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Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

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Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#361

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

Udik wrote: post #360
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for any other product or service. So, what was your objection to saying "used" again, if that same justification can be used for both? > This is provably wrong: people use Facebook and get a marginal advantage out of it that is arguably on par with what Facebook gets from them. Well, you say that that is provably wrong. But where is the proof? > But apparently a lot of people likes it, and find it a valuable add…

>> As for any other product or service. >So, what was your objection to saying "used" again, if that same justification can be used for both? My dear amass of eukaryotic cells, you non super-intelligent consumer of oxygen and precious resources, polluter of the environment, when you choose to emphasise in an unusual way some perfectly normal aspects of an object (* ), you do it to provoke an emotional response. And I…

> My dear amass of eukaryotic cells, you non super-intelligent consumer of oxygen and precious resources, polluter of the environment, when you choose to emphasise in an unusual way some perfectly normal aspects of an object (* ), you do it to provoke an emotional response. And I like rational discourses, not emotional ones.

Or you do it simply because you think it more clearly expresses your opinion if you don't follow the narrative that you are trying to argue against.

> You can just ask people if they like to use Facebook, if they get any value from it. Most of those who use it regularly will say they do. End of the proof.

All you have proved is that people claim and maybe think that they do, not that they actually do get an advantage.

> Of course it is like that. You aren't aware yourself that there are many better things to do than roaming the forums of YCombinator, and yet I bet you find some value in the action, and the (sure) existence of unexplored alternatives is not per se sufficient to negate this value.

Your point being? That it is impossible that me roaming HN is actually a net negative for me and that therefore anyone arguing otherwise is obviously mistaken, regardless what argument they have to offer?

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#363

Post by waterhouse »

jolux wrote: post #325
waterhouse wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, the terms "copy protection", "digital rights management", "intellectual property", and probably a lot more that aren't on the top of my head are the result of, to quote the GP, "warping the very language they use to support their point"; but the groups in favor of these things were there first, and so they got to define the terminology that we've all ended up with.

This is probably just me but I think when they re-word things they choose the clumsiest and least-sexy possible words to put into the acronyms. Digital Restrictions Management is not only a mouthful, it's also obtuse and why bother when you could have something cool like Digital Rebel Management? That being said, if your claim is that the acronyms as they existed do not accurately describe what's going on, I fundamen…

What's copy protection? It's technology that protects against copying. The naive reading (as beagle3's store clerk said) would be that it's technology that protects a copy, or perhaps the process of copying. Protection and restriction might as well be synonyms. Unfortunately, you are right: the term "protection" has been routinely used to mean the forcible restriction of competitors from entering a market, as in "protectionism" and "monopoly protection".

The common theme here is that someone invented an abstract concept and applied a word to it that got its good connotations from the more concrete things it was usually applied to. Usually you can point to ways in which it betrays the original concept. In "copy-protection" and other kinds of business "protection", the thing being protected is not a business, or people, or property, but rather the ability of a particular group of businesses to make a profit doing what they're doing; the implementation of this "protection" may well involve sending police to forcibly shut down other businesses, arrest people, and confiscate property. For "intellectual property", the "right to the property" that the law enforces is not the right to the material integrity or full usage of anything physical; in fact, it's the privilege to prevent other people who have full ownership of physical objects from using them in certain particular ways. The digital "rights" are roughly the same: the right is not to own and have the full use of some digital object (which presumably means a group of bytes in memory or persistent storage somewhere), but in fact to prevent other people from possessing isomorphic digital objects.

The government can invent any kind of "exclusive right to do X", and make the privilege transferable. Then people can buy and sell it. Like taxi medallions. And then people can call it "property", which they "own", and the government "protects" their "right" to it. I think it's a debasement of the terms, which functions (deliberately or otherwise) to mislead the unwary into granting the practice legitimacy.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#364

Post by Udik »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #361
Udik wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> As for any other product or service. >So, what was your objection to saying "used" again, if that same justification can be used for both? My dear amass of eukaryotic cells, you non super-intelligent consumer of oxygen and precious resources, polluter of the environment, when you choose to emphasise in an unusual way some perfectly normal aspects of an object (* ), you do it to provoke an emotional response. And I…

> My dear amass of eukaryotic cells, you non super-intelligent consumer of oxygen and precious resources, polluter of the environment, when you choose to emphasise in an unusual way some perfectly normal aspects of an object (* ), you do it to provoke an emotional response. And I like rational discourses, not emotional ones. Or you do it simply because you think it more clearly expresses your opinion if you don't fol…

> Or you do it simply because you think it more clearly expresses your opinion if you don't follow the narrative that you are trying to argue against.

It's annoying when you try to change the shared language, which is convention-based, to reinforce your opinions. It's usually called "name-calling" and done for political reasons, e.g. calling climate change skeptics "deniers". Trying to shape the language to try to reinforce specific views of reality is always very very suspicious.

> All you have proved is that people claim and maybe think that they do, not that they actually do get an advantage.

Well, whether they do or not is up to them. It's the principle of democracy, liberalism and tolerance: people are entitled to decide, entirely subjectively, what's best for them, as long as it doesn't damage others.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#365

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

sangnoir wrote: post #342
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a term for this in the realm of public debate, which I am presently unable to recall, but the gist of it is the idea that you ask for a much greater concession than you really want in the hope the stakeholders settle closer to your ideal than if you'd simply laid your cards on the table. By doing this repeatedly and over time we can (slowly, maybe less slowly?) change the course of history.

> There's a term for this in the realm of public debate, which I am presently unable to recall, but the gist of it is the idea that you ask for a much greater concession than you really want...By doing this repeatedly and over time we can (slowly, maybe less slowly?) change the course of history. That concept is likely moving the Overton Window[1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Yep! That's it, thanks for refreshing my memory. Looks like I would have found it if I'd been a bit more persistent with my search terms.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#366

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

Udik wrote: post #364
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My dear amass of eukaryotic cells, you non super-intelligent consumer of oxygen and precious resources, polluter of the environment, when you choose to emphasise in an unusual way some perfectly normal aspects of an object (* ), you do it to provoke an emotional response. And I like rational discourses, not emotional ones. Or you do it simply because you think it more clearly expresses your opinion if you don't fol…

> Or you do it simply because you think it more clearly expresses your opinion if you don't follow the narrative that you are trying to argue against. It's annoying when you try to change the shared language, which is convention-based, to reinforce your opinions. It's usually called "name-calling" and done for political reasons, e.g. calling climate change skeptics "deniers". Trying to shape the language to try to re…

> It's annoying when you try to change the shared language, which is convention-based, to reinforce your opinions.

I disagree.

> It's usually called "name-calling"

Well, no, it's not. While that might be the case sometimes, it's not necessarily so, and in particular it's obviously not the case in the case we're discussing here.

> Trying to shape the language to try to reinforce specific views of reality is always very very suspicious.

I disagree. And I disagree for a very simple reason: More often than not the existing usage is not neutral in the first place, it just happens to have been first (and sometimes not even that), and that's not always just an accident either. So, the existing usage is as suspicious as the attempt to change it, which is why the appropriate response in my opinion is to take the opportunity when someone suggests a new convention to examine whether the existing one is maybe more suspicious than what is being proposed.

> Well, whether they do or not is up to them. It's the principle of democracy, liberalism and tolerance: people are entitled to decide, entirely subjectively, what's best for them, as long as it doesn't damage others.

Well ... no. Or at least, that's besides the point.

People are entitled to decide what they prefer, but people are not entitled to decide how reality works. So, people are entitled to decide that they want to smoke, to take a random example. But people are not entitled to decide that they want to smoke and not die early due to side effects from smoking. They might wish that it were so, but smoking objectively comes with certain health risks, and you have to decide either for smoking with these risks or no smoking without the risks.

Now, some smoker might not know about the health risks of smoking and therefore put a positive value on smoking, while at the same time valueing the health risks that objectively come with smoking negatively with a greater magnitude than the value they put on smoking. It would be completely besides the point to argue against that by saying that it's a principle of democracy that they are entitled to continue smoking. Sure they are. But it's an empirical fact that once it was established public knowledge that smoking is bad for your health, many people adjusted their valuation of smoking to a negative value and quit.

Also, it isn't even so clear whether the use of Facebook isn't damaging others. Facebook has a network effect, which in economists' terms is in the category of externalities. In so far as network effects of proprietary systems tend towards creation of a monopoly and thus slowing of innovation and many other abuses that monopolies tend towards, there probably are negative externalities--or in other words: damage to others.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#367

Post by erroneousfunk »

bjourne wrote: post #219
bunderbunder wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What strikes me here in particular is that this article is mirroring most of my own reasons for being uncomfortable with Facebook, but I still find myself wanting to disagree with him. The rhetorical style makes him come across as a bully, and on a gut level I don't like to side with bullies. So I'd like to say that after some more measured, thoughtful reflection I come around to his side. But I don't. The enemy of m…

> The enemy of my enemy is not my friend, and even after taking a few breaths and trying to read it more calmly, his hyper-paternalistic posture still gets to me. Can you give some examples from the text? Like you are expressing frustration over something but what is it? It's a long list of arguments with links to supporting articles. I don't understand what your complaint is.

I wrote a comment with an example, in a reply to the commenter as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11988075

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#368

Post by pyre »

Teever wrote: post #273
pyre wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's just a business that executed an existing concept very well So is McDonald's, but I somehow think that they've managed to embed themselves into the culture/society enough that they won't soon be forgotten should they ever fall.

So what can you tell me about the founders or CEOs of McDonalds?

Was there ever a point in time when the founders / CEOs of McDonald's became cultural icons / household names?

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#369

Post by wedesoft »

beagle3 wrote: post #71
mwfunk wrote: post #34

If someone can't state their point without warping the very language they use to support their point, it makes it very hard to feel like anything they're saying is credible. Example 1: someone is trying to convince me to vote Republican. They go through the Republican platform issue by issue, and compare/contrast it to the Democrats' stand. However, every time they use the word "Democrat" they instead say "Democrap"…

I do not use "democrap" or "republicant", as they do not promote the discussion or understanding in any way. However, I did adopt Stallman's "Copy Restriction" (instead of "Copy Protection") and "Digital Restriction Management" (instead of "Digital Right Management") - because they are a much better description of what the concept actually is for 99% of the people. I started doing this after I told someone that I wil…

Yes, if you control the language, you control the debate.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#370

Post by bjourne »

erroneousfunk wrote: post #367
bjourne wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The enemy of my enemy is not my friend, and even after taking a few breaths and trying to read it more calmly, his hyper-paternalistic posture still gets to me. Can you give some examples from the text? Like you are expressing frustration over something but what is it? It's a long list of arguments with links to supporting articles. I don't understand what your complaint is.

I wrote a comment with an example, in a reply to the commenter as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11988075

Good example, I see your point. Whoever takes the picture owns it and it is not up to him to decide that it can't be posted on Facebook.
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