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Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

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Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#101

Post by brador »

cornholio wrote: post #95
raverbashing wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure the medical companies that sold HIV infected blood products to countries that didn't check for the HIV virus were also "intelligent investors" in your mind. Or the Chiquita fruit company It might not be illegal but ethics come back to you

There is nothing unethical in taking money away from a first world government in fair market deals, within the rules set out by those same governments. They employ tens of thousands of well paid experts who's job is exactly to maximize national interest and who would not blink an eye to crush investors like Soros, would the places be reversed. Comparing that to poor individuals who were abused by large corporations i…

> There is nothing unethical in taking money away from a first world government in fair market deals

If it leads to a greater long term net suffering in the world then I would argue yes it is.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#102

Post by ryandrake »

jordigh wrote: post #8

I'm rather bothered that I know nothing about Soros except a bunch of vague, negative feelings about him that have pop-culturally osmosed to me through constant usage of his name in 4channish/the_donaldish media. He's some kind of evil mastermind destroying civilisation with his vast wealth. I know this is almost certainly not true, but I'm so bothered that this is my immediate thought. I feel like the alt-right has…

This is something advertisers have known for centuries: if you repeat something enough, it will work it’s way into your brain. It doesn’t even have to be true or even make sense. A lot of things we believe, if we investigate and are honest with ourselves, we only believe because of how often it gets repeated.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#103

Post by IntronExon »

badpun wrote: post #62
adamnemecek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that he thinks that his philanthropy gives him legitimacy.

I don't see how giving away money is related to being "a visionary, a thought leader" etc.

Success seems to be the metric by which the credulous judge “visionaries” to begin with. If you’re going to buy into the “thought leader” concept, Soros seems to qualify as much as Jobs.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#104

Post by samastur »

vinceguidry wrote: post #55
_m8fo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your gross simplification of the issue is unfortunate. TV has never been able to track you and change its programming to the extent Facebook can.

Who cares? Would TV have been that worse if it did the same thing?

Yes.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#105

Post by Quarrelsome »

jordigh wrote: post #8

I'm rather bothered that I know nothing about Soros except a bunch of vague, negative feelings about him that have pop-culturally osmosed to me through constant usage of his name in 4channish/the_donaldish media. He's some kind of evil mastermind destroying civilisation with his vast wealth. I know this is almost certainly not true, but I'm so bothered that this is my immediate thought. I feel like the alt-right has…

he helped destroy sterling in "black wednesday" by adopting a very short position against it from which he profited massively and families lost their homes due to spike in interest rates implemented by the government to try to reign in the crash.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#106

Post by bsder »

vinceguidry wrote: post #17

Sorry, I'm simply not convinced that monetizing and marketing people's attention is all that much of a social ill. There is nothing about Facebook that's in any way worse than the old ways companies used to do this. Does nobody remember the 80s? TV was turning people into fricken' zombies. People would sit on the boob tube for days at a time, stopping only to go to work to mindlessly knock out chores for a shift, the…

The bigger problem for me is all the passive invasiveness these companies represent.

Even if I don't have a Facebook account, I am tagged in so many pictures that Facebook can identify me. I find that problematic.

Even if I don't have a Gmail account, so many people do that Google has a significant number of my email conversations.

There are many things Facebook/Google/Amazon can do, and I cannot prevent them even if I never interacted or wished to interact with them.

What is MY recourse against Facebook/Google/Amazon if I wish them not to be in my life?

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#107

Post by billfruit »

rossdavidh wrote: post #83

I am no great fan of Facebook, but the indignant accusations about them wanting to keep us glued to their screen seem mostly to come from people who were (and are) perfectly fine with television networks that did the same thing for decades. Even today, the typical citizen spends more time watching TV than on social media, I bet. I use Facebook once a week, and TV never, and I find that people are mostly not even will…

And not to mention Wikipedia, despite it not having any attention engineering, it is to go wandering in it for hours together and yet they don't get any bad press?

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#108

Post by dao- »

Slansitartop wrote: post #100
dao- wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are in fact laws for that. Soros' investments were perfectly legal from what I know. We could change this if we wanted to, Capitalism is a man-made system after all. Demonizing successful players is just pointless.

You're making the mistake of equating the law with morality. Greatly simplified, the a law is just an attempt to roughly codify some moral principles and give them some teeth. We still expect people to act morally, even in the absence of laws to force them to do so.

> You're making the mistake of equating the law with morality. Greatly simplified, the a law is just an attempt to roughly codify some moral principles and give them some teeth.

I didn't mean to equate them and I don't think I did. I was implicitly making the same connection that you just made explicitly.

> We still expect people to act morally, even in the absence of laws force them to do so.

Who really expects investors to act morally rather than doing whatever's legal? Heck, who expects Facebook to prioritize morals over profits? Don't people who have these expectations deeply misunderstand how today's economic system works?

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#109

Post by DougN7 »

rossdavidh wrote: post #83

I am no great fan of Facebook, but the indignant accusations about them wanting to keep us glued to their screen seem mostly to come from people who were (and are) perfectly fine with television networks that did the same thing for decades. Even today, the typical citizen spends more time watching TV than on social media, I bet. I use Facebook once a week, and TV never, and I find that people are mostly not even will…

Facebook is different though - it's interactive, which creates a self-reinforcing feedback loop. That couldn't exist with a TV show.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#110

Post by throwawaymanbot »

rossdavidh wrote: post #83

I am no great fan of Facebook, but the indignant accusations about them wanting to keep us glued to their screen seem mostly to come from people who were (and are) perfectly fine with television networks that did the same thing for decades. Even today, the typical citizen spends more time watching TV than on social media, I bet. I use Facebook once a week, and TV never, and I find that people are mostly not even will…

You can seriously equate the 2. TV networks did not know 1/1000th of the information Facebook collects about people.

and of course...using Facebook sparingly does not mean they are precluded from, nor do they stop collecting or connecting information about/to you.

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