What are the reasons why you feel uncomfortable with BigTech, if any?
Whatever BigTech means to you... Please be as specific as possible; I'd love to have a list of specific reasons rather than a debate about policies, politics etc.
When I was growing up, we where educated regularly on the horrifying atrocities committed by chaps like Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot.
We where told how there was a strong desire after WW2 to keep power in check. To balance power so that no one state could become unstoppable. To try and prevent any one leader from becoming so powerful that they could no longer be challenged. Hitler was a famous fan of big tech, those IBM computers he used where massive.
The unchecked expansion of tech firms during the Obama years created the hypercentralised industry we call Big Tech. If a Stalin or a Hitler showed up today and seized all of this power, the civilian population would be powereless to defend themselves. No foreign power would be able to disrupt the holocaust this time. The mid 20th century doctrine of the balance of power aimed at preventing this by dispersing power, and ensuring that the big players are roughly balanced. But just like the MAD nuclear strategy, this had been abandoned, and the future is now a very uncertain place.
What is "BigTech"? Is this a term of art or do you refer to "big tech" as in the big players in an industry?
I see social media companies called "tech" in the media, but I don't care for that. I see phones comprising the entirety of "tech" and "high tech" coverage in some outlets, but that's not interesting at all.
I fully agree, but my impression is that most people have some notion of that term. There is even a Wikipedia page about Big Tech, but of course nobody claims to have a strict definition.
My hope has been that different perspectives on that term also manifest when specifying concerns.
They are biased in favour of the Left.
They don't believe in free speech.
They are extremely intrusive in the way they track people's activity online.
I don't trust them.
Genuine curiosity. The whole debate about BigTech keeps recurring on so many levels, and there are so many individuals talking about privacy concerns, their power etc.
I have many friends that keep uttering such concerns, and so do I to some degree.
So I am trying to boil these concerns down to more specific issues.
The unchecked expansion of tech firms during the Obama years created the hypercentralised industry we call Big Tech. If a Stalin or a Hitler showed up today and seized all of this power, the civilian population would be powereless to defend themselves. No foreign power would be able to disrupt the holocaust this time. The mid 20th century doctrine of the balance of power aimed at preventing this by dispersing power, and ensuring that the big players are roughly balanced. But just like the MAD nuclear strategy, this had been abandoned, and the future is now a very uncertain place.