Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#251

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Feb 10, 2018, 4:43 AM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #248

dredmorbius wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've just shifted your goalposts.

No, I restated a summary of my original post. Same goalposts. Same location.

I don't find that a consistent representation of your statements:

"Is having a conversation a chemical addiction?"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16343850

"My point is, dopamine is addictive."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16344356

This means your argument isn't over whether or not social media (or other dopaminagenic activities) are or aren't addictive. You've conceded that point. Which ryandrake had expressly rejected another two posts up:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16342034

The question is whether or not they ought be regulated in some way.

I'd also focus far less on the specific mechanism (though gambling, drugs, social interactions, and A/B-tested sticky-on-page highly-habit-forming social media all do, as you've explicitly stated, rely on the same chemical mechanism), and instead, in the resultant behaviours.

I'm well aware that etymologies are neither clinical diagnostic tools nor necessary indications of present use. I still find them interesting in informing a discussion. And the etymology of "addiction" is a case in point:

c. 1600, "tendency, inclination, penchant" (a less severe sense now obsolete); 1640s as "state of being (self)-addicted" to a habit, pursuit, etc., from Latin addictionem (nominative addictio) "an awarding, a delivering up," noun of action from past participle stem of addicere "to deliver, award; devote, consecrate, sacrifice" (see addict (v.)). In the sense "compulsion and need to take a drug as a result of prior use of it" from 1906, in reference to opium (there is an isolated instance from 1779 with reference to tobacco).

https://www.etymonline.com/word/addiction

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#252

Post by brokenbyclouds » Sat, Feb 10, 2018, 4:46 AM UTC

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…

I can't tell if this is poes law or not. It's blindingly stupid to say that arcades are in any way equivalent to Facebook.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#253

Post by brokenbyclouds » Sat, Feb 10, 2018, 4:47 AM UTC

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…

Yikes, you don't know anything about how this works do you?

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#254

Post by sixothree » Sat, Feb 10, 2018, 5:33 AM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #83

I am no great fan of Facebook, but the indignant accusations about them wanting to keep us glued to their screen seem mostly to come from people who were (and are) perfectly fine with television networks that did the same thing for decades. Even today, the typical citizen spends more time watching TV than on social media, I bet. I use Facebook once a week, and TV never, and I find that people are mostly not even will…

> accusations about them wanting to keep us glued to their screen seem mostly to come from people who were (and are) perfectly fine with television networks that did the same thing for decades

That's a stretch. Not sure what the argument is there.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#255

Post by sixothree » Sat, Feb 10, 2018, 5:46 AM UTC

cmpb wrote: post #246

> This is nothing less, Soros claims, than a theft of citizens’ autonomy. “People without the freedom of mind can be easily manipulated.” What autonomy? I’m usually one to shrug off the “no free will” problem and just buy into reality, but the quoted statement brings the problem front-and-center. We are all being manipulated, all the time, by everything that we interact with. So FB isn’t really stealing anything from…

Pretending this just being part of human experience discounts the fact that this entity is new and has properties much different than anything that has existed in human history.

I think that quote understates it. Even people with freedom of mind can be manipulated. I would love to think I am a free-thinker. But there is no way I could honestly insulate myself from persuasion.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#256

Post by adrianN » Sat, Feb 10, 2018, 5:52 AM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #214

AlexandrB wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

But they weren't automated and couldn't tailor the content for each user individually to maximize the time they spend looking at ads.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#257

Post by cryptonector » Sat, Feb 10, 2018, 6:22 AM UTC

wfo wrote: post #204

cryptonector wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely nothing wrong (and, really, lots good) with Soros' currency market trades of the 90s and elsewhen. The problem with Soros (if you're not on the Left) is that he's become the principal funding source for a number of hard-left movements. If you are on the Left, then this is good, while if you're not then this is bad. I won't tell you how you should feel about Soros though -- you figure that out for…

Small correction: Soros primarily supports pretty mainstream centrist liberal organizations. Stuff like the ALCU, pro-choice organizations, immigrant rights groups, mainstream minority advocate groups, public health and environmental advocacy groups. It is quite a stretch to call it "hard-left" unless your personal Overton window is so far extreme right that you think Jeb Bush is a revolutionary communist. He definit…

Interesting that you implicitly concede that BLM is hard-left, or something. I didn't even say a think about any particular group.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#258

Post by current_call » Sat, Feb 10, 2018, 6:41 AM UTC

elipsey wrote: post #233

current_call wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are certainly talking about excessive social media use whether FB likes it or not. The goal of propaganda is not to make people think a certain way; it's to get people to act a certain way. Entertainment is centered around consumption, not interaction. If I can get people who dislike something to read entertaining articles about how it's bad instead of going out and protesting or canceling accounts, then I've…

I believe you are begging the question. I don't use it either, but apparently lots of people still do. It seems like you're proposing that we should, in aggregate, spontaneously become more virtuous. How?

There's two ways of looking at it. One is with a sense of personal accountability. "If you use Facebook, then the first thing you should do is stop." A humorous example can be found here: http://observer.com/2011/12/in-which-eben-moglen-like-legit-...

Since you've done that, you have several options to change other people. You can evangelize. You can promote or design alternatives. GNU Social has been extremely successful. Running an instance would be an easy and educational way to help. You could write libraries for the newly specified social web protocols.

The important thing to remember is that it's okay to fail. It's better to be a hypocrite than apathetic.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#259

Post by wfo » Sat, Feb 10, 2018, 6:51 AM UTC

cryptonector wrote: post #257

wfo wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small correction: Soros primarily supports pretty mainstream centrist liberal organizations. Stuff like the ALCU, pro-choice organizations, immigrant rights groups, mainstream minority advocate groups, public health and environmental advocacy groups. It is quite a stretch to call it "hard-left" unless your personal Overton window is so far extreme right that you think Jeb Bush is a revolutionary communist. He definit…

Interesting that you implicitly concede that BLM is hard-left, or something. I didn't even say a think about any particular group.

Yes, BLM is pretty obviously a left organization and not a liberal one. Though hard-left of course has no meaning and is nothing but a smear phrase designed to suggest "extremist" when the positions we are discussing are not particularly extreme at all. They endorse a variety of pretty boilerplate left positions: universal healthcare, state funded college, union rights, anti-imperialism, divesting from fossil fuels and taking other concrete climate action, complete overhaul of the police system. This is why BLM hijacked a Hillary Clinton campaign rally to humiliate her on national television. It was not because they are on her side.

Re: Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen

#260

Post by djaychela » Sat, Feb 10, 2018, 8:19 AM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #249

djaychela wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they're in the same league, though. Facebook (and all social media) is far more insidious than TV ever was (and I probably watch maybe 2-3 hours of TV a week). Facebook et al are personalised to each user to capture them as much as possible. That isn't the case for TV, and nor have I ever been in a situation where people I'm working with are watching TV in between fragments of their attention being paid…

>completely addicted to their smartphones For me and I think most people the smartphone is a way of connecting with other people. The need to check it is a need to see what your mates are saying in a conversation - the electronic gizmo is just a conduit. And people chatting to each other has probably been a thing for millions of years. I'm not sure what's so bad about chatting at a distance via tech.

>For me and I think most people the smartphone is a way of connecting with other people. I think that's what most people tell themselves, and indeed that's what the original intention was. But I no longer think that's the case in the vast majority of cases - particularly for those who have grown up knowing nothing different.

>The need to check it is a need to see what your mates are saying in a conversation Many people are now constantly doing that, and unable to focus on the task in hand. They are constantly distracted with thoughts such as 'I wonder what XYZ is up to', and unable to settle without finding out. I find it interesting that you say 'the need' to do that, BTW!

> And people chatting to each other has probably been a thing for millions of years. Certainly for a long time, but not in the same way - this isn't something that even the (normal) phone did - this is a step change in the way that it encroaches on you if you let it, partly because it's with everyone all the time, partly because it's become semi-socially acceptable to be distracted and elsewhere, and partly because the technology behind it is doing everything it can to attract our attention via whatever means works for each individual.

>I'm not sure what's so bad about chatting at a distance via tech. Then we'll have to agree to differ on that point. I don't think that technology itself is bad, but I am absolutely convinced that the way it is insidiously grabbing people's attention is a bad thing. I don't think it is about the communication at all - that is almost a bi-product of the main intention.