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Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

economist.com

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Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#231

Post by RussianBot9580 »

nickjj wrote: post #205
hgomersall wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all gambling. You can dress it to as having a social purpose, but that's not why most people do it - they want the numbers to go up. The stock market is exactly the same - middle class gambling.

> The stock market is exactly the same - middle class gambling. Our entire society is based on being forced to gamble. If you don't invest your money in some capacity then inflation will eat you alive.

@hgomersall: emerging from a lucky orifice is in fact the main thing in life if you think about it. After all, we are collectively a computer made of monkeys, and the function it is computing is natural selection. Kin selection is one aspect of it. Everything else - including money and innovation - is window dressing.

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#233

Post by brookst »

weatherlite wrote: post #161
brookst wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fully supportive of prosecuting wrongdoing in the food industry. But it seems strange to use belief in widespread wrongdoing in the food industry to oppose punishing wrongdoing in the tech industry. Is it just nihilism? All industries are corrupt, therefore prosecute none of them?

It seems to me like Meta is being singled out here. It's likely not the start of a movement to change how we live and get rid of/diminish bad influences on our lives - because I don't think we wanna really do that - not for economic reasons and also values - we like our personal freedoms. This is simply targeting one company whose CEO is very disliked so we can all carry on with our lives and feel better about oursel…

Doesn’t any enforcement action “single out” a wrongdoer? People pulled over for speeding are singled out (there are other speeders), people busted insider trading are singled out (there are other inside traders), etc?

I honestly don’t understand your position… it seems to be “unless you can simultaneously prosecute all wrongdoers in all industries all at once, prosecute nobody”. But that can’t be right?

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#234

Post by hgomersall »

RussianBot9580 wrote: post #231
nickjj wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The stock market is exactly the same - middle class gambling. Our entire society is based on being forced to gamble. If you don't invest your money in some capacity then inflation will eat you alive.

@hgomersall: emerging from a lucky orifice is in fact the main thing in life if you think about it. After all, we are collectively a computer made of monkeys, and the function it is computing is natural selection. Kin selection is one aspect of it. Everything else - including money and innovation - is window dressing.

Sure, so should we, as society, reward it further by also providing more free money?

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#236

Post by scottious »

blackoil wrote: post #188
conception wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best idea ive seen is if you decide what a user sees in an algorithm way (beyond “natural” ones like chronological) you are liable for the content - you are no longer a common carrier and can be sued for damages. That should be step 1.

> beyond “natural” ones like chronological So a mail s/w that pushes up mail that it deems important?

That kind of algorithm doesn't show you anything besides the messages in your inbox. It's never making a decision to show you X instead of Y, it's just deciding the ordering in which you see them.

Modern social media is choosing from a vast pool of content and the algorithm's entire goal is to maximize engagement for monetary gain (at whatever cost to society). There's only so much "engagement maxing" you can do with an email sorting algorithm especially if the premise for an email inbox is that you'll always only ever see your emails and nothing else.

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#237

Post by ToucanLoucan »

philipallstar wrote: post #140
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I cut my leg off with a chainsaw, am I addicted to the chainsaw? If you repeatedly willingly do so despite the harm, then yes.

But you still did it. If I sunbathe every day without sun cream, whom do we regulate? Assuming people have no ability to choose.

It’s not about regulation it’s about intervention. It’s not that you’re not allowed to saw pieces of yourself off with a chainsaw, stranger of a choice as that may be. The idea is people in your life who care about you may want to intervene to stop you, as no matter how pleasurable you might find what you’re doing to be, it’s slowly killing you.

And that’s not even going into the science behind addiction where the whole “but you chose to do this” gets more and more dubious the deeper you go.

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#238

Post by ikr678 »

ricardobayes wrote: post #122
Aurornis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would include everything from my Spotify recommending new music that I like to my Netflix showing me similar shows. I'm a responsible adult. I want those things. I make use of them. They make my life better when I'm trying to listen to some music while I work on something or when I have exactly 2 hours of TV watching time in a week and don't want to waste it finding a new show. I do not want regulations coming a…

Yes, anyone who has been looking for Spotify alternatives can readily tell how poor the music recommendation algorithms of competitors. I feel like the only comparative one is weirdly, youtube, since they simply have more data points and context to attach recommendations to.

At it's peak, I found Pandora's recomendation algo vastly superior to Spotify

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#239

Post by scottious »

jatins wrote: post #179

I am old and used to use FB back when it was cool. Think 2010-14 period, and it was addictive even then even when it was just content from friends. Humans have deep need for connection with other humans and they will be addicted to anything that provides it given that modern society is increasingly isolated. People are addicted to reddit, heck I know people who are addicted to Stocks app because they just need someth…

I wouldn't say social media is just "filling a void". I feel like it's more accurate to say that social media is exploiting weaknesses in the human brain for profit and causing harm to individuals and society as a whole. I'd even say that it's preventing people from filling that void because it's sucking away people's time.

Imagine if a tobacco executive said "you remove cigarettes and people will just replace it with alcohol or other drugs or another vice altogether". It may be true for some people but overall we've reduced harm by fighting back against cigarettes

Re: Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

#240

Post by [deleted] »

loeg wrote: post #98
Cider9986 wrote: post #71

Meta, good reminder to buy diversified funds and not whatever hot company. (-29% - 1 year) Fidelity zero is compelling, in a retirement account.

FZROX (Fidelity Zero) is relatively highly concentrated in Meta (1.7%) (because Meta is a large chunk of the US stock market).

[deleted]
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