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Engineered Addictions

masonyarbrough.substack.com

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Re: Engineered Addictions

#161

Post by aianus »

crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #157
wonderwonder wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you but disagree. Who decides what the common good is? You end up with companies moralizing, forcing employees to adhere to those common goods in both their work and personal lives. Forcing people to get the vaccine was for the common good. DEI was common good and that in turn led to Trump being elected. The pendulum swings. At least with share holder value, you know where you stand. The common good is a const…

Common good: humans, according to systems theory, have the same needs and there's a finite set. We can map them & then design systems so as to satisfice all of them.

One of humans' needs is for status which is by definition zero sum. Same with mating.

If anything those two are probably the most important needs so it's not possible to build such a system.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#162

Post by carlosjobim »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #76
throwawayoldie wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a better idea: let's combat the notion that putting shareholder value ahead of the common good is moral.

If I had to choose between common good and shareholder value all else being equal, I'd choose common good every time. We should be suspicious of games that favor shareholder value over common good and repair them. Of course this is harder than it sounds, but letting the person with the most money in a Monopoly game also set the rules is absurd and and obviously wrong. Wrong even without having a consensus reality on…

You're never going to be able to change the economic system for the entire population where you live. Better to vote with your feet and move to a country where all economic activity is arranged for "the common good". There are many, many such countries. You're not the first with that idea.

That of course won't mean that you will have the privilege of deciding for everyone else what counts as "the common good". It's unfortunately not like the Arch Linux terminal where you are omnipotent.

I say that sincerely, as somebody who had to do just that. It's easier for Mohammad to go to the mountain.

Edit: To say: I voted with my feet and moved to a place which better aligns with my values. From a "common good" society to a "freedom" society.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#163

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

> Every attempt to “fix” social media eventually becomes part of the problem because the economic structure creates inevitable corruption of the original mission.

Which is why we need a social medium that is not controlled by anything more centralized than "all the users". Anything else will present high values targets for corruption and is doomed to fail. You're not going to get investors in such a thing, because the lack of chokepoints means you can't really monetize it. But I do think that the existing players will eventually behave badly enough that such a thing will emerge--one volunteer effort at a time.

They sold us a dream of what the internet could be and I don't think we're letting that go--we just have to dispatch with them first.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#164

Post by asdf6969 »

I like the post but I feel like it’s missing the reason why VC funding is necessary. A lot of small scale apps and old school forums can be run pretty cheap. What is stopping social media from growing slow and following a more traditional business model? For example, people regularly start things like nail salons with just personal funds and bank loans but they are so much more expensive to run than something like this website

Re: Engineered Addictions

#165

Post by asdf6969 »

sorcerer-mar wrote: post #146
moefh wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an old saying: The purpose of a system is what it does[1]. You can't (well, shouldn't) judge something by its intended purpose if what it ends up doing goes against it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...

And businesses as a whole produce positive externalities, as intended, which is why we continue to allow them to exist.

> we continue to allow them to exist

Who is “we”? I can’t do anything about it. No more than peasants “allow” the king to exist..

Re: Engineered Addictions

#166

Post by skybrian »

smikhanov wrote: post #102

Good people of HN, could anyone tell me why buying an MVP of a social network for $10K from a Belarusian contractor on Upwork (it couldn’t cost much more, it’s like five SQL tables and a web CRUD) and then charging users $2/month to use it wouldn’t work? Why does the author need to moan about how morally destructive it was to raise VC? Just run your social network from your bedroom, while asking ChatGPT how to rewrit…

If you’re not trying to make a business out of it, you don’t even need that much money. You could set up a Mastodon server and invite your friends. It might not get a lot of attention, but it will work.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#167

Post by bigthymer »

citizenpaul wrote: post #77
klik99 wrote: post #20

> Then it raised venture capital, hit scale, and needed to hit growth numbers and meet quarterly metric goals. The focus shifted from “authenticity” to “daily active users.” Having spent a few years in the VC world I have been increasingly convinced outside investment is the biggest reason why companies lose their morals. The legal obligation to represent shareholders erodes morality. When the people running these co…

I think its bigger. Morality and social contract have eroded and continue to erode. Look at Mozila for the most insidious example. Take a privacy focused product. Rope in a bunch of suckers. Then literally delete the privacy focus from your mission statment and start the "slaughter" Craiglist is proof it can be done at scale.. Its just that so few people with them means and morality exist anymore. The Sodom and Gomor…

> Craiglist is proof it can be done at scale.. Its just that so few people with them means and morality exist anymore.

I don't think this is a good example. Back then, the internet was a new thing only a small cohort of people cared about. Something small could just stay small because none of the big players with money cared. Nowadays, if someone wanted to start something like Craigslist, they would be outrun by someone else going the VC route before the small company could get big enough on its own. I think it boils down to the difference between slower growth, boot-strapped companies vs. VC-backed.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#168

Post by j7ake »

carlosjobim wrote: post #162
kelseyfrog wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had to choose between common good and shareholder value all else being equal, I'd choose common good every time. We should be suspicious of games that favor shareholder value over common good and repair them. Of course this is harder than it sounds, but letting the person with the most money in a Monopoly game also set the rules is absurd and and obviously wrong. Wrong even without having a consensus reality on…

You're never going to be able to change the economic system for the entire population where you live. Better to vote with your feet and move to a country where all economic activity is arranged for "the common good". There are many, many such countries. You're not the first with that idea. That of course won't mean that you will have the privilege of deciding for everyone else what counts as "the common good". It's u…

Please name a few such places

Re: Engineered Addictions

#169

Post by sorcerer-mar »

asdf6969 wrote: post #165
sorcerer-mar wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And businesses as a whole produce positive externalities, as intended, which is why we continue to allow them to exist.

> we continue to allow them to exist Who is “we”? I can’t do anything about it. No more than peasants “allow” the king to exist..

Sure you can. You can vote to get rid of corporations, and you'll get outvoted. Ergo: we.

You don't understand how kings work if you think it's equivalent to your situation in a western democracy.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#170

Post by baxtr »

klik99 wrote: post #20

> Then it raised venture capital, hit scale, and needed to hit growth numbers and meet quarterly metric goals. The focus shifted from “authenticity” to “daily active users.” Having spent a few years in the VC world I have been increasingly convinced outside investment is the biggest reason why companies lose their morals. The legal obligation to represent shareholders erodes morality. When the people running these co…

Yes, and there is a huge problem connected to that:

If you don’t play this game you’ll lose. Look at Europe for example, they haven’t played the VC game properly and thus have no really significant tech player compared to the US / China.

So what options are left? Play the game or be ruled by those that play it.

I’d rather play even if moral erosion is required.

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