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Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

theatlantic.com

21–30 of 104 posts

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#21
This guy is simply failing to see the forest for the trees.

Yes, the past 30 years have been an amazing whirlwind of development of consumer computing technology. Yes, things won't be jumping by leaps and bounds the way they were when the basic hardware and bandwidth were getting up to speed. The latest social app is not going to blow you away the same way, say, the invention of the Internet did when you first discovered it. But I'm sure it pales in comparison to the wow-factor of the telegraph when it was first invented.

We live in a time when computing technology has filtered out to the mass populace. It is an interesting time to be sure. But we are just scratching the surface of what is possible with computers. There is tons of work to be done to refine the art of computation, which I believe ends with creating AI that can do things we are incapable of doing as humans. That is still a very long way off.

And assuming all goes smoothly without any major natural disasters or self-destruction, after that, there will be a new chapter in human existence where I believe we will have to come to grips with having automated everything and no longer having to employee people en masse. Where will we find meaning once the struggle to survive is pushed so far from our daily concerns?

The point is things are constantly evolving, and there is no chance that things are about to get boring. "Web", "Social", and "Mobile" are only "done" if you are tech pundit looking to summarize the state of the world in a tidy 800 words. The reality is that these things are just building blocks whose novelty has worn off, but whose ultimate utility is far from being realized.

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#22
post #16
post #13

I'm really sick of hearing all of the hatred that facebook gets. It's a useful tool that I use every day for organizing meetups and, in my opinion, is superior to a mailing list in pretty much every single way. My local reddit users group has almost 1000 members in it, and has no branched into several "sub groups" [a book club, a film club, a music club, a workout club, and a hacker club]. Just now before reading thi…

People react negatively to FB because they are abusing their usefulness. Want to easily find someone to go to a movie with? Fine, give us your web browsing history, your friends list, your email addresses, your phone numbers, your social calendar, your location history, where you lived, worked, and went to school, many full-text conversations with your close friends, and... oh yeah any pictures of you that all your f…

But they're not doing it for nefarious reasons. Having all this information together is genuinely useful for users. That's why they do it! People want it, and for good reason.

The side-effect that all this information provides an unsettlingly complete snapshot of your life, trusted to a single entity, is an inevitable byproduct. Facebook has certainly made a few mistakes, but the things people complain about aren't specific to Facebook -- they're inherent to any useful, complete social network.

Is there a consumer-friendly solution to this dilemma? I'm not sure. Privacy-wise, you can't have your cake (super-connected with your friends) and eat it too (keep the site from knowing about all those connections).

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#23
post #13

I'm really sick of hearing all of the hatred that facebook gets. It's a useful tool that I use every day for organizing meetups and, in my opinion, is superior to a mailing list in pretty much every single way. My local reddit users group has almost 1000 members in it, and has no branched into several "sub groups" [a book club, a film club, a music club, a workout club, and a hacker club]. Just now before reading thi…

I agree with you that the Facebook hate - especially from non-techie peers - seems kind of foolish to me.

Just thought it was funny though - that your local Reddit group convenes on Facebook. I thought the self-serve subreddit platform was made for that micro-community purpose! ;)

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#24
post #13

I'm really sick of hearing all of the hatred that facebook gets. It's a useful tool that I use every day for organizing meetups and, in my opinion, is superior to a mailing list in pretty much every single way. My local reddit users group has almost 1000 members in it, and has no branched into several "sub groups" [a book club, a film club, a music club, a workout club, and a hacker club]. Just now before reading thi…

[deleted]

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#25
post #16
post #13

I'm really sick of hearing all of the hatred that facebook gets. It's a useful tool that I use every day for organizing meetups and, in my opinion, is superior to a mailing list in pretty much every single way. My local reddit users group has almost 1000 members in it, and has no branched into several "sub groups" [a book club, a film club, a music club, a workout club, and a hacker club]. Just now before reading thi…

People react negatively to FB because they are abusing their usefulness. Want to easily find someone to go to a movie with? Fine, give us your web browsing history, your friends list, your email addresses, your phone numbers, your social calendar, your location history, where you lived, worked, and went to school, many full-text conversations with your close friends, and... oh yeah any pictures of you that all your f…

What the hell are you talking about?

I found somebody to go to a movie with because he posted on our film group saying:

"This film is playing in Tempe tonight, who wants to go?"

And I responded with a "Me".

>Did I mention that your friends list isn't private, law enforcement can get all this data at any time

No, and I'm glad you didn't, because that sounds like utter bullshit. "At any time"? Do you mean "With a court order"?

This "oh no I'm so scared" reaction to facebook is neo-luddism at its finest. The point at which facebook turns into a magical black box is too high for some people, and they get scared of it.

Here's the big bad secret: facebook isn't doing linguistic analysis on your messages, and if they're using information about what youtube videos I've "liked" to serve me more relevant ads, then good, I'd rather see information about bands or lecturers I'm interested in visiting Phoenix than I would about penis pills and weight loss "secrets".

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#26
post #13

I'm really sick of hearing all of the hatred that facebook gets. It's a useful tool that I use every day for organizing meetups and, in my opinion, is superior to a mailing list in pretty much every single way. My local reddit users group has almost 1000 members in it, and has no branched into several "sub groups" [a book club, a film club, a music club, a workout club, and a hacker club]. Just now before reading thi…

I agree with you that the Facebook hate - especially from non-techie peers - seems kind of foolish to me. Just thought it was funny though - that your local Reddit group convenes on Facebook. I thought the self-serve subreddit platform was made for that micro-community purpose! ;)

It is, but it's not very good at it. Facebook "bumps" threads when you respond to them, so relevant stuff stays at the top.

And people use pictures of themselves as identifiers. It's a lot easier to recognize people based on faces than it is to recognize them based on silly usernames.

I mean...these are people that I regularly interact with in real life. I get the pseudo-anonymity for reddit proper, but non-anonymized interactions on facebook are good.

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#27
post #6

There is lots of stuff happening which I hope we'll probably see integrated soon in our mobile phones. The top two things which I'm waiting to see in my mobile is 1) The lightfield camera and 2) a device like the "sixth sense".

Pick up this magnetic wedding ring and you can feel electro magnetic fields. The massive field microwave puts out is the most amusing one I have found so far. http://www.supermagnetman.net/index.php?cPath=61

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#28

Most revolutionary things take some time before people realize that they are revolutionary. - Google launched in 1998, people realized how revolutionary it was by around 2000. - Facebook launched in 2004, it took till about 2007 for people to realize how game-changing its going to be. - IPhone launched in 2007, and within a year (after 3G + AppStore was launched) it was clear that this is game-changing. My point is:…

The new hardware platforms are each going to give birth to their own frontiers of opportunity. Bezos' TED Talk on "The Next Web Innovation" alluded to how each innovation would allow for new innovations.

I'm looking at new hardware like watches (Pebble), SmartTVs, and maybe Google Glasses if can be accepted culturally (more so than bluetooth headsets have been) as all potentially amazing new canvasses for creation.

Highly recommend this TED talk. It's amazingly optimistic and paints a beautiful future for technology innovation: http://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_bezos_on_the_next_web_innovati...

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#29

I fail to understand this article because I think there are so many different topics the author touches on.. Innovation. Culture. Tech business and startups.. I think the author is conflating some of these concepts or just misunderstanding some. For instance, innovation. What does Facebook have to do with innovation? I'm sure there are a few innovative things they have done, but in my view the outline for the broad c…

tl;dr "Outside of iPhone, Kindle and mobile applications you nerds have invented absolutely nothing over past 10 years".

Re: Time To Get Past Facebook And Invent A New Future

#30
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People react negatively to FB because they are abusing their usefulness. Want to easily find someone to go to a movie with? Fine, give us your web browsing history, your friends list, your email addresses, your phone numbers, your social calendar, your location history, where you lived, worked, and went to school, many full-text conversations with your close friends, and... oh yeah any pictures of you that all your f…

But they're not doing it for nefarious reasons. Having all this information together is genuinely useful for users. That's why they do it! People want it, and for good reason. The side-effect that all this information provides an unsettlingly complete snapshot of your life, trusted to a single entity, is an inevitable byproduct. Facebook has certainly made a few mistakes, but the things people complain about aren't s…

If this were for my benefit, they would either stop tracking me across the web, or somehow make that data available or useful to be. It's currently opaque, so whatever their reason is, it's not for my best interests. Also, I think keeping my friends list more private would be nice. And being able to pay money instead of being shown ads would benefit both me and FB.
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