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Ex-FB exec: The dopamine-driven feedback loops are destroying how society works

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Re: Ex-FB exec: The dopamine-driven feedback loops are destroying how society works

#11
post #6

Seems like an old man is having trouble with change. I'm sure that similar things have been said about cars, telephones, televisions, and computers in general.

And they were not wholly incorrect when said then. The social change made by each of your examples is huge.

Re: Ex-FB exec: The dopamine-driven feedback loops are destroying how society works

#13
post #6

Seems like an old man is having trouble with change. I'm sure that similar things have been said about cars, telephones, televisions, and computers in general.

And they weren't necessarily wrong IMHO, with the exception of maybe the original landline telephone (I would give this an asterisk though, and confine it to the first ~20 years of landline telephony; ie, farmers running homebrew line using barbed wire fencing in the depression-era dust bowl to keep current on grain prices, etc.). Cars are great for transportation and have enabled humankind to travel further and more often then ever before, but they are also 2000+ lb. death traps and combined with alcohol they are an absolute threat to everyone's safety. Television is pretty much ALL evil these days (everyone's trying to sell you SOMETHING or worse yet manipulate your natural thought process -- but it's all about money of course), so that's out. Computers are probably a double-edged sword. Incredibly powerful and have given humanity new capabilities, but we've probably become too reliant on them. They are too ingrained into daily society now. On a somewhat narrower scope: social media is absolutely 100% all evil, designed intentionally with the explicit intention of manipulating their own users.

Re: Ex-FB exec: The dopamine-driven feedback loops are destroying how society works

#14
post #8

Talk is cheap after you got rich off of it.

Can you explain your point more clearly? Are you saying that he’s not credible because he got rich off of it?

Perhaps that he could have done more, earlier, but choose the money instead.

Re: Ex-FB exec: The dopamine-driven feedback loops are destroying how society works

#15
post #8

Talk is cheap after you got rich off of it.

Can you explain your point more clearly? Are you saying that he’s not credible because he got rich off of it?

He's just another rich asshole working a new angle now that he made his billion. At no point in time during his time at FB did he have a conscience? He could have done more earlier.

Just seems like he's working a new angle now to grow his billion into two.

Re: Ex-FB exec: The dopamine-driven feedback loops are destroying how society works

#17
post #13
post #6

Seems like an old man is having trouble with change. I'm sure that similar things have been said about cars, telephones, televisions, and computers in general.

And they weren't necessarily wrong IMHO, with the exception of maybe the original landline telephone (I would give this an asterisk though, and confine it to the first ~20 years of landline telephony; ie, farmers running homebrew line using barbed wire fencing in the depression-era dust bowl to keep current on grain prices, etc.). Cars are great for transportation and have enabled humankind to travel further and more…

I wouldn't by any stretch call social media "all evil". It has its problems, a lot of them. But, for me personally, it's just an extension of the rest of the internet, where I encounter people and ideas that I wouldn't otherwise stumble into. I grew up in a fairly poor, extremely white setting and social media (and its precursors, IRC and the like) was, no joke, pretty much the first exposure I had to people who were not white Americans. Meeting those people, having to get along with them, was a pretty big formative thing that wouldn't have happened without these tools. Or, in the reverse, watching the GamerGate thing happen clued me in early that the trolls and harassers that now do the alt-right thing had a certain kind of power that needed to (and, it turns out, wasn't) defended against, that they were not just "internet whiners" but were creating their own extremist political factions whether they knew they were (I think they did) or not. And, today, through idly browsing Twitter when I have a little downtime, I often see drift through my timeline the kinds of thought-provoking links and threads that make me aware of valuable and viewpoint-broadening ideas I wouldn't see otherwise.

I wouldn't say a word in defense of television, though. Being at my parents' for Christmas has made me uncomfortably aware of just how loud and penetrating those commercials-every-six-minutes are. And it's very, very one-way.

Re: Ex-FB exec: The dopamine-driven feedback loops are destroying how society works

#18
Oh get over yourself, this video is disgustingly egotistical. "ripping apart the social fabric", I absolutely doubt that. This is getting way out of hand. Social media isn't ripping any core values apart, and nothing he has said in this video proves it.

Re: Ex-FB exec: The dopamine-driven feedback loops are destroying how society works

#19
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain your point more clearly? Are you saying that he’s not credible because he got rich off of it?

Perhaps that he could have done more, earlier, but choose the money instead.

So we should ignore what he is saying now? I am just unsure what we are supposed to do with that information.

Re: Ex-FB exec: The dopamine-driven feedback loops are destroying how society works

#20
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain your point more clearly? Are you saying that he’s not credible because he got rich off of it?

He's just another rich asshole working a new angle now that he made his billion. At no point in time during his time at FB did he have a conscience? He could have done more earlier. Just seems like he's working a new angle now to grow his billion into two.

So we should ignore what he says about Facebook?
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