201–210 of 284 posts
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> I'm not sure a classic tech death from a disruptor is possible Well, FB's brand itself is super toxic these days, so you could probably build something on the whole "we're not FB" premise
diaspora tried that.... it has next to 0 adoption
> 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…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/78691781-c9b7-...
> 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 don't think people outsource their thinking to machines. I think the algorithms just work well at finding similar things to what people choose to consume or like. They aren't perfect, but there's this need to explain things by this great conspiracy of fake news and invisible influencers in a paranoid style. I think this has gained traction due to a crisis of the knowledge class that happened due to the rise of popu…
how am i ever supposed to have new foreign experiences if recommendations are based on past experiences or grouping me into demographics to make me more like others?
sure everyones a mimicry or pastiche of others, but its losing its randomness and becoming more uniform and standardized.
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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).
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facebook is as much just a website as the catholic church is just some buildings with a book. there is a lot behind it.
I suppose that makes Zuckerberg god in your analogy. This is a terrible comparison. A decade old tech company is not at all comparable to one of the oldest and most powerful and influential institutions in history.
Actually it's rather apt given that there are more Facebook users (2B) than Catholics (1.2B).
The reality is that Facebook has a disturbing amount of influence on what a quarter of the worlds population see and hear on any given day. No, Facebook can't directly give orders but as a mechanism for propaganda it has unparalleled reach.
> I suppose that makes Zuckerberg god in your analogy.
Closer to the Pope.
> 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'm really getting the feeling that my friendships have been hacked (and tainted) for someone else's profit." Your comment makes me remember the concept of commodification. I didn't think before about this in this way, but it seems that Facebook (and relates services) could be though as the commodification of our friendships.
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…
I'm not sure if you remember the internet before Google, but finding stuff was significantly more difficult. Other search engines were either based off of manually curated indexes or were simple keyword searches and you'd often need to scroll pages of results to find a match that was actually relevant to what you wanted. People used to buy printed books with lists of useful websites to help find things. So yes, the i…
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…
> This was written so disrespectfully and dismissively of programmers, hackers and engineers that I have a hard time reading I did not read anything there that was openly hostile to us. Critic of unintended consequences, yes; but that reflects more on our collective disregard for such than on then author's biases. If you had a hard time reading through it, that reflects positivelly on your character: It means you are…
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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."
With the bozos running things in Dune, it might have been better with machines in charge.
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If Zuck does end up making a Presidential run, I think that'd have a very good chance of triggering a sizeable decline in its US userbase.
I'd be stunned if he did. The man has the personality of a lizard. No way is he an appealing candidate for the general public.