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The discussion has already been debased given that it’s about a nothing-burger PR piece filled with doublespeak. My comment is about changing social norms to i

The discussion has already been debased given that it’s about a nothing-burger PR piece filled with doublespeak. My comment is about changing social norms to improve society. Perhaps my tone is a bit harsh, but on the object level I believe my comment is more constructive than the interview. And on the point of tone, frankly, I think that people generally are far too polite in response to rhetorical deception.

skybrian 7y ago
I agree that the interview doesn't seem very useful. The interviewer tried (the questions are quite good), but Bosworth clearly got media training and isn't going to say anything he doesn't want to say, so there's very little of use. But, that's not at all unusual or specific to Facebook. Many interviews with politicians or business leaders go the same way. It would be better if someone bought their new device, tried it out, and took it apart. You can't learn stuff like that by interviewing a top executive. They don't even remember the details about how it all works, if they ever knew. In any case, being more rude about such things on Hacker News seems unlikely to have any effect on how these interviews go. But they do have an effect on whether our conversations are worth reading. Generally speaking, I think we should look for ways to encourage curiosity. If the topic is Facebook, how can we find out more about what Facebook is really doing? What are some reliable sources? I don't think I want to put time into that myself, but reading a bunch of rude comments about how people think Facebook is still terrible isn't going to encourage anyone else's curiosity either. This reminds me of how occasionally someone obsessed with a topic can be good at collecting and organizing information about it, even if they're a bit crazy in other ways. At least they're looking for stuff, and you don't have to share all their opinions to find it useful. On a good day, Hacker News conversations are more like that.

skybrian 7y ago

I agree that the interview doesn't seem very useful. The interviewer tried (the questions are quite good), but Bosworth clearly got media training and isn't going to say anything he doesn't want to say, so there's very little of use. But, that's not at all unusual or specific to Facebook. Many interviews with politicians or business leaders go the same way. It would be better if someone bought their new device, tried it out, and took it apart. You can't learn stuff like that by interviewing a top executive. They don't even remember the details about how it all works, if they ever knew. In any case, being more rude about such things on Hacker News seems unlikely to have any effect on how these interviews go. But they do have an effect on whether our conversations are worth reading. Generally speaking, I think we should look for ways to encourage curiosity. If the topic is Facebook, how can we find out more about what Facebook is really doing? What are some reliable sources? I don't think I want to put time into that myself, but reading a bunch of rude comments about how people think Facebook is still terrible isn't going to encourage anyone else's curiosity either. This reminds me of how occasionally someone obsessed with a topic can be good at collecting and organizing information about it, even if they're a bit crazy in other ways. At least they're looking for stuff, and you don't have to share all their opinions to find it useful. On a good day, Hacker News conversations are more like that.