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...
Also VR needs to be really fast and smooth, framedrops and low framerate is absolutely horrible in it, meanwhile most browsers are still stuck to an half-native performance in most cases.
@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.