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Facebook’s war on free will

theguardian.com

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Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#51

Post by pjc50 »

ameister14 wrote: post #11

This was written so disrespectfully and dismissively of programmers, hackers and engineers that I have a hard time reading it, despite my extreme distaste for Facebook. >In the labs of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during the 60s and 70s, they broke any rule that interfered with building the stuff of early computing, such marvels as the first video games and word processors. Also, Calling a 33 year…

>>In the labs of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during the 60s and 70s, they broke any rule that interfered with building the stuff of early computing, such marvels as the first video games and word processors.

Surely this is part of tech's own, positive, legend of itself? Is it "disrespectful" when it's part of HAKMEM or the Jargon file? Isn't this where all the "disruption" ideology comes from?

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#52

Post by golergka »

zizek23 wrote: post #28

It's the Internet that enables communication. Families and friends would be able to communicate once the Internet became possible whether Facebook exists or not. People would be able to use and get value from the Internet whether Google exists or not. These companies add value but they are not the Internet. If they didn't exist the Internet will continue being useful. What they have been able to do is inject themselv…

> Families and friends would be able to communicate once the Internet became possible whether Facebook exists or not.

Have you tried using Livejournal to communicate with friends and family? It was certainly possible, but had tremendously worse usability. You know, that thing that HN readers care about much less than actual users.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#53

Post by pc86 »

artursapek wrote: post #45
rublev wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disabled all that social media shit way back. Didn't look back once. People who mattered reached out, those who didn't, didn't. Life moved on. So much for all their "psychological influence".

Yeah, it seems like there's a thread on HN every week where half of us jump in to share our story. I haven't been on FB in over 5 years and am much happier without it. That said, I have other more tolerable addictions (like reddit).

Thankfully Reddit lets you tailor your subscriptions very narrowly, even allowing you to disable notifications altogether. Even if you take a machete to your friends list on a weekly basis, Facebook has a lot of noise.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#54

Post by kfrzcode »

crispyambulance wrote: post #36
kfrzcode wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the big 4 as robber barons[1]. They see opportunity in millions and billions of dollars. The company doesn't care about the individual. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)

Of course they don't care about people. The social network that the members enjoy is merely a side-effect of the true business. Sort of like the fact that a cow pasture is not really about the cows' enjoyment but, when you get down to it, hamburgers. Amazingly most people are still as oblivious to this concept as cows are before becoming hamburgers. What I am wondering about is the possibility of a social network tha…

I think the obstacle there is momentum and critical mass. Nobody uses askjeeves.com because Google has mindshare.

If you were to build this hypothetical pure social media communication platform we'd still have to find it, it'd have to be funded, maintained, and improved. Even then it's useful only if you can get your network on it.

Money is the root of all evil and will pervade into whatever is next. It's only human nature.

You can see examples of this with https://diasporafoundation.org/ and https://gab.ai/ -> these platforms and ideas exist but they have a raindrop in a bucket of usershare.

I'm not an expert in this field but I think about it a lot. Thanks for discussion, HN.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#55

Post by [deleted] »

ikeyany wrote: post #16

You could take a year-long class on the psychological influence (some call it social engineering) of Facebook and you'd barely scratch the surface. One example I find particularly interesting is how Facebook slowly expanded what would trigger a notification, keeping people fixated on that red box like rats to sugar water.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#56

Post by jasonmaydie »

moretai wrote: post #2

Just get off facebook.

Just like we stopped using AOL, myspace, yahoo and napster, facebook will go the way of the dodo sooner or later. People have short term memories. If there's one thing true of the internet, it's that everything slides into obsolesce at some point.. gopher, FTP, icq, geocities, irc and a long list of one massive sites and technologies that are now dead.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#57

Post by kfrzcode »

Knufen wrote: post #18
striking wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all your friends are on Facebook: no, you really can't.

Yes you can, I have friends whom for various reason don't have a Facebook or stopped using it/deleted it. People will adjust and instead we contact them by mail or phone. Perhaps it's a bit of a annoyance, but you are not kept prisoner.

Just like you're not caught up in a literal prison when your proverbial student loan debt prison is due every month.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#58

Post by pc86 »

kfrzcode wrote: post #7
ameister14 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stopping the use of Facebook and transitioning to another method of organizing group events does not cause physical illness or death.

You're pigeonholing. Facebook is only part of the tapestry of social media poison.

Honestly, the sooner we can have a real discussion of the pros and cons of using Facebook and not using Facebook while everyone else around you continues, without ridiculous hyperbolic bullshit like "social media poison," the better.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#59

Post by artursapek »

pc86 wrote: post #53
artursapek wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it seems like there's a thread on HN every week where half of us jump in to share our story. I haven't been on FB in over 5 years and am much happier without it. That said, I have other more tolerable addictions (like reddit).

Thankfully Reddit lets you tailor your subscriptions very narrowly, even allowing you to disable notifications altogether. Even if you take a machete to your friends list on a weekly basis, Facebook has a lot of noise.

Yep. I'm worried that reddit is going to abandon that user-friendliness though, under the typical SV pressure to "grow". Fingers crossed it never happens.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#60

Post by graphitezepp »

pc86 wrote: post #50
autokad wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whats interesting is i communicated more with my family when we only had a phone to communicate than when facebook came along. I'm not sure how or why it does it, but i believe it actually thwarts communication.

The argument I've heard in favor of this is that in 1995 if you wanted to talk to Aunt Sylvia in Indiana you had to pick up the phone and call her. More often than not, this resulted in a 20-30 minute conversation where you talked about something. This would happen, what, once every few weeks or months? Now, you see her in your news feed, and you might like it or fire off a one-sentence [fragment] comment. This mini-…

Facebooks whole shtick is making you feel like your being social. In reality you are partaking in the most superficial 'fast food' social needs scratching imaginable. This causes people to become addicted to a constant stream of ultimately unsatisfying validation at the cost of spending time on meaningful relationships.
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