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Again, I deplore the colossal waste of human effort and talent that is going into building a sophisticated panopticon for the noble purpose of better targeted a

Again, I deplore the colossal waste of human effort and talent that is going into building a sophisticated panopticon for the noble purpose of better targeted advertising. For fuck's sake, what a waste of the best minds of our generation.

jsemrau 10y ago
Well said! A company that has literally all the resources in the world comes up with better advertising and engagement through memes and addictive games. I guess that is what we deserve.
mrweasel 10y ago
I hate when people say that people who waste time on Facebook just need to show some willpower. As you say it's some of the best minds working on it. Pitching the willpower of a 15 year old against the combined minds of the Facebook engineers tasked with keeping them on the site, of cause the 15 year old (or 50 year old for that matter) will lose. And all that, so some company can blast us with adverts.
- dingaling 10y ago
  > And all that, so some company can blast us with adverts. It is sad that they chose to build themselves upon tracking / data-mining / advertising. Even if they charged a nominal fee[0] of $1 per month they'd have nearly as much incoming revenue and much lower overheads without having to develop and maintain all that creepy stuff. They wouldn't have to play psychological warfare, they could just focus on providing a good product. 'Facebook is free and always will be'. But at the cost of being regarded as malevolent and, therefore, ripe for disruption. [0] I apologise if this is not nominal to a significant proportion of the user-base.
deprave 10y ago
Of course this comment was downvoted. I really want to know what's the opposing view to this statement. Who's going to step forward and say why they think this is wrong? At the very least, make an argument like "the AI needed to trick a teenager into spending half their awake time on Facebook can also be used to solve actual problems."
- kasey_junk 10y ago
  - spam free, virtually limitless storage free email - free video delivery channel, that has created its own industry - communication tool that has changed news delivery & how people organize protests - free chat communication (with e2e encryption) for nearly everyone in the world (including some of the poorest) - on demand data center infrastructure at ridiculously low cost - instantly freely searchable data set of most of the worlds written information - self driving cars - ubiquitous hand held computers - free easy to use video conferencing - a social network that connects a gigantic part of the planets population (if you are into that sort of thing) Just some of the mind boggling technology at least partially funded by internet ads in the last 15 years. Are there issues that have arisen? Of course, what sort of funding model doesn't have downsides? Acting like working for pay from advertisers constitutes some sort of modern Gallipoli is such a vacuous argument in the face of the staggering amount of tech it has at least partly helped bring about, I'm shocked that the comment hasn't been down voted more.
  - vthallam 10y ago
    This! It's a great example of what users get as a trade off for having to see relevant advt on the Internet.
  - daxfohl 10y ago
    Pfft give me back a 20th century existence, pre-internet, pre-computer, 19th century, Middle Age, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Stone Age, neanderthal, monkey, worm, bacteria, whatever. A bunch of junk we're pouring money into and wasting talent on now.
  - astazangasta 10y ago
    I deeply disagree with this on a level that will be difficult to capture in an Internet comment, but I will try: What you're describing is the advancement of technology, which has occurred at the institutions that have accumulated the most power. Yes, Facebook, Google and others have hired some of the most talented people in the country, and these people have continued to produce useful technology while ensconced at these companies. Previously the same people could be found at AT&T, Xerox PARC, various DARPA-connected institutions, etc. All you're describing is the shift in the center of power. In the 50s and 60s it was the government. During the 70s, as power began to shift more and more away from government towards private capital, we saw more and more technologists moving into the employ of monopolists. It is a mistake to confuse this transfer of power, and the corresponding ability to purchase talent, with the output of that pool of smart people. Moreover in Silicon Valley these people are deeply connected to a much broader community of intellectuals (e.g. through HN) - I'd argue that this culture, of which many members currently sojourn in the arms of large corporations like Facebook, is the real productive unit. Facebook found a money faucet and connected these people to it; but this money faucet could have been anything. It could have been something of real social value, except we have largely destroyed the mechanisms that direct productivity on the basis of social values and now direct it purely based on the interests of private capital, which is currently enamored with data accumulation and targeted advertising. I'll end here, but I'd also like to point out that a lot of the stuff you've listed here existed long before Facebook and Google were a twinkle in anyone's eye. You're taking things that were literally developed in the 60s and giving credit to them for the private concentrations of power that were built on top of that work.
ethanbond 10y ago
Well no, they're "building a more connected world." I interned at Facebook on their off-FB ad network and it was really disillusioning. The cognitive dissonance involved with it is intense, and each person's individual justification for their work makes the organization as a whole immune to criticism. There's a lot of social pressure to become comfortable with your work, I felt. Even today, people look at me like I'm an actual crazy person if I say that I didn't enjoy my time at Facebook. A small part of that was due to real problems in the organization, but the sneaking discontentedness was caused by precisely the opposite: the lack of questions raised. There are lots of really great people there – so great that I can't help myself from thinking about what else they could be building.
inlineint 10y ago
But isn't it much better than waste of the best minds for inventing more and more destructing weapons like it was in the twentieth century?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

jsemrau 10y ago

Well said! A company that has literally all the resources in the world comes up with better advertising and engagement through memes and addictive games. I guess that is what we deserve.

mrweasel 10y ago

I hate when people say that people who waste time on Facebook just need to show some willpower. As you say it's some of the best minds working on it. Pitching the willpower of a 15 year old against the combined minds of the Facebook engineers tasked with keeping them on the site, of cause the 15 year old (or 50 year old for that matter) will lose. And all that, so some company can blast us with adverts.

dingaling 10y ago
> And all that, so some company can blast us with adverts. It is sad that they chose to build themselves upon tracking / data-mining / advertising. Even if they charged a nominal fee[0] of $1 per month they'd have nearly as much incoming revenue and much lower overheads without having to develop and maintain all that creepy stuff. They wouldn't have to play psychological warfare, they could just focus on providing a good product. 'Facebook is free and always will be'. But at the cost of being regarded as malevolent and, therefore, ripe for disruption. [0] I apologise if this is not nominal to a significant proportion of the user-base.

deprave 10y ago

Of course this comment was downvoted. I really want to know what's the opposing view to this statement. Who's going to step forward and say why they think this is wrong? At the very least, make an argument like "the AI needed to trick a teenager into spending half their awake time on Facebook can also be used to solve actual problems."

kasey_junk 10y ago
- spam free, virtually limitless storage free email - free video delivery channel, that has created its own industry - communication tool that has changed news delivery & how people organize protests - free chat communication (with e2e encryption) for nearly everyone in the world (including some of the poorest) - on demand data center infrastructure at ridiculously low cost - instantly freely searchable data set of most of the worlds written information - self driving cars - ubiquitous hand held computers - free easy to use video conferencing - a social network that connects a gigantic part of the planets population (if you are into that sort of thing) Just some of the mind boggling technology at least partially funded by internet ads in the last 15 years. Are there issues that have arisen? Of course, what sort of funding model doesn't have downsides? Acting like working for pay from advertisers constitutes some sort of modern Gallipoli is such a vacuous argument in the face of the staggering amount of tech it has at least partly helped bring about, I'm shocked that the comment hasn't been down voted more.
- vthallam 10y ago
  This! It's a great example of what users get as a trade off for having to see relevant advt on the Internet.
- daxfohl 10y ago
  Pfft give me back a 20th century existence, pre-internet, pre-computer, 19th century, Middle Age, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Stone Age, neanderthal, monkey, worm, bacteria, whatever. A bunch of junk we're pouring money into and wasting talent on now.
- astazangasta 10y ago
  I deeply disagree with this on a level that will be difficult to capture in an Internet comment, but I will try: What you're describing is the advancement of technology, which has occurred at the institutions that have accumulated the most power. Yes, Facebook, Google and others have hired some of the most talented people in the country, and these people have continued to produce useful technology while ensconced at these companies. Previously the same people could be found at AT&T, Xerox PARC, various DARPA-connected institutions, etc. All you're describing is the shift in the center of power. In the 50s and 60s it was the government. During the 70s, as power began to shift more and more away from government towards private capital, we saw more and more technologists moving into the employ of monopolists. It is a mistake to confuse this transfer of power, and the corresponding ability to purchase talent, with the output of that pool of smart people. Moreover in Silicon Valley these people are deeply connected to a much broader community of intellectuals (e.g. through HN) - I'd argue that this culture, of which many members currently sojourn in the arms of large corporations like Facebook, is the real productive unit. Facebook found a money faucet and connected these people to it; but this money faucet could have been anything. It could have been something of real social value, except we have largely destroyed the mechanisms that direct productivity on the basis of social values and now direct it purely based on the interests of private capital, which is currently enamored with data accumulation and targeted advertising. I'll end here, but I'd also like to point out that a lot of the stuff you've listed here existed long before Facebook and Google were a twinkle in anyone's eye. You're taking things that were literally developed in the 60s and giving credit to them for the private concentrations of power that were built on top of that work.

ethanbond 10y ago

Well no, they're "building a more connected world." I interned at Facebook on their off-FB ad network and it was really disillusioning. The cognitive dissonance involved with it is intense, and each person's individual justification for their work makes the organization as a whole immune to criticism. There's a lot of social pressure to become comfortable with your work, I felt. Even today, people look at me like I'm an actual crazy person if I say that I didn't enjoy my time at Facebook. A small part of that was due to real problems in the organization, but the sneaking discontentedness was caused by precisely the opposite: the lack of questions raised. There are lots of really great people there – so great that I can't help myself from thinking about what else they could be building.

inlineint 10y ago

But isn't it much better than waste of the best minds for inventing more and more destructing weapons like it was in the twentieth century?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]