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Facebook’s war on free will

theguardian.com

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Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#111

Post by gggdvnkhmbgjvbn »

zebrafish wrote: post #66
blfr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I'm getting tired of these articles complaining about Facebook when you can stop using it literally any minute. Also, Grauniad is a terrible source of tech news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14179497

The point is not about "you" the HN reader, or you the poster, or me. The point is about all of the millions of users who are unaware, haven't read this article, are tech-illiterate, don't understand the psychology, etc. You and I are completely insignificant in the face of this horde of people who are becoming increasingly vulnerable to subtle manipulation. That's the point of this article. A rising tide lifts all b…

I agree but wish the article was better written. This is for a general audience address those readers dont need huge digressions into zucks well known personal life, nor the etymology of the term algorithm and hacker.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#112

Post by Woofles »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #95
athenot wrote: post #65

> The problem is that when we outsource thinking to machines, we are really outsourcing thinking to the organisations that run the machines. This is the money quote of this article, and it's been on my mind quite a bit as of late. More than ever, we live in a world where there are many forces ready to take full advantage of our laziness. It takes a bit of introspection to really understand the tradeoffs that are appr…

I left Facebook about two years ago now. I nearly immediately lost contact with all of the people I'd spent my time with in the city (outside of work). I don't chase them down for other reasons, but it is striking how much it supplanted everything else. After returning an old work phone I'd made the mistake of not copying all of their numbers over. I moved elsewhere within the city, and so I don't run into them in th…

I think the happy medium here, where you can still keep in touch with people but not get sucked into checking it all the time, is deleting the app from your phone. It used to be habit for me to unlock my phone and if I didn't have anything to do, just open the app and begin scrolling. Once that wasn't easily accessible I stopped completely. Now I only go on Facebook if I have a reason to, like looking someone up or checking the only group (fantasy sports) that is active. I also can still use messenger for those few people that prefer it.

I deleted the app because of the FOMO feeling that I was getting and now it's basically gone. I can still access it, but I check Facebook a maximum of once a day, minimum around once a week.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#113

Post by molteanu »

athenot wrote: post #65

> The problem is that when we outsource thinking to machines, we are really outsourcing thinking to the organisations that run the machines. This is the money quote of this article, and it's been on my mind quite a bit as of late. More than ever, we live in a world where there are many forces ready to take full advantage of our laziness. It takes a bit of introspection to really understand the tradeoffs that are appr…

This, from Dune:

"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#114

Post by [deleted] »

ebiester wrote: post #103
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I've seen friendships and families destroyed by arguments on FaceBook. We've also seen how much of it is truly fake, curated by foreign companies and political groups to push agendas.

This happened before facebook as well; it just wasn't so... public.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#115

Post by gggdvnkhmbgjvbn »

Hyperbolic wrote: post #91

Despite how much I dislike Facebook, this article started off decent, but took a strange (and disrepectful) turn into hacker culture and algorithms that was completely unfounded. Facebook addiction and the centralization of the Internet has literally nothing to do with the concept of algorithms. Sure, machine learning ventures at Facebook contribute to the need to track users and invade privacy, but that's not the fa…

Its because its an excerpt from a book, I think. I totally agree, I'm on board with the point of the article but its written like an amateur Adam Curtis.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#116

Post by mrtksn »

athenot wrote: post #65

> The problem is that when we outsource thinking to machines, we are really outsourcing thinking to the organisations that run the machines. This is the money quote of this article, and it's been on my mind quite a bit as of late. More than ever, we live in a world where there are many forces ready to take full advantage of our laziness. It takes a bit of introspection to really understand the tradeoffs that are appr…

This is probably the main reasoning behind the "crazy" valuation of some companies that have seemingly simple business model of selling ad views.

People who talk about some kind of tech bubble often dismiss the indirect value, the value beyond the basic economics of their business models.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#117

Post by ryandrake »

bamboozled wrote: post #105
root_axis wrote: post #101

I wish people would stop contributing to the Facebook mythos that elevates a social media platform into some kind of software based deity. It's just a website, it's not a threat to "free will" any more than a cigarette or coke addiction is a threat to "free will". People recite grand expositions regarding how "I stopped using facebook and it changed my life forever! I've never looked back!"... wonderful, but I want t…

It's not a website, it's a complex and sophisticated media and marketing platform with many, many different features and all of that comes with a bunch of pros and cons.

...that you can choose whether or not to use.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#118

Post by gmueckl »

divanvisagie wrote: post #72
disease wrote: post #63

I feel like once someone figures out what the next big thing in social media is, facebook will go the way of myspace. Here's the next big thing: a federated, open source network that allows users to sell their own data.

Those sorts of things only appeal to people who know what they mean, which is a ver very small part of facebook. Does my mother or grandmother care about a social network being federated or open source? No , not even close. Only technical people care about this stuff and it adds no value for the average user.

Also, in my experience, no distributed competition for any service X lived up to a centralized, commercially run X in the past. Decentralization has in the past always added a layer of complexity that makes things appear slow, breaks things randomly and generally ends up in the user's way in one way or another.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#119

Post by bridge_ro »

DougN7 wrote: post #84
graphitezepp wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Facebook being social 'fast food' (or junk food) is the best analogy I've seen. Great thought!

That's a good pull quote to keep up your sleeve: Facebook is the McDonald's of the internet. It's unhealthy and kinda crap but everybody consumes it, and the ones who don't seem stuck up for some reason.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#120

Post by ryandrake »

zebrafish wrote: post #66
blfr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I'm getting tired of these articles complaining about Facebook when you can stop using it literally any minute. Also, Grauniad is a terrible source of tech news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14179497

The point is not about "you" the HN reader, or you the poster, or me. The point is about all of the millions of users who are unaware, haven't read this article, are tech-illiterate, don't understand the psychology, etc. You and I are completely insignificant in the face of this horde of people who are becoming increasingly vulnerable to subtle manipulation. That's the point of this article. A rising tide lifts all b…

That's actually a pretty dismissive comment. It may not have been your intention, but it reads like: "Oh, those poor commoners, who aren't as intelligent as us and can't see the truth that we can see! Why, they're using this terrible thing and they don't even know any better! The masses must be saved from themselves."
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