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Did he just proclaim the Facebook Global Government?
As Lessig said, the code is law. Given facebook's role, undoubtedly they will (and do) play a role in governance.
I find this letter to be deeply cynical. There's a baked in assumption that a global community is a good thing and that the only possible reason to resist it is because you're being left behind by its benefits. I don't think that's true and I certainly don't think it should be assumed a priori. There are people in this country, and every where in the world, who don't want globalization. And it's not because they have…
> I find this letter to be deeply cynical... I find it deeply cynical that instead it masquerades as a virtuous plan to help all man kind.
As a matter of fact, this letter is hopeful, not cynical.
It's certainly hoping for something that you don't want, but that's entirely beside the point. No detached native English reader would objectively describe the tone of this piece as "cynical".
Additionally, "masquerade" implies deceit. Do you have any evidence that there aren't Zuckerberg's sincerely held beliefs?
> There's a baked in assumption that a global community is a good thing and that the only possible reason to resist it is because you're being left behind by its benefits
In what sense is this baked in?
On the contrary, the first couple paragraphs are devoted to motivating the global scale of what Zuckerberg perceives as humanity's most pressing challenges -- "...ending terrorism, fighting climate change, and preventing pandemics...".
Zuckerberg isn't saying "we need global cooperation because it's an inherent good." He's identifying concrete problems facing humanity, and suggesting reasons why international cooperation is necessary to tackle those concrete problems.
A substantive response to Zuckerberg would like-wise address these concrete problems and discuss how his proposed solutions are ineffective or counter-productive, rather than rejecting the letter carte blanc in broad rhetorical strokes.
Again, you're free to disagree with Zuckerberg, but calling these "baked in assumptions" is a mis-comprehension.
> I don't think that's true and I certainly don't think it should be assumed a priori.
OK, fair enough!
> There are people in this country, and every where in the world, who don't want globalization. And it's not because they haven't received enough of the benefits or need to be educated better, they don't want it for real reasons and, in a Democracy, that should be an acceptable stance.
Where does Zuckerberg state otherwise?
> If we're not willing to accept that stance than we're forcing people into a global community that matches our vision for the future, not theirs.
Zuckerberg disagrees with you. He's stating that disagreement in a public forum.
Critically, he's NOT suggesting that you shouldn't be allowed to have your opinion! He's just suggesting that your opinion is wrong and that we ought to go a different direction instead.
Existence of opposing political wills working publicly in good faith toward their goals (opposing or otherwise) is a foundation of democracy.
You're effectively suggesting that someone is anti-democractic because they openly oppose your policy agenda. Which is a deeply flawed argument.
> In other words it's a plot for world domination of one world view over another.
All political projects are plots for domination. Even liberty-minded political projects aim to dominate opposing political forces in order to make room for their libertarian projects. Distribution of power is the whole point of politics.
Disparaging politics is fine, of course, but it's a confusing thing to do when you're taking the opposing side of a political battle...
> Zuck: How do we help people build supportive communities that strengthen traditional institutions in a world where membership in these institutions is declining?
what is meant by "traditional institutions"? Maybe the problem is that "traditional institutions" (which are what, exactly? churches?) are not addressing people's real concerns and have become irrelevant.
> Zuck: How do we help people build a safe community that prevents harm, helps during crises and rebuilds afterwards in a world where anyone across the world can affect us?
it sounds like he's talking about responding to terrorist attacks. this is such vague language that it can be interpreted to mean anything at all. sounds like he's practicing writing campaign rhetoric. Zuck wants to run for president?
> Zuck: How do we help people build an informed community that exposes us to new ideas and builds common understanding in a world where every person has a voice?
I hope he's sincere about this. Facebook has proved itself to be one of the greatest disseminators of propaganda, distortions, clickbait, manipulative media, and many varieties of malicious (as in privacy violating) advertising and data-mining. I somehow doubt we're going to see a real reversal of policy on this subject from Facebook. Maybe I'm just cynical and jaded but being a vehicle for disinformation and invasive advertising has made Facebook a lot of money.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same thing should hold true for blind upvotes on social sites like this.
That fails if you do a first-order implementation because you have no way of knowing whether the person voting/sharing had already read the article, but not necessarily shared it at the time of reading. As a simple example, I subscribe to The Economist and prefer reading the paper version. If I see a story from there cited by someone else, I don't need to read it again to recommend it. Also, depending on the content…
It might still hold for a large group of people, though, and be valid in a statistical sense? Which is what they're really after.
"How do we help people build a safe community that prevents harm, helps during crises and rebuilds afterwards in a world where anyone across the world can affect us?" For one, give people using your site some basic privacy so their own governments can't use your site to target political enemies.
Yes, it's not illegal to do those crazy tax schemes, but it sure is unethical.
I believe he truly, in his own powerful bubble, thinks that he does good to the world and sincerely doesn't understand he is big part of the people rejecting globalization.
For example, I know a good few people who are opposed to that pipeline being built in North Dakota right now. Unfortunately they sometimes repost any news story about an oil spill or pipeline failure they come across in the mistaken assumption that they're seeing because it just happened.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We've brought 3 billion people out of poverty in the last 30 years and haven't had a major-power war since WWII when we set up all these globalist institutitions. I'd say the record holds up pretty well.
>We've brought 3 billion people out of poverty in the last 30 years and haven't had a major-power war since WWII when we set up all these globalist institutitions. What about the other 3 billion people left behind in poverty? That's more than what the total global population was when these "globalist institutions" were set up.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/declining-global-poverty-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you help me understand what those real anti-globalization reasons, that don't include receiving enough of the benefits, are?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone is a good place to start. The basic finding of the studies detailed in that book are that globalization, and particularly multiculturalism within communities have very negative effects on the happiness and community participation of those involved. Diversity and multiculturalism are generally considered axiomatically good by the left and these studies were done by leftist t…
I find this letter to be deeply cynical. There's a baked in assumption that a global community is a good thing and that the only possible reason to resist it is because you're being left behind by its benefits. I don't think that's true and I certainly don't think it should be assumed a priori. There are people in this country, and every where in the world, who don't want globalization. And it's not because they have…
You bring up great points, and hit on the miscalculation and hypocrisy of the left. They seem to think that globalization is a universally good thing, and if you're against it then you are somehow disconnected, a racist, and a monster. This a common symptom not just isolated to globalization.