Sickening. This company doesn't seem to have even a basic moral compass. Even when their tools are being used against human rights workers or journalist they have no qualms.
It takes people with power in the corporate structure to contradict that default.
Governments have done horrible things. Researchers have done horrible things. Religious Groups have done horrible things. NonProfits have done horrible things.
It's not about profits.
When you're designing a new engine, you might decide to use 10% more expensive parts to make it 20% more fuel efficient, but this additional cost might result in 10% lower sales, so the board decides against it since exhaust is just an externality. If those people were considered with ecology they might consider a lower rate of profit but instead take pride in the fact that they're helping humanity combat global warming while maintaining the standard of living.
It's easier to rationalize away "bad things" when making money is at the top of your value scale. I think it resembles the individualism of our age, people used to be more aware that they were a cog in the machinery of history, no one thinks like that anymore, it's all "be the best you can be" rather than "be the best we can be".
I agree. The purist free market ideology, for lack of a better term (or maybe Objectivism?), is a convenient justification for not dealing with difficult issues. 'The ideology says I can/should only care about money, so I don't need to worry about all that.' If only life were so simple that we could rely on an ideology.
A government might not have a moral compass at all. They may start mass surveillance with good intentions like fighting terrorism but when should they stop? Since they have already invested into mass surveillance why stop at terrorism? Why not use it to fight crime in general? Why not use it to enforce every law imaginable? Since we now have data ranging back several years into the past why not use it retroactively enfore laws?
What's the way out? Become less connected? Go back to fixed function hardware? Is there even a way out without shedding layers of abstraction? Is there even a way out at all, or is this our new brave new world?
Battlestar Galactica phones?
No, but I think we will eventually go to peer-based mesh networks with smarter clients. The reasons are:
1. Mobile devices keep getting faster and have more memory- they aren't and shouldn't be dumbed-down clients peddled by telecom companies to get them to buy their services.
2. People don't want to pay for things they shouldn't have to, like interconnectivity, if there are enough devices for everyone to pull off the network without help.
However, we can't think about anything digital nowadays without factoring in AI, the problem is that once you do that, things become quite unpredictable...
For certain, there will be a fight, on one side governments ans control structures trying to increase their control, and on the other regular citizens trying to live the way they once did.. althogh.. that may already be impossible..
Like it will make any difference. There are people in the military that will go to church and then invade a country like Lybia or Syria for their oil or gas while believing they are doing good for humanity.
We need less moral compasses and more accountancy, checks and balances of the people in power. It should never be about self control, but controls in the institutions.
For the record, I do not believe that at all. But it hasn't been ruled out.
Additionally, they just repeated no laws were broken.
There is no playing devils advocate here. They clearly don't care about what happened in Mexico or middle-east.
And why should they? If you don't agree with their moral compass, then don't invest or support them. By laws of nature, they will eventually die away if it is unsustainable. However, I'd wager it is highly sustainable hence their continued existence. This has happened throughout all of human history.
Try applying your same logic to people who murder journalists in order to maintain a deceptive narrative. Should we avoid having any qualms about that too?
What UAE sovereign does in its own territory is his own business. It is not the other parties' job to interfere in its internal dealings.