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On August 7th, Louis posted a video talking about the general state of the tech world and, as a form of resistance to it, asked viewers to unite and change their profile pic to Clippy, a Microsoft Office assistant that was later removed permanently with Microsoft Office 2007. He also asked for tech workers to stealthily resist inane corporate demands. My thoughts on this are as follows:
Brah, where the fuck were you? Welcome to the party. We (Sanctuary) started ten hours ago.
As to changing my profile pic, whether on YouTube or here, nah. This ENTIRE WEBSITE stands for resistance to the current status quo, debating, practicing critical thinking, and sharing knowledge and files. As to my YouTube avatar... Eh. I think it's much more important to resist through one's actions instead of one's appearance. If you hate not owning the products you bought, don't pay for shitty products. If you hate Facebook conducting psychological experiments on you, don't use their service. If you work for a shitty company, aggravate their shitty demands. This will send a far more effective message than a profile picture can. Also, I don't think Clippy was really the symbol to choose for this to be honest.
Anyway. Here's the link to the video in question below. I'm also going to post the transcript for it here (Be warned though. It's completely unedited and unformatted.) and the links it had in the description for archival reasons just in case Google decides it's a "terrorist" video and removes it.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Dtmpe9qaQ)
Links:
www.judiciary.senate.gov
en.wikipedia.org
(Futurehome CEO threatens police action after I offer $5,000 bounty to free his ransomed customers) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwSkwh3nWv8
(Louis rips Adobe to shreds over their garbage response, because they deserve it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cayIOCg24bE
(Thermostat maker performs psychological experiments on customers: never buy Tado products) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfAchfFXghc
Brah, where the fuck were you? Welcome to the party. We (Sanctuary) started ten hours ago.
As to changing my profile pic, whether on YouTube or here, nah. This ENTIRE WEBSITE stands for resistance to the current status quo, debating, practicing critical thinking, and sharing knowledge and files. As to my YouTube avatar... Eh. I think it's much more important to resist through one's actions instead of one's appearance. If you hate not owning the products you bought, don't pay for shitty products. If you hate Facebook conducting psychological experiments on you, don't use their service. If you work for a shitty company, aggravate their shitty demands. This will send a far more effective message than a profile picture can. Also, I don't think Clippy was really the symbol to choose for this to be honest.
Anyway. Here's the link to the video in question below. I'm also going to post the transcript for it here (Be warned though. It's completely unedited and unformatted.) and the links it had in the description for archival reasons just in case Google decides it's a "terrorist" video and removes it.
Links:
A Time for Truth: Oversight of Meta’s Foreign Relations and Representations to the United States Congress | United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary
United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary
www.judiciary.senate.gov
United States v. Microsoft Corp. - Wikipedia
(Louis rips Adobe to shreds over their garbage response, because they deserve it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cayIOCg24bE
(Thermostat maker performs psychological experiments on customers: never buy Tado products) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfAchfFXghc
I was listening to the Facebook
whistleblower hearings with Senator Josh
Holly a few months back. One of the
elements that stuck out to me was when
they were talking about how if an
underage girl has deleted a selfie, MA
keeps track of this because they know
that this person likely has low
self-esteem at that moment that they
deleted a picture of themsel, which
means that they may be more apt to
purchase something from an advertiser of
a cosmetic product. And I think about
this within the context of what
companies used to get in trouble for and
what they do or more importantly don't
get in trouble for today. I grew up in
the '9s, a time when Microsoft had hell
and fury fall down upon them because
they bundled a web browser with their
operating system. Whether you think this
is a good idea or not, I personally
think that a web browser being installed
in every single person's computer that
standards non-compliant that is so bad
that you can literally get a virus from
visiting a website has its problems. But
when you look at what it is that
companies got in trouble for in the
'90s, it just doesn't hit the same when
you look at what companies get away with
now. I remember having a Dell Dimension
233 back in the day and if you wanted to
get the one that had slightly better
graphics, they would give you a free
installation of Microsoft Office. And
with Microsoft Office back in the day,
it came with Clippy. Whether or not you
like Clippy and whether or not you liked
Microsoft Office or having an operating
system that had the browser built into
it that could easily get you a virus
when you visited other websites that
were trying to invade your privacy. The
one thing that you could say, unlike
Facebook, who is trying to profit off of
young girls that feel suicidal, Clippy
simply wanted to help. He might have
been annoying, but he just wanted to
help. There were no ulterior motives. If
you told Clippy that you were having a
bad day, he wasn't going to use that
information to try and figure out which
advertiser to sell you to, nor was he
trying to steal your personal data or
get you to purchase other Microsoft
products. He had no ulterior motives. He
was simply there to help. Unlike many
modern pieces of software like what you
get from Adobe or into it where you
can't buy QuickBooks anymore, you can't
buy a video editor anymore, you have to
pay a subscription fee for it. If I were
to boot up that computer that has not
been used for 28 years, and I wanted to
start up Microsoft Word, I could do so
without connecting to the internet and
Clippy would still be there happy,
enthusiastic as ever, simply wanting to
help. Adobe is another example of this.
This is a company that tried to twist
people's arms into having AI and machine
learning stuff go through their personal
data. Not public data, not the speeches
that I give, not my website or my blog
post or my videos, but my private data,
the stuff that I'm editing. And there
were people that were not able to get
into their account until they agreed to
this new enduser license agreement. When
they are looking for access to your
data, they're doing so because they want
to train an AI on how to do what you do
without paying you, without your
consent. Clippy simply wanted to help.
When Clippy would ask you if you wanted
help with writing your letter, Clippy
wouldn't even read the contents of your
letter.
He just wanted to offer suggestions.
Game of Thrones had I'm not spoiler
alert. There's this Sons of the
Heartbeat in season 5. They were these
people that wore masks and they pushed
back against the new regime. And the
purpose of the mask was to let the
leaders know that when you see people
with this mask, we are against you and
your new regime. And we are going to
push back against it as often as we can.
And the worry with the Sons of the Harpy
mask is that it starts with one person
putting the mask on and then somebody
else gains the balls to put the mask on
and then 20 or 40 or 100 of them put the
mask on and once a 100red or a thousand
of them put the mask on, there's nothing
that the leaders can do at that point,
enough people have put it on and enough
people have come together with
solidarity and they're going to do
something about it. Now granted, this
may not be the best analogy because
spoiler alert, they were trying to bring
back slavery and they also were just bad
people. Kesi kind of became a bag
at that point, too. Besides, I think
that Clippy is like a modern-day Sons of
the Harpy mask. If you're tired of
companies changing the terms of the sale
after the sale and getting away with it,
turn your profile photo to a Clippy. If
you're tired of companies that have the
ability to reach into your house and
ransomware your products that they stop
working unless you pay them again,
claiming that that's legal, but then
when somebody tries to give you back
access to what you bought and pay for,
that's illegal. Change your profile
photo to a Clippy. If you're tired of
sex bots invading the comment section on
a regular basis and their comments
always posting with no problem, but your
comments being censored even when you're
not saying anything that bad, change
your profile picture to a clippy. If
Google being one of the premier data
mining companies on Earth, not being
able to tell that little cat
with two pillows next to it that they
try to make look like an ass so that
thirsty young men click it as they
normalize sex trafficking on the
platform that doesn't allow you to
express an opinion bothers you. Change
your profile picture to a Clippy and let
them know that you're not happy. Clippy
never tries to normalize sex
trafficking. He just wanted to help. If
you're tired of companies saying out
loud that the reason they want to keep
you from fixing what you bought and paid
for is that that may take money away
from them, change your profile photo to
a clippy. I never expected to win the
legislative battle. It would be nice if
I did, but it was never something that I
set as I need to do this or I'm a
failure. What I always hoped to do was
win the cultural battle where all of you
understand what's going on and you
decide that enough is enough. If I ever
have a chance in my personal life to
push back against this, I will. You're
maybe not going to send that email that
you're supposed to send to enter. So to
tell them, oh, by the way, make sure
this chip doesn't end up on mouser.com.
Here's an NDA blah blah blah supplier
agreement. Maybe you just forget to send
that email when there's a new consumer
rights law that the senator that you
work for is on the fence about
supporting and there's a lobbyist that's
going to be against it that wants to
have dinner. Huh? Whoops. Maybe their
invitation went to spam. I didn't see
that. Sorry, boss. Maybe you quit before
you create a fake payw wall to test if
your customers will pay again for what
they already paid for. Or maybe when you
send out that ransomware firmware
update, you make it opt in instead of
opt out. Whoopsie. If in some bizarro
world, it is actually illegal to make a
thermostat work again and this bastard
of a CEO decides to try and get the
individual in trouble. 10 cases to
prosecute. Only got time for six. Maybe
I just ignore this one. When a company
CEO logs into their Slack and sees
10,000 clippies looking back at them,
what I hope occurs is that they
intuitively understand that they no
longer live in a world where they can
get away with over the consumer.
That their employees, their partners are
not going to be accompllices to this
anymore. That they are alert and they
are aware of what is going on and they
are going to politely but firmly push
back against it. Every single one of
those 10,000 people will be an obstacle
to the anti-consumer practices and the
anti-ownership practices and it will no
longer be another cog in the assembly
line sending us all into a dystopia.
There will be a moment where that one
person who usually would not have a say
in anything can be activated and in that
moment keep the world from sliding
further into a dystopia or help push it
forward in the opposite direction. But
we all have to get together. And the
first step is making it public that we
know what's going on. That starts with a
clippy. on YouTube. If you're with me, I
ask that you change your profile picture
to a clippy. At work, change your Slack
profile picture to a clippy. If you work
at the White House, don't take down the
United States flag, but somewhere on the
grounds, put up a flag of a clippy.
Clippy's a symbol that what used to be
considered one of the worst annoyances
in our life would now not only be
welcomed, but for all of his flaws,
celebrated as an idol. Because for all
of these things that occur right now
where there is negative malice of
intent, I want to take away what you
own. I want to take this back. I want to
get your data. I want to sell you to an
advertiser when I know that you're
crying. Clippy just wanted to help. And
if you were to turn him on today, unlike
most cloud he'd still work.
Hulu Foundation is going to be
announcing the winners to both the
future home bounty and the Echelon bikes
bounty within the next month. Us
offering 5,000 here, 20,000 there. It
pushes the ball forward, but at the end
of the day, that does nothing in
contrast to organizing all of you. We're
happy to get the ball rolling, but for
us to truly win, we need to show that if
you push us, Clippy clips back. That's
it for today, and as always, I hope you
learned something. I'll see you all in
the next video.
We also have the duty not to infringe
the IP rights in the process. It is in
fact the manufacturers who have the
relevant rights, not consumers.
whistleblower hearings with Senator Josh
Holly a few months back. One of the
elements that stuck out to me was when
they were talking about how if an
underage girl has deleted a selfie, MA
keeps track of this because they know
that this person likely has low
self-esteem at that moment that they
deleted a picture of themsel, which
means that they may be more apt to
purchase something from an advertiser of
a cosmetic product. And I think about
this within the context of what
companies used to get in trouble for and
what they do or more importantly don't
get in trouble for today. I grew up in
the '9s, a time when Microsoft had hell
and fury fall down upon them because
they bundled a web browser with their
operating system. Whether you think this
is a good idea or not, I personally
think that a web browser being installed
in every single person's computer that
standards non-compliant that is so bad
that you can literally get a virus from
visiting a website has its problems. But
when you look at what it is that
companies got in trouble for in the
'90s, it just doesn't hit the same when
you look at what companies get away with
now. I remember having a Dell Dimension
233 back in the day and if you wanted to
get the one that had slightly better
graphics, they would give you a free
installation of Microsoft Office. And
with Microsoft Office back in the day,
it came with Clippy. Whether or not you
like Clippy and whether or not you liked
Microsoft Office or having an operating
system that had the browser built into
it that could easily get you a virus
when you visited other websites that
were trying to invade your privacy. The
one thing that you could say, unlike
Facebook, who is trying to profit off of
young girls that feel suicidal, Clippy
simply wanted to help. He might have
been annoying, but he just wanted to
help. There were no ulterior motives. If
you told Clippy that you were having a
bad day, he wasn't going to use that
information to try and figure out which
advertiser to sell you to, nor was he
trying to steal your personal data or
get you to purchase other Microsoft
products. He had no ulterior motives. He
was simply there to help. Unlike many
modern pieces of software like what you
get from Adobe or into it where you
can't buy QuickBooks anymore, you can't
buy a video editor anymore, you have to
pay a subscription fee for it. If I were
to boot up that computer that has not
been used for 28 years, and I wanted to
start up Microsoft Word, I could do so
without connecting to the internet and
Clippy would still be there happy,
enthusiastic as ever, simply wanting to
help. Adobe is another example of this.
This is a company that tried to twist
people's arms into having AI and machine
learning stuff go through their personal
data. Not public data, not the speeches
that I give, not my website or my blog
post or my videos, but my private data,
the stuff that I'm editing. And there
were people that were not able to get
into their account until they agreed to
this new enduser license agreement. When
they are looking for access to your
data, they're doing so because they want
to train an AI on how to do what you do
without paying you, without your
consent. Clippy simply wanted to help.
When Clippy would ask you if you wanted
help with writing your letter, Clippy
wouldn't even read the contents of your
letter.
He just wanted to offer suggestions.
Game of Thrones had I'm not spoiler
alert. There's this Sons of the
Heartbeat in season 5. They were these
people that wore masks and they pushed
back against the new regime. And the
purpose of the mask was to let the
leaders know that when you see people
with this mask, we are against you and
your new regime. And we are going to
push back against it as often as we can.
And the worry with the Sons of the Harpy
mask is that it starts with one person
putting the mask on and then somebody
else gains the balls to put the mask on
and then 20 or 40 or 100 of them put the
mask on and once a 100red or a thousand
of them put the mask on, there's nothing
that the leaders can do at that point,
enough people have put it on and enough
people have come together with
solidarity and they're going to do
something about it. Now granted, this
may not be the best analogy because
spoiler alert, they were trying to bring
back slavery and they also were just bad
people. Kesi kind of became a bag
at that point, too. Besides, I think
that Clippy is like a modern-day Sons of
the Harpy mask. If you're tired of
companies changing the terms of the sale
after the sale and getting away with it,
turn your profile photo to a Clippy. If
you're tired of companies that have the
ability to reach into your house and
ransomware your products that they stop
working unless you pay them again,
claiming that that's legal, but then
when somebody tries to give you back
access to what you bought and pay for,
that's illegal. Change your profile
photo to a Clippy. If you're tired of
sex bots invading the comment section on
a regular basis and their comments
always posting with no problem, but your
comments being censored even when you're
not saying anything that bad, change
your profile picture to a clippy. If
Google being one of the premier data
mining companies on Earth, not being
able to tell that little cat
with two pillows next to it that they
try to make look like an ass so that
thirsty young men click it as they
normalize sex trafficking on the
platform that doesn't allow you to
express an opinion bothers you. Change
your profile picture to a Clippy and let
them know that you're not happy. Clippy
never tries to normalize sex
trafficking. He just wanted to help. If
you're tired of companies saying out
loud that the reason they want to keep
you from fixing what you bought and paid
for is that that may take money away
from them, change your profile photo to
a clippy. I never expected to win the
legislative battle. It would be nice if
I did, but it was never something that I
set as I need to do this or I'm a
failure. What I always hoped to do was
win the cultural battle where all of you
understand what's going on and you
decide that enough is enough. If I ever
have a chance in my personal life to
push back against this, I will. You're
maybe not going to send that email that
you're supposed to send to enter. So to
tell them, oh, by the way, make sure
this chip doesn't end up on mouser.com.
Here's an NDA blah blah blah supplier
agreement. Maybe you just forget to send
that email when there's a new consumer
rights law that the senator that you
work for is on the fence about
supporting and there's a lobbyist that's
going to be against it that wants to
have dinner. Huh? Whoops. Maybe their
invitation went to spam. I didn't see
that. Sorry, boss. Maybe you quit before
you create a fake payw wall to test if
your customers will pay again for what
they already paid for. Or maybe when you
send out that ransomware firmware
update, you make it opt in instead of
opt out. Whoopsie. If in some bizarro
world, it is actually illegal to make a
thermostat work again and this bastard
of a CEO decides to try and get the
individual in trouble. 10 cases to
prosecute. Only got time for six. Maybe
I just ignore this one. When a company
CEO logs into their Slack and sees
10,000 clippies looking back at them,
what I hope occurs is that they
intuitively understand that they no
longer live in a world where they can
get away with over the consumer.
That their employees, their partners are
not going to be accompllices to this
anymore. That they are alert and they
are aware of what is going on and they
are going to politely but firmly push
back against it. Every single one of
those 10,000 people will be an obstacle
to the anti-consumer practices and the
anti-ownership practices and it will no
longer be another cog in the assembly
line sending us all into a dystopia.
There will be a moment where that one
person who usually would not have a say
in anything can be activated and in that
moment keep the world from sliding
further into a dystopia or help push it
forward in the opposite direction. But
we all have to get together. And the
first step is making it public that we
know what's going on. That starts with a
clippy. on YouTube. If you're with me, I
ask that you change your profile picture
to a clippy. At work, change your Slack
profile picture to a clippy. If you work
at the White House, don't take down the
United States flag, but somewhere on the
grounds, put up a flag of a clippy.
Clippy's a symbol that what used to be
considered one of the worst annoyances
in our life would now not only be
welcomed, but for all of his flaws,
celebrated as an idol. Because for all
of these things that occur right now
where there is negative malice of
intent, I want to take away what you
own. I want to take this back. I want to
get your data. I want to sell you to an
advertiser when I know that you're
crying. Clippy just wanted to help. And
if you were to turn him on today, unlike
most cloud he'd still work.
Hulu Foundation is going to be
announcing the winners to both the
future home bounty and the Echelon bikes
bounty within the next month. Us
offering 5,000 here, 20,000 there. It
pushes the ball forward, but at the end
of the day, that does nothing in
contrast to organizing all of you. We're
happy to get the ball rolling, but for
us to truly win, we need to show that if
you push us, Clippy clips back. That's
it for today, and as always, I hope you
learned something. I'll see you all in
the next video.
We also have the duty not to infringe
the IP rights in the process. It is in
fact the manufacturers who have the
relevant rights, not consumers.
