More Tech = More Surveillance

Stove Top #10: More and more surveillance, America is well liked, the ghostwriter epidemic

Author

Stephen Flanders
July 15, 2023

Welcome back to the Stove Top weekly newsletter. As usual, each edition has a few brief stories and finishes with a mix of interesting links, hot takes, and good reads.

Enjoy.

The Long March To Doom

I am unapologetically pro-tech. I think it’s the key to a more prosperous future, and that the political parties should embrace the message of technological progress.

But, as is the case with everything, there is some nuance involved.

The further that tech progresses, the easier it becomes for the powers-to-be (tech companies, the government, etc) to spy on you.

Basically every piece of tech is turned into an agent of surveillance:

  • If your phone’s camera and microphone aren’t being used to spy on you, then they are using your data.

  • Social media companies are constantly watching you, and if they aren’t, then the Feds are watching you through social media.

  • Self-driving cars are surveillance cameras on wheels.

  • Ring cameras are the NARC’s dream.

  • Even your printer is spying on you.

It’s possible to argue this is a net positive. After all, it’s a lot harder to get away with a crime when there are cameras everywhere. But, as I’ve written about before, this is a very fine line. What stops the governments from going full 1984? Right now, not much. They have the technological ability to do so, so the only thing preventing dystopia is cultural norms.

But cultural norms aren’t set in stone. They have to be constantly reinforced. And the governments are trying to wear them down through rhetoric that more surveillance will make our lives better and safer. Unfortunately, it looks like this effort is starting to work.

So then, what can we do to prevent a surveillance state? For one, we have to fight the cultural battle. That is what I’m going to do on this blog, week after week. The other thing is to build privacy-preserving technologies. Cryptocurrencies, encrypted messaging, VPNs, etc.

Just like we need technology to advance the best-case scenario (nuclear power, interstellar travel, longevity), we need technology to protect us against the worst-case scenario.

Otherwise, we are leaving our fate to chance.

Nobody Hates America More Than Americans

I’ve spent the past week in London, the first stop of my 6-week tour around Europe. It’s not my first stop traveling, but it is my first (real) time in Europe.

When I travel, I obviously enjoy seeing the sights. But what I really enjoy is meeting people I wouldn’t meet otherwise. So far, I’ve met people from England, Australia, France, Austria, Germany, Uruguay, Argentina, Poland, South Africa, and Canada. Beyond being wonderful people, they’ve opened my eyes to something: nobody hates America more than Americans.

By and large, everybody I’ve met has a positive, most of the time even very positive, view of the States. This was surprising to me for two reasons:

1) Most people I meet are young and “liberal”, a demographic I’d expect to not like the US.

2) I was taught in school that the US is seen internationally as an oppressive country nobody likes. For reference, I went to school in a liberal area around the time of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Well, it turns out that there is data to back up my experience, which comes courtesy of Noah Smith and Gallup.

Basically every country has a favorable view of the US:

But only 38% of people are “extremely proud” to be American.

Obviously, “favorable” and “extremely proud” are not the same thing, but it is still telling. Why aren’t more people proud of America, and why is it dropping? There are a few possible answers:

1) People are their own worst critics. So it makes sense that Americans would criticize America the hardest.

2) America is actually really fucked up, and it takes living here to understand that.

3) The numbers are dragged down by the self-hating liberals, which has only gotten worse as race has taken center stage.

4) The people we’re electing for President consistently suck, and it feels like government gets less and less done every year.

5) The hyper-partisan culture war we’re consistently fed is upsetting people on both sides.

6) It’s easier to be “favorable” than “extremely proud”.

Whatever the case, it’s been eye-opening to me how people not in America perceive America. And when you really take a step back and look at things, the country isn’t in a bad place right now considering we have a President who doesn’t know where he is half the time.

If nothing else, that’s something to be proud of.

Cookie Cutter Content

My most popular post is The Creator Economy Has Ruined The Internet. In it, I make the argument that the creator economy is fucking up the internet because people are now writing mainly for attention and money. The result of this desire is mountains of “10 best AI tools” threads, and in the worst-case scenario, absolute hot clickbait garbage like this:

Well, there is a new development that is compelling me to update this post. Not only do we have to deal with hot clickbait garbage, but we are now going to have to deal with all the hot clickbait garbage being the same.

I’m talking about ghostwriting services, the new business of choice for Twitter influencers like Alex Lieberman and Sahil Bloom. It’s easy to see why they would start these businesses. It’s like taking candy from a baby. I built a ghostwriting business that made $10,000+ a month, and I am nowhere near as famous or connected as Alex Lieberman and Sahil Bloom.

All they have to do is hire an operator, a bunch of writers on the cheap, send out some tweets, and you have an 8 figure business on your hands.

It’s also easy to see why people would hire a ghostwriter. Becoming famous on Twitter is massively helpful, but also very difficult and time-consuming. If you have the money, why wouldn’t you hire somebody to do it for you?

The same logic applies to newsletters. Everyone and their dog want a newsletter these days, but writing and building one isn’t fun. Trust me, I literally write newsletters for a living. Enter “done-for-you” newsletter services, and soon, AI-generated newsletters.

Soon, you’ll have a world in which the majority of online content is either written by the same dozen people, or is written by AI. This is bad for people who enjoy reading interesting shit.

That’s because the people who are ghostwriting social media posts and newsletters aren’t Stephen King. And they definitely aren’t the dude from Split. Again, trust me, I am one of these dudes. No matter how much the ghostwriting service promises to give you a “unique tone”, it’s inevitable that your content is going to sound pretty cookie-cutter.

It’s not the ghostwriter’s fault. A lot of them are juggling multiple different clients at once, and again, none of them are the dude from Split. You’re going to write the safest content possible to drive enough results so the client doesn’t leave you. This, unfortunately, means the hot clickbait garbage so prevalent in the creator economy.

Maybe AI will make things better with prompts like “Write me a Twitter thread in the style of *insert famous author*”. But then you’ll just have a bunch of threads all written in the style of other people.

Either way, finding original content is going to become much more difficult.

Which is why I’m so bullish on something like startupy.

Surveillance

Extras

Until next time, ✌️

Hit me up on Twitter!

Join the conversation

or to participate.