bariumbitmap

I don't know much about sociology, so I found it interesting to read a sociologist critique his own field. This part stood out to me:

> To make a loose statistical analogy, it is a little like continuing to add variables to a regression on the grounds that the explained variance keeps increasing.

Like a statistical model having parameters, a theory should have some nuance, but too much nuance is analogous to overfitting. It reminds me of the maxim that a theory should be as simple as possible but no simpler

> This sort of breathless outrage rhetoric would be a lot easier to take seriously if it spent even a minute acknowledging the very real risk to users that this is meant to mitigate: tech support scams where people are walked through installing an app that takes over their phone and steals their money, private data, and identity.

1. Is requiring developers to submit government ID actually an effective way to prevent tech support scams? Will scammers actually be deterred by a government ID requirement in addition to the existing developer registration process?

2. Is requiring developers to submit government ID the best option to prevent tech support scams? Are there other options that Google could use to make Android user less susceptible to tech support scams?

> You can disagree with the tradeoff, but if you don't acknowledge it you're just doing propaganda.

The tradeoff, such as it is, is acknowledged on keepandroidopen.org under the "But wait, isn't this...just about security?" section:

> The security rationale is a smokescreen. Google Play Protect already scans for malware independent of developer identity. Requiring a government ID doesn't make code safer.

Finally:

> Personally, I think the 24h cooldown is an excellent compromise to allow user freedom while slowing down attackers sufficiently to mitigate the harm.

I don't think this is an excellent compromise. Scammers are persistent. I'm not convinced a 24 hour cooldown is enough to deter them in any meaningful way. I, on the other hand, am not persistent enough to wait 24 hours to install an Android app from F-Droid just to try it out.

Stargate is military scifi. For starters, all the protagonists work for the US Air Force.

1989 was 37 years ago, i.e. almost 40 years ago. Time flies.

> Blue-collar workers, in general, have successfully ridden the waves of technological change. If you can manage a crew of manual carpenters, you can also manage a warehouse full of woodworking robots.

Uh, what? This hypothetical is literally an example of an entire crew of manual carpenters being fired and replaced by robots, leaving only the manager. That sure doesn't sound like successfully riding the waves of technological change.

> It’s usually the white-collar workers who bear the most economic disruption from major technological innovations.

Citation needed. This is not the prevailing wisdom I have heard, and certainly not the experience of e.g. longshoremen replaced by shipping container technology in the 1960s and 1970s.