I agree with @haitch too (among his other works, @ekaitz_zarraga is also publishing his Spanish translation of this piece which argue more or less in the same direction: http://www.tesio.it/2019/06/03/what-is-informatics.html) but I'm not sure changing the software stack is enough: we also need people understand that informatics is about minds, not computer, and their only way to be first class citizens in a cybernetic world, is to understand how such world works under the hood.
So to fight #GAFAM and all oppressive regimes (eg. USA and China) we need to work on both sides: on one end, rebuild a better stack that is easy to inspect and hack from the ground up; on the other end, teach people informatics, so that they can effectively control their own life.
@praxeology
I make it sound like it's fundamentally anti-egalitarian to have a read-only society.
@Shamar @ekaitz_zarraga @alcinnz @abbienormal @alexbuzzbee
Thread update (2020-08-25)
https://mastodon.social/@haitch/104752952825419311
Consider reading this EFF article published today:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/08/if-privacy-dies-vr-it-dies-real-life
"Oculus, acquired by Facebook in 2014, announced that it will require a Facebook account for all users within the next 2 years. At the time of the acquisition Oculus offered distressed users an assurance that “[y]ou will not need a Facebook account to use or develop for the Rift [headset].”
@Shamar @ekaitz_zarraga @alcinnz @abbienormal @alexbuzzbee
Consider the possibility that the primary way to consume the web in 5-10 years may be using Facebook's Oculus device.
If we do nothing about it.
@haitch @Shamar @ekaitz_zarraga @abbienormal @alexbuzzbee Unless maybe if we design our own virtual/augmented reality web browser?
I don't seem to have the imagination for *that*, someone else will have to tackle it...
@alcinnz @Shamar @ekaitz_zarraga @abbienormal @alexbuzzbee
WebGL is roughly a javascript-ization of OpenGL, and most 3d graphics on the web are based on it.
But the web is completely unnecessary and even detrimental in a VR world, I would probably go a different way altogether, reusing OpenGL and a scene graph in such a way that it is decoupled again from Javascript and the rest of w3c garbage.
@haitch @Shamar @ekaitz_zarraga @abbienormal @alexbuzzbee I would say we'd have to at least look beyond the W3C standards.
I quite like HTML, CSS, & URIs, but most people probably want to do so much more than read in VR worlds...
@alcinnz @Shamar @ekaitz_zarraga @abbienormal @alexbuzzbee
Have you ever watched The Simpsons VR episode in which they fly above a virtual world cluttered by advertisement banners?
@alcinnz @Shamar @ekaitz_zarraga @abbienormal @alexbuzzbee
I consider that episode a fictional dystopia much in the same way we should have taken heed of George Orwell's 1984.
@Shamar @haitch @ekaitz_zarraga @alcinnz @abbienormal @alexbuzzbee I like this sentiment. You make it sound like this is a question of literacy. That we need to make it easier to both read and write (as well as cite and annotate) might be a good way to explain the problem in more social terms. It also can lead people to see that, even if it is sometimes hard work, computing can be a _pleasure_ just like good literature.