HN Books @HNBooksMonth

There is an index of partner organizations,[0] but I haven't had much luck with their people index,[1] which seems to present just the WEF website template without any content.

Indeed they've been very kind with releasing their agenda. :) Schwab's "The Great Reset" book is a roadmap for the next steps, and the WEF is following up with more media-friendly content regularly.[3]

I suspect that Schwab either is a very productive author who made excellent use of his lockdown time, or the Great Reset manuscript was sitting in his ghostwriter's desk, and just got "COVID-19" prepended to its title.

Also, re: the "neighborhood hubs". Really? These already existed, they were called, eh let me think -- neighborhoods. But yeah, I like your take on it as a "smart gulag", seems to capture the whole idea nicely.

I'm squinting really hard, but can't see any non-dystopian outcome. Sure, we'll put on a smile -- even with a mask on, it's a requirement, and the WiFi routers are ubiquitous, they're looking at us,[4] and they can tell when you're not smiling,[5] so we'll have to.

(OK, perhaps I'm stretching it with SENS being able to detect smiling, though apparently it does detect gestures.)

[0] https://www.weforum.org/partners

[1] https://www.weforum.org/people/

[2] https://www.amazon.com/o/asin/2940631123

[3] https://www.weforum.org/focus/the-great-reset

[4] https://beyondstandards.ieee.org/ieee-802-11bf-aims-to-enabl...

[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/31/wifi_devices_monitori...

⬐ walterbell

A modicum of good news: in a previous HN discussion of SENS, someone posted a couple of EU-funded research papers on technical countermeasures ("CSI murder" based on OpenWiFi), https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27133079

If you haven't already seen the historical archives of IIW meetings and the Project VRM mailing list, they sometimes have in-depth discussions by recognizable names in the digital identity industry, including some with leadership roles on upcoming specs: https://cyber.harvard.edu/lists/arc/projectvrm & https://cyber.harvard.edu/projectvrm/Main_Page & https://internetidentityworkshop.com/

Welcome to their world where it's not you owning "your" devices, but the mega corps.

Klaus Schwab, head of "World Economic Forum" and author of "The Great Reset" [0]: "You'll own nothing and you will be happy" [1]

[0] https://www.amazon.com/COVID-19-Great-Reset-Klaus-Schwab/dp/...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEQcyIGH_vQ

⬐ airhead969

You own a license to operate it with a license but without any real say as to what it does to you.

Oh, and the hardware isn't repairable and only has a 90 day warranty. It broke? Here's a 15%-off coupon to buy another landfill stuffer.

⬐ djs070

That video is dreadful. How can the producer equate owning nothing with "socialism, communism and totalitarianism" when this is the effect that we're seeing under capitalism?

⬐ stjohnswarts

It's more akin to facism, but they all lead to totalitarianism.

⬐ BeefWellington

It's almost as if the lessons of the company store have been forgotten.

Capitalism works best with good regulation but sadly the last several decades have been about eroding that understanding.

⬐ airhead969

The free, invisible hand will magically wave-away all of deregulation's problems using efficient markets. And then the capital will trickledown. The billionaires have been hyping their delusional libertarianism to such an extent that millions now believe "all government bad."

⬐ alfiedotwtf

Owning nothing and the shared collective ownership is a major tenant in Communism. So in this case, it's half true.

⬐ heavyset_go

"Workers own the means of production" is a major tenant, as well. And socialists had a lot to say about personal and productive property[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_property#Personal_ver...

⬐ PostThisTooFast

The word is TENET, not "tenant." A tenant is someone who rents space.

OK, I see that someone has already pointed this out.

Now let's talk about the "carrot & stick" analogy...

⬐ ojbyrne

“Tenet”

⬐ heavyset_go

I hate when people make this mistake and here I did it myself.

⬐ newsclues

Yes, and the Party manages it for the proletariat.

⬐ anoncake

In Leninism.

⬐ claudiawerner

It's actually not a 'major tenet in Communism' - a quick read of any Communist literature (yes, even the Manifesto) would correct this notion. I have no idea how the feeling that communism promotes no personal property originated other than by, charitably, mistranslation and misunderstanding. Marx never said everyone will be sharing a toothbrush.

⬐ prepend

Could be because of how major things like real estate and means of employment can’t be owned individually in major communist systems like what the USSR did.

It’s not toothbrushes that people care about so much as their homes and jobs.

I’m not familiar with all communist countries, but the whole “can’t own property” from USSR and China probably contributes to the feeling that communism promotes no personal property.

⬐ jonnyone

>even the Manifesto

From the manifesto:

>"The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few. In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."[0]

Ctrl + Fing for 'private property' brings up a lot more. I haven't actually read this thing, but I wanted to check because I was curious what the manifesto actually did say.

Here's the German of the last sentence in case you think it's a bad translation:

>"In diesem Sinn können die Kommunisten ihre Theorie in dem einen Ausdruck: Aufhebung des Privateigentums, zusammenfassen."

[0]: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Man... (p.22)

⬐ heavyset_go

If you do a surface level reading of text, you're going to get a surface level understanding of it.

From here[1]:

> In political/economic theory, notably socialist, Marxist, and most anarchist philosophies, the distinction between private and personal property is extremely important. Which items of property constitute which is open to debate. In some economic systems, such as capitalism, private and personal property are considered to be exactly equivalent.

> Personal property or possessions includes "items intended for personal use" (e.g., one's toothbrush, clothes, and vehicles, and sometimes rarely money).[3] It must be gained in a socially fair manner, and the owner has a distributive right to exclude others.

> Private property is a social relationship between the owner and persons deprived, i.e. not a relationship between person and thing. Private property may include artifacts, factories, mines, dams, infrastructure, natural vegetation, mountains, deserts and seas—these generate capital for the owner without the owner having to perform any labour. Conversely, those who perform labour using somebody else's private property are deprived of the value of their work, and are instead given a salary that is disjointed from the value generated by the worker.

> In Marxist theory, the term private property typically refers to capital or the means of production, while personal property refers to consumer and non-capital goods and services

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_property#Personal_ver...

⬐ jonnyone

>If you do a surface level reading of text, you're going to get a surface level understanding of it.

I'd take this comment more seriously if you cited Marx in a primary text making this distinction, and not some secondary Wikipedia defense. Note that none of the citations in your copy/paste are from Marx himself.

Also, in the definitions given above, personal property could very well be private property, in cases where it was not "gained in a socially fair manner", which seems like a highly subjective criteria.

edit: for those who are silently downvoting, keep in mind that the poster I'm responding to criticized my 'surface level' reading of a primary text (which I readily admit to) and then, rather than presenting a more thorough understanding of the text, copy/pastes a vague summary of an argument, which fails to even properly make the distinction he wants to prove.

⬐ alfiedotwtf

> In Marxist theory, the term private property typically refers to capital or the means of production, while personal property refers to consumer and non-capital goods and services

Hmm... maybe I misread the Communist Manifesto or something, but I did not get this. In fact, you can almost feel his hatred about the whole idea of personal ownership. This even extends to marriage and having children i.e children should be raised by the commune rather than individual parents.

⬐ dragonwriter

> Hmm... maybe I misread the Communist Manifesto or something, but I did not get this. In fact, you can almost feel his hatred about the whole idea of personal ownership.

His distaste is not for “personal ownership” but for the distinct model of property that exists in the capitalist system, which is why he explicitly casts the Communist move to abolish bourgeois property (referred to equivalently as “bourgeois private property” and “private property”; the distinct system of property relations under capitalism) as consistent with the universal historical reality that new systems of property relations and economic systems involve destroying the prior system of property relations, e.g.,

“All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions.

---quote---

“The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favour of bourgeois property.

“The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.

“In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”

---end---

source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-m...

> This even extends to marriage and having children

Viewing wives and children as part of a system of property relations, while very much a feature of the capitalist system Marx critiqued, is viewed distastefully even by many of the people who defend “capitalism” today, not just socialist critics.

> children should be raised by the commune rather than individual parents.

Where does Marx argue for this? Marx notes that the charge of destroying the family is levelled at Communists, and argues that this is hypocritical in that thr capitalist system has destroyed, in different ways, the substance of both proletarian and bourgeios families, and that what what Marxism seeks to extinguish is the hollow form of family that is left under capitalism, and not even that through any direct policy. He says that the existing family system would naturally fall away as a consequence of replacing the system of property and removing the class oppression which depends on it.

⬐ jonnyone

>Where does Marx argue for this?

It depends on what you mean by "raised", but after calling for the abolition of the family in the Manifesto (in whatever sense that the family under capitalism is bourgeois I guess) he says that children will be educated "on a communal basis" and will not be dependent upon their parents (since private property would be abolished). [0]

Secondly, I do not see how our current understanding of "personal ownership" escapes being "bourgeois private property". It seems disingenuous to keep implying that there would not be many radical shifts in how "personal property" would be understood under Marx's ideal communist system compared to how its understood now.

[0]https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Man... (p.52)

⬐ dragonwriter

> he says that children will be educated "on a communal basis" and will not be dependent upon their parent

In modern mixed economies (which while themselves quite far from the Marx’s ideals are arguably closer to it than the Leninist-derived “Communist” systems that pay lip service to Marxism), it is very common, compared to the capitalist system Marx critiqued, to have particularly strong social support networks targeting children (even the US, with its generally weak, among modern developed systems, safety net, has a much stronger one for children than generally), much less unaccountable power for parents over children, and free universal public education, often obligatory with permitted substitution of approved private instruction — children are, IOW, educated on a communal and not, or at least far less compared to the system Marx critiqued, dependent on their parents.

It is important to remember that the system Marx sought to destroy and replace is the dominant 19th Century system in the developed world that he named “capitalism” not the 21st Century system that is the product of more a century and a half of changes to that system, often pushed by Marxist and other socialist critics along with other, often more moderate allies (at least, transactional allies).

> Secondly, I do not see how our current understanding of "personal ownership" escapes being "bourgeois private property".

Note that (for example, among many other prior property systems) the feudal system of property that preceded the capitalist system also was not bourgeios private propety, so what is common between that and the capitalist system is not essentially bourgeois property. The distinctive, defining element of the bourgeois property system is marketable property in means of production to which rented wage labor is applied, and it is principally that particular feature that Marx targets for elimination and replacement with control of the means of production by labor when he talks about elimination of bourgeois property.

⬐ jonnyone

Fair point re: considering Marx's time of writing.

>The distinctive, defining element of the bourgeois property system is marketable property in means of production to which rented wage labor is applied, and it is principally that particular feature that Marx targets for elimination and replacement with control of the means of production by labor when he talks about elimination of bourgeois property.

This at least points me in a direction of interest (Marx doesn't mention feudal property much in the Manifesto, but briefly reading about the historical relationship to property has piqued an interest. Surely other writings of his explore the concept more, and maybe even Hegel writes about it).

Marx in the manifesto:

>Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriations.

This also clears the focus a bit for me, even if I still don't have a solid position yet. I'm glad I poked the bear a little.

⬐ alfiedotwtf

Thanks for the reply. Ok, I think I'll have to go back and re-read with this new perspective. Maybe I took the words too literally.

> money will become superfluous

Given your different perspective, what does he mean my this line? This one bit and the surrounding sentences is where I started to dismiss the text as quackery (compared to Das Kapital, which I did enjoy).

When hearing Marx say money will become useless, you've got to wonder what it means to have property. How do you become to posses a toothbrush if you didn't exchange money for it? Or do we go back to a barter economy?

⬐ alfiedotwtf

> a quick read of any Communist literature (yes, even the Manifesto) would correct this notion.

You must have missed it. And by it, I mean the whole document. Here's an extract from one of the dialogs:

> Question 3: How do you wish to achieve this aim? > Answer: By the elimination of private property and its replacement by community of property

More extracts:

> What will this new social order have to be like > ... Private property must, therefore, be abolished and in its place must come the common utilization of all instruments of production and the distribution of all products according to common agreement – in a word, what is called the communal ownership of goods.

And more:

> Finally, when all capital, all production, all exchange have been brought together in the hands of the nation, private property will disappear of its own accord, money will become superfluous, and production will so expand and man so change that society will be able to slough off whatever of its old economic habits may remain > > ... > > What will be the consequences of the ultimate disappearance of private property? > > ...

Karl Marx studied Property Law and his pamphlets before and after the Communist Manifesto were all about abolishing the personal ownership of property!

⬐ La1n

Private property isn't "anything you can own" here, it has a very specific meaning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_property#Personal_ver...

⬐ alfiedotwtf

Thanks for that... I didn't know there was a difference under Marx.

So one thing Marx did say is that he wanted money to be "superfluous". If money would be useless, how do you get to own a toothbrush? Does that mean we either go back to a barter economy, or something like a social points system like Seasame Credit?

⬐ stjohnswarts

Yes but outside of personal basic needs, you don't own anything in communism, it's all owned by the community collectively. No doubt completely controlled by the party leaders.

⬐ airhead969

It's only pinko communism when the 99% do it.

⬐ phone8675309

Privatized profits, socialized losses. Heads they win, tails we lose.

⬐ airhead969

It's funny how the rich get roughly twice the welfare that people on welfare get... even though they're the ones who really don't need it.

And now Texas is about to try to criminalize homelessness yet again, which I thought was settled in the 9th Circuit multiple times. Maybe it's the old "let's see what horribly-insensitive laws we can pass to rile up that other side but will probably be struck-down by the courts."

Robert Martin et al. v. City of Boise

Desertrain v. City of Los Angeles

⬐ ratsmack

In general, capitalism only exists with small mom and pop retail and other barely surviving small businesses. The majority of commerce is run by a very few corporate oligarchs that also control the majority of government.

⬐ wubbert

Socialist and Communist theories are all rooted in materialism and revolve around material conditions, right? So when the material conditions of capitalism are identical to those conditions promised by Socialism and Communism, then is it really right to still call it capitalism?

⬐ barneygale

No, because capitalism creates artificial scarcity.

Under socialism, a battery factory that invents a more efficient process for creating batteries can pass that saving directly to the workers - rather than working 40 hours a week they can work 20. Their leisure time is increased. This is the future Asimov and Roddenberry envisioned.

Under capitalism, the benefits of such technological advancements gets pissed away into market forces and accumulate with the people who need them least. For some reason we still expect everyone to either inherit money or work a job - even a pointless job - just to survive. Why? We easily have the capacity to feed, clothe and house the world's population. Let people follow their passions! Imagine how many Eisteins, Picassos and Mozarts that are being born into the world right now who will never reach their potential. What an enormously inefficient and unjust system.

⬐ albertop

And socialism/communism killed over 100M people, and capitalism delivered unprecedented reduction of poverty in the history of the mankind. Funny how fancy theories do not pan out.

⬐ LegitShady

>Under socialism, a battery factory that invents a more efficient process for creating batteries can pass that saving directly to the workers - rather than working 40 hours a week they can work 20. Their leisure time is increased.

In socialism, you work according to your ability to the maximum society allows, and you receive according to your needs the maximum the society can provide (ideally).

If you could work 40 hours before the process, there is no reason for you to work less than that now. Your labour isn't defined by your output in batteries, but in hours. Nobody in socialist countries worked less because of technology advancements, they just had higher outputs, like in capitalist countries. The benefit-er is the factory owner, ostensibly 'the people' but really the state/party officials. You are a person, not 'the people'. You don't benefit from it directly - that would be theft from the people.

You don't get to keep your labour because you owe it to the people, comrade. Don't be greedy with the people's resources. Who are you to take from the people? You could be sent to a gulag for re-education, and then who would stand in line for your family to get bread?

⬐ smabie

What if your passion is making a lot of money?

⬐ barneygale

You can use the Enterprise's replicators to repeatedly clone your cash, and then try to find someone who cares.

⬐ anoncake

What if your passion is acquiring a lot of royal titles?

⬐ manicdee

Socialism is about the people owning the means of production, not the mega corporations owning the people.

You have a bizarre filter on the world if you think Amazon sharing your Internet with your neighbours without your consent is anything like socialism.

⬐ bobthechef

> Socialism is about the people owning the means of production

It's about the state owning the means of production and the state is supposedly representing the people, so the textbook fairy tale goes. Of course, putting aside how evil socialist is in principle, in practice it does one better: socialism is the rule of the rich party officials over an impoverished and oppressed society. (And no, the Scandinavian countries aren't socialist.)

⬐ dragonwriter

> It's about the state owning the means of production

No, its about the people (specifically, the workers) controlling the means of production. The State is a vehicle for that in some forms of socialism, but not all. There are forms of socialism that see a role for the state but not that of vehicle of control of the means of production, and there are forms of socialism (e.g., libertarian socialism) which reject statism entirely (in fact, not only does that whole spectrum exist withi socialism broadly, the entire state socialist to anti-statist spectrum exists within explicitly Marxist socialism.)

Too many people’s ideas of “socialism” is a product of Leninist propaganda (often through the further filter of Western right-wing propaganda, which has a weird semi-alignment with Leninists in misrepesenting “socialism”.)

⬐ wubbert

"Ownership" is an "ideal". I'm talking about material conditions. If the material conditions of a few mega corporations owning the means of production are identical to the material conditions that are said to result from the workers owning the means of production, then what is the difference?

⬐ manicdee

What do you mean by material conditions? The point of socialism is that there is no third party extracting profit from the workers’ labour, only the workers themselves. The workers decide what gets done, how it gets done, and how any profits are disbursed.

A corporation owning the means of production doesn’t meet the basic definitions of socialism since the workers have no power and it is only by the grace of the employer that their voices are heard if at all.

I appreciate that you love capitalism and want it to be the perfect system but it’s not, and you can’t make capitalism look like socialism by dressing it up in welfare and democracy.

⬐ monkeydreams

In socialism, worker-based ownership leads to better conditions. In this vision of capitalism, workers have no control over their conditions.

⬐ claudiawerner

This is a gross misunderstanding of 'material conditions' in Marx and other philosophers. 'Material conditions' does not mean simply what is - for instance, no socialist would say that the capitalist welfare state is 'socialist' because people have the 'material conditions' of receiving welfare.

The 'material conditions', at least as far as socialist/communist/anarchist authors go, refers to the mode of production and the relationship of workers to the means of production. It is not 'measured' in terms of wealth, nor in terms of poverty levels.

It is also a mistake to say that socialism 'revolves' around material conditions. Marx himself took swift action to point out that people being happy and well-fed is by no means a 'socialist' society. This is, after all, assuming you subscribe to the theory of historical materialism - which several prominent Marxists today (and in the recent past) do not, at least strictly.

⬐ throwkeep

> Socialism is about the people owning the means of production

Why do people keep repeating that line?

Socialism is where the government (the ultimate monopoly) owns the means of production and the people. It centralizes power into the hands of a few who plan the economy from the top down. That's why it always ends up with brutal dictators and mass causalities.

⬐ cyanydeez

well, these weird republican corporatism seems intent on trying to blame their future actions and false dichotomies.

⬐ bobthechef

State capitalism is the flip side of state socialism. They are two roads that lead to the same destination.

Also, speaking of false dichotomies, pinning this on the GOP is rather silly and plays into a false narrative. The Democratic party is just as much if not more entrenched in the halls of corporate and banking power. We live in an oligarchy (Chomsky calls it a polyarchy). They increasingly own the government and joust for the chance to assume high office.

⬐ bobthechef

Why is this rich guy with rich buddies telling us what to do?

⬐ phone8675309

Welcome to America where everyone is equal. You can buy all the free speech you can afford, and the rich guy can buy all the free speech he can afford, and we let the invisible hand sort it out.

⬐ jpxw

Did Schwab say that? I thought that was some random writer that the WEF had run an op-ed.

See also https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-wef-idUSKBN2AP2...

⬐ leesalminen

Your link references a video but parent posted a link to a book authored by Klaus Schwab.

⬐ leesalminen

Would be curious to know if the book the parent posted authored by Klaus Schwab talks about that at all.

⬐ deadite

>Danish politician Ida Auken, who wrote the prediction in question (here), said it was not a “utopia or dream of the future” but “a scenario showing where we could be heading - for better and for worse.”

>In a written update, she clarified that the piece aimed to “start a discussion about some of the pros and cons of the current technological development. When we are dealing with the future, it is not enough to work with reports. We should start discussions in many new ways. This is the intention with this piece.”

The "starting a discussion" is bullshit rhetoric under the guise of innocence, and you should be wiser than to believe these people don't have an agenda. No one "starts a discussion" without an agenda.

⬐ judge2020

An 'agenda' is just a want for either change or preservation - we should be evaluating based on the societal consequences of those agendas, not that the agendas exist. 'Start a discussion' is just a way of saying that we should be talking about said thing.

⬐ trompetenaccoun

What would be the societal consequences?

Ownership is an integral part of free societies and is immensely important for our economic system, which doesn't work any other way. People are not motivated to do their jobs properly without incentives, that's basic human nature and systems that tried going against this have failed every time in history.

In a capitalist system, you can have more central authority and planning, but it will lead to inefficiencies and corruption by design. The only way you can sustain such a system then is by increased oppression and censorship of the ill effects. China is a perfect model for this. It works well, granted, at the price of freedom. This is basically what they're steering western countries too as well, only with the billionaires in charge instead of the CCP.

⬐ judge2020

You own the physical device yet you don't get to choose what happens to it. That's only because, when you buy it, you implicitly accept that A) it can be remotely updated to do anything (or stop doing something) and B) you have to use it in the way it's intended. Past that, you can't choose how it works - you have to not buy it if you aren't happy with those terms.

⬐ airhead969

Also, when they decide to stop supporting it (servers and security updates), they can flick a switch and kill the products. The best planned-obsolescence ever: unrepairable and it only works by dialing-home.

⬐ Proven

No. You've got a license to use the s/w at best.

The device may be yours, but the s/w is merely licensed. At worst, maybe you're just a subscriber who owns nothing.

You're right where they want to you to be.

⬐ LegitShady

How it works constantly changes. When you bought it, it didn't share your internet. Now it does.

I bought my mom a tv and a few months later she mentioned a new wifi network she didn't understand...turns out with an OTA update the TV now broadcasts its own Wifi network and lord knows what it does on it.

I would not have bought it under those terms, the terms changed, and now I have to take a loss to replace the TV with something that doesn't do that.

So instead, if the functionality of the device changes after the fact, the company who updated the app should be liable for cost to replace the device with a new one that doesn't have the new behaviour.

⬐ aschatten

This is why I want to have a “dumb” TV, I only want it to support high quality video and multiple inputs and have no brains at all. I can’t find any decent so far.

⬐ airhead969

Class-action lawsuit

⬐ judge2020

That's part of my A point. Regardless of how it technically functions, it has the ability to create and receive radio waves and thus might update itself without your knowledge or permission. As long as it technically doesn't lose functionality that's advertised, there's no problem in terms of consumer protection laws.

> I would not have bought it under those terms, the terms changed, and now I have to take a loss to replace the TV with something that doesn't do that.

Same as above: the terms didn't change and they aren't what it can do now; the terms are that this device might update functionality and that future change, if applied to your device, will be applied to your device under the current terms that allow it. If you don't like that, you don't have to use the device's software and you still have the right to hit the hardware you possess a hammer.

As for if you ethically should be entitled to a refund, well, how do you determine the point where someone is entitled to grievances? What if someone buys a $1000 laptop for the purpose of playing high-end games, but in 10 years game developers start dropping support for the old architecture it uses or new games simply don't run well on it. Should they be entitled to a refund? What if, on surface devices, Windows moves the start menu to the middle (a la Windows 10X), and you didn't expect that - does Microsoft now have to refund or replace your product?

Regarding:

> turns out with an OTA update the TV now broadcasts its own Wifi network and lord knows what it does on it.

That's probably a way to directly stream to the TV without a separate wifi network, or part of the setup experience (eg. connect to its wifi, type in your real wifi password, it shuts down the network then connects to your main wifi). They don't just throw extra wifi chips on their boards for no reason, so it's probably one of these.

⬐ LegitShady

>As long as it technically doesn't lose functionality that's advertised, there's no problem in terms of consumer protection laws.

Disagree. Starting a wifi network in my home I have no control over and can't disable was not part of the device feature set when I bought it, and I would not have bought it if it was.

The functionality that was lost was my ability to control the wifi my own devices make.

>Same as above: the terms didn't change and they aren't what it can do now; the terms are that this device might update functionality and that future change, if applied to your device, will be applied to your device under the current terms that allow it. If you don't like that, you don't have to use the device's software and you still have the right to hit the hardware you possess a hammer.

Disagree. The terms changed because the terms never contained an uncontrollable wifi network in my home. Terms of use that allow unending changes with no thought to consideration (in the legal sense) aren't contracts of any merit. Contracts that allow one side to unendingly damage the other side without consideration have no merit, no matter what anyone says.

If I hit it with a hammer I'm still out the money due to their changes to the device I purchased. I'm taking a loss due to changes in the terms that have no consideration and are different than the terms I agreed to.

>As for if you ethically should be entitled to a refund, well, how do you determine the point where someone is entitled to grievances?

There is no such thing as ethically being entitled to a refund. It's fantasy.

>That's probably a way to directly stream to the TV

The TV does it whether you're streaming or not. You can't disable it, there is no setting to turn it off. The TV is hardwired to the router and isn't streaming anything. Even if I was streaming to the TV, it would be on my own wifi network, on theirs. There's no reason for them to control a wifi network in my house, period.

"Smart" devices are just devices that act against your interest interest because 'the terms of service you agreed to when you set it up had unlimited changes for one party'.

⬐ judge2020

Your disagreement doesn't hold up in terms of false advertising in that the device advertised being able to play music with your voice, not 'granular control over the wifi and other RF waves emitted!'.

> Contracts that allow one side to unendingly damage the other side without consideration have no merit, no matter what anyone says.

You'd probably have a hard time convincing a judge of damages given you have the option to turn this off and Amazon gave warning to customers about this functionality well in advance (November 24, 2020 is when I received the email https://i.judge.sh/right/Armor/chrome_lbf9jmauwR.png ).

> The TV does it whether you're streaming or not. You can't disable it, there is no setting to turn it off. The TV is hardwired to the router and isn't streaming anything. Even if I was streaming to the TV, it would be on my own wifi network, on theirs. There's no reason for them to control a wifi network in my house, period.

Probably just faulty engineering then, ie

  if !wifi.connected:
    wifi.enable_wifi_direct()

And bad engineering isn't usually tackled by local consumer protection agencies when they can just let the market sort itself out.

And this is what I mean by direct play:

https://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/wi-fi-direct

⬐ LegitShady

> Your disagreement doesn't hold up in terms of false advertising in that the device advertised being able to play music with your voice, not 'granular control over the wifi and other RF waves emitted!'.

I bought the device just as much for what it didn't do as what it did. It did not create its own wifi network against my wishes. Now it does. I am damaged because I have lost the ability to control the wifi networks in my home, unless I choose to take a loss on this TV and replace it.

>You'd probably have a hard time convincing a judge of damages

Again, the damages come from the cost of replacing this device with one that doesn't do what it was updated to do against my wishes. My TV isn't made by amazon, and has nothing to do with amazon, so your point about amazon warning users to 'opt-out' of being damaged by amazon doesn't matter. Amazon knows the great majority of old folks and idiots who buy their devices won't turn it off because they can't be bothered to read and 'AMAZON SIDEWALK' doesn't raise alarm bells like 'AMAZON STEAL YOUR INTERNET'.

>Probably just faulty engineering then, ie

Alternately, as you say, I'm unlikely to convince a judge that it's damage so they have no reason not to do it. They can do whatever they want and as long it wasn't disabling a feature, it's kosher. They could sell my location and browsing habits, they could check the network to see what other devices are on it and when they log in, the could do anything at all apparently.

> And this is what I mean by direct play:

My idea of direct play is an hdmi cable - its much more secure and doesnt' require any wifi at all.

⬐ judge2020

Generally if you know that a product can do something is going to happen pre-purchase you can't claim damages from that thing happening, and it's no secret that the smart functionality of the device keep it up-to-date.

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/adv...

> In addition, an act or practice is unfair if the injury it causes, or is likely to cause, is: substantial, not outweighed by other benefits, and not reasonably avoidable.

> They could sell my location and browsing habits, they could check the network to see what other devices are on it and when they log in, the could do anything at all apparently.

Quite literally, yes, assuming you're in the United States and you check the box that specifies the terms of data collection. If you live in the E.U,, your GDPR rights mean they have to ask for explicit permission to do so.

> My idea of direct play is an hdmi cable - its much more secure and doesn't' require any wifi at all.

I'm not trying to be witty, i'm showing why devices might create their own wifi network and 'direct play' is just the name used on some TVs for wi-fi direct.

⬐ LegitShady

> Generally if you know that a product can do something is going to happen pre-purchase you can't claim damages from that thing happening, and it's no secret that the smart functionality of the device keep it up-to-date.

Making its own wifi network is not keeping it up to date. There's no reason for it to control it's own wifi network having to do with the keeping it up to date, that is a red herring.

If 'keeping things up to date' includes any predatory feature they can conceive of, then it's sort of meaningless.

>Quite literally, yes, assuming you're in the United States and you check the box that specifies the terms of data collection.

Terms they could update at any time to add any data, so are meaningless. Maybe I agreed to the terms of data collection before they updated the terms of data collection to new data collection. Now it's taking pictures of you sitting on the couch and selling them on onlyfans that's ok under the new terms that you agreed to forever by signing the previous terms that say they can change the terms whenever they want, and add 'features' like selling your pictures under the auspices of 'keeping your device up to date'.

That's the problem with one sided 'contracts' that don't have any consideration. They're vile and they're actively damaging. When attached to expensive physical goods it's almost certainly directly damaging.

>I'm not trying to be witty, i'm showing why devices might create their own wifi network and 'direct play' is just the name used on some TVs for wi-fi direct.

Again, it doesn't matter. I don't want it, it wasn't part of the TV when I bought it, I have no interest in a wifi network someone else controls attached to devices in my home or in my family's home, and it can't be disabled.

Adding this 'feature' has made the TV completely not ok with me. 'Keeping the device up to date' does not include make a wifi network broadcasting in my home against my wishes and outside of my control. That's some kind of dark corporate animal farm speak.

⬐ judge2020

Generally if you know that a product can do something is going to happen pre-purchase you can't claim damages from that thing happening, and it's no secret that amazon devices are always up-to-date.

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/adv...

> In addition, an act or practice is unfair if the injury it causes, or is likely to cause, is: substantial, not outweighed by other benefits, and not reasonably avoidable.

You are on to something important here:) If you want to know how we are will be "happy by owning nothing" read this "masterpiece" of socialized corporatism https://www.amazon.co.uk/COVID-19-Great-Reset-Klaus-Schwab/d... .