Why is everyone a clippy now??

Change your profile picture to flippy.

Okay, I'll bite.

I was listening to the Facebook whistleblower hearings with Senator Josh Hawley 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, Meta keeps track of this because they know that this person likely has low self-esteem at that moment that they deleted a picture of themselves, which means that they may be more apt to purchase something from an advertiser of a cosmetic product.

And I...

Damn, bro.

They got telemetry on like 14-year-old girls trying to farm them to get them to buy makeup?

Because they hate themselves?

Jesus.

That's impressive.

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 90s, 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's 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.

That's because now the companies have more ownership and more control over Congress.

That's the reason why.

Everybody knows it.

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 like 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.

That's what AI is going to do next, by the way.

is that once AI and conversations with AI become commonplace, people are going to look towards advertising towards your AI conversations.

So you'll be talking to Annie from Grok, and you're going to be talking to her about how you really like turtles, and she's going to say, wow, that's amazing.

You're going to go to Amazon.

Guess what you're going to get ads for?

That's right.

Turtles.

Yep.

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 think that they need to stop that wholesale the idea that services to like being able to use a program

like you shouldn't be able like you you can't own the program at all i find that to be very problematic like i i think if you if you buy a program and you buy to have access to it you should have access to at least that version of the program indefinitely i i don't understand how people have allowed them to reinvent these rules it's insane

do so without connecting to the internet.

And Clippy would still be there, happy and as 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 posts 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 end user 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 would not try to sell you anything.

No, this is true.

Even read the contents of your letter.

Yeah.

They just wanted to offer suggestions.

Game of Thrones had, spoiler alert, there's this Sons of the Harpy in season five.

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 ball to put the mask on.

And then 20 or 40 or 100 of them put the mask on.

And once 100 or 1,000 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.

Khaleesi kind of became a shitbag.

Well, they have that now.

I mean, we have the same thing in real life.

It's just that the masks are white.

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 so 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 paid 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 fucking 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,

Jesus Christ!

He's mad!

Change your profile picture to a Clippy and let them know that you're not happy.

Clippy never tried 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.

I think that you can easily win it.

The problem right now is that there's too many people that are technology illiterate that are in the government.

As soon as you have enough people that are technology literate in the government, this problem disappears.

Always hope to do was win the cultural battle where all of you understand what's going on and you decide.

What I'm saying is we have a bunch of old retarded people that are running the government and they can't figure out how to use computers.

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 Intercell 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.

Yeah.

Whoops.

Maybe their invitation went to spam.

I didn't see that.

Sorry, boss.

Maybe you quit before you create a fake paywall 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.

I 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 unders— Well, what they're going to have to do is if they see 10,000 Clippies, they're going to have to send everybody in for sensitivity training.

And the fact that, you know, back when they had Clippy, Clippy is not— Clippy is very male-coded.

This is something that is exclusionary towards women.

And it is sexist and it's also racist because it is maybe white coded as well.

And so you have to change your profile picture or you're going to have to be spoken to by H.R.

for promoting racism and sexism in the workplace.

And we all know where that goes.

That that's what would happen.

stand that they no longer live in a world where they can get away with fucking over the consumer that their employees their partners are not going to be accomplices to this anymore that they're alert and they are aware of what is going on I wish that this is what would happen but at the end of the day the only way you can really solve this is with legislation

Because even if you stop it with American companies, you're still going to have cross-cultural companies that will do business in a way that's bad.

The thing is that for as much as you want to criticize his advocacy of this, he does practice what he preaches for the most part, right?

I mean, he is an advocate for a lot of these things himself.

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.

And 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- It actually is really weird.

Like this juxtaposition is actually very good that Clippy, because when Clippy came out, everybody hated Clippy.

People were so annoyed by Clippy.

But now Clippy is the pleasant alternative to the world that we're living in at this point.

That's a very good, yeah, he's right about that.

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 bullshit, he'd still work.

Hulu Foundation is going to be announcing the winners of 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.

It's the manufacturers that do.

No, we just take it away.

That's the thing.

You thought you had the right.

Well, we changed the rules.

Now you don't.

It's that simple.

And that's all you got to do.

That's all you got to do.

Everybody goes and they start thinking about the way that it is.

You never think about the way that it is.

And to be fair, you know, you could go and criticize the guy, but he did change his own profile picture.

He did.

And like, you know, you wouldn't know if that was going to happen.

Right.

Cause like, I always think somebody says, oh, everybody needs to do this and then they don't do it.

Well, you know, it's one of those things, but you got this going on.

Well, that's a certainly different situation.