Unpopular Opinion

9182 readers

108 users here now

Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!

How voting works:

Vote the opposite of the norm.

If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.

Guidelines:

Tag your post, if possible (not required)

If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].

Rules:

1. NO POLITICS

Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.

2. Be civil.

Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...

Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.

5. No trolling.

This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.

6. Defend your opinion

This is a bit of a mix of rules 4 and 5 to help foster higher quality posts. You are expected to defend your unpopular opinion in the post body. We don't expect a whole manifesto (please, no manifestos), but you should at least provide some details as to why you hold the position you do.

Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

JonsJava@lemmy.world

lemann@lemmy.world

ptz@dubvee.org

technopagan@lemmy.world

Dremor@lemmy.world

Not many things are deserving of data gathering. Not most, in fact. (fedinsfw.app)

submitted 1 week ago by nerv@fedinsfw.app to c/unpopularopinion@lemmy.world

17 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It seems like everything and anything is about gathering data nowadays. Every small, minute, inconsequential detail of one lifes is worthy of being recordee, tracked, quantified.

Why?

What does it matter how much music I've listened to in a day, a week, a month and a year? What is the relevance of keeping a record of how many bowel movements I've had in a month (exceptions do apply)? Keep record how many books I've read, how many hours spent combing my hair, washing my teeth or how many showers taken in a month? Or by extention any other habit we may have?

What does it matter? Is it that important to carefully and methodically keep record of your life instead of just living it?

Or is it a way to justify all of those tracker apps being created at a dime a dozen?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] boletus@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 week ago

It is actually a very popular opinion outside of tech circles to think a lot of data is not worth collecting. It's why so many see it as "it doesn't matter" or "I don't have anything to hide".

The reality is all this data is incredibly valuable for market control and manipulation. Yes including your bowel movements. Micro optimising targeted ads is the exact goal. You are not privy to the absolute freak levels of optimising these companies are up to, including actively researching and then ignoring the ethical components. They know you better than anyone else on the planet, at least when it comes to marketing to you.

You are right though. This data shouldn't be collected. But it IS collected, and they want you to think its no big deal.