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There's a lot of interesting physics in building thermonuclear weapons. Doesn't mean you should do it. Your talents could be used to help the world. Instead, t

by imw 7y ago

There's a lot of interesting physics in building thermonuclear weapons. Doesn't mean you should do it. Your talents could be used to help the world. Instead, they are being used to enclose common spaces and pull apart the fabric of society. Get a better job?

Kiro 7y ago
I can't believe the amount of "you are a horrible human being for working at Facebook" comments I keep seeing as soon as someone says they are working there. HN is great because you normally get comments straight from the source, but I'm worried we will inevitably shame Facebook employees into not posting here at all.
- imw 7y ago
  To be clear, I don't think parent commenter is a horrible person. I think they are misapplying their talents and hurting society. I do understand your concern. Dialog is critical. But dialog only seems worthwhile if it is honest and open.
  - tudelo 7y ago
    So do you think most big tech companies are evil? Google must be evil as well correct?
    - Yizahi 7y ago
      Especially Google, more so than FB.
- matz1 7y ago
  Its not surprising, there are many people who are fb haters in this forum.
  - gjulianm 7y ago
    Saying "haters" makes it look like the people criticizing Facebook don't have serious concerns about the influence it has on the world. It's not being a hater of Vim, or Python. This is far bigger.
    - matz1 7y ago
      At least for me, Haters also include people who doesn't like the influence fb has on the world.
- newscracker 7y ago
  If we could indeed shame people into not doing something (focusing on actions and not people), I’d rather spend my energy on shaming people to quit Facebook en masse and shut it down. Seeing that this sounds ridiculous and unlikely to happen, I doubt any other intent of shaming would work either.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
CamperBob2 7y ago
I'd work on nukes before I'd work at Facebook. Nuclear weapons have arguably prevented WWIII, at least so far. Conversely, if WWIII ever does come, I wouldn't be surprised if Facebook has something to do with causing it.
- booleandilemma 7y ago
  My bet is on Twitter starting WWIII. This is the app politicians prefer use, after all. We’ll have “the tweet heard around the world”.
  - Heliosmaster 7y ago
    I doubt it. We already see that whenever somebody posts something stupid and controversial and is a public figure, they will claim they have been hacked and somebody else wrote the tweet.
  - astrofinch 7y ago
    Yeah it's weird to me the amount of hate Facebook gets when Twitter, reddit, and tumblr all seem worse.
    - CamperBob2 7y ago
      Tumblr, Reddit and Twitter are community sites. They are driven by their users, with little or no overarching strategy beyond being next-generation BBS services that occasionally sell a few ads to keep the lights on. Facebook is driven internally, from the top down, to accomplish murky, exploitative goals that are in the interests of nobody except the company and its shareholders. That's why Facebook is worth hundreds of billions of dollars while Reddit can barely pay for their own bandwidth and Tumblr gets passed around between acquirers like it was a radioactive waste dump that runs a porn business on the side. I don't know WTF Twitter is worth, if anything, but some people seem to think it's got a viable business model, so meh, whatever. They aren't Facebook.
ymolodtsov 7y ago
"pull apart the fabric of society” The fact that you made yourself believe this doesn’t make it true.
- entropea 7y ago
  The fact that you made an internet comment saying it doesn't make it true, doesn't make it not true.
b3lvedere 7y ago
So hire her/him.
baby 7y ago
I appreciate your point of view, FWIW I believe that I'm doing net positive work for the world. If you don't believe such projects should exist, you can at least agree that such project will inevitably happen and that it is a good thing that they have people like me onboard to influence them in the right direction. I will write more about the things I work on and why I think these are good things on my blog www.cryptologie.net Hope we can have some civilized discussions :)
- _bxg1 7y ago
  > you can at least agree that such project will inevitably happen and that it is a good thing that they have people like me onboard to influence them in the right direction. Sorry, what? What gives a random person a reason to think you're someone who will "influence them in the right direction"?
  - literallycancer 7y ago
    Probably because he's at least willing to have a discussion about it? Instead of going "fuck you, you are just jealous of my lambo collection"?
    - _bxg1 7y ago
      Okay, but he's also clearly absorbed Zuckerberg's savior complex. Politeness may help a conversation but it doesn't qualify him to make world-shaking ethical decisions.
- kadendogthing 7y ago
  I largely agree with the OP. I think these technologies can only be viewed in an optimistic way through a techno-libertarian lens; a perspective I don't think has any practical grounding in reality at best and at worst actively ignores why current systems exist (throwing the baby out with the bath water so to speak). And with that lens, I think it's foolish it believe that an engineer will actually be able to steer this machine once it's out in the wild. Systems without power structures still have power structures, they just not may be immediately obvious. But I do appreciate your constructive attitude towards his comments and I'll be checking your blog a good bit to inform myself as best as I can going forward :). I would ask that you have some kind of "apologetic"/philosophical tag on the type of posts that people like me can filter for so we can read up on that kind of perspective. I think these systems deserve more social/civic conversation and less technical ones. The tech is cool, but these technologies have the potential to have severe civic ramifications. These technologies are largely out pacing our national and global conversations around how we should use them, their pro's and con's, and the systems they're designed to replace/circumvent... and it's not a good thing. Thanks for the link!
jonas_kgomo 7y ago
When Chamath was asked about working at Facebook @Stanford. What soul searching are you doing right now on that? "I feel tremendous guilt. I think we all knew in the back of our minds, even though we feigned this whole line of there probably aren't any really bad unintended consequences. I think in the back deep, deep recesses of our minds we kind of knew something bad could happen. But I think the way we defined it was not like this. It literally is a point now where I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. That is truly where we are. And I would encourage all of you as the future leaders of the world to really internalize how important this is. If you feed the beast, that beast will destroy you.If you push back on it, we have a chance to control it and rein it in. And it is a point in time where people need to hard brake"
justapassenger 7y ago
I understand there's a lot of hate on FB on HN, but I think there's a gap between thermonuclear weapons and crypto currency project.

by imw 7y ago

Kiro 7y ago

I can't believe the amount of "you are a horrible human being for working at Facebook" comments I keep seeing as soon as someone says they are working there. HN is great because you normally get comments straight from the source, but I'm worried we will inevitably shame Facebook employees into not posting here at all.

imw 7y ago
To be clear, I don't think parent commenter is a horrible person. I think they are misapplying their talents and hurting society. I do understand your concern. Dialog is critical. But dialog only seems worthwhile if it is honest and open.
- tudelo 7y ago
  So do you think most big tech companies are evil? Google must be evil as well correct?
  - Yizahi 7y ago
    Especially Google, more so than FB.
matz1 7y ago
Its not surprising, there are many people who are fb haters in this forum.
- gjulianm 7y ago
  Saying "haters" makes it look like the people criticizing Facebook don't have serious concerns about the influence it has on the world. It's not being a hater of Vim, or Python. This is far bigger.
  - matz1 7y ago
    At least for me, Haters also include people who doesn't like the influence fb has on the world.
newscracker 7y ago
If we could indeed shame people into not doing something (focusing on actions and not people), I’d rather spend my energy on shaming people to quit Facebook en masse and shut it down. Seeing that this sounds ridiculous and unlikely to happen, I doubt any other intent of shaming would work either.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

CamperBob2 7y ago

I'd work on nukes before I'd work at Facebook. Nuclear weapons have arguably prevented WWIII, at least so far. Conversely, if WWIII ever does come, I wouldn't be surprised if Facebook has something to do with causing it.

booleandilemma 7y ago
My bet is on Twitter starting WWIII. This is the app politicians prefer use, after all. We’ll have “the tweet heard around the world”.
- Heliosmaster 7y ago
  I doubt it. We already see that whenever somebody posts something stupid and controversial and is a public figure, they will claim they have been hacked and somebody else wrote the tweet.
- astrofinch 7y ago
  Yeah it's weird to me the amount of hate Facebook gets when Twitter, reddit, and tumblr all seem worse.
  - CamperBob2 7y ago
    Tumblr, Reddit and Twitter are community sites. They are driven by their users, with little or no overarching strategy beyond being next-generation BBS services that occasionally sell a few ads to keep the lights on. Facebook is driven internally, from the top down, to accomplish murky, exploitative goals that are in the interests of nobody except the company and its shareholders. That's why Facebook is worth hundreds of billions of dollars while Reddit can barely pay for their own bandwidth and Tumblr gets passed around between acquirers like it was a radioactive waste dump that runs a porn business on the side. I don't know WTF Twitter is worth, if anything, but some people seem to think it's got a viable business model, so meh, whatever. They aren't Facebook.

ymolodtsov 7y ago

"pull apart the fabric of society” The fact that you made yourself believe this doesn’t make it true.

entropea 7y ago
The fact that you made an internet comment saying it doesn't make it true, doesn't make it not true.

b3lvedere 7y ago

So hire her/him.

baby 7y ago

I appreciate your point of view, FWIW I believe that I'm doing net positive work for the world. If you don't believe such projects should exist, you can at least agree that such project will inevitably happen and that it is a good thing that they have people like me onboard to influence them in the right direction. I will write more about the things I work on and why I think these are good things on my blog www.cryptologie.net Hope we can have some civilized discussions :)

_bxg1 7y ago
> you can at least agree that such project will inevitably happen and that it is a good thing that they have people like me onboard to influence them in the right direction. Sorry, what? What gives a random person a reason to think you're someone who will "influence them in the right direction"?
- literallycancer 7y ago
  Probably because he's at least willing to have a discussion about it? Instead of going "fuck you, you are just jealous of my lambo collection"?
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    Okay, but he's also clearly absorbed Zuckerberg's savior complex. Politeness may help a conversation but it doesn't qualify him to make world-shaking ethical decisions.
kadendogthing 7y ago
I largely agree with the OP. I think these technologies can only be viewed in an optimistic way through a techno-libertarian lens; a perspective I don't think has any practical grounding in reality at best and at worst actively ignores why current systems exist (throwing the baby out with the bath water so to speak). And with that lens, I think it's foolish it believe that an engineer will actually be able to steer this machine once it's out in the wild. Systems without power structures still have power structures, they just not may be immediately obvious. But I do appreciate your constructive attitude towards his comments and I'll be checking your blog a good bit to inform myself as best as I can going forward :). I would ask that you have some kind of "apologetic"/philosophical tag on the type of posts that people like me can filter for so we can read up on that kind of perspective. I think these systems deserve more social/civic conversation and less technical ones. The tech is cool, but these technologies have the potential to have severe civic ramifications. These technologies are largely out pacing our national and global conversations around how we should use them, their pro's and con's, and the systems they're designed to replace/circumvent... and it's not a good thing. Thanks for the link!

jonas_kgomo 7y ago

When Chamath was asked about working at Facebook @Stanford. What soul searching are you doing right now on that? "I feel tremendous guilt. I think we all knew in the back of our minds, even though we feigned this whole line of there probably aren't any really bad unintended consequences. I think in the back deep, deep recesses of our minds we kind of knew something bad could happen. But I think the way we defined it was not like this. It literally is a point now where I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. That is truly where we are. And I would encourage all of you as the future leaders of the world to really internalize how important this is. If you feed the beast, that beast will destroy you.If you push back on it, we have a chance to control it and rein it in. And it is a point in time where people need to hard brake"

justapassenger 7y ago

I understand there's a lot of hate on FB on HN, but I think there's a gap between thermonuclear weapons and crypto currency project.