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Facebook’s war on free will

theguardian.com

271–280 of 284 posts

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the bozos running things in Dune, it might have been better with machines in charge.

Maybe that's just what you get after generations of royal and wealthy-elite inbreeding slowly but surely shrinks the available gene pool.

Which is exactly why Lynch was a brilliant choice to direct the first film adaptation: owing to his own artistic idiosyncrasies, he was able to convey how deeply strange such an inbred interstellar gentry might be, millennia into the future.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#272
>"At a White House dinner in 2015, Mr. Zuckerberg had even asked the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, whether Mr. Xi might offer a Chinese name for his soon-to-be-born first child — usually a privilege reserved for older relatives, or sometimes a fortune teller. Mr. Xi declined, according to a person briefed on the matter."

Does getting FB into China mean so much to this person that he's willing to consider a name suggested by a complete stranger for his own child?

The picture of Mark Zuckerberg running though Tiananmen Square is also quite telling. It's completely stage-managed so that it's taken while Mark is smiling and Chairman Mao's picture is clearly in the frame behind him. I wonder how many attempts this "spontaneous" picture required.

I happened to be in Beijing that same weekend as this photo op. The local reaction to that picture wasn't one of celebrity adulation because people recognized Mark Zuckerberg founder of FB as he's not a household name there. The reaction was one of complete consternation that someone would be out jogging in such hazardous air quality. That's not an early morning fog in the background it's air pollution. It seemed like most people were donning air pollution masks that weekend because the particulate in the was so heavy.

I mention this only because it seems to the same awkward and obsequious behavior as asking the President of China to offer a name for your unborn child.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#273

Slight tangent - since the image of the 1 Hacker Way FB sign is invariably used in FB pieces, its amusing to note that the back of this sign still shows the Sun Microsystems logo that they cheaply painted over when they took the space over: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ce5VS24UAAAxxLF.jpg

Actually they keep this to remind themselves every day that one day they could be dust too. There are also a few other relics from the Sun era deliberately left over in the campus for the same reason.

Source: worked there

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#274
post #68
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…

> These companies add value but they are not the Internet. Even more importantly, they are not people. By that I mean that (marketing departments in) so many companies just love to take credit for the things people bring to the table. Which is a pet peeve of mine, so this rant is probably a bit besides the point. It's people, friends or otherwise, who can make simple things like communicating via ASCII fun. In school…

A few days ago someone posted this in a comment.. I can't find the comment, and the whole thing is worth watching, but since apparently a lot of people share this sentiment, maybe they too can have some of their faith restored a bit by this rant; and it's why the idea of "integrity first" was floating in my head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNfAAQUQ_54&t=42m43s

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#275
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wait for GDPR. Then facebook/google/whatever can't process data from me without consent (which they do not have without an account).. "Under GDPR organizations in breach of GDPR can be fined up to 4% of annual global turnover or €20 Million (whichever is greater). This is the maximum fine that can be imposed for the most serious infringements e.g._not having sufficient customer consent to process data_ or vio…

> can be fined up to 4% of annual global turnover I'm not overly familar with the English terms for all these economic stats, but I think "turnover" is "revenue", and that's $27.638E9 [1] according to Wikipedia. So the fine would be about $1.1E9. On the same Wikipedia page, I see that their net income is some $10.217E9. Is "net income" the same as "profit"? If so, does that mean that even this massive fine would only…

The fine is "pr incident" afaik.

Not once a year

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#276
post #273

Slight tangent - since the image of the 1 Hacker Way FB sign is invariably used in FB pieces, its amusing to note that the back of this sign still shows the Sun Microsystems logo that they cheaply painted over when they took the space over: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ce5VS24UAAAxxLF.jpg

Actually they keep this to remind themselves every day that one day they could be dust too. There are also a few other relics from the Sun era deliberately left over in the campus for the same reason. Source: worked there

>"Actually they keep this to remind themselves every day that one day they could be dust too."

How is it a reminder if it isn't at all visible to anyone there? The back of the sign is obscured by woods. The only way to see it is to walk around to the back of it. I'm not surprised that company propaganda would spin this into some nonsense about 'this is a reminder ..." though.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#277
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are social primates. Being willfully unaware of how the other tribes of primates perceive your own tribe is both naive and stupid. And given the fact that the other tribes are more numerous, have bigger and hairier and angrier primates with longer and sharper sticks, this particular stupidity may turn out to be of the suicidal kind...

Baffled how you get "willfully unaware" out of my comment, and how I earned "naive and stupid" epithets from you. At least I know how to find an eigenvalue. Can't be all that stupid.

Yeah, sorry about that. It is not really you, it is that I have had this conversation over with more people before, and my tolerance have grown thin.

But other than the epithets, my point stands. Knowing what an eigenvalue is, or how to calculate it, is not the only type of intelligence there is around, and not necessarily the most important one. You can tell that is a fact and not an opinion by checking what percentage of the world leaders (both of government and of industry) are engineers or scientists. Furthermore, if you look at people like Angela Merkel, who is a trained scientist and a world leader, you will notice they did not reach that state in life by knowing lots of math and science, but by noticing conventional politicians have a different type of cunning, and by applying their very big brains to outsmart those politicians in their own game.

In other words, your complain about lack of scientific awareness in the article is a red herring. It may be accurate, but it is not useful because the political purpose of the article does not depend on that. You could tell it even is a feature because the intended audience of the piece also lack scientific awareness.

So, you can freely choose to feel loathing and to disregard the artice, or you can choose to acknowledge it as an attempt to shape public perception in a way that harms the interest of your industry/profession. If you put it in those terms, calling "fault, unfair!!!" in a game with no referee and no explicit rules is a strong indicator that you are loosing and cannot cope.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#278
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Baffled how you get "willfully unaware" out of my comment, and how I earned "naive and stupid" epithets from you. At least I know how to find an eigenvalue. Can't be all that stupid.

Yeah, sorry about that. It is not really you, it is that I have had this conversation over with more people before, and my tolerance have grown thin. But other than the epithets, my point stands. Knowing what an eigenvalue is, or how to calculate it, is not the only type of intelligence there is around, and not necessarily the most important one. You can tell that is a fact and not an opinion by checking what percent…

But I didn't express loathing. I criticized the article, for an audience of peers who understand the criticism. I'm not trying to "shape public perception".

There's a time and venue for shaping public perception. But not every thought we express has to be directed as if addressing the readership of The Guardian. We need to preserve free and frank discussion among experts.

"Losing and cannot cope"... jesus, lighten up. I'm not trying to win one for our side. Just having a discussion among peers.

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#279
post #149

at what point do we stop blaming facebook and start blaming ourselves?

This is a trope and not useful for solving problems of culture, psychology, or addiction. It is the same as saying "when you ban guns, only criminals will have guns" or "everyone has a choice, so choose not to do drugs". These are vapid recitations and cannot address complex issues.

This is absolutely not the same as your gun ban argument. It is also not the same as your "choose not to use" argument. How do people think they can give away all of their information, to someone who trades in information, and somehow act surprised when that entity leverages this information?

Re: Facebook’s war on free will

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not unique to Facebook; Amazon, Google, Equifax and many other businesses build a profile on you regardless of whether you want them to or not.

Right, just in the same sense that Google and Equifax are not just websites , Facebook is not something you can entirely ignore without consequence.

> just in the same sense that Google and Equifax are not just websites

My argument is that Google and Equifax are fundamentally different from Facebook, which amounts to pretty much just a website. Equifax obviously has immense impact on one's life because of the nature of the data they collect and their role in determining one's creditworthiness. Google also has a huge impact because of how critical their search product is to so many individuals and businesses. Facebook isn't really that important by comparison, it's just popular. For most people, Facebook is a silly addiction and time waster, using the site let's you view some photos and comments or maybe chat. That's it. It's just not a big deal.

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