn't the issue, it's the corruption by capitalist and colonialist forces.

[@MonochromeChromosome]

Next logical question is how to decouple data collection for benefit and data collection for exploitative profit. Been thinking about it for quite some time, and personally didn't find a solution yet.

[@SephWarren]

@@MonochromeChromosome the answer is simple, anarchist revolution. Much harder to have a profit motive if we eliminate money. The more complicated question is how we achieve that.

[@ioreodream]

Just stumbled on this. Great video and interesting channel. Look forward to listening to solarpunk!

[@notaspectator]

By the way, if this all fully true. GDRP wouldn't have existed if many government and policy makers didn't want it and tried to make versions of it. Ive never worked for a gov, but know people that give 100% on their job and challenge and build value for us as citizens. we need GDRP in US, Canada, UK , India, China, etc

[@Zero-fh2wb]

didnt bo burnham also talk about the colonization of the human mind in a similar way like a few years ago

[@StakeFromJateFarm]

I like the use of scribblenauts visuals lol

[@jandresfg]

For some reason I hadn't quite linked colonialism with the data practices the tech companies use to engage with us. I guess that's one new contradiction of my ideology. Thank you so much for opening my eyes to this perspective. Surely the road to truly decolonized tech is long but we'll get there. Subbed

[@TheMayonakaMidnighter]

The past few years have literally left me less connected than ever since 2020.

[@ggad1899]

Online and social media does ENfranchise those who are traditionally disenfranchised in typical offline social contract formats. These enfranchised groups include introverts, ambiverts, neuro spicy, disabled, mixed-culture, mixed-racial, and poor, among others. And of course these groups are also heavily targeted and disenfranchised by the colonizers.

[@Yupthatsme_7D]

Watching those after getting 2 apple updates in 1 month and M3TA updating it’s terms and conditions

[@duked7063]

Thanks for the interesting video. How can we escape the craziness of data colonialism? How do I resist? What can I do to have more privacy? If I don't agree to the terms of an app I can't download it. What if I can't renounce it because I need it for school or work? Do you think AI is going to take over all our jobs or most of them? How will people surivive?

[@TheAugustburnsbright]

0:42 i had never seen that, uh...rendition of American Progress before

[@rafaelfrequiao]

I recommended reading "Colonialismo digital: por uma crítica hacker-fanoniana, Deivison Faustino e Walter Lippold" It's in Portuguese, though

[@AB-wf8ek]

We can use AI to translate it! Oh wait...

[@thesharkormoriantm274]

I recommend a music band called Heilung (German for "healing).

[@JohlBrown]

hey man while i like how you've implemented the facial expressions, i keep finding myself missing your face when it cuts to cartoon you. i think it's great branding but i wonder if as you grow, you might consider it. i'll keep watching if not, but yeah i feeel like im missing some connection

[@nutsrice]

Should also read about the free (as in freedom) software movement being appropriated by proprietary systems. Palantir is pretty much the cop version of an open source intelligence tool called maltego, Google maps coopted open street maps work. Very cool video thanks for talking about this

[@TommyLikeTom]

I've only ever seen like 2 of your videos but I can hear your accent just by looking at the thumbnail

[@rapchee]

how could it be bad if we get the cwute widdle cwoud conquistador XD 2:11

[@stoonookw]

you are amazing

[@sourwitch2340]

14:06 I emphasise any time the topic comes up. We are not dealing with AI right now. We're dealing with well-developed neural networks. But the hypothetical concept of the AI relies on the idea that it is a machine capable of independent, unique thought. Neural networks are not.

[@PossibleBat]

Im done. I will be inheriting some money soon and I plan to live outside the grid and do whatever it takes to live separately from society. I’m done with this world.

[@msc4rt3r]

Can you make a video on Waste Colonialism 🙏🙏 this is a big one where our everyday actions cause catastrophic shifts in the daily lives of those who live in the global majority, who’s homes we dump our trash on by the ton without batting an eye

[@syntheater4867]

I am an ancom studying in I.T. engineering, and I think the most important thing is that we start massively using open source software. I don't say this as a joke: switch to Linux (it's not hard at all)

[@BantuEconomicServices]

I agree with every single word. But….with AI in our hands we have all the data needed if not more. We just must learn to use it in our favor

[@darkdragonnasir]

🗣🗣🗣 CONGO! 🇨🇩 CONGO! 🇨🇩 CONGO!!! 🇨🇩

[@OutlawMaxV]

It's time to reject terms and conditions

[@BboynorthCo]

incredible analysis.

[@entrylevelemployee]

people should take the extra 'step by step' themselves after absorbing this data and maybe think about this philosophically and mathematically

[@o.m.a.22]

Big Tech! The United Fruit & East’s India Companies of the 2020s

[@buriedintime]

Don’t forget Debt Colonialism/debt imperialism

[@nicolerubin7368]

I won't call out the author by name, but just a speech about how AI will create equality by an academic that unsurprisingly comes from 1 of the most notorious colonizers of current affairs. What a blind spot as an academic to not see how AI is trained on biased data and will only exacerbate inequality? There are already studies demonstrating this.