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Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#61

Post by blueterminal »

II2II wrote: post #59
blueterminal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These apps are absolutely addictive because they were explicitly and intentionally designed to be. Same goes with fast food, TV shows etc. It's your responsibility to not over-consume anything; and if you have children, teach them to not do that as well. The problem is not with FB, Google etc. The problem (which is over-consumption of everything) is cultural. Blaming some specific corporations is easy but it won't…

One way of promoting personal responsibility is to make people aware of a problem. Some people may be able to figure it out on their own, others find out from someone close to them, yet others will learn of it from other sources (such as documentaries). That being said, I believe that social responsibility also has to play a role. If companies were simply interested in making a product appealing, they would look at h…

> One way of promoting personal responsibility is to make people aware of a problem.

Totally agree. Movies like these or like "That Sugar Film" are extremely important.

> That being said, I believe that social responsibility also has to play a role. If companies were simply interested in making a product appealing, they would look at how well it is received. When companies start employing psychology, there is a strong possibility that they are doing so to override people's judgment (thus their ability to take personal responsibility).

They are going to inevitably do that, and that's what we should expect them to do. I don't think there are any solutions to that except building some new services / protocols.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#62

Post by messo »

blueterminal wrote: post #51
skummetmaelk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good old personal responsibility. It's your responsibility not to walk into traps laid out to catch you. Why stop people from laying out the traps? They're just trying to make a living, it's perfectly fine!

What do you propose to solve this problem besides teaching others to take personal responsibility?

Some basic rules and regulations would be great :)

This should of course not replace taking personal responsibility, but humans are way to easy to influence / hack to leave it entirely to market forces. Some common ground and basic rules is at the very core of any healthy society or community.

Speed limits, traffic lights and bike lanes creates great conditions for a healthy marketplace. An absence of regulations benefits only the biggest and meanest, and usually ends up creating unsustainable systems that is crushed under it's own weight.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#63

Post by rapnie »

blueterminal wrote: post #51
skummetmaelk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good old personal responsibility. It's your responsibility not to walk into traps laid out to catch you. Why stop people from laying out the traps? They're just trying to make a living, it's perfectly fine!

What do you propose to solve this problem besides teaching others to take personal responsibility?

Stop people from laying out the traps, and saying it is not really fine. Guess that means regulation and enforcement thereof. Things go both ways, of course. There is a certain level of personal responsibility to teach and take into account.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#64

Post by Everhusk »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #26
Everhusk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah we will be open sourcing it, mostly the governance/economic model will be built on parity substrate so anyone can deploy or upgrade that system. I think solving the ad driven business model is much more important than decentralizing the content servers, hard to meet the UI/UX standards most people have when you go this route also.

This is surprising to me. I didn't think that platforms that leverage network effects were typically well-suited to open sourcing unless it was something federated. Are you worried about the system being gamed or usurped by someone willing to be more exploitative?

I think proof of stake/liquidity providers with lockup creates enough incentive to keep the network effects within one system. Open sourcing the application side is a bit trickier.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#65

Post by blueterminal »

messo wrote: post #62
blueterminal wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you propose to solve this problem besides teaching others to take personal responsibility?

Some basic rules and regulations would be great :) This should of course not replace taking personal responsibility, but humans are way to easy to influence / hack to leave it entirely to market forces. Some common ground and basic rules is at the very core of any healthy society or community. Speed limits, traffic lights and bike lanes creates great conditions for a healthy marketplace. An absence of regulations ben…

> Some basic rules and regulations would be great :)

Any specific ones? I personally can't think of any at all that would work.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#66

Post by blueterminal »

rapnie wrote: post #63
blueterminal wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you propose to solve this problem besides teaching others to take personal responsibility?

Stop people from laying out the traps, and saying it is not really fine. Guess that means regulation and enforcement thereof. Things go both ways, of course. There is a certain level of personal responsibility to teach and take into account.

> Stop people from laying out the traps, and saying it is not really fine. Guess that means regulation and enforcement thereof.

What kind of regulations would you impose? Any specifics?

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#67

Post by messo »

iamwpj wrote: post #19

I'm tired of every few months we all have to rediscover how our complicated obsession with social media and the resulting data collection based advertising is leading to a total loss of individuality and privacy. We (society) need to know these things and act according.

I think this film can do just that, but for non-techies. We can't really blame non-technical people for not understanding or caring about these things, when the underlying mechanisms are of such a technical nature. That is why I really liked The Social Dilemma; I can watch it with family or friends and make them aware of the negative effects of algorithms, that are less obvious from a regular users perspective.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#68

Post by claudiawerner »

messo wrote: post #58
newscracker wrote: post #8

Though there was hardly anything that I didn't already know , I liked the movie very much for its presentation that drove the point well to people who may not have understood how these platforms work, the privacy implications and the dangers therein. I've already recommended this movie to some more people. As for the cultural impact of the movie, I don't think it's going to be much. Cambridge Analytica had so much ne…

> Don't tell me that Mastodon and Mastodon clones can be replacements for Twitter, Facebook, Facebook groups, Facebook events, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, etc. It has been for me. But I am very aware that the fediverse is far from ready to capture the large masses currently using all the regular social networks. And that's fine, if the fediverse were growing at the same rate as VC-funded, growth-hacked social media…

On the mobile side, I can recommend Fedilab (available on F-droid) and Husky too, as alternatives to Tusky.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#69

Post by metastew »

nip180 wrote: post #31

It was very ironic that Netflix, who once said that sleep is there biggest competition, releases a documentary about how it’s rivals in the attention economy are harmful. Yes, Netflix doesn’t advertise directly to me, but many of the effects are still present. The way I think and behave can be changed by programming I watch on Netflix. Netflix uses a recommendation engine to keep me engaged. Netflix has implemented s…

Man, it's gotten so bad that I rely on Netflix to help me sleep. I'm also surprised they would release this. I think they're hedging on being transparent about the effects of screen time on people because there's probably a political reckoning waiting for tech companies if Trump lose this election, so they're trying to get ahead of this political possibility so they can stay under the federal radar and retain the ability to self-regulate.

Re: Ask HN: What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?

#70

Post by oqtvs »

When I was watching it I was thinking in ways of fix these points in the users perspective and it seems to me that the user should use the same technology, to try to block this effects and help him to not fall short in this mind traps. His use of this tec would`t be binded to others interests like sell ads for instance, so maybe the system optimization could be better expressed for him. But I don`t know how a system like this could be implemented.
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