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Delete Your Account Now: A Conversation with Jaron Lanier

339 points by prostoalex 8y ago

jhabdas 8y ago
> Google will kill Facebook or vice versa. That's where I stopped reading. How silly to think either of those two terrible outcomes would ever come to fruition.
- adamconroy 8y ago
  I don't know, nothing lasts forever, and one might 'die' at the hand of the other. It could easily happen through acquisition as he says.
  - UsernameProxy 8y ago
    What if the merge? _shudder_
    - Jaruzel 8y ago
      Well... Facebook is worth ~$15bn and Google is worth ~$740bn. I'm sure Google could scrounge up 2% of it's overall worth to buy-out Facebook... but then, Google already know everything about you, so for them, Facebooks data is worthless.
      - jvagner 8y ago
        Your Alphabet/Google market cap is about right, but Facebook's is 442.50B as of today.
- replies_to_all 8y ago
  I am so fucking sick on Jaron's pronouncements. Why anyone is still listening to him is beyond me.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  methinks Facebook will kill itself
adamconroy 8y ago
Jaron is very good at articulating his ideas. He is preaching to the choir with me though. I was somewhat addicted to Twitter, but snapped out of it 7 years ago, and find the idea of using one of those networks tiresome.
hkai 8y ago
Another great article which makes a more balanced argument: https://quillette.com/2018/04/17/social-media-case-deactivation/ https://quillette.com/2018/04/17/social-media-case-deactivat...
jacquesm 8y ago
Jaron Lanier is interesting in the same way the RMS is interesting. You don't have to subscribe to all of their views to get something useful out of reading their output. RMS is the better prophet.
- nakedrobot2 8y ago
  Maybe he is, but he spreads his message and communicates in the absolute worst way for anyone to actually listen to him or take him seriously. Which is really a shame.
  - Applejinx 8y ago
    Is he? To me he comes off as the quintessential rich Silicon Valley outsider nerd. His path has been so singular and so rewarding that he gives the impression of someone who doesn't need to be the least bit concerned about how he expresses himself. From a street hobo, that gets you instantly dismissed, but there's a counter-intuitive aspect where if you're a Jaron Lanier, it just further underscores that you're Jaron Lanier and can do as you like. Because he is not trying to maximize trust in any way, he comes off as plausible even when expressing stuff that's unusual. For instance, his reaction to 'how do you define a BUMMER platform?'. He essentially said, "I know Russian Intelligence made special effort to control this, this and this platforms, so define it as those!" I'd not heard about the specific agencies he cited, but I've personally seen all sorts of sketchiness going down in every platform he listed, and it clicked. I stuck 'em all in a folder with each other, and they do seem to belong together. I can think of people who're purportedly much more trustworthy, that I would not accept their statements on things like that without investigation. But I've heard from Jaron before and he's always (a) speaking out about something with NO concern for how his statements will come across, and (b) citing stuff that he's deeply familiar with. There are times I've looked into his details and found them interesting and all he said they were, so it only underscores the impression of him as the Cassandra truth-teller, privy to important things that are typically overlooked. Maybe he consciously adopts that manner for that very purpose. In marketing it's always best if you can brand yourself using the core truths of yourself: then you can't get it wrong, or slip up and reveal inconsistency. He may take pains to seem the raving prophet.
decasia 8y ago
The thing I keep thinking is that I want to have social software built on a co-operative model (like a food co-op): you all pay some nominal membership fee (could you fund servers and developers on $5/year/user?), and the software would then be developed to fit the agreed-upon needs of the community, without dark patterns or behavior modification projects, openly, and with some kind of community governance (which need not be exclusive of technical leadership). Obviously this would probably never get the global reach of a no-fee Facebook, but I would use something like this in a second, many of my friends would too, and I sometimes daydream about what I would need to do to get it off the ground.
- decasia 8y ago
  My thought about the article is that basically the author has gotten too negative. He is so distracted with attacking the ad-supported social software we have that he gave up thinking about the software we need.
  - binarnosp 8y ago
    We don't need software to socialize. Some tasks of our life can be taken over by software, but others should stay with us. Especially with the advent of AI, engineers are racing to automate everything: from suggesting us new friends, new music, with which dresses we look smart, and so on. Automating everything will cause the atrophying of our skills and we will become a bunch of lonely depressed, smartly dressed users with thousands of virtual friends and perfect music playlists that never deviate from our preferred music. Automation is fine and dandy, but not for everything.
    - caymanjim 8y ago
      Your response is literally a use of software to socialize. Of course we don't "need" it, but that's a meaningless statement. We don't need computers or electricity either. The idea that we're all being duped and manipulated into using something we don't need so that we'll view ads is overblown. It's not false, it's just not a new thing and it's not a problem. Media has been intertwined with market research, ratings, feedback, and advertising since before the electronic age. Advertising platforms have been getting incrementally better at learning what people want, how to push their psychological buttons, and how to retain customers. There's a tendency to treat social media users as helpless victims of an evil empire who don't realize their personal details are being used to target them for exploitation. People aren't that stupid. They know what they're trading for these great free products we all use.
narrator 8y ago
I saw an absolutely epic debate between Jaron and a Singulatarian. He totally called them out on being religious in that they were just trying to make a geek version of the Christian rapture. I agree that the guy is like RMS in that he is an original thinker who works from first principles and that tends to give him an understanding that is unique and worth listening to. BTW, Speaking of RMS and Jaron, is there some requirement that you have to have an iconic hair style to be a revered tech commentator?
- gavinpc 8y ago
  Or be from MIT? Not sure which debate you saw, but I recently watched an Intelligence Squared about "the promise of AI" in which he made a similar argument, along with many others. His team jumped 29% percent audience agreement in the post-poll. I don't know how many in the audience would know the reference, but the fact that he worked directly with Minsky made it a pretty lopsided debate, in terms of credentials.
  - simulate 8y ago
    Thanks for describing this. I wanted to see this debate myself. For others who might want to watch it, it's available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yC_dfbxQqRI https://youtu.be/yC_dfbxQqRI
    - ArrayList 8y ago
      Absolutely phenomenal. I hadn't actually heard of Jaron Lanier until today but now I'm a big fan.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Thinking singularity is geek rapture isn't really original thinking, it's just regurgitation of a cliché. Now dead blog by Steven Kaas had a nice article, listing reasons why this comparison is not valid. http://web.archive.org/web/20110718031848/http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/steven/?p=21 http://web.archive.org/web/20110718031848/http://www.acceler... I won't quote the long list of arguments, just a tangential remark: "It’s also interesting to think about what would happen if we applied “Rapture of the Nerds” reasoning more widely. Can we ignore nuclear warfare because it’s the Armageddon of the Nerds? Can we ignore climate change because it’s the Tribulation of the Nerds? Can we ignore modern medicine because it’s the Jesus healing miracle of the Nerds? It’s been very common throughout history for technology to give us capabilities that were once dreamt of only in wishful religious ideologies: consider flight or artificial limbs. Why couldn’t it happen for increased intelligence and all the many things that would flow from it?"
fierarul 8y ago
I guess one could write a book about anything, but wouldn't this message read better on a flyer or short article? Is deleting a social media account such a brave move that people have to really ponder it, read a book, maybe talk with close family and friends before making a decision? The 1st Facebook account removal I saw was something sudden: this girl had a really bad experience and the next day all her stuff was gone.
- izzydata 8y ago
  In a sense, writing a whole book about your decision to delete some social media accounts is just as bad as social media. The whole world doesn't need to know about every mundane detail about your life. You can do things and not feel inclined to tell everyone about it.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    The book is not about his decision. In fact, he never had them in the first place.
    - izzydata 8y ago
      How can someone write a book about the benefits of leaving social media if they have never experienced them or the process of leaving them?
      - icebraining 8y ago
        Does one have to get shot to know it hurts? Is a male doctor incapable of advising a pregnant woman?
        izzydata 8y ago
        You need to get shot to know what getting shot actually feels like and you need to be a pregnant woman to know what being a pregnant woman feels like. Obviously you can make some assumptions based on an observers perspective, but that doesn't seem as relevant in a discussion that is subjective like leaving social media as a lifestyle change.
fredley 8y ago
> Yeah, actually, one thing that’s really interesting is that Facebook is not a normal company, in the sense that its valuation when it went public wasn’t based on how much money it made, which is what would normally happen with a business. It actually somehow talked the SEC into creating this other category, where it would be valued based simply on how much it was used, just on user engagement. And I think that was one of the most dreadful decisions in the history of financial governance, because, unfortunately, it set the pattern for other companies that went public later, like Twitter. So it’s almost like a government mandate that, instead of actually making money and serving customers, a company will become an addiction and behavior modification empire. I didn't know this, can someone give more information on exactly how/why this happened?
- alienfluid 8y ago
  Wut. The SEC doesn't dictate how a company is valued - it's up to the markets and the participants. There is no "right way" to value a company. Not sure what the author is talking about.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  Even trying to interpret in the most charitable way, I can't view what the author is writing as making sense in any way. Just because the SEC allows a metric to be used doesn't mean investors are going to use it, and most definitely are not forced to use it in how they calculate the value of the shares they are purchasing. The fact that Facebook has amazing profit margins, ability to scale, and great revenue numbers also undermines the author's point.
- atomical 8y ago
  I came here to post that too. It doesn't seem to be true. How can the SEC override a P/E ratio that is displayed on almost all financial sites?
  - deadbunny 8y ago
    It can't, he's talking out his arse.
nobody271 8y ago
Jaron Lanier is an interesting character. He's not just a smelly hippy. He's pretty smart but I don't buy into him being a "Silicon Valley Philosopher". No one can predict the future. Anyways, for a rip roaring good time I highly recommend this debate on artificial intelligence featuring Jaron (https://youtu.be/Qqc0t8ghvis https://youtu.be/Qqc0t8ghvis). On the opppsing side is Martine Rothblatt (male turned female, inventor of satellite radio, found a cure for the previously incurable disease her daughter had!). The panelists are definitely capable of producing novel ideas. I view Jaron as going by his feelings more than anything. Like I doubt he has some statistical evidence for any of his claims. But I can't help but agree with him on this.
- dbspin 8y ago
  Most of what Lanier has to say isn't predictive - it's description and prescriptive. In other words he's not guessing at some ghastly future, he's describing the ways that social networks are manipulating behaviour right now, and some of the affects that's having. Similarly his analysis of AI is about reframing whats actually going on as digital sharecropping, rather than laying out a future course of developing. Also - should hardly need pointing out, but philosophy has never had a project to 'predict the future'. That's futurology, which I agree is largely hooey.
  - nobody271 8y ago
    I know philosophy isn't about predicting the future but Silicon Valley has a strong focus on the future. I'm saying I don't think it's possible to be a "Silicon Valley Philosopher" because the industry changes so fast that you can't speculate on either thr present (as it will soon change) or the future (which we can't predict). I do like the cut of his jib. Like I said he has a few novel ideas which are always worth listening to.
- gambler 8y ago
  >No one can predict the future. He wrote Digital Maoism article at the peak of Web 2.0 hype. That's pretty darn good demonstration of foresight. https://www.edge.org/conversation/jaron_lanier-digital-maoism-the-hazards-of-the-new-online-collectivism https://www.edge.org/conversation/jaron_lanier-digital-maois...
kgwxd 8y ago
Can't on HN :/
crispyambulance 8y ago
I wish there was still hope for Ted Nelson's concept of Hypertext. Up until some time in the mid 90's people were thinking of the internet as something intrinsically decentralized. The idea was that we, as individuals, would participate in new forms of discourse and creation through the "media" of hypertext _without_ intermediaries other than (perhaps) agents we would create for ourselves on an individual basis (like your own personal "max headroom"). Instead what we got are giant "media" companies acting as middle-men, cattle-herders or disinterested extractive entities that are pursing goals totally unrelated to the actual services they provide to the people who use "their media". Why do we need colossal-scale datacenters for social media anyway? Could there be a totally decentralized solution consisting of just the people and their devices? Or is that just a pipe-dream or sitcom plot like "Pied-piper" on the Silicon Valley TV show?
- spot 8y ago
  Nelson's concept was more centralized, and that's why it failed. Having no implementation didn't help.
  - crispyambulance 8y ago
    It is only the media itself that is centralized in Nelson's vision. Today it is the giant middle-men that are "centralized" and call themselves "media". According to Jaron Lanier, Xanadu (Ted Nelson's concept) was all about "two-way" connectivity, not in a trivial sense like client/server websites today but deeply as in a "we're all authors" sense. > "A core technical difference between a Nelsonian network > and what we have become familiar with online is that [Nelson's] > network links were two-way instead of one-way. In a network > with two-way links, each node knows what other nodes are > linked to it. ... Two-way linking would preserve context. > It's a small simple change in how online information should > be stored that couldn't have vaster implications for > culture and the economy." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson
    - thanatropism 8y ago
thelastidiot 8y ago
This guy sounds like a child. I was surprised about the lack of depth in his reasoning and explanations.
xg15 8y ago
A good moment to mention again that you cannot actually delete your Hacker News account.
- rickcusick 8y ago
  Thanks for pointing this out - never realized before. So much for the right to be forgotten...
- rcMgD2BwE72F 8y ago
  Hacker New is certainly not GDPR compliant. I've been asking admins to delete an old account that has identifiable information (which I posted while I was a minor) and which is embarrassing. They did not care and the info is still public.
  - raydev 8y ago
    Were you not able to request to delete individual comments?
bagswatchesus 8y ago
It's not like people design interoperability protocols and THEN found villages http://www.lvbagses.com/ http://www.lvbagses.com/
magwa101 8y ago
I do feel like I'm a sysadmin for my life. I don't know how non tech people deal with it. Some of the BUMMER platforms I dislike (unnamed) are ones I rely on to make money, and they constantly prod you to engage with the platform to fix their bugs. Examples are they allow phishing attacks but then force you to reply or your "ranking" score goes down. Super irritating. I do notice the most engaged communities are the ones that feel they are part of improving the product. The developers are responsive and there is good flow. Everyone feels good, except, they're basically the product managers for a sub par product and they will not be rewarded for their time.
- gambler 8y ago
  >I don't know how non tech people deal with it. They silently suffer, develop coping mechanisms and time-intensive workarounds. Most don't even understand how things could be better. This is part of the reason so many interfaces are horrible. This isn't even specific to social media platforms. People adapt to crap. Sounds like this is what Jaron is talking about. Design thinking should be taught in schools or as Gen Ed in colleges. When I worked on user-facing apps my silent motto was "reduce user suffering". Of course, this isn't the kind of thing your employer usually wants to hear.
  - dschadd 8y ago
    Simply curious - where could I go to learn design thinking? Any online courses you recommend? Free would be nice, but I'm open to paying if it's worth it.
    - syndacks 8y ago
      Not sure exactly what type of "design thinking" you are looking to learn. In my experience, a lot of people think about design only as it applies to visual/UX. Design Thinking, on the other hand, is more a way to problem solve and understand the issues at hand (and of course, how to solve them). One resource I recommend is IDEO.org...it's tailored more towards humanitarian type Design Thinking, but it might be a good place to look depending, of course, on your needs ;) https://www.ideo.org/approach https://www.ideo.org/approach
brian_herman__ 8y ago
Can I start with my hacker news account?
lazyjones 8y ago
I would be interested in his opinion about slapping the user in the face with greyed-out content and a subscription box on top when he tries to follow a link to read this interview. Isn't this a great example for how the digital world doesn't let us do what we intend to and doesn't deliver on its promises?
- tsunamifury 8y ago
  Jaron supports premium payment for articles. I don’t know why so many hacker news readers both are illogically irate about paywalls and also irate about data collection. The irony is almost overwhelming.
  - malvosenior 8y ago
    > I don’t know why so many hacker news readers both are illogically irate about paywalls and also irate about data collection. The irony is almost overwhelming. Because they're not the same HN users? I don't care at all about data collection but I abhor terrible UI such the modal ad in the original post.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > Because they're not the same HN users? This; people keep confusing conflicting vocal minorities with a minority with shared but incoherent preferences.
  - lazyjones 8y ago
    > I don’t know why so many hacker news readers both are illogically irate about paywalls and also irate about data collection. I have no idea what you are rambling about. The dark pattern demonstrated behind the article link is modal newsletter subscription boxes in front of the content, i.e. distracting, disrupting the user's reading to show him something he didn't click the link for. It's annoying, it wastes time and energy and it makes the web unattractive like dumb clickbait headlines when following a descriptive link doesn't lead to the promised content (without extra effort).
  - 8y ago
devmunchies 8y ago
I’m not totally convinced this guy has quit his social media accounts, with his unoriginal opinions on Trump, MeToo, BLM, etc. I haven’t been on FB, Insta, Twitter in years, or Reddit in months and I don’t even think about those things anymore. But I guess he could just hang around people who are still deep into social media.
- unstuckdev 8y ago
  >> "I haven’t been on FB, Insta, Twitter in years, or Reddit in months and I don’t even think about those things anymore." The terms used to talk about those things today might have their origins on social media, but the issues existed before someone coined a term. You might want to re-evaluate your associations if no one talks about sexual assault and harassment or the over-policing of black people.
  - devmunchies 8y ago
    > You might want to re-evaluate your associations if no one talks about sexual assault and harassment or the over-policing of black people. Why? I’ve never been happier.
simonsaidit 8y ago
Amazing guy I once saw him have a talk about how to communicate with aliens that would have no vocal or written language and later that nite he played an instrument he had invented.
beat 8y ago
Funny, the thing that struck me the most was the tag at the end where he's talking about learning pedal steel guitar. I tried and failed - it's the most difficult musical instrument I've ever played. It's harder than drums, which are really really hard to play well. Pedal steel involves doing a lot of things simultaneously. Chords are assembled from strings and slide, but there are pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of individual strings up or down. So you can do something like play a DGB triad (G major chord), and press a pedal to turn it into EGC (C major chord), while the strings are still ringing. No other instrument can do this. It can be sort of faked by bending a note against another note on guitar, but it's pitifully shallow next to pedal steel. But the pedals and levers, plus the slide, plus right hand picking, plus a volume pedal to control attack and sustain... wow. It's so complex.
replies_to_all 8y ago
I am so fucking sick on Jaron.
hypertexthero 8y ago
An excellent discussion — glad to see this here. I warmly recommend Jaron Lanier’s album of classical music, Instruments of Change: https://open.spotify.com/album/2E4m0Uy7w5873OUGVowJfu https://open.spotify.com/album/2E4m0Uy7w5873OUGVowJfu http://www.jaronlanier.com/music.html http://www.jaronlanier.com/music.html
jolesf 8y ago
"We cannot have a society in which, if two people wish to communicate, the only way that can happen is if it's financed by a third person who wishes to manipulate them" - From another article about Jaron Lanier
- osrec 8y ago
  Sounds like a reasonable description of pretty much every communication/social platform since the 90s.
  - OedipusRex 8y ago
    So what's the alternative? Even if we roll our own software we still utilize ISP lines.
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      True net neutrality would be a good start for addressing the ISP lines problem, though the complete solution would have to be some decentralized thing.
    - lyjackal 8y ago
      ISP isn't financing the transaction. They're financed by it
    - lifeformed 8y ago
      It's the "wishes to manipulate them" part that's the problem.
      - stinky613 8y ago
        ISPs injecting ads sounds like a wish to manipulate https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/why-comcasts-javascript-ad-injections-threaten-security-net-neutrality/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/why-comcasts-jav...
        8y ago
azangru 8y ago
> Well, a pretty good test for whether a platform is BUMMER, is whether the Russian intelligence warfare units like the Internet Research Agency decided to target it and use it for manipulating people. That’s a really good measure. And so, if that’s the way you’re going to classify BUMMER, then the list is Facebook, Google including YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, and, of course, a few other Facebook properties like Instagram. There are a few others out there, but those are the primary ones. Snapchat is an interesting one. I just spent some time with them and they’re sort of an edge case; they’re better, but they still have some problems. > Another example is LinkedIn, which has some addictive techniques but doesn’t seem to bring out the worst in people. So, you know, I don’t think this is exactly a universal criticism of the whole idea of social media — in fact, I’m sure it isn’t. I’m sure there could be better social media. Basically, if Putin was there, maybe you shouldn’t go there. Maybe that’s a good rule of thumb. Basically, don’t sleep in the bed where anybody who works for Putin has been lately. I think it’s a very good rule for us all to follow. It never ceases to surprise me how any mention of the Russian spooks in the context of social media inevitably comes to the same conclusion: you cannot co-exist with them. Either you fight them (which is the mainstream position) by demanding that social networks ban them, or you leave the social network. Weirdly, there doesn't seem to be any middle ground. I do not hear of any messages directed at users about developing some sort of online personal hygiene. Maybe take any ads with a grain of salt? Maybe do not trust total strangers until you get to know their online personality (if you are interested in their opinion at all)? Maybe limit your social circles? Maybe exercise more self-control in online debates? There are probably numerous other suggestions of how to be a more intelligent consumer of media content. And then Putin won't be such a comical bogeyman of online media he has lately become.
- bsheir74 8y ago
  Here is why the middle ground wont work. Changing technology is a lot faster than changing human nature. Propoganda works because it exploits how our mind works. Sure we can learn to listen to our better angels more often--we need better media education and critical thinking in schools for sure. But that takes time, and it's not perfect either. In many cases, the problems are better served with changing the plarforms or the technology.
lgleason 8y ago
There is a new documentary called "The Creepy Line", it's on both Amazon Prime and Apple I-Tunes that also talks about this. Well worth watching. This is a big issue today, and makes it far too easy for big tech to have enormous power, and as we've seen with Google etc. it is not being used for good the way the marketeers are trying to portray they are.
ilovecaching 8y ago
I am of the belief that we are better off trying to connect everyone in the world than going back to living in our community bubbles. I also think that it's too late to change the centralized nature of WWW. That ship sailed two decades ago. So we just need to live in the reality we have and try to incrementally make it better.
pokemongoaway 8y ago
In the article: "... And in Trump, that’s saying a lot, because he has a number of pretty bad sides." "... and then the Trump election really nailed it home that something was changing in society, and in a way that was potentially going to get worse and worse and weirder and weirder." There's also an article called: "Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class" And from his book: "Who Owns the Future" he says: “Saving the Winners from Themselves: Is the present trend really a benefit for those who run the top servers that have come to organize the world? In the short term, of course, yes. The greatest fortunes in history have been created recently by using network technology as a way to concentrate information and therefore wealth and power. However, in the long term, this way of using network technology is not even good for the richest and most powerful players, because their ultimate source of wealth can only be a growing economy...” “...I’m no Marxist. I love competing in the market, and the last thing I’d want is to live under communism. My wife grew up with it in Minsk, Belarus, and I am absolutely, thoroughly convinced of the misery. But if you select the right passages, Marx can read as being incredibly current...” “...One reason companies like Facebook should be interested in what I am proposing is that planning a regulation regime is better than morphing involuntarily into a dull regulated utility, which is what would probably happen otherwise. Suppose Facebook never gets good enough at snatching the “advertising” business from Google. That’s still a possibility as I write this. In that event, Facebook could go into decline, which would present a global emergency...” “...Imagine a future industry of “decision reduction” that would be (gasp!) regulated so as to remain unaligned with other services. You’d choose a decision reduction service the way you choose a broker now. The decision reduction service would use its particular style and competence to create bundles of decisions you could accept or reject en masse. You could switch to other services without penalty at any time. Such services would be prohibited from having conflicts of interest. That is a proper place for regulation...” “...Making information free is survivable so long as only limited numbers of people are disenfranchised. As much as it pains me to say so, we can survive if we only destroy the middle classes of musicians, journalists, and photographers. What is not survivable is the additional destruction of the middle classes in transportation, manufacturing, energy, office work, education, and health care. And all that destruction will come surely enough if the dominant idea of an information economy isn’t improved...” He just seems so out of touch! I wonder why he is held up by TED and others as THE guy to follow when you're deleting your accounts for following people :)

339 points by prostoalex 8y ago

> Google will kill Facebook or vice versa. That's where I stopped reading. How silly to think either of those two terrible outcomes would ever come to fruition.

adamconroy 8y ago
I don't know, nothing lasts forever, and one might 'die' at the hand of the other. It could easily happen through acquisition as he says.
- UsernameProxy 8y ago
  What if the merge? _shudder_
  - Jaruzel 8y ago
    Well... Facebook is worth ~$15bn and Google is worth ~$740bn. I'm sure Google could scrounge up 2% of it's overall worth to buy-out Facebook... but then, Google already know everything about you, so for them, Facebooks data is worthless.
    - jvagner 8y ago
      Your Alphabet/Google market cap is about right, but Facebook's is 442.50B as of today.
replies_to_all 8y ago
I am so fucking sick on Jaron's pronouncements. Why anyone is still listening to him is beyond me.
agumonkey 8y ago
methinks Facebook will kill itself

adamconroy 8y ago

Jaron is very good at articulating his ideas. He is preaching to the choir with me though. I was somewhat addicted to Twitter, but snapped out of it 7 years ago, and find the idea of using one of those networks tiresome.

hkai 8y ago

Another great article which makes a more balanced argument: https://quillette.com/2018/04/17/social-media-case-deactivation/ https://quillette.com/2018/04/17/social-media-case-deactivat...

jacquesm 8y ago

Jaron Lanier is interesting in the same way the RMS is interesting. You don't have to subscribe to all of their views to get something useful out of reading their output. RMS is the better prophet.

nakedrobot2 8y ago
Maybe he is, but he spreads his message and communicates in the absolute worst way for anyone to actually listen to him or take him seriously. Which is really a shame.
- Applejinx 8y ago
  Is he? To me he comes off as the quintessential rich Silicon Valley outsider nerd. His path has been so singular and so rewarding that he gives the impression of someone who doesn't need to be the least bit concerned about how he expresses himself. From a street hobo, that gets you instantly dismissed, but there's a counter-intuitive aspect where if you're a Jaron Lanier, it just further underscores that you're Jaron Lanier and can do as you like. Because he is not trying to maximize trust in any way, he comes off as plausible even when expressing stuff that's unusual. For instance, his reaction to 'how do you define a BUMMER platform?'. He essentially said, "I know Russian Intelligence made special effort to control this, this and this platforms, so define it as those!" I'd not heard about the specific agencies he cited, but I've personally seen all sorts of sketchiness going down in every platform he listed, and it clicked. I stuck 'em all in a folder with each other, and they do seem to belong together. I can think of people who're purportedly much more trustworthy, that I would not accept their statements on things like that without investigation. But I've heard from Jaron before and he's always (a) speaking out about something with NO concern for how his statements will come across, and (b) citing stuff that he's deeply familiar with. There are times I've looked into his details and found them interesting and all he said they were, so it only underscores the impression of him as the Cassandra truth-teller, privy to important things that are typically overlooked. Maybe he consciously adopts that manner for that very purpose. In marketing it's always best if you can brand yourself using the core truths of yourself: then you can't get it wrong, or slip up and reveal inconsistency. He may take pains to seem the raving prophet.

decasia 8y ago

The thing I keep thinking is that I want to have social software built on a co-operative model (like a food co-op): you all pay some nominal membership fee (could you fund servers and developers on $5/year/user?), and the software would then be developed to fit the agreed-upon needs of the community, without dark patterns or behavior modification projects, openly, and with some kind of community governance (which need not be exclusive of technical leadership). Obviously this would probably never get the global reach of a no-fee Facebook, but I would use something like this in a second, many of my friends would too, and I sometimes daydream about what I would need to do to get it off the ground.

decasia 8y ago
My thought about the article is that basically the author has gotten too negative. He is so distracted with attacking the ad-supported social software we have that he gave up thinking about the software we need.
- binarnosp 8y ago
  We don't need software to socialize. Some tasks of our life can be taken over by software, but others should stay with us. Especially with the advent of AI, engineers are racing to automate everything: from suggesting us new friends, new music, with which dresses we look smart, and so on. Automating everything will cause the atrophying of our skills and we will become a bunch of lonely depressed, smartly dressed users with thousands of virtual friends and perfect music playlists that never deviate from our preferred music. Automation is fine and dandy, but not for everything.
  - caymanjim 8y ago
    Your response is literally a use of software to socialize. Of course we don't "need" it, but that's a meaningless statement. We don't need computers or electricity either. The idea that we're all being duped and manipulated into using something we don't need so that we'll view ads is overblown. It's not false, it's just not a new thing and it's not a problem. Media has been intertwined with market research, ratings, feedback, and advertising since before the electronic age. Advertising platforms have been getting incrementally better at learning what people want, how to push their psychological buttons, and how to retain customers. There's a tendency to treat social media users as helpless victims of an evil empire who don't realize their personal details are being used to target them for exploitation. People aren't that stupid. They know what they're trading for these great free products we all use.

narrator 8y ago

I saw an absolutely epic debate between Jaron and a Singulatarian. He totally called them out on being religious in that they were just trying to make a geek version of the Christian rapture. I agree that the guy is like RMS in that he is an original thinker who works from first principles and that tends to give him an understanding that is unique and worth listening to. BTW, Speaking of RMS and Jaron, is there some requirement that you have to have an iconic hair style to be a revered tech commentator?

gavinpc 8y ago
Or be from MIT? Not sure which debate you saw, but I recently watched an Intelligence Squared about "the promise of AI" in which he made a similar argument, along with many others. His team jumped 29% percent audience agreement in the post-poll. I don't know how many in the audience would know the reference, but the fact that he worked directly with Minsky made it a pretty lopsided debate, in terms of credentials.
- simulate 8y ago
  Thanks for describing this. I wanted to see this debate myself. For others who might want to watch it, it's available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yC_dfbxQqRI https://youtu.be/yC_dfbxQqRI
  - ArrayList 8y ago
    Absolutely phenomenal. I hadn't actually heard of Jaron Lanier until today but now I'm a big fan.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
Thinking singularity is geek rapture isn't really original thinking, it's just regurgitation of a cliché. Now dead blog by Steven Kaas had a nice article, listing reasons why this comparison is not valid. http://web.archive.org/web/20110718031848/http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/steven/?p=21 http://web.archive.org/web/20110718031848/http://www.acceler... I won't quote the long list of arguments, just a tangential remark: "It’s also interesting to think about what would happen if we applied “Rapture of the Nerds” reasoning more widely. Can we ignore nuclear warfare because it’s the Armageddon of the Nerds? Can we ignore climate change because it’s the Tribulation of the Nerds? Can we ignore modern medicine because it’s the Jesus healing miracle of the Nerds? It’s been very common throughout history for technology to give us capabilities that were once dreamt of only in wishful religious ideologies: consider flight or artificial limbs. Why couldn’t it happen for increased intelligence and all the many things that would flow from it?"

fierarul 8y ago

I guess one could write a book about anything, but wouldn't this message read better on a flyer or short article? Is deleting a social media account such a brave move that people have to really ponder it, read a book, maybe talk with close family and friends before making a decision? The 1st Facebook account removal I saw was something sudden: this girl had a really bad experience and the next day all her stuff was gone.

izzydata 8y ago
In a sense, writing a whole book about your decision to delete some social media accounts is just as bad as social media. The whole world doesn't need to know about every mundane detail about your life. You can do things and not feel inclined to tell everyone about it.
- icebraining 8y ago
  The book is not about his decision. In fact, he never had them in the first place.
  - izzydata 8y ago
    How can someone write a book about the benefits of leaving social media if they have never experienced them or the process of leaving them?
    - icebraining 8y ago
      Does one have to get shot to know it hurts? Is a male doctor incapable of advising a pregnant woman?
      - izzydata 8y ago
        You need to get shot to know what getting shot actually feels like and you need to be a pregnant woman to know what being a pregnant woman feels like. Obviously you can make some assumptions based on an observers perspective, but that doesn't seem as relevant in a discussion that is subjective like leaving social media as a lifestyle change.

fredley 8y ago

> Yeah, actually, one thing that’s really interesting is that Facebook is not a normal company, in the sense that its valuation when it went public wasn’t based on how much money it made, which is what would normally happen with a business. It actually somehow talked the SEC into creating this other category, where it would be valued based simply on how much it was used, just on user engagement. And I think that was one of the most dreadful decisions in the history of financial governance, because, unfortunately, it set the pattern for other companies that went public later, like Twitter. So it’s almost like a government mandate that, instead of actually making money and serving customers, a company will become an addiction and behavior modification empire. I didn't know this, can someone give more information on exactly how/why this happened?

alienfluid 8y ago
Wut. The SEC doesn't dictate how a company is valued - it's up to the markets and the participants. There is no "right way" to value a company. Not sure what the author is talking about.
lotsofpulp 8y ago
Even trying to interpret in the most charitable way, I can't view what the author is writing as making sense in any way. Just because the SEC allows a metric to be used doesn't mean investors are going to use it, and most definitely are not forced to use it in how they calculate the value of the shares they are purchasing. The fact that Facebook has amazing profit margins, ability to scale, and great revenue numbers also undermines the author's point.
atomical 8y ago
I came here to post that too. It doesn't seem to be true. How can the SEC override a P/E ratio that is displayed on almost all financial sites?
- deadbunny 8y ago
  It can't, he's talking out his arse.

nobody271 8y ago

Jaron Lanier is an interesting character. He's not just a smelly hippy. He's pretty smart but I don't buy into him being a "Silicon Valley Philosopher". No one can predict the future. Anyways, for a rip roaring good time I highly recommend this debate on artificial intelligence featuring Jaron (https://youtu.be/Qqc0t8ghvis https://youtu.be/Qqc0t8ghvis). On the opppsing side is Martine Rothblatt (male turned female, inventor of satellite radio, found a cure for the previously incurable disease her daughter had!). The panelists are definitely capable of producing novel ideas. I view Jaron as going by his feelings more than anything. Like I doubt he has some statistical evidence for any of his claims. But I can't help but agree with him on this.

dbspin 8y ago
Most of what Lanier has to say isn't predictive - it's description and prescriptive. In other words he's not guessing at some ghastly future, he's describing the ways that social networks are manipulating behaviour right now, and some of the affects that's having. Similarly his analysis of AI is about reframing whats actually going on as digital sharecropping, rather than laying out a future course of developing. Also - should hardly need pointing out, but philosophy has never had a project to 'predict the future'. That's futurology, which I agree is largely hooey.
- nobody271 8y ago
  I know philosophy isn't about predicting the future but Silicon Valley has a strong focus on the future. I'm saying I don't think it's possible to be a "Silicon Valley Philosopher" because the industry changes so fast that you can't speculate on either thr present (as it will soon change) or the future (which we can't predict). I do like the cut of his jib. Like I said he has a few novel ideas which are always worth listening to.
gambler 8y ago
>No one can predict the future. He wrote Digital Maoism article at the peak of Web 2.0 hype. That's pretty darn good demonstration of foresight. https://www.edge.org/conversation/jaron_lanier-digital-maoism-the-hazards-of-the-new-online-collectivism https://www.edge.org/conversation/jaron_lanier-digital-maois...

kgwxd 8y ago

Can't on HN :/

crispyambulance 8y ago

I wish there was still hope for Ted Nelson's concept of Hypertext. Up until some time in the mid 90's people were thinking of the internet as something intrinsically decentralized. The idea was that we, as individuals, would participate in new forms of discourse and creation through the "media" of hypertext _without_ intermediaries other than (perhaps) agents we would create for ourselves on an individual basis (like your own personal "max headroom"). Instead what we got are giant "media" companies acting as middle-men, cattle-herders or disinterested extractive entities that are pursing goals totally unrelated to the actual services they provide to the people who use "their media". Why do we need colossal-scale datacenters for social media anyway? Could there be a totally decentralized solution consisting of just the people and their devices? Or is that just a pipe-dream or sitcom plot like "Pied-piper" on the Silicon Valley TV show?

spot 8y ago
Nelson's concept was more centralized, and that's why it failed. Having no implementation didn't help.
- crispyambulance 8y ago
  It is only the media itself that is centralized in Nelson's vision. Today it is the giant middle-men that are "centralized" and call themselves "media". According to Jaron Lanier, Xanadu (Ted Nelson's concept) was all about "two-way" connectivity, not in a trivial sense like client/server websites today but deeply as in a "we're all authors" sense. > "A core technical difference between a Nelsonian network > and what we have become familiar with online is that [Nelson's] > network links were two-way instead of one-way. In a network > with two-way links, each node knows what other nodes are > linked to it. ... Two-way linking would preserve context. > It's a small simple change in how online information should > be stored that couldn't have vaster implications for > culture and the economy." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson
  - thanatropism 8y ago

thelastidiot 8y ago

This guy sounds like a child. I was surprised about the lack of depth in his reasoning and explanations.

xg15 8y ago

A good moment to mention again that you cannot actually delete your Hacker News account.

rickcusick 8y ago
Thanks for pointing this out - never realized before. So much for the right to be forgotten...
rcMgD2BwE72F 8y ago
Hacker New is certainly not GDPR compliant. I've been asking admins to delete an old account that has identifiable information (which I posted while I was a minor) and which is embarrassing. They did not care and the info is still public.
- raydev 8y ago
  Were you not able to request to delete individual comments?

bagswatchesus 8y ago

It's not like people design interoperability protocols and THEN found villages http://www.lvbagses.com/ http://www.lvbagses.com/

magwa101 8y ago

I do feel like I'm a sysadmin for my life. I don't know how non tech people deal with it. Some of the BUMMER platforms I dislike (unnamed) are ones I rely on to make money, and they constantly prod you to engage with the platform to fix their bugs. Examples are they allow phishing attacks but then force you to reply or your "ranking" score goes down. Super irritating. I do notice the most engaged communities are the ones that feel they are part of improving the product. The developers are responsive and there is good flow. Everyone feels good, except, they're basically the product managers for a sub par product and they will not be rewarded for their time.

gambler 8y ago
>I don't know how non tech people deal with it. They silently suffer, develop coping mechanisms and time-intensive workarounds. Most don't even understand how things could be better. This is part of the reason so many interfaces are horrible. This isn't even specific to social media platforms. People adapt to crap. Sounds like this is what Jaron is talking about. Design thinking should be taught in schools or as Gen Ed in colleges. When I worked on user-facing apps my silent motto was "reduce user suffering". Of course, this isn't the kind of thing your employer usually wants to hear.
- dschadd 8y ago
  Simply curious - where could I go to learn design thinking? Any online courses you recommend? Free would be nice, but I'm open to paying if it's worth it.
  - syndacks 8y ago
    Not sure exactly what type of "design thinking" you are looking to learn. In my experience, a lot of people think about design only as it applies to visual/UX. Design Thinking, on the other hand, is more a way to problem solve and understand the issues at hand (and of course, how to solve them). One resource I recommend is IDEO.org...it's tailored more towards humanitarian type Design Thinking, but it might be a good place to look depending, of course, on your needs ;) https://www.ideo.org/approach https://www.ideo.org/approach

brian_herman__ 8y ago

Can I start with my hacker news account?

lazyjones 8y ago

I would be interested in his opinion about slapping the user in the face with greyed-out content and a subscription box on top when he tries to follow a link to read this interview. Isn't this a great example for how the digital world doesn't let us do what we intend to and doesn't deliver on its promises?

tsunamifury 8y ago
Jaron supports premium payment for articles. I don’t know why so many hacker news readers both are illogically irate about paywalls and also irate about data collection. The irony is almost overwhelming.
- malvosenior 8y ago
  > I don’t know why so many hacker news readers both are illogically irate about paywalls and also irate about data collection. The irony is almost overwhelming. Because they're not the same HN users? I don't care at all about data collection but I abhor terrible UI such the modal ad in the original post.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Because they're not the same HN users? This; people keep confusing conflicting vocal minorities with a minority with shared but incoherent preferences.
- lazyjones 8y ago
  > I don’t know why so many hacker news readers both are illogically irate about paywalls and also irate about data collection. I have no idea what you are rambling about. The dark pattern demonstrated behind the article link is modal newsletter subscription boxes in front of the content, i.e. distracting, disrupting the user's reading to show him something he didn't click the link for. It's annoying, it wastes time and energy and it makes the web unattractive like dumb clickbait headlines when following a descriptive link doesn't lead to the promised content (without extra effort).
- 8y ago

devmunchies 8y ago

I’m not totally convinced this guy has quit his social media accounts, with his unoriginal opinions on Trump, MeToo, BLM, etc. I haven’t been on FB, Insta, Twitter in years, or Reddit in months and I don’t even think about those things anymore. But I guess he could just hang around people who are still deep into social media.

unstuckdev 8y ago
>> "I haven’t been on FB, Insta, Twitter in years, or Reddit in months and I don’t even think about those things anymore." The terms used to talk about those things today might have their origins on social media, but the issues existed before someone coined a term. You might want to re-evaluate your associations if no one talks about sexual assault and harassment or the over-policing of black people.
- devmunchies 8y ago
  > You might want to re-evaluate your associations if no one talks about sexual assault and harassment or the over-policing of black people. Why? I’ve never been happier.

simonsaidit 8y ago

Amazing guy I once saw him have a talk about how to communicate with aliens that would have no vocal or written language and later that nite he played an instrument he had invented.

beat 8y ago

Funny, the thing that struck me the most was the tag at the end where he's talking about learning pedal steel guitar. I tried and failed - it's the most difficult musical instrument I've ever played. It's harder than drums, which are really really hard to play well. Pedal steel involves doing a lot of things simultaneously. Chords are assembled from strings and slide, but there are pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of individual strings up or down. So you can do something like play a DGB triad (G major chord), and press a pedal to turn it into EGC (C major chord), while the strings are still ringing. No other instrument can do this. It can be sort of faked by bending a note against another note on guitar, but it's pitifully shallow next to pedal steel. But the pedals and levers, plus the slide, plus right hand picking, plus a volume pedal to control attack and sustain... wow. It's so complex.

replies_to_all 8y ago

I am so fucking sick on Jaron.

hypertexthero 8y ago

An excellent discussion — glad to see this here. I warmly recommend Jaron Lanier’s album of classical music, Instruments of Change: https://open.spotify.com/album/2E4m0Uy7w5873OUGVowJfu https://open.spotify.com/album/2E4m0Uy7w5873OUGVowJfu http://www.jaronlanier.com/music.html http://www.jaronlanier.com/music.html

jolesf 8y ago

"We cannot have a society in which, if two people wish to communicate, the only way that can happen is if it's financed by a third person who wishes to manipulate them" - From another article about Jaron Lanier

osrec 8y ago
Sounds like a reasonable description of pretty much every communication/social platform since the 90s.
- OedipusRex 8y ago
  So what's the alternative? Even if we roll our own software we still utilize ISP lines.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    True net neutrality would be a good start for addressing the ISP lines problem, though the complete solution would have to be some decentralized thing.
  - lyjackal 8y ago
    ISP isn't financing the transaction. They're financed by it
  - lifeformed 8y ago
    It's the "wishes to manipulate them" part that's the problem.
    - stinky613 8y ago
      ISPs injecting ads sounds like a wish to manipulate https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/why-comcasts-javascript-ad-injections-threaten-security-net-neutrality/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/why-comcasts-jav...
      - 8y ago

azangru 8y ago

> Well, a pretty good test for whether a platform is BUMMER, is whether the Russian intelligence warfare units like the Internet Research Agency decided to target it and use it for manipulating people. That’s a really good measure. And so, if that’s the way you’re going to classify BUMMER, then the list is Facebook, Google including YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, and, of course, a few other Facebook properties like Instagram. There are a few others out there, but those are the primary ones. Snapchat is an interesting one. I just spent some time with them and they’re sort of an edge case; they’re better, but they still have some problems. > Another example is LinkedIn, which has some addictive techniques but doesn’t seem to bring out the worst in people. So, you know, I don’t think this is exactly a universal criticism of the whole idea of social media — in fact, I’m sure it isn’t. I’m sure there could be better social media. Basically, if Putin was there, maybe you shouldn’t go there. Maybe that’s a good rule of thumb. Basically, don’t sleep in the bed where anybody who works for Putin has been lately. I think it’s a very good rule for us all to follow. It never ceases to surprise me how any mention of the Russian spooks in the context of social media inevitably comes to the same conclusion: you cannot co-exist with them. Either you fight them (which is the mainstream position) by demanding that social networks ban them, or you leave the social network. Weirdly, there doesn't seem to be any middle ground. I do not hear of any messages directed at users about developing some sort of online personal hygiene. Maybe take any ads with a grain of salt? Maybe do not trust total strangers until you get to know their online personality (if you are interested in their opinion at all)? Maybe limit your social circles? Maybe exercise more self-control in online debates? There are probably numerous other suggestions of how to be a more intelligent consumer of media content. And then Putin won't be such a comical bogeyman of online media he has lately become.

bsheir74 8y ago
Here is why the middle ground wont work. Changing technology is a lot faster than changing human nature. Propoganda works because it exploits how our mind works. Sure we can learn to listen to our better angels more often--we need better media education and critical thinking in schools for sure. But that takes time, and it's not perfect either. In many cases, the problems are better served with changing the plarforms or the technology.

lgleason 8y ago

There is a new documentary called "The Creepy Line", it's on both Amazon Prime and Apple I-Tunes that also talks about this. Well worth watching. This is a big issue today, and makes it far too easy for big tech to have enormous power, and as we've seen with Google etc. it is not being used for good the way the marketeers are trying to portray they are.

ilovecaching 8y ago

I am of the belief that we are better off trying to connect everyone in the world than going back to living in our community bubbles. I also think that it's too late to change the centralized nature of WWW. That ship sailed two decades ago. So we just need to live in the reality we have and try to incrementally make it better.

pokemongoaway 8y ago

In the article: "... And in Trump, that’s saying a lot, because he has a number of pretty bad sides." "... and then the Trump election really nailed it home that something was changing in society, and in a way that was potentially going to get worse and worse and weirder and weirder." There's also an article called: "Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class" And from his book: "Who Owns the Future" he says: “Saving the Winners from Themselves: Is the present trend really a benefit for those who run the top servers that have come to organize the world? In the short term, of course, yes. The greatest fortunes in history have been created recently by using network technology as a way to concentrate information and therefore wealth and power. However, in the long term, this way of using network technology is not even good for the richest and most powerful players, because their ultimate source of wealth can only be a growing economy...” “...I’m no Marxist. I love competing in the market, and the last thing I’d want is to live under communism. My wife grew up with it in Minsk, Belarus, and I am absolutely, thoroughly convinced of the misery. But if you select the right passages, Marx can read as being incredibly current...” “...One reason companies like Facebook should be interested in what I am proposing is that planning a regulation regime is better than morphing involuntarily into a dull regulated utility, which is what would probably happen otherwise. Suppose Facebook never gets good enough at snatching the “advertising” business from Google. That’s still a possibility as I write this. In that event, Facebook could go into decline, which would present a global emergency...” “...Imagine a future industry of “decision reduction” that would be (gasp!) regulated so as to remain unaligned with other services. You’d choose a decision reduction service the way you choose a broker now. The decision reduction service would use its particular style and competence to create bundles of decisions you could accept or reject en masse. You could switch to other services without penalty at any time. Such services would be prohibited from having conflicts of interest. That is a proper place for regulation...” “...Making information free is survivable so long as only limited numbers of people are disenfranchised. As much as it pains me to say so, we can survive if we only destroy the middle classes of musicians, journalists, and photographers. What is not survivable is the additional destruction of the middle classes in transportation, manufacturing, energy, office work, education, and health care. And all that destruction will come surely enough if the dominant idea of an information economy isn’t improved...” He just seems so out of touch! I wonder why he is held up by TED and others as THE guy to follow when you're deleting your accounts for following people :)