Part one, of many, of the content of Scamageddon- the Book.
Preface
“We’re all awash in a sea of blood and the least we can do is wave to each other.”
John Minton
I keep hoping that people would just stop being so incredibly gullible, figure this out, and things would get back to normal. No doubt some of you have thought the same thing from time to time. Or, you know, if you are like me, almost every fucking minute of every fucking day.
But now, now as time keeps passing by and things are only getting worse, I am getting really pissed off. I now want things to get back to something much better than normal. Because “normal” really kinda sucked too.
I am a software engineer. I love computer software and technology. And it is really depressing that it is hardware and software technology (primarily social networking software’s much too generic and optimistic user permissions, along with a handful of technology executives who became increasingly detached from reality) that has empowered a part of society that is always looking to poop on the party.
And now things have gotten way out of control and, well, here we are.
Speaking for us techies, if I may, we just wanted to build cool things that people would love and find useful. But, still, it was us that made all of this cool-ass tech that is being abused and taking us all to the brink of social, political, economic, cultural, and environmental Armageddons.
I spent many years researching and designing all kinds of software that would facilitate human-to-human communication, now known broadly as “social networks.” In the beginning, when I was designing these, I also foolishly assumed that all the users would be Everyday People, or at worst, white-collar criminals. It later became obvious that this was not the case, that some users would exploit the power of the platform to prey on other people en masse. My research then had to come up with mental models of these “Predators”– to understand who they were and what their motivations might be. I needed these models in order to figure out ways to protect other users from them. The result of this research is presented in this book.
My apologies for trampling on the expertise of psychologists, sociologists, economists, historians, policy wonks, and whoever else. It just seems important that these ideas are put out there, no matter how clumsily, and for people to start thinking about and doing something about them.
There is a common meme, it comes in several variations, that goes something like this:
If you aren’t outraged, frightened, or angry, then you aren’t paying attention.
Perhaps it should read:
If you aren’t outraged, frightened, or angry, then you are part of the problem.
