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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”?

#91

Post by diob »

blueterminal wrote: post #36
save_ferris wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that people spend lots of time on social media just demonstrates that they derive something from it, not that it’s addictive or harmful. I was totally with you until this moment. This is like arguing that people with alcoholism get something out of drinking too much. It’s one thing to say that you’re comfortable with the amount of information that’s collected about you and how it’s used, but how can you ig…

> 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…

Speaking as someone who came from a rather colorful childhood of abuse, I'm wondering what your personal past is? You're assuming so much about the lives that folks lead, and to me it speaks of a lack of empathy for the personal struggles each individual is enduring.

Stoicism will fix things in the west? I assume you mean the USA, but as a person in the USA, I have to say that we are about as stoic as you can get. We lean on personal responsibility for every little thing.

"Oh, you went bankrupt from cancer. Why didn't you plan for that? Don't you know around 50% of folks get that?"

"Oh, you went to college for a useless degree? Why didn't you have someone in your life teach you that was a mistake? Why didn't you reject the counselors in public schools who encouraged you down that path?"

"Oh, you eat too much sugar? Why didn't you reject the industry sponsored studies that downplayed their health effects?"

"Oh, you got covid? Why didn't you stay at home? What do you mean you're an essential worker? Why didn't you take care of your health so you weren't predisposed to it?"

It's not stoicism the west needs, but a dire injection of empathy and community.

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

#92

Post by auganov »

vorpalhex wrote: post #83
auganov wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Much less risk to be de-platformed from your favorite walled-garden for obscure reasons. Federation does absolutely nothing for this. The risk is probably even higher given how small most of these instances are. Much more likely to run into an admin/moderator.

In the fediverse, you're more likely be able to say "Hey Lisa, why did you ban me?" than you can get into contact with the Youtube/Facebook/etc forces that be. That may or may not be better because your admin may respond "Well because I think you're a jerk and disagree with your political views" but at least you can migrate to a new instance still instead of just being banned for all eternity.

If you want to keep your followers you'd need to migrate before they ban you.

But yes, I guess you can start over somewhere else while on big ones you're out forever. So in that sense I guess it is a tiny improvement. But if most of your followers were concentrated on server[s] that don't like you, you may not be able to reach them anymore.

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

#93

Post by soylentcola »

vorpalhex wrote: post #83
auganov wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Much less risk to be de-platformed from your favorite walled-garden for obscure reasons. Federation does absolutely nothing for this. The risk is probably even higher given how small most of these instances are. Much more likely to run into an admin/moderator.

In the fediverse, you're more likely be able to say "Hey Lisa, why did you ban me?" than you can get into contact with the Youtube/Facebook/etc forces that be. That may or may not be better because your admin may respond "Well because I think you're a jerk and disagree with your political views" but at least you can migrate to a new instance still instead of just being banned for all eternity.

I guess the questions this raises next for me are:

Would this scale if a given instance somehow gained the level of adoption people seem to value in a Twitter or a Facebook? It seems to me that the major draw and reason people stay on those services is the fact that they can communicate with essentially everyone in one place.

Also, to follow the first question, given that a major (if not the only) draw for most users is the ability to communicate with everyone, wouldn't that result in relatively few (or one) instance gaining dominance over time? You want to be connected to all of your friends and family, of course. But then all of them also want to be able to read what Beyonce or Trump or Biden or Bill Gates is saying. Their barbers and bartenders want to post the latest specials to all of their current and potential clients. If you all have to agree on an instance/sub-network/server/etc to use, why would people choose anything but the one everyone else is on?

I guess it might make it easier to migrate to a better-run or better-supported instance and add a bit of healthy competition to keep things in line, but from what I've seen of Facebook and Twitter, the near impossibility of getting people to switch to another competing service en masse always overpowers any individual's complaints about the current state of affairs. Facebook sucks? Well, why not swap over to that new ServiceX? Well...sure it's nicer but nobody is on it!

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

#94

Post by iamdbtoo »

alexmingoia wrote: post #34
save_ferris wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that people spend lots of time on social media just demonstrates that they derive something from it, not that it’s addictive or harmful. I was totally with you until this moment. This is like arguing that people with alcoholism get something out of drinking too much. It’s one thing to say that you’re comfortable with the amount of information that’s collected about you and how it’s used, but how can you ig…

I spend lots of time reading. Is reading an addiction? I don’t think spending time on something is necessarily an addiction. Can social media be an addiction? Sure, in the same way videgames can be an addiction. I wouldn’t go as far as saying video games are harmful. Social media is also different in that it’s a means of communication. It does have utility for communicating whereas video games or drinking doesn’t.

Addicition is defined by its consequences. If you're engaging in a regular activity, that's one thing, but if you can't stop yousrself from doing it, even if it's harming you, that is addiction.

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

#95

Post by rapind »

blueterminal wrote: post #36
save_ferris wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that people spend lots of time on social media just demonstrates that they derive something from it, not that it’s addictive or harmful. I was totally with you until this moment. This is like arguing that people with alcoholism get something out of drinking too much. It’s one thing to say that you’re comfortable with the amount of information that’s collected about you and how it’s used, but how can you ig…

> 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…

I don't think it's a given that Social Media's harms are at the level of fast food. Figuring out where it falls on the "harmful to society scale" is a worthwhile discussion. Is it sugar, e coli, or something in between?

We do have regulatory protections around food. We don't think it's pragmatic for everyone to run their own home lab to determine if there's poison in their food. It may also not be pragmatic to expect everyone to check sources or even be able to locate the truth of a source (I sure can't most of the time!).

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

#97

Post by lentil_soup »

blueterminal wrote: post #57
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like arguing that the fast food industries, the sugar industry, and the ad industries have no role to play in diabetes because it's your fault you can't control yourself. Never mind that you will have been exposed to tens of thousands of hours of literal behaviour modification programming. You should somehow magically still have the personal, emotional, and cultural resources to override it. And if you don't…

How would you try to help an alcoholic? Would you tell him that it's alcohol producers' who is at fault? Or would you tell him to try and get help? Why would an advice be different for over-consumption of social media, coke, big macs, tv shows, casinos etc.?

all those examples you listed have restrictions and regulations in many places in addition to services that provide help to the affected. Doesn't have to be one OR the other, can do both

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

#99

Post by klyrs »

blueterminal wrote: post #57
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like arguing that the fast food industries, the sugar industry, and the ad industries have no role to play in diabetes because it's your fault you can't control yourself. Never mind that you will have been exposed to tens of thousands of hours of literal behaviour modification programming. You should somehow magically still have the personal, emotional, and cultural resources to override it. And if you don't…

How would you try to help an alcoholic? Would you tell him that it's alcohol producers' who is at fault? Or would you tell him to try and get help? Why would an advice be different for over-consumption of social media, coke, big macs, tv shows, casinos etc.?

That's weird framing. The individual needs help, but there are significant regulations on alcohol companies, too. We went too far, by prohibiting it altogether, but we still limit alcohol advertising, we have age limits, etc. None of that is "telling him" to blame the alcohol producers; we need both regulations against harms facilitated by corporations for profit and support for those harmed.

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

#100

Post by messo »

Qwertious wrote: post #96

'What do you think about “The Social Dilemma”?' 'What will the cultural impact of this movie be?' My thoughts: What the F is that? Never heard of it.

As I mentioned in the first sentence of my post; "For those who have seen the film on Netflix already; what are your thoughts?"

It is a movie / documentary[0] which raises questions about the combination of massive amounts of user-data and algorithms, and it does it in a way that is most people can understand. Recommended :)

[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11464826/

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