Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 92 posts

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

#61

Post by sibeliuss »

rwnspace wrote: post #27

Tristram Harris [1][2] is worth listening to on these points, I'm sure many on HN are already aware. Without rambling too much, I'm one of those over-sensitive, slightly aspie types that reads SSC and gets carried away with over-analysing the zeitgeist. Uncharitably, you might say 'smart but weak-minded'. The longer I spend in front of social media, the more and more in tatters I feel. I spent a week entirely disconn…

I would always worry that if I permanently deleted (not deactivated -- deleted) my Facebook account something would be lost, but this just wasn't the case in practice. Once it was gone it felt like nothing was ever there to begin with, and I feel _so much better_. I highly recommend that others take a leap of faith and do the same.

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

#62

Post by ASipos »

koenigdavidmj wrote: post #58
rwnspace wrote: post #27

Tristram Harris [1][2] is worth listening to on these points, I'm sure many on HN are already aware. Without rambling too much, I'm one of those over-sensitive, slightly aspie types that reads SSC and gets carried away with over-analysing the zeitgeist. Uncharitably, you might say 'smart but weak-minded'. The longer I spend in front of social media, the more and more in tatters I feel. I spent a week entirely disconn…

Can you expand the SSC initialism? Google and Wikipedia don't seem to be very helpful.

Slate Star Codex, probably

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

#63

Post by Danihan »

rwnspace wrote: post #27

Tristram Harris [1][2] is worth listening to on these points, I'm sure many on HN are already aware. Without rambling too much, I'm one of those over-sensitive, slightly aspie types that reads SSC and gets carried away with over-analysing the zeitgeist. Uncharitably, you might say 'smart but weak-minded'. The longer I spend in front of social media, the more and more in tatters I feel. I spent a week entirely disconn…

My issue with replacing something like reddit is... what exactly to replace it with?

Reddit is entertaining and free. Every time I quit, I end up still seeking out entertainment, but it's no longer free. Movies, gambling, restaurants, bars. TV is free but even less entertaining, imo. Books feel like mental masturbation and very few change my worldviews at this point.

My overall conclusion has been that reddit is not that bad of a habit, comparatively.

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

#64

Post by taway20171214 »

sibeliuss wrote: post #61
rwnspace wrote: post #27

Tristram Harris [1][2] is worth listening to on these points, I'm sure many on HN are already aware. Without rambling too much, I'm one of those over-sensitive, slightly aspie types that reads SSC and gets carried away with over-analysing the zeitgeist. Uncharitably, you might say 'smart but weak-minded'. The longer I spend in front of social media, the more and more in tatters I feel. I spent a week entirely disconn…

I would always worry that if I permanently deleted (not deactivated -- deleted) my Facebook account something would be lost, but this just wasn't the case in practice. Once it was gone it felt like nothing was ever there to begin with, and I feel _so much better_. I highly recommend that others take a leap of faith and do the same.

the same goes for real life stuff that you don't use on a daily or weekly basis. just get rid of it if you haven't used it in a year.

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

#65

Post by ryandrake »

eyeareque wrote: post #31

He stated what I have felt for years, in words much better than I could. If you struggle to disconnect from social media because you feel like you’ll miss out on friends, remember this: If social media is the only thing connecting you to a friend, they aren’t that good of a friend anyway. Your true friends will not disappear if you delete Facebook.

That’s the usual objection whenever I advocate getting off of Facebook: “But I will lose contact with all my friends!” So, how did you contact them before Facebook?

The fear is unjustified. Your actual friends will keep in contact, just like they did before Facebook. I left FB 5+ years ago and by some great miracle I still have a robust social life, and as a bonus am not wasting hours a day scrolling through useless information about the lives of remote acquaintances.

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

#66

Post by callesgg »

touristtam wrote: post #34
callesgg wrote: post #16

I have been saying that for a while now. Social media is great for the individual but horrible for society.

It's just a tool, thought. It doesn't preclude the capacity for any individual to have a critical thinking about news and events.

It does not preclude it but it certainly does not make it easier.

I think you suffer from the delusion that the human mind is rational and logical. It can be, under certain limited conditions. But under most circumstances it is a complete mess.

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

#67

Post by pwaai »

This is what a lot of us have figured out and stopped using facebook. I briefly checked in last year and was overwhelmed by the number of engagements, marriages, newborns, relationships. The eerie thing is everybody's life looked very similar from one another, happy, smiling instagramed filters where they momentarily pose for selfies.

Then it hit me. I know what makes me disappointed about society today. It's that we consider the image of success more important than reality. For example, the mainstream collectively considers steve jobs as the ideal entrepreneur, when when we knew he made billions off the backs of children and women in horrible working conditions in an authoritarian government. How about Bill Cosby, Mel Gibson, Lance Armstrong, Trump, Weinstein? How great did you think those people were before revealing themselves to be a complete hoax? Especially when society has been reduced to spamming a running commentary of bullshit masquerading as insight, our social media faking as intimacy. Or is it that we voted for this? Not with our rigged elections, but with our things, our property, our money. I'm not saying anything new. We all know why we do this, not because Hunger Games books make us happy but because we wanna be sedated. Because it's painful not to pretend, because we're cowards.

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

#68

Post by whamlastxmas »

pwaai wrote: post #67

This is what a lot of us have figured out and stopped using facebook. I briefly checked in last year and was overwhelmed by the number of engagements, marriages, newborns, relationships. The eerie thing is everybody's life looked very similar from one another, happy, smiling instagramed filters where they momentarily pose for selfies. Then it hit me. I know what makes me disappointed about society today. It's that we…

Trump is a hoax? People overwhelmingly enjoy working for him and he's made tremendous progress on his campaign promises.

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

#69

Post by dang »

rublev wrote: post #15
jabgrabdthrow wrote: post #12

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.

Comments like this—bilious and informationless—are destructive. You can't post like this here, not necessarily because you owe better to people you hate, but because you owe better to this community if you want to keep participating in it.

Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't post any more of these.

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

#70

Post by dang »

lerie82 wrote: post #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.

> Oh get over yourself, this video is disgustingly egotistical

Please don't post rage rants to HN. If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Post reply on HN