Ahhh, the ugly side of the data coin getting bigger.

[CruzDude]

The Kings have hired a Statistical Guru to go along with a statistical oriented software development owner. Here is a PDA quote from an ESPN story appearing in ESPN The Magazine October 27 in their NBA Preview Issue:

"We need to be able to have impact on these players in their private time," says Kings general manager Pete D'Alessandro. "It doesn't have to be us vs. you. It can be a partnership." A lovely sentiment, at least in theory. But how long will it be until biometric details impact contract negotiations? How long until graphs of off-court behavior are leaked to other teams or the press? How long until employment hinges on embracing technology that some find invasive?

Great reading about the future of the NBA having nothing to do directly with games and scoring. Here is a link to the full article:

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/1...testing-less-michael-lewis-more-george-orwell

"Whatcha gonna do, bad boy? Watcha gonna do? Them cops is watching you" Where is this going to go?

 

[Bricklayer]

They could just try that, just once with me, and see how that turned out for them.

 

[Bricklayer]

Whizzinator to pass a drug test. Regardless, the very notion of evading detection may soon be obsolete. Dr. Saxon, of USC's Center for Body Computing, is in the planning stages of an invention that would render the Whizzinator-esque technologies moot. Her vision? "Minimally invasive implantables," Saxon says, sounding genuinely excited. "Injectable, stays in the body for a year or two. No fuss." She can imagine the device feeding key biometric information to your phone. Automated directions -- the equivalent of your new car telling you to fill up the tank -- would then pop up as alerts.

This is the terrible thing with technology. It is rapidly overwhelming our pathetic little biological bodies, and all it takes is one scientist with ethics a little askew and then the nearly universal human trait of greed/self interest to propogate it. There's also a serious problem with the younger generation now not even being able to detect the death of their own freedom, because they are growing up with the expectation that it doesn't exist. When you have never had any expectation of privacy, its all too easy to give up the last shreds of it.

Nor can you even remotely say that our franchise is on the side of the angels:

"We want to be one step beyond what anyone else is doing," says Kings owner Vivek Ranadive, whose personal fortune was built on the comprehensive digitization of Wall Street. "Amazingly, what banks and trading floors were 20 years ago, sports is now. The stakes are huge, and we can act quickly." Just listen to his GM, who is thinking far deeper than mere skin. "The holy grail," D'Alessandro says, "is sequencing and understanding the genome. And how that relates to pro athletes on an injury basis and who's naturally good at certain sports." As part of his mandate with the Kings, he's consulted scientists about one day building a vast predraft database of player DNA -- not just for evaluation but for gauging injury risks and prevention. "You wouldn't have to be identified as a person," he says, "you could be identified as a number. I don't suspect this will happen in our lifetimes. But the way things have proliferated scientifically? Maybe it will."

Anybody ever see Gattaca? Great film from the late 90s far more prophetic than you might think.

 

[ESP47]

I remember reading some arena articles that seemed kind of 1984ish. How they would know when you were around the arena and all that. Fan tracking basically. Kinda scary.

 

[kingsboi]

Technology will be taking over the world before we know it, question is when. Whether that is in a positive or negative way is yet to be determined.

 

[The Hammer]

I remember reading some arena articles that seemed kind of 1984ish. How they would know when you were around the arena and all that. Fan tracking basically. Kinda scary.

Most phone apps have this already.

 

[N0tmyfault]

I'm in the middle on this. With every great invention or advancement in technology, there seems to be a negative aspect attached to it. With cars, you have vehicle accidents; with the internet, you have child predators (among other things), etc.., etc...
It's to be expected. Anything used for good, can be used for bad.

 

[Gary]

Technology will be taking over the world before we know it, question is when. Whether that is in a positive or negative way is yet to be determined.

Awesome? Brain memory chip implants where you could learn anything at the drop of a hat.

Negative? Someone could hack your brain chip and upload a virus that kills you in a second or that renders you a vegetable.

 

[bajaden]

I guess the question may be, how much of your personal privicy are you willing to give up to be an NBA player. Technology is always ahead of the curve, and it usually has more pluses than minuses. But there is a negative side, and in most cases, it involves loss of freedom. And to quote (I believe) Thomas Jeffereson, "Anyone that's willing to give up a little bit of freedom for a little bit of security, deserves neither". Anyway, I'm all far the latest technology, as long as you don't lose the human element in your decision making.

 

[Bricklayer]

I guess the question may be, how much of your personal privicy are you willing to give up to be an NBA player. Technology is always ahead of the curve, and it usually has more pluses than minuses. But there is a negative side, and in most cases, it involves loss of freedom. And to quote (I believe) Thomas Jeffereson, "Anyone that's willing to give up a little bit of freedom for a little bit of security, deserves neither". Anyway, I'm all far the latest technology, as long as you don't lose the human element in your decision making.

Benjamin Franklin.

Actually becoming increasingly an important quote that unfortunately too many people ignore.

 

[VF21]

I guess the question may be, how much of your personal privicy are you willing to give up to be an NBA player. Technology is always ahead of the curve, and it usually has more pluses than minuses. But there is a negative side, and in most cases, it involves loss of freedom. And to quote (I believe) Thomas Jeffereson, "Anyone that's willing to give up a little bit of freedom for a little bit of security, deserves neither". Anyway, I'm all far the latest technology, as long as you don't lose the human element in your decision making.

It was Ben Franklin...

As far as the loss of freedom goes, people still have the freedom to NOT post their every movement, thought, etc. on social media. And a lot of people who were active at one time have become a lot less so. No one forces NBA players to be on Twitter, Facebook, etc. The smart ones are very careful about what they share; the dumb ones will hopefully learn eventually that, much like a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln, etc. "It's better to be quiet and be thought of a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." (That quote, BTW, was actually a paraphrase of Proverbs 17.28.)

 

[uolj]

While I understand the potential concerns, I don't see these new technologies as being any different than any other innovation or change that has occurred over the last century that affects the athletes. There are privacy concerns (e.g. drug testing), health concerns (e.g. limits on practice levels in the NFL), fairness issues (minimum age requirements) and a whole host of other things that happen when teams try to find ways to improve the performance of their players and the profitability of their franchises. This isn't (or shouldn't be) any more or less scary than those other things.

The players have a union that at least attempts to protect them from being taken advantage of by owners not looking out for their players' best interests. There's no reason to think this won't be different. And obviously there are benefits to the athletes here as well. I think most of them want to be the best that they can be. And the ones open to using this type of information will perform better, which will be better for them as well as their teams.

"Anyone that's willing to give up a little bit of freedom for a little bit of security, deserves neither".

I think Franklin's actual quote is:

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

It has a somewhat different meaning than the paraphrased version often used.
Source: http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp?vol=6&page=238a (paragraph 6)

 

[kingsboi]

Awesome? Brain memory chip implants where you could learn anything at the drop of a hat.

Negative? Someone could hack your brain chip and upload a virus that kills you in a second or that renders you a vegetable.

How about those rumors going around that by 2016 we won't be using credit cards anymore and they will implant chips into people's hands...huh?!

 

[Bricklayer]

While I understand the potential concerns, I don't see these new technologies as being any different than any other innovation or change that has occurred over the last century that affects the athletes. There are privacy concerns (e.g. drug testing), health concerns (e.g. limits on practice levels in the NFL), fairness issues (minimum age requirements) and a whole host of other things that happen when teams try to find ways to improve the performance of their players and the profitability of their franchises. This isn't (or shouldn't be) any more or less scary than those other things.

The players have a union that at least attempts to protect them from being taken advantage of by owners not looking out for their players' best interests. There's no reason to think this won't be different. And obviously there are benefits to the athletes here as well. I think most of them want to be the best that they can be. And the ones open to using this type of information will perform better, which will be better for them as well as their teams.


I think Franklin's actual quote is:
It has a somewhat different meaning than the paraphrased version often used.
Source: http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp?vol=6&page=238a (paragraph 6)

that's a bit like saying there isn't any difference in man's finding new ways of killing each other between inventing the musket and inventing the atom bomb.

Fully implemented as envisioned by some in those articles and you are talking about a totalitarian state's nirvana. You get to have somebody monitoring everything from that frowned upon slice of cake you ate at your daughter's birthday party, to what time you had sex, to how regularly you go to the bathroom. All for your own good of course, as translated through the lens of what's good for their organization. But hey, no reason to limit this to basketball players with a flimsy little union between their ignorant uneducated asses and giant technocratic employers. Fact is that every employee can be made better, and most of them are easily replaceable and desperate for jobs. So let's just make a term of employment a nice little patch and eventually chip to make sure they eat an approved diet spread out at approved times of the day, don't drink, get to bed on time, and hey, look at that they are having an unauthorized spike in endorphins at 3:00pm I bet they are socializing rather than working. But hey we can check that with the camera we have installed in their cubicle.

 

[c-webb1s#1]

that's a bit like saying there isn't any difference in man's finding new ways of killing each other between inventing the musket and inventing the atom bomb.

Fully implemented as envisioned by some in those articles and you are talking about a totalitarian state's nirvana. You get to have somebody monitoring everything from that frowned upon slice of cake you ate at your daughter's birthday party, to what time you had sex, to how regularly you go to the bathroom. All for your own good of course, as translated through the lens of what's good for their organization. But hey, no reason to limit this to basketball players with a flimsy little union between their ignorant uneducated asses and giant technocratic employers. Fact is that every employee can be made better, and most of them are easily replaceable and desperate for jobs. So let's just make a term of employment a nice little patch and eventually chip to make sure they eat an approved diet spread out at approved times of the day, don't drink, get to bed on time, and hey, look at that they are having an unauthorized spike in endorphins at 3:00pm I bet they are socializing rather than working. But hey we can check that with the camera we have installed in their cubicle.

I love technology and am excited for its uses in things like the oculus rift and virtual reality, self driving cars, A.I. ect

but man....i'll be living off the land in a log cabin if this world becomes like that!

 

[uolj]

that's a bit like saying there isn't any difference in man's finding new ways of killing each other between inventing the musket and inventing the atom bomb.

Fully implemented as envisioned by some in those articles and you are talking about a totalitarian state's nirvana. You get to have somebody monitoring everything from that frowned upon slice of cake you ate at your daughter's birthday party, to what time you had sex, to how regularly you go to the bathroom. All for your own good of course, as translated through the lens of what's good for their organization. But hey, no reason to limit this to basketball players with a flimsy little union between their ignorant uneducated asses and giant technocratic employers. Fact is that every employee can be made better, and most of them are easily replaceable and desperate for jobs. So let's just make a term of employment a nice little patch and eventually chip to make sure they eat an approved diet spread out at approved times of the day, don't drink, get to bed on time, and hey, look at that they are having an unauthorized spike in endorphins at 3:00pm I bet they are socializing rather than working. But hey we can check that with the camera we have installed in their cubicle.

Wow... You took that pretty far.

My point is that I see no reason why this is an atom bomb and not just a new type of musket. If you take any idea to its limits you can have serious repercussions, but why will this thing be different and actually get to those limits? Reality is (in my opinion) that it actually isn't any different. It just *seems* scarier.

And just to limit it to basketball (for board policy related reasons), the union is flimsy but it still resists blatantly bad ideas. There's no reason to think they will suddenly let this stuff to get as out of hand as in your description or anywhere close. People could have worried (and did worry) that things like the dress code or drug testing or off-season restrictions would get way out of hand. Whether you think they actually did or not, this new technology should follow a similar path.

 

[Bricklayer]

Wow... You took that pretty far.

My point is that I see no reason why this is an atom bomb and not just a new type of musket. If you take any idea to its limits you can have serious repercussions, but why will this thing be different and actually get to those limits? Reality is (in my opinion) that it actually isn't any different. It just *seems* scarier.

And just to limit it to basketball (for board policy related reasons), the union is flimsy but it still resists blatantly bad ideas. There's no reason to think they will suddenly let this stuff to get as out of hand as in your description or anywhere close. People could have worried (and did worry) that things like the dress code or drug testing or off-season restrictions would get way out of hand. Whether you think they actually did or not, this new technology should follow a similar path.

Actually I didn't take it far at all. That's the alarming point. What I just posted is EASY. Its 10 years away easy. Dress codes didn't fail. Russel Westbrook aside they accomplished exactly their goal. Well my above post IS the goal. Not the expanded goal. Just the goal. There are actually people right now sitting in offices who think that's a desirable thing. A few who are willing to do it to themselves and so why not everybody else. More who just willing to do it to others from a safe perch.

Our bodies are nothing and everything. Illusions that they were somehow superior and special should be long past. Technology is coming which will lay them as wide open as a frog on a table. Once they are penetrated and monitored than there is no further possibility of privacy, except in your own thoughts...as long as those thoughts don't produce physical reactions. Being blasé about someone being able to monitor when you ate, what you ate, when you sleep, how long you sleep, when you got up to pee, when you were with your wife and everything else is just insanity. George Orwell wrote about this kind of stuff. And in America the magic bullet that always slays is money. We want to earn the most money, so we have a RIGHT to do this to protect our investment. If you want to earn money you just have to submit to... Its every bit as corrosive to liberty as the direct and clumsy power of an overarching state. Why stop at demanding people's facebook pages and friends lists when you can directly monitor their day to day activities, and provide corrective advice as necessary. After all, you are spending money on them, and that midnight snack is effecting their productivity today.

 

[King Baller]

Is it too late to get Petrie back?

 

[uolj]

Actually I didn't take it far at all. That's the alarming point. What I just posted is EASY. Its 10 years away easy. Dress codes didn't fail. Russel Westbrook aside they accomplished exactly their goal. Well my above post IS the goal. Not the expanded goal. Just the goal. There are actually people right now sitting in offices who think that's a desirable thing. A few who are willing to do it to themselves and so why not everybody else. More who just willing to do it to others from a safe perch.

Our bodies are nothing and everything. Illusions that they were somehow superior and special should be long past. Technology is coming which will lay them as wide open as a frog on a table. Once they are penetrated and monitored than there is no further possibility of privacy, except in your own thoughts...as long as those thoughts don't produce physical reactions. Being blasé about someone being able to monitor when you ate, what you ate, when you sleep, how long you sleep, when you got up to pee, when you were with your wife and everything else is just insanity. George Orwell wrote about this kind of stuff. And in America the magic bullet that always slays is money. We want to earn the most money, so we have a RIGHT to do this to protect our investment. If you want to earn money you just have to submit to... Its every bit as corrosive to liberty as the direct and clumsy power of an overarching state. Why stop at demanding people's facebook pages and friends lists when you can directly monitor their day to day activities, and provide corrective advice as necessary. After all, you are spending money on them, and that midnight snack is effecting their productivity today.

Meh... George Orwell and others wrote about this kind of stuff, and people keep saying it's only 10 years away, and yet it's still 10 years away. And yes, technically we are getting closer, but we're also adapting and evolving as a society. So it will continue to be 10 years away 10 years from now.

Also, notice that my point wasn't that dress codes failed. Quite the opposite. My point was that there's no reason to treat this any differently than we treated the dress code. It's path will mirror things like dress code and drug testing.

Finally, I'm not sure why you think people's own thoughts will be private. Those will also be monitored eventually, too. But by then our society will have evolved to a point where it's mostly reasonable and the abuses of that technology aren't any more common than abuses of current technology or the technology of the past.

 

[rainmaker]

It was Ben Franklin...

As far as the loss of freedom goes, people still have the freedom to NOT post their every movement, thought, etc. on social media. And a lot of people who were active at one time have become a lot less so. No one forces NBA players to be on Twitter, Facebook, etc. The smart ones are very careful about what they share; the dumb ones will hopefully learn eventually that, much like a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln, etc. "It's better to be quiet and be thought of a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." (That quote, BTW, was actually a paraphrase of Proverbs 17.28.)

Yes, but your email isn't private either as the NSA has repeatedly shown, nor are your text messages. This isn't just about the NBA from we're I'm sitting. Some employers already request access to your facebook to prospective hires. Privacy is going by the wayside and many are ignoring it or flat out ignorant to it.

It's just the tip of the iceberg too. We're not far from financial and medical history being accessible to law enforcement and employers. Smart phones have chips in them which allow you to be tracked and your location identified. Actually, law enforcement already has the technology to remotely hack into our phones, download communication and pin our location. Anything and everything you do on your computer has been recorded and stored already unless you know how to protect yourself and are somewhat savvy, know how to use proxies/TOR/VPNs. In the UK, starting next year, every new car sold will have a "black box" which tracks your car's every move, and of course it's hidden behind safety, as fear is the best way to gain compliance.

This has all happened in just the last few years. Our freedom is quickly eroding and is hidden behind the newest technologies which most can't get enough of and don't question.

 

[VF21]

Yes, but your email isn't private either as the NSA has repeatedly shown, nor are your text messages. This isn't just about the NBA from we're I'm sitting. Some employers already request access to your facebook to prospective hires. Privacy is going by the wayside and many are ignoring it or flat out ignorant to it.

It's just the tip of the iceberg too. We're not far from financial and medical history being accessible to law enforcement and employers. Smart phones have chips in them which allow you to be tracked and your location identified. Actually, law enforcement already has the technology to remotely hack into our phones, download communication and pin our location. Anything and everything you do on your computer has been recorded and stored already unless you know how to protect yourself and are somewhat savvy, know how to use proxies/TOR/VPNs. In the UK, starting next year, every new car sold will have a "black box" which tracks your car's every move, and of course it's hidden behind safety, as fear is the best way to gain compliance.

This has all happened in just the last few years. Our freedom is quickly eroding and is hidden behind the newest technologies which most can't get enough of and don't question.

I don't disagree with any of what you've said.

 

[John Galt]

Such an interesting conversation and I'm glad to know it was Ben Franklin who made that quote (I've been taking personal credit for it for years lol), but I don't see any fair link between PDA and the disintegration of personal freedom in the USA. Seems you'd have to dislike him quite a lot already to lay this evil at his feet.

This revolution will happen incrementally, and I certainly could imagine an NBA team very soon saying "we'll add another $2M to your contract if you submit to xyz monitoring". The price of the monitoring would be a negotiation where the player and his union would certainly have a lot of leverage. But I don't think going across that line is a key touchstone to the decline of civilization.

In fact, the line has already been crossed. Right now in many companies you can get a health insurance premium discount or rebate if you submit to a periodic blood test (cholesterol, blood sugar, etc) and participate in monitoring activities. Is this an invasion of freedom? Not really unless it is completely compulsory. If employee A can have his insurance for $200/mo payroll deduction instead of $500/mo payroll deduction if he wears a fitbit for four weeks and gives a blood sample twice a year and has a health coaching discussion with a nurse... is that so bad? Maybe it seems bad if you stat from the premise that your employer should be the source of your health insurance (a paradigm we've all grown up with but it is arbitrary). But the employee agrees with his eyes open to "partner" with his employer to reduce health care costs. This is already happening. If an NBA version of this comes along it won't be Pete D's fault. He is not pulling these levers - go back to bashing him for Landry and Evans and that stuff.

 

[King Baller]

What happens when the Techno/information moguls battle the Carbon Footprint Terrorists?

 

[Hadlowe]

Such an interesting conversation and I'm glad to know it was Ben Franklin who made that quote (I've been taking personal credit for it for years lol), but I don't see any fair link between PDA and the disintegration of personal freedom in the USA. Seems you'd have to dislike him quite a lot already to lay this evil at his feet.

This revolution will happen incrementally, and I certainly could imagine an NBA team very soon saying "we'll add another $2M to your contract if you submit to xyz monitoring". The price of the monitoring would be a negotiation where the player and his union would certainly have a lot of leverage. But I don't think going across that line is a key touchstone to the decline of civilization.

In fact, the line has already been crossed. Right now in many companies you can get a health insurance premium discount or rebate if you submit to a periodic blood test (cholesterol, blood sugar, etc) and participate in monitoring activities. Is this an invasion of freedom? Not really unless it is completely compulsory. If employee A can have his insurance for $200/mo payroll deduction instead of $500/mo payroll deduction if he wears a fitbit for four weeks and gives a blood sample twice a year and has a health coaching discussion with a nurse... is that so bad? Maybe it seems bad if you stat from the premise that your employer should be the source of your health insurance (a paradigm we've all grown up with but it is arbitrary). But the employee agrees with his eyes open to "partner" with his employer to reduce health care costs. This is already happening. If an NBA version of this comes along it won't be Pete D's fault. He is not pulling these levers - go back to bashing him for Landry and Evans and that stuff.

Except that voluntary optimization behavior is self-reinforcing and becomes mandatory at high levels of competition (economic or otherwise).

Weight lifting was not standard training practice until the success of Karl Malone showed a competitive disadvantage to the players who did not lift. Less than ten years later, it was mandatory for training staffs leaguewide.

The reason pro sports make some efforts to control ped's is because they become mandatory when the difference between a $4 million contract and a $14 million contract is .2 seconds on a three quarter court sprint.

If behavior monitoring of this type can be shown to result in measurable improvements, then it is three seasons away from being a basic requirement in a contract. I would hope that the player's union or the league offices nip the idea in the bud.

It may take a constitutional amendment to prevent it in much of the private sector.

There is a lot of really terrifying futurist and transhumanist material out there that makes Gattaca look like a best-case scenario.

 

[N0tmyfault]

Yes, but your email isn't private either as the NSA has repeatedly shown, nor are your text messages. This isn't just about the NBA from we're I'm sitting. Some employers already request access to your facebook to prospective hires. Privacy is going by the wayside and many are ignoring it or flat out ignorant to it.

It's just the tip of the iceberg too. We're not far from financial and medical history being accessible to law enforcement and employers. Smart phones have chips in them which allow you to be tracked and your location identified. Actually, law enforcement already has the technology to remotely hack into our phones, download communication and pin our location. Anything and everything you do on your computer has been recorded and stored already unless you know how to protect yourself and are somewhat savvy, know how to use proxies/TOR/VPNs. In the UK, starting next year, every new car sold will have a "black box" which tracks your car's every move, and of course it's hidden behind safety, as fear is the best way to gain compliance.

This has all happened in just the last few years. Our freedom is quickly eroding and is hidden behind the newest technologies which most can't get enough of and don't question.

As someone who works in law enforcement, specifically computer/mobile forensics and high-tech crimes, this caught my eye. I have worked along side several three-letter agencies, and yes - I don't know the full capabilities of the NSA/CIA/FBI, but I have yet to hear of any technology that allows LE to remotely hack into a phone and download communications and GPS locations. I know that we have technology that allows us to physically get data off some phones (not all), depending on make/model. The location is not based off LE hacking into a subject's phone. It's contacting their cellular provider and using your phones constant communication with cell towers to give non-specific areas where you -- or more specifically, your phone -- are located.

 

[rainmaker]

As someone who works in law enforcement, specifically computer/mobile forensics and high-tech crimes, this caught my eye. I have worked along side several three-letter agencies, and yes - I don't know the full capabilities of the NSA/CIA/FBI, but I have yet to hear of any technology that allows LE to remotely hack into a phone and download communications and GPS locations. I know that we have technology that allows us to physically get data off some phones (not all), depending on make/model. The location is not based off LE hacking into a subject's phone. It's contacting their cellular provider and using your phones constant communication with cell towers to give non-specific areas where you -- or more specifically, your phone -- are located.

Research the Da Vinci product from Hack Team Milan.

 

[Chupacabra]

I fear that this front office is more concerned about being the foremost tech advanced professional team than fielding one that wins.

 

[John Galt]

I think Vivek is somewhere up in the top half of owners when it comes to "lust to win". He is just going to have to learn how. But he has come right out and said this year IS about wins and losses... that is just a one year honeymoon for Malone and PDA... a pretty short leash if you ask me.