Hacker News Reader

> Recently I had to decide whether to buy books on politics for kindle. I didn't like the fact that it tracks everything I buy, what sentences I highlight, the notes I keep... I bet my libertarian books would make my score very low in future China.

This is why I keep "pirating" and hoarding books. I know it's bad for the common good and bad for the authors but I feel paranoid about corporations and national security agencies collecting and later, perhaps, analyzing what I read, including how long I linger over a page, what I underline, when I take screenshot excerpts, etc.

I started innocently enough, by scanning all my physical books (and downloading the epubs or pirated pdfs of books I already paid for in physical form whenever available) just to lighten my steps, so to speak. Then I came upon a passage in 1984 where books were altered, entire passages excised and rewritten to suit whatever powers that be. It was completely unrealistic when 1984 was written, of course, but in 2013 (when I read it), this hit a little bit too close to home. With all our devices constantly itching to phone the mothership, this is not a fantasy anymore but a possibility. All that stands between Orwell's dark vision and reality is, in fact, political will and our collective memory of times when this was not possible. Perhaps future generations who do not remember physical books will more easily acquiesce to such intrusions for the sake of "mental hygiene" and, you know, the children and stuff.

Anyhow, today I look at a 16K+ Bibdesk database which, of course, includes the files/ebooks on my airgapped machine and feel curiously satisfied. Not in a lifetime will I be able to read all this but I know that I could spend my remaining days reading freely, no matter the external circumstances. Freedom of thought! (Also, a very neat and nifty system for me personally I admit... :)

You raise a point that was already true for DRM - the impediment from the restrictions pushes the law abiding citizen into piracy.

For example, Cinavia might limit the devices you can play your legally purchased movie on. So law abiding citizen end up introducing themselves to TPB so they can play their movie on their projector-connected laptop, and then they realize that the latest episode of Game of Thrones has already downloaded by the time they got round to alt tabbing to their favorite torrent solution...

But your point is excellent and perfectly valid: if you want a fun, "edited" book try and source the first edition of "See you in November" by Peter Stiff which allegedly has been more recently edited by the interested parties. (It does not make for civilised reading, particularly if you are British.) I knew a few more but their titles don't come to mind immediately.

Seems like checksums could solve the issue of minor textual edits of classic texts. Sites like project Gutenberg could even keysign texts if we thought this a major concern.

I wouldn't mind an apt-get 1984.txt

> It was completely unrealistic when 1984 was written, of course, but in 2013 (when I read it), this hit a little bit too close to home.

Ironically enough, Amazon has already once erased 1984 from users' Kindle devices: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18ama...

Is it wrong that the first thought in my mind is how to influence their ratings at scale? "Diaper stuffing" while humourus is probably not far off the initial reputation optimization schemes that have probably already commenced.

I'd say there's a good chance you'll be able to buy your way to a top score while the poor become the geocities of citizens.

You raise a very interesting point. Maybe the ranking is also designed to stimulate the economy.

> "Diaper stuffing" while humourus is probably not far off the initial reputation optimization schemes that have probably already commenced.

The government would keep the algorithm a secret, so there would be a SEO for human beings: the CRO citizen ranking optimization. CRO would tell you what books to buy, the top 10 items to boost your rating, what people you should befriend...

It's possible they'll license http://www.google.ca/technology/pigeonrank.html

* I'd say there's a good chance you'll be able to buy your way to a top score*

This is a country that imposes the death penalty for corruption. Social hacking isn't something that is going to happen there.

There's a lot of assumptions in your statement.

1. That death penalty is an effective deterrent.

2. That social hacking would be tried as corruption, or even at a level of corruption for the death penalty.

3. That China doesn't have a corruption problem already regardless of the potential penalty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_China (not saying this is the truth, just that you're making an assumption that not everyone agrees with)

In a system where social ranking determines opportunity, employment, and all other aspects of life - you better believe social hacking is going to happen.

If I bought large quantities of textbooks written by Party Authors and used them to support my tables and benches...would that lead to an execution for corruption or a higher CRO for ingenuity? ;)

If anything that simply proves you have the mind of the hacker, which is good for you and for society.

If people of this century, continue to believe this kind of domination between human to human is acceptable and desirable, I want off the planet, and possibly emancipation from the human race.

>>It's funny to imagine social hackers buying tons of diapers to get on top of the rankings.

In that case government might release guidelines by which buying diapers without its need become criminal offense.

There's some factors aren't numerically quantifiable: Respect for elders? How does one metric that? Time donated to charitable services for the elders?

What this will create is real life level grinding, and a glut of half-assing a lot of socially desirable "traits". This could get very ugly, very fast if this article is accurate, creating a society where corners are cut in the interest of upping their score. It's like profit motive but for every day interactions.

It's something I have pointed out in other threads as well: extrinsic rewards destroy the intrinsic motivation. "Why should I do something that doesn't raise my score?" This is very clear in traditional schools: few students go beyond the assigned tasks and readings, popular kids mock the ones who study for their own benefit and cheating is rampant.

Oh but then you'll donate the diapers. And since your score will be determined by what others think of you, pretty soon there will form feedback rings pushing their scores higher and higher.

It's funny to imagine social hackers buying tons of diapers to get on top of the rankings.

I would assume the ranking system will work such that having a high rank isn't that valuable but having a low rank is very bad and looking like you're trying to hack the system doubling bad. Thus I'd assume hacking would be a high-risk, low-reward activity.