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Mark Zuckerberg's manifesto for Facebook offers a social dystopia

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg's manifesto for Facebook offers a social dystopia

#61

Post by judah »

robotkdick wrote: post #43
judah wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because people want to feel like they have a purpose. It's the same reason you see Hollywood actors being outspoken political activists. Because if they stay out of politics, they're "only" insignificant entertainers. It's the same reason you see comedians and TV shows getting political. Saturday Night Live (SNL) is just a show for laughs. But if it takes a political stance, suddenly the writers/producers/actors…

I might be inclined to believe it if it weren't only so many words. Where are the actions to back up the argument? Internet.org? India would like to kick internet.org in the nutsack. Giving money to charity? Where are the results from that investment? Without any evidence, Mark Zuckerberg is just another king of spin. Aren't there enough cockroaches in the world already? Not saying Mark is one, but I'd like to see so…

Facebook on the whole hasn't done much to improve the world. (It's greatest accomplishment in my mind is keeping geographically-separated family in contact with one another.)

While this manifesto was a little over-the-top, and probably amplifies globalism as a cure-all, he does appear sincere in his desire to do good. Time will tell.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's manifesto for Facebook offers a social dystopia

#62

Post by arctangent »

dopamean wrote: post #34
simplehuman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mother Teresa wasn't a good person? That's news. Why?

I read somethings years ago about how she didn't allow the hospitals that she oversaw use pain medication for some religious reason. There were also claims that she personally profited off of her likeness. I can't recall if any of those claims were credible however.

I think the gist of it was that "suffering brings one closer to God"...

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's manifesto for Facebook offers a social dystopia

#63

Post by hkmurakami »

dmitrygr wrote: post #6

Why is it that every little single-purpose-at-best company nowadays acts like they are out to save the world in the most noble way possible? Mark, please! You're a spam-your-friends-with-fake-news-and-baby-photos service at best. The world will go on long after Facebook ceases to exist. Please stop pretending that you're Mother Teresa here.

Because it's a great PR angle.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's manifesto for Facebook offers a social dystopia

#64

Post by portman »

CodingGuy wrote: post #9
sveme wrote: post #5

Have we reached peak Facebook yet? I started using Facebook quite early in my country and used it mostly as a social network, communicating and exchanging stuff with friends from all over the world. A couple years later I deleted my account, being disgusted by the potential abusive potential of all the information Facebook had. I came back years later as it became THE tool for ad hoc social initiatives and a way to f…

If Google Trends is somewhat right, we've definitely reached peak Facebook: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Facebook

According to Google Trends we reached "peak Google" in 2013:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Google

What's actually happened is that fewer people are using search engines as their app launcher, because they are using the smartphone home screen instead.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's manifesto for Facebook offers a social dystopia

#65

Post by zzalpha »

nostrademons wrote: post #39
zzalpha wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the tech delusion. I don't know a start-up that doesn't have some grandiose vision of themselves as the future saviors of humanity. Uber, Tesla, Facebook, Airbnb, you name it... it's all the same "save the world" rhetoric. The scary thing is, I think a lot of people on the industry actually believe their own BS...

It's much easier to do hard or risky things (and convince others to do hard things) if you believe that doing so will save the world. Whether it's true or not, it's a useful illusion. People who believe that it's all meaningless tend to sit on message boards and shit on others instead.

Instead of what? Buying into the BS?

I'd rather take an honest, measured view of these companies. Many have the potential to change our lives, for both good and ill. Buying into the BS is a great way to short circuit healthy skepticism.

Selling the BS is a fantastic smokescreen.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's manifesto for Facebook offers a social dystopia

#66

Post by nostrademons »

alehul wrote: post #14
CodingGuy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google Trends is somewhat right, we've definitely reached peak Facebook: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Facebook

This is likely more indicative of society: A. Becoming more computer-literate and going straight to sites as opposed to always Googling it before clicking, even once familiar with the URL, which won't correlate to usage B. Visiting the site enough for AutoFill to take effect, which is ever-so-slightly inverse in correlation in terms of search popularity to site popularity Here's a FB-related search term people will s…

[facebook] was the most common search query when I was at Google (roughly the period covered by this graph), and [facebook login] would alternate between #2 and #3. Neither of your options seem likely at all to me - over the time I was there, I witnessed people becoming more likely to navigate to sites via Googling them rather than clicking, not less. The trend is even more pronounced with mobile, where basically nobody types in a URL, they use voice search and speak the name of the site.

I would bet on the Facebook mobile app being a major cause, though. Instead of hitting the web version at all, they're opening the mobile app.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's manifesto for Facebook offers a social dystopia

#67

Post by paulpauper »

sveme wrote: post #5

Have we reached peak Facebook yet? I started using Facebook quite early in my country and used it mostly as a social network, communicating and exchanging stuff with friends from all over the world. A couple years later I deleted my account, being disgusted by the potential abusive potential of all the information Facebook had. I came back years later as it became THE tool for ad hoc social initiatives and a way to f…

have we reached 'peak car' 'peak operating system' yet or 'peak computer'? I think Facebook is going to be with us for a very long time and will continue to thrive. Yeah, the comments and posts suck sometimes (I don't use it) but hundreds of millions are addicted to it.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's manifesto for Facebook offers a social dystopia

#68

Post by paulpauper »

onewaystreet wrote: post #21
sveme wrote: post #5

Have we reached peak Facebook yet? I started using Facebook quite early in my country and used it mostly as a social network, communicating and exchanging stuff with friends from all over the world. A couple years later I deleted my account, being disgusted by the potential abusive potential of all the information Facebook had. I came back years later as it became THE tool for ad hoc social initiatives and a way to f…

> Have the social network aspects of Facebook been destroyed by fatigue Combating this is partly why Facebook bought WhatsApp and spun out Messenger into its own app.

Facebook is so big it can just buy anything that competes with it ,but Whats App may be too big

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's manifesto for Facebook offers a social dystopia

#69

Post by zzalpha »

lazaroclapp wrote: post #48
zzalpha wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the tech delusion. I don't know a start-up that doesn't have some grandiose vision of themselves as the future saviors of humanity. Uber, Tesla, Facebook, Airbnb, you name it... it's all the same "save the world" rhetoric. The scary thing is, I think a lot of people on the industry actually believe their own BS...

Each of those companies has the potential to significantly impact the world. Whether that change is for better or worse depends on your values. But given that they will likely have a big impact on society, I'd rather have them thinking through the ethical implications of what they do even superficially and grandiosely than not at all. A hypocritically preachy Facebook corporation is much better than an absolutely cyn…

A hypocritically preachy Facebook corporation is much better than an absolutely cynical one.

If you ask me, for a lot of these tech companies, this is a false dichotomy: they're outwardly preachy and inwardly cynical. How better to justify bad behaviour than to dress it up in grandiosity?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's manifesto for Facebook offers a social dystopia

#70

Post by paulpauper »

misiti3780 wrote: post #41
dmitrygr wrote: post #6

Why is it that every little single-purpose-at-best company nowadays acts like they are out to save the world in the most noble way possible? Mark, please! You're a spam-your-friends-with-fake-news-and-baby-photos service at best. The world will go on long after Facebook ceases to exist. Please stop pretending that you're Mother Teresa here.

He is clearly delusion and a huge megalomaniac. Facebook in it's current form will not exist in 10 years. If they do, they will be similar to what AOL is today.

being long Facebook stock since the IPO, I take the opposite side of that bet . Facebook will be a bigger company even if it's slightly different. It's so huge and ubiquitous. It's not anything that can simply be a 'fad'. It's like a new medium of consciousness or fundamental integration with the world. The internet 10 years from now probably will not be too much different (the browser will continue to take over the desktop).
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