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Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

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Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#371

Post by BloondAndDoom »

surprisetalk wrote: post #10

This book was SO GOOD. It's bleak. I always imagined that rich/powerful people only created suffering if that suffering was required for certain goals. It's easier for me to bear injustice when it's a zero-sum game. But the story of Facebook is not that. Facebook didn't make ethical sacrifices for profit -- its executives just didn't care to understand the consequences of their actions. I wish those folks could feel…

Do you work in or closely follow the tech world?

I read this book thinking that it'll be some expose but honestly it was underwhelming in a sense, it's almost better than I thought. Everything in the book either was obvious for anyone who worked in the industry, or better than I thought it'd be. There were some weird personal things about Zuckerberg, but even those were expected or given.

It was an OK read, however as I read it all I can think of author is just a naive person who didn't know what she was getting into, and remained naive for a long time. Author herself say this in the book couple of times as well.

Maybe this is a book that's "eye opening" to someone who's an outsider but if you are somehow in this business the book is practically nothing burger, or even worse actually make Facebook look better than I actually have imagined they would be.

Another similar book is : "Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble", I read it expecting some crazy story, but it was yet another case of an outsider's take of the standard industry practice. I'm sure this is interesting for those never been in these circles, but for everyone else it's just another day in today's tech world. (Just to be clear, I don't support or condone any of this stuff but it's such a common place and given, unfortunately not even interesting at this point).

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#372

Post by analog8374 »

rectang wrote: post #281
analog8374 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understanding takes effort too, effort that might be better spent creating value. Also, understanding creates culpability. So that's a downside. It's like people who walk in front of you on the road and pretend to not notice you. If I don't see the badness then I am not responsible for the badness. And thirdly, never underestimate people's power to ignore.

> never underestimate people's power to ignore. One of the hardest things to do is to put yourself in the place of those you see as villains and recognize that they generally see themselves as heroes. The human capacity for self-justification is extremely powerful.

It's the flipside of focus/concentration of attention. Which is the key trick underlying all science, engineering, scholarship etc. The foundation of our civilization.

So you might say that a vast ignorance is implicit to our way of life.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#373

Post by knollimar »

nostrademons wrote: post #320
Oarch wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago I had a date with a backend engineer at Meta. I asked if they'd ever considered the societal implications of the work they did. They said "Oh wow I've never even thought about it". Probably a solid hire from Meta's perspective.

I know an ex-Facebook employee who told me that "Nobody at Facebook ever makes a conscious decision about whether something is good or bad. You are given a metric, and your job is to make that metric go up. If it turns out that making the metric go up has negative consequences [for the business, I don't think it's anyone's job to worry about the rest of society], then somebody else is given another metric to ameliora…

That sounds mysterious and important

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#374

Post by BloondAndDoom »

prepend wrote: post #317
surprisetalk wrote: post #10

This book was SO GOOD. It's bleak. I always imagined that rich/powerful people only created suffering if that suffering was required for certain goals. It's easier for me to bear injustice when it's a zero-sum game. But the story of Facebook is not that. Facebook didn't make ethical sacrifices for profit -- its executives just didn't care to understand the consequences of their actions. I wish those folks could feel…

I think the author was complicit and only complained once FB stopped paying her. It was weird how the author claimed not to know how facebook targeted ads worked until 2016/2017 after she had made millions.

Seems to be a common pattern, it's better than the alternative but nonetheless it's not the brag they think it's.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#375

Post by BloondAndDoom »

ryandrake wrote: post #191
Aurornis wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This book was SO GOOD. One of the (very valid, IMO) criticisms of the book is that the author tries to set herself apart from the culture she was deeply embedded within. I think it's becoming a trap to hold the author up as a hero when she was clearly part of it all to the very core. It was only after she got separated from the inner circle club that she tried to distance herself from it. So while reading it, be ca…

The fact that she did end up setting herself apart is what's remarkable. For every one of her who was able to self-reflect, become horrified of the ethics of what she was doing, and took the hard steps of stopping and breaking away, how many current and former Meta employees don't do this reflection and remain contributors to the problem? 1:100? 1:1,000? 1:10,000?

Did you read the book? Because that's not the story, she way too many opportunities to do that, yet didn't. Only after she stopped getting paid, she did an "expose".

I hate facebook more than the next guy but this person just helped Facebook to accomplish usual evil things, and only stopped once she cannot profit. I'm pretty sure she didn't start that way or maybe even saw it that way, but objectively (in her own narrative, if you only take actions and ignore her own emotional justifications) that's what happened.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#376

Post by sunnybeetroot »

ryandrake wrote: post #324
kingofmen wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you missed the eye-rolling sarcasm in the answer they have to give on every goddam first date .

Maybe I'm just a wacky Bleeding-Heart, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect someone who worked on a product that amplified hate, leading up to a massacre in Myanmar, to at least address that without sarcasm while getting to know them.

Maybe it’s a question for the third date?

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#377

Post by BloondAndDoom »

Aurornis wrote: post #162
surprisetalk wrote: post #10

This book was SO GOOD. It's bleak. I always imagined that rich/powerful people only created suffering if that suffering was required for certain goals. It's easier for me to bear injustice when it's a zero-sum game. But the story of Facebook is not that. Facebook didn't make ethical sacrifices for profit -- its executives just didn't care to understand the consequences of their actions. I wish those folks could feel…

> This book was SO GOOD. One of the (very valid, IMO) criticisms of the book is that the author tries to set herself apart from the culture she was deeply embedded within. I think it's becoming a trap to hold the author up as a hero when she was clearly part of it all to the very core. It was only after she got separated from the inner circle club that she tried to distance herself from it. So while reading it, be ca…

> In a situation like this it's possible for everyone to be untrustworthy narrators.

Even if you take her as trustworthy narrator (which I mostly did) she's stil evil in this story up until the publishing book.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#378

Post by roywiggins »

prepend wrote: post #334
RIMR wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should not be legal to enforce this kind of thing 9 years after a person leaves your company. I get that it currently is legal, but have some principles. Just because this is legal doesn't mean it isn't morally reprehensible, and its legality should be challenged.

She didn’t have to agree to the contract. I don’t really want some arbitrary govt limit restricting what private parties can do with each other.

The only way these sorts of contracts can be enforced is if private parties have recourse to government powers- civil courts- to enforce them.

Governments could just not help them do that.

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#379

Post by gfody »

BloondAndDoom wrote: post #371
surprisetalk wrote: post #10

This book was SO GOOD. It's bleak. I always imagined that rich/powerful people only created suffering if that suffering was required for certain goals. It's easier for me to bear injustice when it's a zero-sum game. But the story of Facebook is not that. Facebook didn't make ethical sacrifices for profit -- its executives just didn't care to understand the consequences of their actions. I wish those folks could feel…

Do you work in or closely follow the tech world? I read this book thinking that it'll be some expose but honestly it was underwhelming in a sense, it's almost better than I thought. Everything in the book either was obvious for anyone who worked in the industry, or better than I thought it'd be. There were some weird personal things about Zuckerberg, but even those were expected or given. It was an OK read, however a…

normalizing toxic as standard industry practice is sort of like condoning it, imo

Re: Author of "Careless People" banned from saying anything negative about Meta

#380

Post by boca_honey »

andy_ppp wrote: post #369
prepend wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the author was complicit and only complained once FB stopped paying her. It was weird how the author claimed not to know how facebook targeted ads worked until 2016/2017 after she had made millions.

So you should never be allowed to comment on the behaviour of companies you worked for?

Allowed, sure. Celebrated, not really.
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