Can Facebook be disrupted by the fentanyl of social networks?
What the world really needs is the naloxone of social networks.
If wondering if we could create a social network that offers 50x the social validation (fentanyl is like 50x the potency of heroin). Maybe machine learning can find the right combination of color flashes to cause people to have a social bliss seizure. Maybe while simultaneously reading their rapid eye movements to extract their credit card information from their short circuiting brains.
Catch me at YC2019
To believe otherwise is to fall into the trap the economist does in the following folksy anecdote.
An economist and his friend were walking down the street when the friend spots a 100$ bill on the ground. "Hey look, a 100$ bill!" he exclaims. The economist keeps his eyes locked forward, saying "Can't be, if there were - someone would have already picked it up."
Believe in yourself and your dreams, Cyph0n.
A member of my immediate family died by suicide recently. She suffered from massive self esteem issues as a result of chronic childhood abuse. She turned to Facebook for social validation, as one does, but was more prone to serious addiction due to her trauma. I’m not saying Facebook killed her, but it certainly added rocket fuel to the fire of her downward spiral.
I encourage you to reconsider your glib attitude towards dangerous addictions. It’s not so funny when people you love die from this stuff.
In some ways I followed a similar path to that of your relative, in part because I often obtain validation by publicly satirizing elements of society I think are wrong. I've found satire the best tool in my toolbox at sparking conversation and even changing minds.
I've considered your proposal, and respectfully choose to continue the path I'm on. Whether or not you agree with it, I hope you'll believe that my motive is to cast a negative light on the victimizers and not the victims.
Best regards to you and yours
Regarding your claimed motive to cast a negative light on the victimizers, uhhh... yeah. That might be believable, except that you’re doing the exact opposite in this thread. I hate to break it to you, but leaving insensitive comments about addiction which you later claim are satire isn’t really helping the situation.
You are also pretending to be respectful with your choice of language, but you’re not actually showing any respect at all.
At this point the only logical conclusion is that you’re trolling. In my experience, behind every troll is someone who is suffering and needs psychological help. Whether or not you believe it, I know there’s a “true self” of yours underneath the facade you’re showing here on HN that actually knows how to help people and not hurt them.
Whatever happened to you to make you this way, I wish you all the best in working through it.
A lifetime of things, good and bad made me this way. I don't agree that I have any particular pathos I need to nail down, but being better is always the goal, right?
This whole thing just turned into a whirlwind of Poe's law.
It's about you pushing buttons by making insensitive and disrespectful comments, then continuing to feign ignorance, avoiding responsibility for your hurtful words and finally trying to shift blame for the situation onto me.
The technical term for what you're doing is emotional abuse and gaslighting. This behavior is typically observed in those who have had it done to them. If you were paying me to be your therapist, I could help you fix the bugs in your psyche. But I'm not your therapist, and you seem to recognize nothing odd about your behavior, so there's no point in continuing the conversation at this time. Be well.
I downshifted from jokes to (an attempt at!) sensitivity not to manipulate or gaslight you. Perhaps I was trying to manipulate you into feeling less upset.
I thought I pushed your buttons with my original insensitive and disrespectful comments because of the death of your family member. If that's not the case, I don't know. I've nearly forgotten what the point of all this is.
Perhaps what you consider feigning ignorance, gaslighting, and manipulation stems from me not meeting your hostility with hostility, I understand that the mere suggestion of that is probably like 4th or 5th dimensional gaslighting.
I'm happy to acknowledge some of the things I say are offensive to some people, I'll continue trying to talk to people I offend with respect, until cynicism gets the best of me and the glib persona takes over completely ;)
I'm not willing to censor myself because you want me to though, I think I spelled that out clearly enough without feigning anything.
It's feels icky to get autobiographical, but the major reason of why I leaned into the conversation at the expense of my pretty funny joke is because of May 22, 1998. It was the day my brother succumbed to a gunshot wound to the head inflicted by his roommate.
For a while after that, whenever a kid would allude to shooting someone in the head while talking about videogames or playing, it felt like a punch to my gut. I remember lashing out at people once or twice over it. It never brought any satisfaction, or helped with my grief. Trying to dominate the forms of communication between 5th graders to shield my heart was a silly, tyrannical proposition. If it had even worked, it would have taught me all the wrong things.
Fortunately the mere idea of not talking about headshots was well beyond the capabilities of an entire school playing goldeneye. Haha
It's good to let someone stir your tanks every once in a while. Last night I got to try striking a balance between kindness and conviction, normally it's just sarcasm and conviction.
Otherwise fully functional adults often succumb to sexual advances of sweet-taking suitors even if they rationally know the sweet-talk is bunk. And so it will be with this - humanity will fall to an AI before the AI can even develop consciousness.