Hacker News Reader

> Not saying this is practical or even desirable, but clearly it would change people's priorities quite a bit.

Historically, the problem with indefinite liability has been government abuse and degradation of evidence (witnesses age and forget, documents are purged as part of regular scheduled maintenance, etc) which work together to create an unfair environment for the victim or perpetrator depending on the specifics of the case. Statutory limits "clear the docket" of potential cases, so to speak, which prevents the government from using an infinitely growing list of crimes and violations combined with selective enforcement to target "undesirable" or opposition elements within the populace.

I do believe that indefinite liability for felonies and fiduciary responsibilities is very desirable in a fair justice system (balanced with a case by case evaluation of future criminal potential so that people who have reformed without prison aren't too heavily punished) but I'm afraid it will require a massive societal change. A system as complex and noisy as the justice system cannot both be an underfunded afterthought and fair. Kind of like healthcare makes up almost 20% of US GDP, so too should the justice system if we are ever to properly align the incentives of management and the public. With the seemingly unstoppable pervasiveness of data collection and surveillance, it might even be practical in the future to prosecute very old crimes in a fair way as long as enough resources are dedicated to enforcement and oversight.

Unfortunately, the people who decide these things are extremely disincentivized from implementing the kind of sweeping changes we'd need.

We are not in the same historical conditions. We have internet, darknet, social media, citizen journalists, cloud distribution... So maybe we don't need the traditional system. Maybe we need more people standing up against injustices, lack of accountability, and narcissits, something like #metoo.

If we need a more traditional system, then solutions to lower the %GDP of healthcare exists, as every other country in the G20 are at 12%, and kept their growth on par with inflation, unlike the US. Government spending on public safety is around 2%, on par with the rest of the G20. So fixing the former would definitely go a long way in raising the later, placing the US in a leadership position in term of fixing many other problems.

Somehow, as citizens, we need to find a way to incentivize our elected and unelected officials to do good, prioritize the majority of the population, and to take decisions that are sustainables. I don't really have a specific idea how to achieve that.

> if people were held accountable indefinitely for the externalities caused by the work they conduct

Yes, it would change peoples priorities: If this was the case (and the definition of "externalities" was broad enough to encompass "No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth") literally nothing of consequence would ever happen.

The those tropes in computer engineering about suits never getting fired for buying IBM, about legal departments wrapping everything in red tape, about bosses insisting on processes, reports and cover sheets? They are on the hook for vague 'externalities', so they cover their asses. Only when we collectively accept a certain degree of risk can progress happen.

Running for the nearest torch and pitchfork shed is not how an open, liberal society deals with adversity.

I'm not really trying to propose a concrete solution so much as shedding some light on why these things keep happening over and over again. For a successful founder it takes a relatively short amount of time to strike it rich and secure multi-generational wealth for yourself, while it takes much longer for negative side effects to become apparent and take their toll on the wider population. But by that point you know that any externalities will be "someone else's problem" so there's no real incentive to err on the side of pursuing things that will be more likely to be net-positive in the long term

I'm not sure anyone could of predicted this could of happened as a result of building social networks online in the way it has been done. Consider the idea that the novel idea of a feed morphed into overwhelming data that leads to the demand for curation. The seemingly simple and innocent concept of likes, shares and posts are built not intentionally for malice but out of innocent curiosity for connection.

That being said I think the financial incentive immediately takes over here and as a result those innocent ideals are trampled by analytics and pure psychological nudging.

Would you need to? FB is in PRINCIPLE a bad idea. Who would want to have an advertising based for-profit company largely controlled by 1 person be responsible for managing the social interactions and community building of the world? Like what in there does NOT sound like a terrible idea?!!

I mean I wonder what kind of self-deciting stunt Zuck has to pull each day to keep a straight face when he looks into a mirror... The situation really is just so obviously absurd.

My understanding is that the original goals in the infancy, much like the rest of the internet at the time, explicitly wanted to avoid ads in favor of prioritizing user experience. Obviously the timeline shifted away from this but most of the internet moved to that. That being said, the psychological impact even without the ads is damaging enough without any sort of intention to encourage self control.

I believe that the ads play a more central role than you give them credit for. If you are a for-profit company selling something your incentives are aligned in a specific way - you want to do everything you can to maximize sales... If you want to sell ads this means in general you want to understand and be able to target specific users because this seems to be what advertisers are interested in. So FB is designed in a way to maximize that. Now imagine you have a different org not focused on selling ads but actually trying to measure and optimize things like usefulness to the user/city/country/world. It would live in a totally different optimization landscape and look totally different (over time)!

FB could be very different from what it is today if different decisions had been made!

He probably honestly believes that he is making the world a better place. And there is probably not much feedback to him indicating otherwise, so why would he not? Don't see why stunts would be needed. As long as one believe that a small group of people can (and possibly should) take responsibility for so many others - a quite common belief for his demographics - it is internally consistent.

Yeah, I don’t really disagree... I just hope that there are/will be people in his life who push views like this to him. Maybe I should write him a mail?

> It's an interesting thought experiment to imagine what the world might look like if people were held accountable indefinitely for the externalities caused by the work they conduct.

I don't think it would be practical to enforce, nor necessarily very fair. Would we want to, say, drag the coal miner into court over his personal contribution to global warming? The world is a tangled web of externalities and none of us would be in a moral position the throw the first stone.

That being said, there is definitely a void of responsibility in social media.

Traditional media is a useful frame of reference. Let's say that some journalist invented a totally bogus story involving a pizza restaurant, a child-sex ring, and a number of named persons. I think this journalist would be hard pressed to get this past his editor and into print, and with good reason, because the editor is responsible for the validity of the newspaper, and so is the newspaper itself. The most likely outcome would be a lawsuit which they'd lose big time.

Back to social media. Let's have a look at Facebook. This is a tech company, not a media company, so they are not really responsible for their content. The users are kind of responsible but a lot of users are fake anyway so no responsibility there either. Behind it all are The Algorithms, and The Algorithms are not really responsible either, it's just convoluted AI type stuff which no one really understands. But let's rewind a bit. Is Facebook a tech company or a media company? Being a tech company is really convenient in terms of washing their hands but should we let them get away with it? Or should we redefine them as a media company and let them own the responsibility of the content which brings in users and ad money? Could the buck land in any other place when you think about it? Sure, it would be a hassle for them, they'd have to employ a lot more people to monitor and moderate content, they'd need to put mechanisms in place for better validation of identities, and they'd be less profitable. But that would be their problem to deal with. Free passes are not always forever.

Even if you have a particularly strong moral code you may reasonably take the job as there is a higher degree of probability that you may affect change from the inside vs. the outside... and if that isn‘t possible you may try to go the snowden route...

It might be a little counter intuitive but in terms of jobs it is always good to exercise some counterfactual thinking: What would happen if I didn‘t take the job? Another dev without a strong moral code would likely simply do what they are told without thinking about consequences and long-term impact. Having loud voices within FB itself (hopefully in important positions) might have a big impact! Imagine Zuckerberg getting the low-down for all of his probably well-intentioned but horribly excetued ideas BEFORE they are rolled out...

I don't see anything bad with working on social network. That being said, that chain of thought is wrong. If you take that job, you share responsibility for what you do and you are no better then that other dude. You don't get points for someone else theoretically being worst - that is just arrogance.

I don’t think it is wrong... it is optimistic in the sense that I consider the possibility of affecting positive change within FB as likely or at least non-zero. You don’t just have to be the waterboy, you could be on the coaching team and really influence where things are going. Obviously a lot of conditionals and hurdels there though... the incentives won’t be neatly aligned for you.

That's very optimistic, though not entirely impossible. Have you ever tried to enact large-scale change in a massive organization from the bottom rung? Also are you gonna rock the boat when your options haven't vested yet?

Similarly, the fact that Steve Jobs pitched his devices as great things while not allowing it to his child (IIRC) makes me a bit sad about the whole situation, myself included.

> As a software dev there's very little keeping you from accepting a fat job offer from Facebook

Agreed with this. It's not only nothing keeping you from it, the society would probably push you towards accepting it. It's a big popular brand so not only would you get a high salary but it would most likely include a high social status. Friends and family would think you've gone insane not accepting a good offer from Facebook and it would most likely be good career choice as well. It must be easier to get other job offers after having worked at Facebook or somewhere similar.

Deep down I think everyone knows this, you will gain economically and socially in every way and the only thing you will need to suppress is the possibility of you feeling you contribute to something less good for society. Easy choice.

>On the other hand, it's hard to ignore the fact that typically these people have already profited enormously from these companies and they will never have to face any sort of real ramifications or consequences for the net harm that may ultimately be brought to society.

And they rarely put their money where their mouth is, meaning they don't use that accumulated wealth to try and solve the issue they've helped create. Talk is cheap.

Statute of limitations exists to protect the people. Imagine being a disagreeable sort to the government, and then being punished with every violation ever (every driving mistake you've ever had but were never charged with, every incidence of jaywalking, having to go through decades of taxes instead of two years, And similar things caught by some surveillance device).