Additionally, putting the blame for using Meta products on the users in spite of all of what we know about how the company has strived to make the productive terribly addictive is a very wild take.
That there's demand isn't necessarily the fault of the user, in many cases it's the fault of industry. At this point, at least for petroleum, it's a feedback loop - we built infrastructure around it, people became dependent upon it because alternatives are limited, the dependence creates demand, and that demand is used to justify continued production.
The petroluem industry then just has to work hard to squash alternatives, as it very much has, thereby leaving the user with little to no choice.
So you changed your beliefs to ease some cognitive dissonance and help yourself sleep at night. Seems normal and expected to me, people do that all the time. These companies actively advertise and lobby to get their product into more peoples hands and quash alternatives.
> Additionally, putting the blame for using Meta products on the users in spite of all of what we know about how the company has strived to make the productive terribly addictive is a very wild take.
Really? It's like me complaining that my pot and smoking habits were due to evil designs of their vendors. I take full responsibility for taking those initial puffs knowing full well that they were addictive and not good for me.
p.s. my general point is this: The entire industry was pushing developers to think nothing of 'ethical concerns' and 'just move fast and break things'.
And I find it disengenous to now pick on a single solitary entity, Meta, as if the rest of these newly arrived big techs were/are clean and ethical. Possibly some want to virtue signal while earning big $ at some other VC unicorn.
(Anyone working for "AI" companies here complaining about Meta? ...)
We barely know the damage social media does yet, it's not comparable to taking the first hit of drugs at all.
Agreed that tech workers need to take a look at themselves too, but also it's the execs and governments more too blame.
Children are on Facebook because adults like you used their surveillance product and made them a "must have" aspect of social life.
Facebook and Google and the rest were harming society long before '20s. This was obvious to some us and when we spoke up forums like this were used to silence informed voices.
That is the .
The kids feel the pressure from their own social circles, I can see it even with my littles and their requests for tablets and Minecraft at their young ages. And if they choose to give into that pressure in spite of their parent's best efforts, much of what they might use is designed to keep them there.
I made a comment about the petroleum industry's feedback loop making it hard for me to fully fault petroleum users for continuing to drive demand for oil in another comment in this chain. Like it or not, our society has become so structured around social media that we're already seeing something similar play out there. That feedback loop is driven by the companies at fault here.
I hear your. Regarding above however it is my understanding that VC$ determines the behavior and direction of companies in our sector. I just quickly ran a couple of queries that you can try:
"has paul graham of YC ever written about ethics that should govern startups and companies? interested in ethics in terms of social responsibility, impact of the product on the society as a whole, prioritizing social good over profits, etc"
It's just like privacy. Do you think we would not have socially responsible and optimal digital services by this point if investors and the entire propaganda system built around startups insisted on socially responsible products??
Just because the entire industry was doing bad things does not absolve the largest members of the industry from doing bad things. They were leading the charge!
This particular discussion is about Meta, hence the focus in these comments. My views (and I'm sure the views of many others here) do, however, apply broadly to much of what you refer to.
That comment about me sleeping through the past 26 years? I'd say the same about all of the companies you cited, they've all had their own broad negative impacts.
Edit: Further, the marijuana comparison is a bit weak (as an aside, I'm a former pothead myself, who made the choice to start and stop). The world hasn't structured itself to the point where most people are required to smoke pot to do everything they need to do. The world has structured itself to require Meta products be used in many instances, lest you lose access to information from certain sources or the ability to communicate with others. "The system" pushes people to it, and it tries it's damndest to keep you there once you arrive.