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Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

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Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#211

Post by AlexandrB »

freehunter wrote: post #195
losteric wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible TV did make society marginally worse, and each new dopamine trap captures an increasing fraction of society? This statement is laughable: > The thing that actually holds old friendships together and provides endless opportunities to interact with other people that you would have never done otherwise Facebook's innovation was trapping users in a walled garden with omnipresent surveillance and advertisin…

>a walled garden with omnipresent surveillance and advertising So... a shopping mall? A school? Any corporate job? A walk through downtown? "In-network" minutes and long distance charges on your phone? Religious institutions? Whatever Facebook is doing wrong for society, they are standing on the backs of giants. Walled garden or not, surveillance or not, advertising or not, people have never been as free to socialize…

> If there is something negative on your Facebook feed, you are solely responsible for it being there. It takes two clicks to make it go away forever.

What do I click on to make the stuff Facebook decided I shouldn't see show up?

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#212

Post by freehunter »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #206
freehunter wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is having a conversation a chemical addiction? If I say something that receives a negative response, will I not try to follow it up with something that receives a positive response? After I've received that positive response, will I not try to please my conversation partner more to keep feeling good about myself? Should we then ban conversations? Some people use "it releases dopamine" like that's a bad thing, like ou…

If I give you 5 dollars is that a chemical addiction? Obviously not, but you believe gambling can be addictive right?

My point is, dopamine is addictive. Banning or controlling anything that releases dopamine is a futile effort.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#213

Post by AlexandrB »

vinceguidry wrote: post #17

Sorry, I'm simply not convinced that monetizing and marketing people's attention is all that much of a social ill. There is nothing about Facebook that's in any way worse than the old ways companies used to do this. Does nobody remember the 80s? TV was turning people into fricken' zombies. People would sit on the boob tube for days at a time, stopping only to go to work to mindlessly knock out chores for a shift, the…

This just seems like "whataboutism". The only argument I see here is:

> There is nothing about Facebook that's in any way worse than the old ways companies used to do this.

Even if that were true - and I don't think it is - I'm not sure why we should just accept the idea that it's OK for us to be lied to and manipulated. I remember TV in the 90s, and the ads were fucking horrible - many would try to capitalize on the same basic motivations: sex, greed, vanity.

Why is it OK that Facebook is going down the same path? Why should we not expect a better society than this same garbage repeated at us using every new medium? If AR becomes a big thing, are we going to have to live in a world filled with virtual Viagra billboards everywhere we walk?

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#214

Post by freehunter »

AlexandrB wrote: post #211
freehunter wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a walled garden with omnipresent surveillance and advertising So... a shopping mall? A school? Any corporate job? A walk through downtown? "In-network" minutes and long distance charges on your phone? Religious institutions? Whatever Facebook is doing wrong for society, they are standing on the backs of giants. Walled garden or not, surveillance or not, advertising or not, people have never been as free to socialize…

> If there is something negative on your Facebook feed, you are solely responsible for it being there. It takes two clicks to make it go away forever. What do I click on to make the stuff Facebook decided I shouldn't see show up?

That's a very different problem in a very different league of problems. Where do you click to see the stuff the New York Times decided not to show you? Or scenes a movie editor left on the cutting room floor? Or pages an author never sent to print? Or words I left untyped in this comment?

Content editors and curators have existed for a long time.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#215

Post by Trundle »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #81
vinceguidry wrote: post #17

Sorry, I'm simply not convinced that monetizing and marketing people's attention is all that much of a social ill. There is nothing about Facebook that's in any way worse than the old ways companies used to do this. Does nobody remember the 80s? TV was turning people into fricken' zombies. People would sit on the boob tube for days at a time, stopping only to go to work to mindlessly knock out chores for a shift, the…

>Sorry, I'm simply not convinced that monetizing and marketing people's attention is all that much of a social ill. What about monetizing and marketing people's affection? The dowry would be the classic example, I'd be curious why you (presumably) are against dowries. To me it's basically the same, certain things are corrupted by their commodification, affection, attention, others. Besides when you say: >The world su…

Can you please explain how dowries tie in to this? I didn't see anything in the above post that would indicate that they have an opinion on them one way or the other

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#216

Post by Fins »

grasshopperpurp wrote: post #166
rndmize wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good intentions? Any time I read something like this: https://www.thenation.com/article/big-brothers-thought-contr... my doubts about them increase.

I think they're true believers, which does not justify the evil they do, but I expect they would view this as a situation where the ends justify the means - or a situation where they are educating the uneducated.

But did anyone ever point at any actual evil that they do? They seem to be rather liberal/progressive on social issues, and quite moderately conservative on economic ones, which doesn't seem too bad.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#218

Post by Fins »

xenadu02 wrote: post #185
jerf wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"stuff and it's equated with Pizzagate-style conspiracies and worse that you don't see on the opposite side of the fence." "Koch brothers". There is nothing one side's fever swamp does that the other can't match, which is why wise people attempting to discern truths ignore both, but most especially, ignore the one on the "other side".

Except the left/liberal side (as defined in US terms) mostly rejects the extremes. The right/conservatives have turned a blind eye toward (and in some cases wholly embraced) their "fever swamp". The truth is not in the middle.

The whole "Koch brothers are teh devil!" seems to be quite an extreme position, if one bothers to read what Koch brothers actually promote.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#219

Post by bcoates »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #117
ryandrake wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are still talking about a website , right? A totally optional website, in a browser with a close button? This isn’t a chemical addiction or gambling.

What makes it different from gambling?

If people were tearing their hair out about internet gambling destroying democracy they would rightly be made fun of.

Internet gambling is discouraged/banned to the extent it threatens the local tax base, nobody cares about gambling addicts.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#220

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

Trundle wrote: post #215
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sorry, I'm simply not convinced that monetizing and marketing people's attention is all that much of a social ill. What about monetizing and marketing people's affection? The dowry would be the classic example, I'd be curious why you (presumably) are against dowries. To me it's basically the same, certain things are corrupted by their commodification, affection, attention, others. Besides when you say: >The world su…

Can you please explain how dowries tie in to this? I didn't see anything in the above post that would indicate that they have an opinion on them one way or the other

There's another comment of mine below that explains it better. The commenter says that they don't see much of a social ill in marketizing attention. I'm asking whether they see much of a social ill in marketizing affection and if so why. I believe the answer would expose some degree of hypocrisy or require them to state that they don't believe dowries are a social ill. It's an analogy to illustrate why (I believe) the commodification of our attention is a social ill.
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