5 ms·

Is it possible TV did make society marginally worse, and each new dopamine trap captures an increasing fraction of society? This statement is laughable: > The

Is it possible TV did make society marginally worse, and each new dopamine trap captures an increasing fraction of society? This statement is laughable: > The thing that actually holds old friendships together and provides endless opportunities to interact with other people that you would have never done otherwise Facebook's innovation was trapping users in a walled garden with omnipresent surveillance and advertising, perfectly timed with mass adoption of social media.

_jal 9y ago
> Facebook's innovation was trapping users in a walled garden with omnipresent surveillance and advertising That isn't an innovation. They're AOL 2.0.
- rbranson 9y ago
  Even if you don’t think the product itself is novel, the technology infrastructure behind Facebook is absolutely novel, from the news feed to TAO, their massive graph database. I’d wager to say TAO is the highest throughout OLTP database in the world. They were able to get ahead of MySpace, the market leader, because their technology was vastly more nimble and reliable.
freehunter 9y ago
>a walled garden with omnipresent surveillance and advertising So... a shopping mall? A school? Any corporate job? A walk through downtown? "In-network" minutes and long distance charges on your phone? Religious institutions? Whatever Facebook is doing wrong for society, they are standing on the backs of giants. Walled garden or not, surveillance or not, advertising or not, people have never been as free to socialize as they are today. If there is something negative on your Facebook feed, you are solely responsible for it being there. It takes two clicks to make it go away forever.
- AlexandrB 9y ago
  > If there is something negative on your Facebook feed, you are solely responsible for it being there. It takes two clicks to make it go away forever. What do I click on to make the stuff Facebook decided I shouldn't see show up?
  - freehunter 9y ago
    That's a very different problem in a very different league of problems. Where do you click to see the stuff the New York Times decided not to show you? Or scenes a movie editor left on the cutting room floor? Or pages an author never sent to print? Or words I left untyped in this comment? Content editors and curators have existed for a long time.
    - adrianN 9y ago
      But they weren't automated and couldn't tailor the content for each user individually to maximize the time they spend looking at ads.
  - nytesky 9y ago
    There used to be Facebook lists (NOT groups, lists are a private sorting friends can’t see). I would make a list of friends I most want to follow and open just that list. But that feature seems gone (I also used list to limit friends visibility and access to my wall... honestly google plus has this right)
    - torstenvl 9y ago
      Facebook still has lists. It's a little convoluted and only really works well from a desktop/laptop browser, but they're there.
      - wyclif 9y ago
        I had a list I really liked that just disappeared recently. I think he's right that they removed the feature.
- brokenbyclouds 9y ago
  Yikes, you don't know anything about how this works do you?
ethbro 9y ago
I think here's the argument underpinning all of these. Assumption: Facebook is more effective at capturing attention than TV, TV was more effective than radio, radio was more effective than newspaper. Follows: If this process continues, at some point we will develop something which captures attention as perfectly as possible. Opinion: That hypothetical end case is most certainly a social ill, especially for democracies. So whether it's Facebook, or whether it's the thing after Facebook, if we keep stepping down this path we're eventually going to end up somewhere very dark.

_jal 9y ago

> Facebook's innovation was trapping users in a walled garden with omnipresent surveillance and advertising That isn't an innovation. They're AOL 2.0.

rbranson 9y ago
Even if you don’t think the product itself is novel, the technology infrastructure behind Facebook is absolutely novel, from the news feed to TAO, their massive graph database. I’d wager to say TAO is the highest throughout OLTP database in the world. They were able to get ahead of MySpace, the market leader, because their technology was vastly more nimble and reliable.

freehunter 9y ago

>a walled garden with omnipresent surveillance and advertising So... a shopping mall? A school? Any corporate job? A walk through downtown? "In-network" minutes and long distance charges on your phone? Religious institutions? Whatever Facebook is doing wrong for society, they are standing on the backs of giants. Walled garden or not, surveillance or not, advertising or not, people have never been as free to socialize as they are today. If there is something negative on your Facebook feed, you are solely responsible for it being there. It takes two clicks to make it go away forever.

AlexandrB 9y ago
> If there is something negative on your Facebook feed, you are solely responsible for it being there. It takes two clicks to make it go away forever. What do I click on to make the stuff Facebook decided I shouldn't see show up?
- freehunter 9y ago
  That's a very different problem in a very different league of problems. Where do you click to see the stuff the New York Times decided not to show you? Or scenes a movie editor left on the cutting room floor? Or pages an author never sent to print? Or words I left untyped in this comment? Content editors and curators have existed for a long time.
  - adrianN 9y ago
    But they weren't automated and couldn't tailor the content for each user individually to maximize the time they spend looking at ads.
- nytesky 9y ago
  There used to be Facebook lists (NOT groups, lists are a private sorting friends can’t see). I would make a list of friends I most want to follow and open just that list. But that feature seems gone (I also used list to limit friends visibility and access to my wall... honestly google plus has this right)
  - torstenvl 9y ago
    Facebook still has lists. It's a little convoluted and only really works well from a desktop/laptop browser, but they're there.
    - wyclif 9y ago
      I had a list I really liked that just disappeared recently. I think he's right that they removed the feature.
brokenbyclouds 9y ago
Yikes, you don't know anything about how this works do you?

ethbro 9y ago

I think here's the argument underpinning all of these. Assumption: Facebook is more effective at capturing attention than TV, TV was more effective than radio, radio was more effective than newspaper. Follows: If this process continues, at some point we will develop something which captures attention as perfectly as possible. Opinion: That hypothetical end case is most certainly a social ill, especially for democracies. So whether it's Facebook, or whether it's the thing after Facebook, if we keep stepping down this path we're eventually going to end up somewhere very dark.