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Comment by adamzerner | Hacker News Reader

> Facebook, Twitter, reddit, the Internet itself, the iPhone, and on and on and on—most people dismissed these things as incremental or trivial when they first came out.

With the exception of the internet itself, I think they still are. Are we really that much happier with our social media and iPhones than we are without them? I think that for the most part, the answer is no. Most use is superficial and procrastination rather than meaningful connection with people.

Check out The Progress Paradox by Gregg Easterbrook. He talks about how we've made all of this "progress" in our standard of living, but that it isn't actually making us happier.

However, I agree with the central idea that "toys" are often dismissed prematurely.

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Twitter and Facebook have changed the world; I don't have a doubt about it. And not only in a micro scale, also in a macro level.

I have gone from writing letters to my distant friends, to writing them emails, to writing them facebook messages. And believe it's much easier to keep in touch with friends now that there is facebook. If I travel to LA I can go to FB and check out who moved to LA in the last few years and actually meet them. Had I been in the email era, I wouldn't have had any idea of who was in LA. This is just a minor example for how facebook has changed the world on a personal level.

When it comes to the big picture, look at the Arab uprising, it used the social networks heavily. We don't know what would have happened without Facebook or Twitter, but my guess is that not much. But you don't have to go to developing countries to see the effects of the social networks on politics and society in general. [1] This is a graph of the Spanish bipartisanship going down the drain after May 15th, 2011(15M/Spanish revolution)[2]. The movement started on Twitter, and slowly moved to Facebook.

So these "toys" are changing the world, both on a micro and macro level, and denying that is like denying that TV changed how people view wars.

[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BuWphzlCUAAdwqX.png:large

[2] http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movimiento_15-M

You've mentioned a few examples of how social media is having a positive impact on the world. And after thinking about it some, I think I underestimated how big an impact they have. I still think the proportion of the usage that is meaningful is low, but given the huge amount of usage, it has lead to a pretty decent amount of meaningful interaction.

But what about the downsides? I don't have too strong an opinion and can't argue it well, but I do suspect that social media has its downsides, and that has to play into the equation. Something along the lines of "kids in the neighborhood used to all play outside together and now they're inside gossiping on social media".

I bet there are downsides. But there were also downsides when every home got a telephone. And when everyone started carrying cellphones.

My point is that new technology which changes the way humans communicate with each other is a phenomenon that has played out many times in the past few centuries.

>And when everyone started carrying cellphones.

in 1984 George Orwell talks about TeleScreens,

Here's a little excerpt from wikipedia:

>"Telescreens are fictional devices which operate as both televisions and security cameras....telescreens are used by the ruling Party in Oceania to keep its subjects under constant surveillance, thus eliminating the chance of secret conspiracies against Oceania. All members of the Inner Party (upper-class) and Outer Party (middle-class) have telescreens in their homes, but the proles (lower-class) are not typically monitored as they are unimportant to the Party."

now consider recent NSA revelations (dragnet surveillance) including: http://www.wired.com/2014/07/nsa-targets-users-of-privacy-se...

Cellphones are Telescreens... they are a source of entertainment for most (like TV) and function as security cameras -- with your location and data connectivity being constantly logged, complete with backdoors which allow full remote access.

The middle class is being destroyed (http://time.com/money/2917709/wealth-inequality-doubled-over...) and anyone who opposes the party will be subject to indefinite detention (NDAA) or wiped out.

Apps are primarily a distraction mechanism and social networks are services which profile every aspect of an individuals life, data which can and will be mined and used against you if you commit a thought-crime.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/technology/15twitter.html

http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/7/5878069/why-facebook-is-bea...

Try and stop them: www.cnbc.com/id/101669271

> anyone who opposes the party will be subject to indefinite detention (NDAA) or wiped out.

Then why are you and countless other people like you allowed to post your alarmist b.s all over every day? Try moving to north korea and posting against the government, if you want to know what being in a totalitarian state is really like.

Erosion of privacy, ease of government surveillance, and monetization of personal identity could all be viewed as either upsides or downsides. It depends on who you ask.

Technology doesn't have to have a net positive impact to have an impact. The moral/ethical debates on atomic fission, cars, and industrialized agriculture are all still very much open.

>I have gone from writing letters to my distant friends, to writing them emails, to writing them facebook messages.

After using email those are all diminishing returns. Nothing earth shattering.

>When it comes to the big picture, look at the Arab uprising, it used the social networks heavily.

No, it really didn't. Western media just liked to advertise it as such, because it made for a nice story. Plus social media using arabs are easier to approach, and are more likely to be more affluent and west-friendly, so they make for nice material to inflate their role.

>We don't know what would have happened without Facebook or Twitter, but my guess is that not much.

Well, from people actually following middle eastern and arab history in all the 20th century, tons of movements have happened without any social media. The Iranian revolution in the late seventies, for example, was much touted in the west, and they didn't even have phones for the most part.

>The movement started on Twitter, and slowly moved to Facebook.

There's a huge grassroots, on the roads, picketing and protesting movement in Spain. And there have been similar in the sixties in the US and Britain, in the seventies in Italy, Germany, etc. Twitter and Facebook are just convenient modern methods of organizing such things. If anything, current movements are much more tamer and less populated than the ones at times without social media.

In order to be world-changing, Facebook and Twitter don't have to fundamentally change the way humans communicate and organize into movements. Because they don't -- as you pointed out, humans have followed these patterns time and time again, all throughout history, and nothing about social networks has fundamentally changed this. But that doesn't mean they're not world-changing. Simply amplifying our capacity to communicate and organize around ideas is a huge leap forward. What used to take months or years to reach a critical mass could, on today's technology, take days or even hours.

I think you're really onto something when you say that "current movements are much more tamer and less populated" than seen historically. I'd theorize that current movements are happening sooner and in smaller spurts largely because social networks lower the required breaking point. It's easier than ever to organize around a perceived injustice, so what once would have grown and festered until it reached a huge breaking point now only requires a single viral video to draw crowds.

If I am cured of some nasty illness it certainly makes me happier. I think Gregg Easterbrook is full of shit.

It's about the bigger picture since "progress" brings also negative stuff like living in cramped boxes instead of in nature.

Are in general western people happier than inedegenious people without access to said medicine ? Not sure , but it doesn't seem so.

If you look at the happy faces of indigenous people, you experience survivor bias: you only see the smiles of the people who survived. Perhaps you could argue that it's better to live short and happy than long and miserable, but I think a lot more research would be necessary.

As for cramped boxes: is the population explosion due to progress? Maybe better health care and food? On the other hand, also better contraceptives, and the biggest population growth seems to happen in places with less progress. And with modern transport, at least you can get to nature at times.

Also, people flock to the cities because they have no good opportunities in the countryside (look at China). If they wouldn't go to the cities, perhaps they would just starve, or start wars with their neighbors.

Living in nature undisturbed Thoreau style is actually a great luxury.

> If you look at the happy faces of indigenous people, you experience survivor bias: you only see the smiles of the people who survived. Perhaps you could argue that it's better to live short and happy than long and miserable, but I think a lot more research would be necessary.

Two things.

1. You say "short and happy" life, but you can argue for "long and happy" - people before civilization didn't live much shorter lives than we do.

2. It might not be survivor bias, there are lots of records and arguments suggesting that living hunter-gatherer lifestyle is much, much happier than what we have today.

There's a nice article elaborating on that in case of Comanches [0]. An excerpt:

So there was a bit of traffic back and forth between America and Comancheria in the 19th century. White people being captured and raised by Comanches. The captives being recaptured years later and taken back into normal white society. Indians being defeated and settled on reservations and taught to adopt white lifestyles. And throughout the book's description of these events, there was one constant:

All of the white people who joined Indian tribes loved it and refused to go back to white civilization. All the Indians who joined white civilization hated it and did everything they could to go back to their previous tribal lives.

Note the second paragraph.

[0] - http://squid314.livejournal.com/340809.html

"people before civilization didn't live much shorter lives than we do."

Not at all true. According to "The World Until Yesterday" life expectancy in traditional societies is more like 40 years. I know there is always the issue with child mortality distorting the numbers, but still.

As to 2), while some aspects of living in traditional societies sound great, in "The World Until Yesterday" Jared mentions that most people chose to live in civilization once given the choice. The main advantage apparently being to not live in permanent fear of being murdered.

There were countless different ways to live in traditional societies, though. Maybe some where better than others. Still, I am more inclined to believe Jared Diamond than your source.

Another thought on the Comanche example: how civilized was the world of North America at the time? People were coming to the Americas to escape extreme poverty and starvation. And there still seemed to be wars raging on. Maybe not at all comparable to our modern comfy civilization?

I don't remember all aspects, but I think hunter gatherer actually have to work less than farmers. There are certainly advantages to that lifestyle. But then they don't have much surplus to invest into medical research, and they can't support a high number of people - surplus people have to die, either by being murdered as children, being sent away into the wild, or in wars.

My favorite insight on Thoreau's undisturbed nature living is that he had his mother do his laundry. I am not trying to be mean or cynical about his philosophy---just saying that one has to be clear-eyed about the tradeoffs. Personally, I think that an intelligent person should look at both the conventional modern lifestyle and the happy nature lifestyle, and try to understand and extract the best features of both. You know, thesis and anti-thesis leading to synthesis.

He never said or implied that medical progress doesn't lead to happiness. In fact he said that it does lead to happiness. You're arguing against a straw man.

And you are using the "no true scottsman" fallacy :-) Medical progress is also progress, but suddenly it is magically excluded from the "does progress bring happiness" equation? And presmuably it is not only medicine, it's also clean water and food, fast transport to hospitals, fast alerts of the medics (via iPhone), and so on.

The only thing these "social web apps" achieved was turning trust fund millionaire kids into billionaires.

Give me a break. Real science and engineering, pushing the state of the art, is what changes the world. Not building a FarmVille platform or an advertising portal.

I have a hard time associating with people who are so caught up in the "Valley culture" that they can't see how ridiculously trivial most of their endeavours really are.

If you're into the startups and making money off "social/mobile/etc", all the power to you. Just don't claim you're the next Nikola Tesla. You're Gordon Gekko at best, making a quick buck off people's stupidity. No one will write about you in the science and engineering textbooks of the future.

You got FU money. Congrats. Now donate some to Janelia Farm so something can come of your time on this earth other than stocks market transactions.

Spot on. Capitalism generally is all about the illusion of progress, rather than real progress.

And what is real progress? Do you define it?

More importantly: can you measure it?

It's harder, though it is correlated with profit, so that's why we could be using it as a proxy and get away with it for so long.

There's a long debate whether profit correlate with value. The simple example the rise in GDP due to car accidents.

It correlates in a way; that's the basic assumption of capitalism and the reason why companies work. But it does not correlate perfectly; many would say it doesn't do it very well, and I'd hazard a guess that profit and value are becoming more and more disconnected from each other.

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