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> Nice spin on it, but Facebook is still a bad actor (despite what you say). This needs to be a conclusion, not a premise. I do not have a firm belief about wh

> Nice spin on it, but Facebook is still a bad actor (despite what you say). This needs to be a conclusion, not a premise. I do not have a firm belief about whether or not this is true, but I keep seeing people list bad things about FB and draw a straight line to “thus it is evil”. Ideally, we would list the good/bad it does and assign weights to these points to determine if it is net harmful. I want to be convinced, HN, but when I read comments like the ones in this thread (FB has no positive value whatsoever for its users, FB sells users’ data), it makes it hard for me to appraise.

Karunamon 8y ago
There are certain forums in which the groupthink makes discussion of certain topics in good faith impossible.. sadly, HN is one of those when it comes to Facebook being anything other than cartoonishly evil.
PavlovsCat 8y ago
> This needs to be a conclusion, not a premise. What makes you think it's a premise and not a conclusion? > Ideally, we would list the good/bad it does and assign weights to these points to determine if it is net harmful. I have 11 years of data points and experiences about FB, I'm not going to enumerate all of them whenever there is another. I'll just say "typically fucking Facebook". At this point, I don't even feel obligated to remember it all -- I can trust myself enough. We do that with "evil" people in our lives, too. We don't remember every dirty detail. We remember that there were a bunch of things, and that overall, we had it at some point. I save the conclusion and the checksums and that's enough. If you think I'm operating on a premise, instead of having come to a conclusion, how is that not you operating on a premise? > I want to be convinced Maybe, maybe not. What you are doing is delegitimizing even the conclusions others arrived at, by simply calling all of that mere premises. You saw a bunch of posts that struck you as knee-jerk, so all of it is knee-jerk. You have to form your own opinion either way, that burden is not on others. Do you also expect anyone who says anything positive to give some kind of thorough, 1000-page assessment of all the benefits and cons? No, of course not. Same goes for criticism. I for one don't care about the "evilness" of people I never met. For me the harm done through ignorance or fear or "evil" (which is just another form of weakness really) or not caring enough is the same harm.
- koko775 8y ago
  > At this point, I don't even feel obligated to remember it all -- I can trust myself enough. We do that with "evil" people in our lives, too. We don't remember every dirty detail. We remember that there were a bunch of things, and that overall, we had it at some point. I save the conclusion and the checksums and that's enough. > If you think I'm operating on a premise, instead of having come to a conclusion, how is that not you operating on a premise? A mental conclusion can be a discussion premise. It doesn't invalidate your conclusion to say it should be a conclusion not a premise, because you're asserting a premise in a discussion which you are not (yet) supporting. Also consider that you have seen eleven years of data points and experiences from the point of view of a small subset of users; there could perhaps be an equivalent cache of positive datapoints which tend to be significantly less interesting to report on. Thus, supporting your point with concrete examples is how you contribute to a discussion, because then you and any adversaries can challenge you on the merits of your argument. That's what the conclusion/premise separation is about.
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    > Also consider that you have seen eleven years of data points and experiences from the point of view of a small subset of users; there could perhaps be an equivalent cache of positive datapoints which tend to be significantly less interesting to report on. You know what a thief can be like? 99.99% of the time, they don't steal. They sleep, they brush their teeth, they do all sorts of stuff, and every 2 weeks they take all the savings from an elderly woman. How often you do need to see someone doing that to consider them a thief? Would you really care about any positive stories after seeing what you saw? > That's what the conclusion/premise separation is about. You can't speak for that other person. Let them respond for themselves.
    - koko775 8y ago
      > You can't speak for that other person. Let them respond for themselves. Sounds like you're more interested in competing with someone than talking about ideas. > Would you really care about any positive stories after seeing what you saw? ...yes? Of course? I don't automatically dehumanize that hypothetical person for their deeds, whether I approve or not, or believe there should be consequences. Like, doesn't Facebook collaborate with law enforcement in tracking down predators and scammers and the like? It's not as simple as "bad. go away." You should remember enough to make a proper argument, dude. A solid conclusion needs solid support.
philtar 8y ago
I'll list a few: Conducting psychology experiments on people without their consent (or awareness of it) Documented evidence that Facebook as it is now decreases people's quality of life, but they don't want to mess with their formula because that's what brings the dollars in. Theres many more. But these two are the biggest I can think of off the top my head.
mindslight 8y ago
At its foundation, Faceboot is a man-in-the-middle attack dressed up to attract users. The standard "web 2.0 defense" was that these companies would remain benevolent in the interests of their users to maintain their own profits. The onus was really on them to demonstrate that trusting third parties with our communications is a reasonable thing to do. The more time passes, the more blatant the evidence gets that this is not true.
- drewblaisdell 8y ago
  > The onus was really on them to demonstrate that trusting third parties with our communications is a reasonable thing to do. In general, I agree, but the context here is dozens of HN commenters claiming that FB is a bad actor/net negative for the world. These commenters cite lists of gripes about the company, many legitimate, some illegitimate, but get hand-wavy when someone asks about the "net" in "net negative". I'm not rejecting the conclusion, here, by the way! If the company is ultimately bad for society, this line of questioning should embolden the consensus HN opinion.
  - mindslight 8y ago
    The metric of "net (negative)" is nonsensical on a multidimensional question, due to varying utility functions. Faceboot directly optimizes to increase time spent on their site, wasting human potential. Faceboot also provides an effortless way to check in with loved ones after a disaster, easing human suffering. Two people will look at both of these facts, value each one differently, and come up with a different "net". Furthermore, it is not appropriate to give Faceboot all the credit for either facet! People could check in with text messages, and people would be in dopamine loops even with software purely under their control. So the only thing we can really do is discuss each facet independently, in the context of first principles / morals. I personally think much of what is wrong with Faceboot is due to the conflict of interest from a third party mediating social relationships, and the inhuman scale of centralization. But the more that comes out about inherent social media narcissism, I also see that there is no silver bullet.
    - 8y ago

Karunamon 8y ago

There are certain forums in which the groupthink makes discussion of certain topics in good faith impossible.. sadly, HN is one of those when it comes to Facebook being anything other than cartoonishly evil.

PavlovsCat 8y ago

> This needs to be a conclusion, not a premise. What makes you think it's a premise and not a conclusion? > Ideally, we would list the good/bad it does and assign weights to these points to determine if it is net harmful. I have 11 years of data points and experiences about FB, I'm not going to enumerate all of them whenever there is another. I'll just say "typically fucking Facebook". At this point, I don't even feel obligated to remember it all -- I can trust myself enough. We do that with "evil" people in our lives, too. We don't remember every dirty detail. We remember that there were a bunch of things, and that overall, we had it at some point. I save the conclusion and the checksums and that's enough. If you think I'm operating on a premise, instead of having come to a conclusion, how is that not you operating on a premise? > I want to be convinced Maybe, maybe not. What you are doing is delegitimizing even the conclusions others arrived at, by simply calling all of that mere premises. You saw a bunch of posts that struck you as knee-jerk, so all of it is knee-jerk. You have to form your own opinion either way, that burden is not on others. Do you also expect anyone who says anything positive to give some kind of thorough, 1000-page assessment of all the benefits and cons? No, of course not. Same goes for criticism. I for one don't care about the "evilness" of people I never met. For me the harm done through ignorance or fear or "evil" (which is just another form of weakness really) or not caring enough is the same harm.

koko775 8y ago
> At this point, I don't even feel obligated to remember it all -- I can trust myself enough. We do that with "evil" people in our lives, too. We don't remember every dirty detail. We remember that there were a bunch of things, and that overall, we had it at some point. I save the conclusion and the checksums and that's enough. > If you think I'm operating on a premise, instead of having come to a conclusion, how is that not you operating on a premise? A mental conclusion can be a discussion premise. It doesn't invalidate your conclusion to say it should be a conclusion not a premise, because you're asserting a premise in a discussion which you are not (yet) supporting. Also consider that you have seen eleven years of data points and experiences from the point of view of a small subset of users; there could perhaps be an equivalent cache of positive datapoints which tend to be significantly less interesting to report on. Thus, supporting your point with concrete examples is how you contribute to a discussion, because then you and any adversaries can challenge you on the merits of your argument. That's what the conclusion/premise separation is about.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  > Also consider that you have seen eleven years of data points and experiences from the point of view of a small subset of users; there could perhaps be an equivalent cache of positive datapoints which tend to be significantly less interesting to report on. You know what a thief can be like? 99.99% of the time, they don't steal. They sleep, they brush their teeth, they do all sorts of stuff, and every 2 weeks they take all the savings from an elderly woman. How often you do need to see someone doing that to consider them a thief? Would you really care about any positive stories after seeing what you saw? > That's what the conclusion/premise separation is about. You can't speak for that other person. Let them respond for themselves.
  - koko775 8y ago
    > You can't speak for that other person. Let them respond for themselves. Sounds like you're more interested in competing with someone than talking about ideas. > Would you really care about any positive stories after seeing what you saw? ...yes? Of course? I don't automatically dehumanize that hypothetical person for their deeds, whether I approve or not, or believe there should be consequences. Like, doesn't Facebook collaborate with law enforcement in tracking down predators and scammers and the like? It's not as simple as "bad. go away." You should remember enough to make a proper argument, dude. A solid conclusion needs solid support.

philtar 8y ago

I'll list a few: Conducting psychology experiments on people without their consent (or awareness of it) Documented evidence that Facebook as it is now decreases people's quality of life, but they don't want to mess with their formula because that's what brings the dollars in. Theres many more. But these two are the biggest I can think of off the top my head.

mindslight 8y ago

At its foundation, Faceboot is a man-in-the-middle attack dressed up to attract users. The standard "web 2.0 defense" was that these companies would remain benevolent in the interests of their users to maintain their own profits. The onus was really on them to demonstrate that trusting third parties with our communications is a reasonable thing to do. The more time passes, the more blatant the evidence gets that this is not true.

drewblaisdell 8y ago
> The onus was really on them to demonstrate that trusting third parties with our communications is a reasonable thing to do. In general, I agree, but the context here is dozens of HN commenters claiming that FB is a bad actor/net negative for the world. These commenters cite lists of gripes about the company, many legitimate, some illegitimate, but get hand-wavy when someone asks about the "net" in "net negative". I'm not rejecting the conclusion, here, by the way! If the company is ultimately bad for society, this line of questioning should embolden the consensus HN opinion.
- mindslight 8y ago
  The metric of "net (negative)" is nonsensical on a multidimensional question, due to varying utility functions. Faceboot directly optimizes to increase time spent on their site, wasting human potential. Faceboot also provides an effortless way to check in with loved ones after a disaster, easing human suffering. Two people will look at both of these facts, value each one differently, and come up with a different "net". Furthermore, it is not appropriate to give Faceboot all the credit for either facet! People could check in with text messages, and people would be in dopamine loops even with software purely under their control. So the only thing we can really do is discuss each facet independently, in the context of first principles / morals. I personally think much of what is wrong with Faceboot is due to the conflict of interest from a third party mediating social relationships, and the inhuman scale of centralization. But the more that comes out about inherent social media narcissism, I also see that there is no silver bullet.
  - 8y ago