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I just wish people were able to collectively give up social media. I completely abhor the stranglehold its placed on culture and media, especially for the young

I just wish people were able to collectively give up social media. I completely abhor the stranglehold its placed on culture and media, especially for the younger generation. It has dumbed everything down into what will get clicks, and is extremely invasive to boot. The only thing we "gain" from having social media as a society is advertisement.... which is essentially a way to get us to consume goods we wouldn't be consuming otherwise (i.e. waste). I don't see anything good coming from replacing the more or less natural human social structure that evolved over millions of years increasingly with an app designed to get us to buy goods we don't want, or get just 5 more minutes of attention. Such a waste of humanity's minds and effort. Ultimately I really don't think you can say that Google/FB's dominance is a net positive for humanity. Sure we get to enjoy a lot of "free" goods, but those goods are merely a vector through which advertisements can learn more about us. Google/FB wouldn't be rolling in it if advertisers weren't making money off from advertising through them. I see it almost as a maladaptive coping mechanism adopted by our society at large. We have a completely self-destructive reliance on perpetual inflation-beating growth, and at this point some of the most important mechanisms driving this growth are highly sophisticated advertisements designed to squeeze every last bit of consumer spending out of the economy as is possible. Not only that, but they've collectively convinced almost all of humanity to whore out all of their own personal information just so they can browse meme pages or check up on old high school acquaintances. It's absolutely disgusting behavior that to me resembles the informed preying on the ignorant.

PostOnce 9y ago
A couple points and devil's advocacy on a couple as well: Search is as bad as social, even if we give up social, it'll be hard to replace search (I read Wikimedia is working on something... a nonprofit search would be a fantastic asset to the world.) Advertising generates a lot more than waste, in fact it may advertise to you a tool that you didn't know existed that prevents waste. Maybe rechargeable batteries or a water filter so you don't buy water bottles or who knows what, that sword cuts both ways. The ethics of advertisers and the lack of regulation in advertising though is easy to attack. That stuff is a mess. As for Google being a net negative, I lean to your side of the argument but I think it'd be difficult and both sides would have a lot of merit; other search engines are just less efficient; think of all the man-hours of wasted research Google has saved by giving you the right result the first time, it must be billions of hours annually, maybe more. A lot of time and money has been spent competing, and the competition hasn't gotten much closer in terms of actual search results, so, if Google didn't exist, we may just be at a loss for that stuff.
- annabellish 9y ago
  Neither is intrinsically bad for society, merely the monetisation model. "State owned" search/social would obviously be even worse, however, so there isn't a clear path to having a version of either of those things which actually have as their primary aim the things Google/Facebook claim to.
Sargos 9y ago
> I just wish people were able to collectively give up social media. As long as you realize that Hacker News is also social media.
- opportune 9y ago
  I guess it's not social media itself, but its externalities and perverse incentives that are the problem. Hacker news isn't designed to be addictive nor do they sell my information to advertisers, so I don't have a problem with it
njarboe 9y ago
"I just wish people were able to collectively give up social media." And video games and TV and radio and phone and books and writing. I do think the most interesting and satisfying way to do things are in person. Human physical and cultural evolution is having a hard time keeping up with technological changes. "May you live in interesting times." Ancient Chinese curse.

PostOnce 9y ago

A couple points and devil's advocacy on a couple as well: Search is as bad as social, even if we give up social, it'll be hard to replace search (I read Wikimedia is working on something... a nonprofit search would be a fantastic asset to the world.) Advertising generates a lot more than waste, in fact it may advertise to you a tool that you didn't know existed that prevents waste. Maybe rechargeable batteries or a water filter so you don't buy water bottles or who knows what, that sword cuts both ways. The ethics of advertisers and the lack of regulation in advertising though is easy to attack. That stuff is a mess. As for Google being a net negative, I lean to your side of the argument but I think it'd be difficult and both sides would have a lot of merit; other search engines are just less efficient; think of all the man-hours of wasted research Google has saved by giving you the right result the first time, it must be billions of hours annually, maybe more. A lot of time and money has been spent competing, and the competition hasn't gotten much closer in terms of actual search results, so, if Google didn't exist, we may just be at a loss for that stuff.

annabellish 9y ago
Neither is intrinsically bad for society, merely the monetisation model. "State owned" search/social would obviously be even worse, however, so there isn't a clear path to having a version of either of those things which actually have as their primary aim the things Google/Facebook claim to.

Sargos 9y ago

> I just wish people were able to collectively give up social media. As long as you realize that Hacker News is also social media.

opportune 9y ago
I guess it's not social media itself, but its externalities and perverse incentives that are the problem. Hacker news isn't designed to be addictive nor do they sell my information to advertisers, so I don't have a problem with it

njarboe 9y ago

"I just wish people were able to collectively give up social media." And video games and TV and radio and phone and books and writing. I do think the most interesting and satisfying way to do things are in person. Human physical and cultural evolution is having a hard time keeping up with technological changes. "May you live in interesting times." Ancient Chinese curse.