Early Facebook and Google Employees Form a Center for Humane Technology
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
This appears to have short term benefits (huge view counts), but surely it turns people off long term and impacts the brand.
They blatantly cannot do this unless they actually implement their real names policy. Which they won’t.
Whether or not we have reached the maturity with social media to make facebook as difficult to unseat as apple, adobe, microsoft, or google remains to be seen. But they will not just evaporate like the wonky myspace of old. Times have changed.
I personally think they have reached that level, and also do not use them because I greatly dislike social media in just about any form. But I am self-aware enough to know I am part of a tiny minority.
Facebook will probably be replaced with more flexible identity and social graph architecture that's more decentralized.
It's different from McDonald's because humans have to eat, and McDonald's can always pivot or acquire other companies to provide the type of food that's more in vogue, but what Facebook has created is equivalent to a nightclub. When a nightclub loses its reputation it's very hard to recover.
I don't think I've ever seen a hipster rocking the chav look.
I don't think there's a race-neutral equivalent in American English, but "white trash" captures much of the spirit.
[0]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db51.htm [1]: A fascinating read on the history and current affairs of the topic: "Eating Right in America: The Cultural Politics of Food and Health"
Yeah... your Egg McMuffin probably has SOME egg in it, but that's about it.
[0] http://static6.uk.businessinsider.com/image/54c920c1dd08950d...
Apparently it is has 1/3 of you daily allowance of sodium as well.
McDonald's, as long as you approach the menu reasonably, is honestly probably one of the better fast food options - not something you should be eating every day, but once every couple of weeks probably isn't going to kill you any faster than anything else you do.
It's put up there with the food you will get from other similar joints (KFC, Dominos, Papa Johns etc.)—not a bastion of good eating but nothing particularly inimical.
I think that's more related than "luxury food"
I get a quarter pounder, a side salad, and cup of water. It's a decent, healthy meal.
Especially when the alternative involves a caloric-deficit. While fast food like McDonalds is nutritionally sub-optimal, it cannot be understated how effectively they deliver much-needed calories at an affordable price. Even though this is accomplished with dubious subsidies and ethically-challenged animal farming practices, superior options are few when it comes to filling your belly with a few hard-won dollars.
I'd love for them to have a sort of "shop" to raise awareness. If I could just get my hands on some stickers, I'd be posting them around in public to point people to the /problem page.
With that out of the way:
> Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft can help solve the problem, because keeping people hooked to the screen isn’t their business model.
Isn't it? "How often do I use my phone, and how much does the price work out to in $/minute used?" is a real metric I consciously use to determine how expensive a phone I can buy. If I only used my phone for calling, texting, maps and e-mail, I would buy the cheapest phone possible. But the more apps I use, the more sense it makes to get a more expensive phone.
I assume most people would act the same way, in the end, no? That sounds like a pretty significant issue with this position they're taking. Or is it not relevant?
FB and Google would just implode with a wet thuck.
I guess I just made your point.
(That's entirely speculative on my part, but I don't think a few people preferring DDG is a compelling argument. There are alternatives to Amazon Prime too.)
Fortunately I can’t believe that anyone at Google believes more than a fraction of a fraction of their current user base would pay.
www.esoterica.io
Reminds me of a game by Microsoft. I really like Wordament. What I like about it, is that if you select the same language, you get the same puzzle. So you can play against a friend who's sitting in the same room! Who'd have thought I'd love a game by Microsoft (for Android!). Only annoying this is the ads; I wish I could buy a premium version.
Is there a chance to get longer words in the mix? I could be blind, but the longest word I was able to spot was 5 letters long, I think.
Procrastination is a healthy part of live! Whether you do that on Facebook, poking your nose or playing chess...it’s all fair game!
"Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and grass grows by itself."
Vacations are very boring for this reason, for me. It is not my thing to do nothing that challenges me in some way. Sitting at beach talking arbitrary things is not me, for example.
[edit] sorry for being curt, but seriously: that can be all there is to it. It changed the way I use my phone.
Any books you can recommend that helps fill those few minutes of void?
Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, by Mil Millington: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Things-Girlfriend-Have-Argued-About...
and form the acting world (but these are totally great to read on their own) I can recommend:
Awkward Conversations With Animals I've Fucked by Rob Hayes: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Awkward-Conversations-Animals-Fucke...
and The Truth, by Florian Zeller: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Truth-Florian-Zeller-ebook/dp/B01CV... (side splitting performance in London two years ago)
and if you're into it: http://www.hpmor.com/ . A bit fringe, but worth a shot if you've read the original books.
All of these are lighthearted and fun.
Also other aphorists - La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyere, Lichtenberg etc. La Rochefoucauld is savagely dark and funny about you (yes, you); La Bruyere similar but sunnier, fairer; Lichtenberg's kind of like an 18th C hacker writing - a scientist/mathematician writing his little thoughts about everything.
Almost all of Nietzsche's writing is in aphorisms or short paragraphs, he'd be great for that. I find him endlessly fascinating on a thousand subjects, and very funny too.
When I'm reading I like being able to sit down and really get into it.
I'll usually end up on Hacker News if there's nothing on my queue, though. But HN is largely content focused.
It's becoming a lost skill.
Seriously, this is a very good thing to do. All those annoying meditator-commenters on the Internet are right.
https://www.mindful.org/meditation/mindfulness-getting-start...
...but my most common smartphone time killer is reading long-form articles I've emailed to myself.
So it's a false dichotomy between feeling like you are doing something and not "doing something". It's like buying a gym membership and saying you're fit now.
The problem isn’t just online. There’s so much noise (both visual and auditory) these days that you don’t really have time to simply muse outside your home (if there).
I have a secret gist at Github. Enable desktop mode. Resize the screen just right. It allows me to get a little bit done here and there, and it helps that what I'm working on is pretty simple. Update the gist when I'm done. Later, at home, I can pull the gist, fix it up, make it work, and recommit.
It's painful though. My phone's software keyboard is horrible for doing development work. But it works.
Unless you can just chill, then chill.
When I graduated in '98 the most "cool" thing was to work for the biggest name possible (so Microsoft or IBM at the time), but I imagine things have changed.
In fact it seems like some sort of perversion of the Protestant ethic where instead of undeserved salvation being witnessed by material success through hard work, so-called intelligence and maturity—“ironically” acknowledged to be the fruits of privilege and good fortune—are evidenced by holding reactionary (“centrist”) views and by taking these sorts of jobs.
This accounts for many of the upper middle class new grads I see (kids who couldn’t guess how much their family earned within 100k and wouldn’t see that as unreasonable).
When it comes to lower income or many international students, there is definitely an advantage to the Google/Facebook brand on your resume, magnified when you are talking about using your resume overseas. And of course in that case or if you expect to have to pay medical bills for aging parents soon it is a grand sort of luxury to turn down such a job offer.
The consequence, ironically, is that both the fashionable cynics as well as the idealistic new grads who turn away from Google/Facebook thus end up being mostly affluent and (debatably) largely white. Go to the careers page of some social-good startup and check out their photos!
That covers the pull factors I’ve seen. In terms of push factors you have to also account for Google/Facebook just having an order of magnitude more recruiting money and brand recognition.
Does anyone else wonder how old the child in question is? Much of the media attention has been framed as "Tim Cook wouldn't let a kid use social media", ignoring the fact that the statement was about one child—not all children. We can't really draw meaningful conclusions about Cook's philosophy without knowing if this kid is 9 or 17.
So presumably 12 when he said that.
Is hypercentralization not a major problem of tech at the momemt, both in terms of security and freedom of thought?
Leading in from a lengthy public discussion around it's role in Russia influencing the Presidential Election (the facts of that matter rendering the discussion almost comical), and a recent high-profile call-out by George Soros, I've noticed a glut of hand-wringing articles alleging it's clear-and-present-danger to the population and, in particular, children.
While I agree with many of Facebook's detractors, I will be paying particular attention to what solutions are proposed as the narrative develops. Given that some of the louder-voices were also heavily in favour of "Net Neutrality" regulation, I'm anticipating calls for direct regulatory intervention (as opposed to, say, pursuing violations of existing anti-competition laws, and eliminating anti-democratic lobbying influence of these and other entities).
Until then, the BigCos will keep doing what they’re doing, because that’s how everything is set up.
Meet the new boss.
Facebook and Google are built on old technology, and it's technology that we now know to have fundamental flaws.
The answer to out-dated bad technology is next-generation good technology. Technology is supposed to work for us, and to the extent it doesn't, that's a bug to be resolved.
No amount of warnings or education is going to solve the problem. No panicked response is necessary. If you want to fix the problem, just create, fund, and promote the new and improved technology.
The most effective solutions (the closest we've got to "solving the problem") to habitual cigarette smoking so far seem to be regulation; increasing prices, making things socially arduous.
> The answer to out-dated bad technology is next-generation good technology.
The problem is not technology, and neither is the solution. There's nothing that technologically innovative about aggregating and re-ordering images/hyperlinks via a PHP app.
The problem is one of power, control, informed-consent, and incentives.
As one example, why can't we create a social network that's designed to help users mitigate the negative aspects of using it?
What does this mean? I'm genuinely curious. Meanwhile, easier: tax ads.
the problem, i think, is very real.. many people in this thread seem not to be affected, and that is good. but people are getting addicted in droves.. and they need the help!
sure, it is fighting bad tech with more tech - but that will be _good_ tech, hopefully.. besides that more regulation is needed - as others have rightfully stated. but this is not an either/or choice.. both are needed and tech is not going to be ditched any time soon.. on the contrary i would think :)
Um, maybe we should fix healthcare and affordable housing and institute maternity leave and other policies so parents can spend time with their kids instead of having the iPad babysit them?
I know. Radical thought that maybe something other than more tech is the solution to our tech problem. Like... less tech.
But someone had to toss out the stupidly obvious answer.
if not, are you living off-grid? (which is also interesting, but a different topic altogether)
That's a good point of course, but on HN if you make your point as a snarky dismissal, we get lousy discussion. So please don't do that. There's no point worth making that can't be made thoughtfully.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16304411
Edit: since the comment was edited (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16304414) I'll detach this bit and mark it off-topic.
Edit: I took a crack at it above.
Seriously though...this is such hyperbole! Quotes taken out of context, etc.
Follow the money folks
So, treating the symptoms rather than the disease, and at any rate nothing to do with these companies' pervasive and invasive data practices. Maybe they still have positions in their former employers, I don't know, but following the money will have to be a task for the future.
All I can say is, "good luck." I'm sure some good speaker fees and book deals will come of this.
The article makes its case, the first comments make the case that was missing from the article, the replies make the case missing from them... and so on.
It is most important early in the thread, because discussions are sensitive to initial conditions and the blank page is most vulnerable to rapid, shallow responses. By the time the more thoughtful ones have had time to emerge, the thread is often already choked by faster-growing weeds.
That's a bit harsh and I definitely don't mean to pick on you. It's a systemic problem. I'm hoping we can gradually persuade the community to be more conscious of it.
If you want to convince people with the point you're trying to make you I suggest you address the why and come up with one or more alternative, viable solutions. IOW, in short you must be constructive and I gave two examples how.
What I quoted from you reminds me of Schneier's essay Data Is a Toxic Asset [1].
I'm not as intelligent as Bruce Schneier so instead of using my own interpretation I will quote his essay instead.
The relevant part in understanding the why:
> There are three reasons. The first is that we're in the middle of the hype cycle of big data. Companies and governments are still punch-drunk on data, and have believed the wildest of promises on how valuable that data is. The research showing that more data isn't necessarily better, and that there are serious diminishing returns when adding additional data to processes like personalized advertising, is just starting to come out.
> The second is that many organizations are still downplaying the risks. Some simply don't realize just how damaging a data breach would be. Some believe they can completely protect themselves against a data breach, or at least that their legal and public relations teams can minimize the damage if they fail. And while there's certainly a lot that companies can do technically to better secure the data they hold about all of us, there's no better security than deleting the data.
> The last reason is that some organizations understand both the first two reasons and are saving the data anyway. The culture of venture-capital-funded start-up companies is one of extreme risk taking. These are companies that are always running out of money, that always know their impending death date.
And some solutions:
> We can be smarter than this. We need to regulate what corporations can do with our data at every stage: collection, storage, use, resale and disposal. We can make corporate executives personally liable so they know there's a downside to taking chances. We can make the business models that involve massively surveilling people the less compelling ones, simply by making certain business practices illegal.
Some of his other essays as well as his most recent book Data and Goliath also covers the subject (and also addresses solutions though the solutions are unfortunately not easy; they're difficult). In one of the chapters he suggests taking a smartphone with you is a conscious choice and that we should shift from a default always taking it with you to seeing the pros and cons of such a decision.
[1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/03/data_is_a_tox...
"Shit's Easy Syndrome," from a great Steve Yegge post: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legali...
Unfortunately I'm more cynical than Mr. Schneier. His three reasons are true, but irrelevant, because the companies don't even have to care how valuable the data is right now. It's already free and clear, outside of maybe COPPA. It's the territory of privacy that they have stored for anything they can think of in the future, while right now it's fine to be used as an excuse to sell mundane ads based on it. I feel the regulation he desires is unlikely to happen because now the big data companies have more money than God, as well as much more focused interests than "a group of Facebook users," and can use that money to lobby. All the while us mooks are left to set up GoFundMes and hashtags 8 years before someone, somewhere gets standing in court. If they get past arbitration, that is.[1]
There is effectively no consequence to any use or misuse of data on the ownership side and I don't see that changing, not the least because data is the very lifeblood of the businesses that have been formed around it, it is the family jewels, and it will be protected from outside forces of all kinds. A data SarbOx isn't going to be more effective than the ineffective original because nobody's really going to tell them what they can do with their data. They have conquered frontiers of privacy, and we're already on the way to a new regime oriented around them. Can they be beat back? Who knows.
This is why setting up what sounds essentially like an informational campaign that tells you that all this is happening is a bit of the old horse and barn door, and I'm pessimistic that they would ever run anything that might threaten the financial prospects of these companies. Perhaps it could even be seen as a submarine campaign to ease the transition into a new concept of privacy, anchoring the other side of the debate (wittingly or unwittingly, it doesn't matter).
We can be smarter, sure, anything's possible, but it's not that simple. A lot of smarter people also work for these companies (and in government) and are fine with the way things are.
Now I feel like reading up on the taming of the American West, there might be some relevance here. Putting that on my list, and as far as solutions go I think that's the best I can do right now.
I'm not sure if I should be concerned that the leader of this initiative is wrong about something so trivial.
But that really doesn't strike a chord, especially for lay people.
Do you think that the users of any of those supercomputers would turn down an offer to run their projects on Google or Facebook's fleet instead of their "one" supercomputer (given some time to adapt their software)
Edit: for clarity, finite difference and finite element simulations both involve discretizing a 3D volume into individual cubes (I believe other geometries exist, but are less common) and running an update loop which performs calculations for each of millions or more cells. Of course, models with spatially small divisions, and/or those designed to handle high frequency wave propagation, require potentially enormous amounts of memory (e.g. climate simulation, or large seismic dataset processing). Depending on what math you're solving, there are heuristics which you may be able to use to update only a subset of active cells, or divide up the model to split among multiple machines with minimal loss of accuracy while retaining high precision.
Brad Hedlund has some interesting articles on the challenges
http://bradhedlund.com/2011/11/05/hadoop-network-design-chal...