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I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

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Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#141

Post by AndrewBissell »

Apocryphon wrote: post #119
AndrewBissell wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least there's ability to enforce governmental responsibility through elections and free press. Yes, for example, voters in the U.S. elect presidential candidates who promise to scale back our military presence overseas, and then it happens! Voters also get what they want when they elect candidates promising to reform Wall Street, make government more transparent, or end the culture of graft & corruption in Washi…

And yet, living under that is preferable to living under a Facebook-governed polity.

No one is talking about a "Facebook-governed polity" in the sense of FB fielding police forces and standing armies, or holding elections to determine their leadership.

Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#142

Post by vkou »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #123
gm-conspiracy wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, we have governments watching the interest of the corporations.

> we have governments watching the interest of the corporations Supplanting institutions with popular will is populism, an ideology that has a habit of bee lining towards authoritarianism. "Corporations" are employers, pension fund holdings, tax payers and instruments of foreign influence. The "people versus corporations" narrative is absurd.

If populism is a bee-line towards authoritarianism, corporatism is a charter flight towards it.

The overwhelming majority of Americans do not have a meaningful stake in the proceeds of capital. They are labour, and will benefit from gains for labour, more then they will from gains for capitalism.

If 80% of your life-time earnings will come from wages, as opposed to capital gains, your interests are not aligned with those of your employer, especially when they treat their relationship with you as zero-sum. Most of them do.

Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#143

Post by vkou »

nickpp wrote: post #110
prolepunk wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are comparing badly functioning government with businesses functioning as intended. At least there's ability to enforce governmental responsibility through elections and free press. Facebook can be leveraged in no other way then through government regulation, even if you opt out from facebook it still watches you, and good luck even understanding of what's going on if you're not a technical person.

Taking an average over the world, most governments are badly functioning and they've been that way for years if not centuries. Business on the other side, tend to be punished by the markets when misbehaving and then course-correct.

Businesses get punished by markets when they operate inefficiently. They do not get punished by markets when they poison, cheat, rob, or kill people - especially when those people aren't their customers.

Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#144

Post by parthdesai »

carapace wrote: post #84
parthdesai wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, i really don't like fb's practices as much as the next guy here ( you can check my history if you want to) but are you really going to hold someone accountable for something they said when they were 19-21?

It's pointing out that he's not some cyber-saint. What can we look at that would stand as evidence that he's not a huge douche-bag? Renaming the SF General Hospital after himself? His recent behavior in front of Congress? Show me the evidence that he's a good person, please.

Only thing i said is, to judge him based on something he said when he was somewhere between 19 and 21 years old in Uni is a stupid thing to do. A majority of us have said and done stupid things in uni.

Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#145

Post by Nav_Panel »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #127
Nav_Panel wrote: post #15

> why should the world trust Facebook or Zuckerberg to shape and manage this new global meta-society? Could Zuckerberg, who wields considerable power over Facebook’s share structure, develop the self-awareness and responsibility to manage it? > it’s time to set real limits on Facebook’s power Makes me wonder: who will be setting those limits, and how can we know they will have the "self-awareness and responsibility"…

> who will be setting those limits The same ones who set the limits on the railroads and oil tycoons, after they abused their power, or on AT&T, after it abused its power, et cetera . This is why we have government.

The situations you mention involve antitrust law and unfair competition, with the intent that consumers would benefit from increased competition. Internet companies are different, and specifically Facebook is different, because its customers are advertising companies and its product is the eyeballs of its users. Ironically, the closest contemporary internet analogy to your examples is Net Neutrality...

Any legislation around Facebook and similar is going to look fundamentally different than antitrust law. It's more likely to look like some sort of "consumer protection" suit rather than a monopoly takedown. I don't trust our lawmakers to successfully figure out the incentive structures; they'll likely seize this opportunity to appeal to their voter base. The results might not be what they intend.

Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#146

Post by vkou »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #54
wybiral wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes counter to the idea of a globally connected internet though. Without a degree of oppression of free speech you can't stop the flow of culture and ideas no matter how big of a wall you build.

As it turns out, the actual effect of a "globally connected internet" was to make it easier for the Russian state to exploit its own underemployed citizens to pretend to be Texans and stoke racial tensions in Texas. Meaningful human connection requires some amount of basic honesty.

Is this only a problem when Russians behave dishonestly, or is it also a problem when domestic media behaves dishonestly, in an effort to stoke divisive tensions?

That line seems to be incredibly arbitrary.

Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#147

Post by eloff »

pitaj wrote: post #122
rememberlenny wrote: post #105

Web platforms are governments. "Facebook is a government. Facebook's users are citizens, and Facebook's applications developers are the private companies that drive much of the economy. Apple. Twitter, Myspace, Craigslist, Foursquare, Tumblr and every other large network of engaged users (including some services of Google) plays a similar role. We have always tacitly acknowledged this. We talk about these networks as…

Whether or not they are governments is a question of definition. Definitions are important, and social networks don't fit very well into it. They are fundamentally different from modern governments as they do not have a monopoly on coercion. If social media are governments, then every corporation - no, every association of people - on Earth is a government.

I think the analogy is strained. But Facebook wields absolute coercion power inside their platform. Banning posts, pages, accounts, and apps without due process or recourse.

My parents run a business on Facebook and they have so many horror stories about the times Facebook has completely held their livelihood hostage. Or cut their revenue 10x with a single algorithm update.

Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#148

Post by tango12 »

I think having a military force that helps a set of people enforce an us vs them and ‘own’ resources (natural or otherwise) makes a country a country. A company, unless it has physical power, will never be like a country.

Re: I was Zuckerberg’s speechwriter

#150

Post by wonder_er »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #125
nickpp wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A well functioning government, does, ideally, what you describe. But most governments in the world (maybe except a few western ones) are, as I was saying, incredibly disfunctional. And when governments misbehave, they kill: wars, corruption, suppression, etc. Forgive me if I’ll prefer businesses over governments every day.

> And when governments misbehave, they kill: wars, corruption, suppression, etc. You're comparing a giant to a nest of angry ants. The giant sometimes tramples houses; the ants don't. One might conclude the ants are therefore gentler, and wonder much better life would be under giant ants instead of the giant, neglecting that if the ants had the giant's power, they would be far more deadly than it.

absolutely agree.

I'd still rather live with angry (but benign) ants than a giant.

The ants cannot get the giants power, no matter how hard they try, so I'm comfortable with the ants.

(The thought experiment - what happens if Facebook tries to arrest someone? I'd be _so_ curious to watch the proceedings.)

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