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Early Facebook and Google Employees Form a Center for Humane Technology

nytimes.com

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Re: Early Facebook and Google Employees Form a Center for Humane Technology

#91

Post by yesenadam »

fma wrote: post #56
nothrabannosir wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get ebooks and read. [edit] sorry for being curt, but seriously: that can be all there is to it. It changed the way I use my phone.

Nah, I didn't think you were curt. This was my solution for a while. Problem is when I read I hate to stop mid sentence or paragraph. While if on FB, or HN I can close without a care. I may need to take up less serious reading material I guess, hah. I will probably go back to this, though. Any books you can recommend that helps fill those few minutes of void?

Aphorisms are good for that! I don't have a phone, but e.g. I've been reading The Art of Worldly Wisdom (17th C Spanish book) as a toilet book for a year or more, it's wonderful. I have a tiny book version, maybe 6x4x1cm. It's all in little sections of a half-dozen lines, great for reading 20 seconds or a couple of minutes at a time. An e-version would be great too I guess. So much wisdom in that book.

Also other aphorists - La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyere, Lichtenberg etc. La Rochefoucauld is savagely dark and funny about you (yes, you); La Bruyere similar but sunnier, fairer; Lichtenberg's kind of like an 18th C hacker writing - a scientist/mathematician writing his little thoughts about everything.

Almost all of Nietzsche's writing is in aphorisms or short paragraphs, he'd be great for that. I find him endlessly fascinating on a thousand subjects, and very funny too.

Re: Early Facebook and Google Employees Form a Center for Humane Technology

#93

Post by lend000 »

mlinksva wrote: post #92

> Governments can pressure technology companies toward humane business models by including the negative externalities of attention extraction on their balance sheets What does this mean? I'm genuinely curious. Meanwhile, easier: tax ads.

I think you have effectively come to the same conclusion, but without the abstract idea to back it up.

Re: Early Facebook and Google Employees Form a Center for Humane Technology

#94

Post by stryk »

metavrsl wrote: post #86
stryk wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be a mistake asking this, but what the heck is a 'chav' ?

It’s an English word for rougher lower class young men. People look down on them, it’s partially a class thing and partially how they dress and how they’re just boisterous. Don’t know what the equivalent word in the USA is but in Australia we say Bogan which is similar.

Interesting. I was under the impression that 'bogan' was sort of the Aussie equivalent to the classic American "hillbilly" -- and there's a slight (and depending on how it's used, sometimes not-so-slight) negative connotation to it here in the US as well.

Re: Early Facebook and Google Employees Form a Center for Humane Technology

#95

Post by willbw »

stryk wrote: post #83
walshemj wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I though that too "oh no look at those chavs" at MacDonald's Supersize me also did not see what happened to you if you eat a full xmass dinner every day for a month did it.

It might be a mistake asking this, but what the heck is a 'chav' ?

It's an English term for a young, obnoxious lower class person wearing tacky clothes.

Re: Early Facebook and Google Employees Form a Center for Humane Technology

#96

Post by filoleg »

tw1010 wrote: post #75
woolvalley wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found teens react fairly well to messaging on how to avoid 'the man' from manipulating you.

I think we've had enough ads about how books make you smart and tv makes you stupid to know that whatever is cool and enjoyable is more likely to win in that crowd, no matter what well meaning parents and teachers and PSAs try to tell them.

I think the "TV makes you dumb" propaganda worked just fine over time, and in big part because it was honest and non-aggressive (as opposed to something like DARE). I know it is just anecdata, but out of the people in their 20s that I know, very few have cable, and those usually do it because with their provider it is cheaper to have it bundled as opposed to internet alone.

Re: Early Facebook and Google Employees Form a Center for Humane Technology

#97

Post by staunch »

confounded wrote: post #88
staunch wrote: post #57

If the current technology services are like cigarettes, then the solution is to solve the disease and addiction problems, so people can smoke in a safe way. That's kind of what vaporizer technology is attempting. Facebook and Google are built on old technology, and it's technology that we now know to have fundamental flaws. The answer to out-dated bad technology is next-generation good technology. Technology is suppo…

> No amount of warnings or education is going to solve the problem The most effective solutions (the closest we've got to "solving the problem") to habitual cigarette smoking so far seem to be regulation; increasing prices, making things socially arduous. > The answer to out-dated bad technology is next-generation good technology. The problem is not technology, and neither is the solution. There's nothing that techno…

If the problem isn't modern technology such as Facebook and smartphones, then why didn't we have this problem in the past? And if it is modern technology, then why couldn't it be the solution?

As one example, why can't we create a social network that's designed to help users mitigate the negative aspects of using it?

Re: Early Facebook and Google Employees Form a Center for Humane Technology

#98

Post by fny »

Chathamization wrote: post #48
mstank wrote: post #8

Facebook and other social media platforms might be heading for the type of reckoning the fast food industry had in the late 90s and early 2000s. http://marko.la/facebook-is-mcdonalds/

I wonder how much the push back against McDonald's is class based. It's not healthy, but the same can be said for a lot of the food we eat. A lot of fast casual burgers, which seem to hold a higher position in the public perception, have more calories. Of course, overall health is more complicated than just calories, but it's worth pointing out since that's one of the main complaints against McDonald's (including in…

There's a good amount of sociological research on this topic, which not only agrees with your claim but also posits the obesity war is just a away for the middle and upper class (who are also overweight, at times even more so that the poor[0]) to push a moral agenda on the poor that emphasizes self-control issues of others while ignoring those of their own.[1]

[0]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db51.htm [1]: A fascinating read on the history and current affairs of the topic: "Eating Right in America: The Cultural Politics of Food and Health"

Re: Early Facebook and Google Employees Form a Center for Humane Technology

#99

Post by saagarjha »

ppbutt wrote: post #87
intopieces wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s rather un-ironic. The central thesis is not that the technology itself is flawed, but that it needs to be done in a way that is more adaptive to the needs of humans. The best way to reach people is where they are, and people are overwhelmingly on Facebook.

Younger generations are increasingly not on Facebook. They're on other various social platforms.

They might not be "on Facebook", but many of them use Facebook Messenger extensively.

Re: Early Facebook and Google Employees Form a Center for Humane Technology

#100

Post by im3w1l »

intopieces wrote: post #85
wu-ikkyu wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>people are overwhelmingly on Facebook Is hypercentralization not a major problem of tech at the momemt, both in terms of security and freedom of thought?

Hypercentralization is a contributing factor (and indeed an enabler) of the main problem, which its the exploitation of attention. It is, in itself, not bad, and not in itself a problem. The same issue that this organization is fighting could also occur in an attention economy dominated by no major player.

Hypercentralization is an intrinsic part of it. The VC money for operating at a loss is only available because VC's dream of hypercentralization. And if they didn't have VC backing and had to turn a profit and run ads on day 1, they wouldn't be able to beat the free as in freedom platforms where attention wouldn't be exploited.
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