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I think you miss the point the point I was trying to make (i.e. I didn't articulate it well). Regardless of how trivial you think it is, the fact that so many

by ska 6y ago

I think you miss the point the point I was trying to make (i.e. I didn't articulate it well). Regardless of how trivial you think it is, the fact that so many people demonstrate a preference not to should make you think harder about the problem. It's not just the technology, and many tech people tend to get this wrong consistently. Let's put it another way: if it was actually as trivial as you seem to think, it probably would have happened already.

zepto 6y ago
That makes the point a lot worse, and really just comes across as you responding to a set of assumptions nobody is actually making. What is the ‘it’ which you imagine people think is trivial? Who is saying anything is trivial? Where is anyone saying it’s just technology? Who said people don’t have a preference to use Facebook? How do you know how hard people have thought about this? I don’t think Facebook is trivial to replace, but that isn’t because people are dependent on it in a way that is comparable to the other examples you mentioned. Unlike the examples you listed, people can easily do without Facebook. There just isn’t much incentive for most people to do so, since they don’t perceive the downsides adequately.
- ska 6y ago
  I think we're down in the weeds here - so I'll leave it at this. I shouldn't have focused it on tech so much, other people make the same category of mistake. The assumptions that I am talking about are basically this. (1) "people can easily do without Facebook", or the variant that "Facebook isn't very important to them" (2) There are viable replacements available to the people who do value this, at least in their own estimation. Both these assumptions are (empirically) incorrect, at least for many people. If you reject them both, you are basically saying people are incapable of really knowing their own best interests, which is laughable. The best you can do is advocate they understand the implications better. Hence this falls in to the category I was drawing, mainly that if you say "People don't really need X" and lots of people are at the same time saying "I really need X" and "I don't see a good replacement for X" then you are far more likely to be wrong than they are. You dislike all my examples, try this one "Nobody needs a fossil fuel engine car". Obvious, right? Electrics are available and better in every way (just ask your favorite tesla owner). Telling people they can do fine without FB because you do is a bit like telling them they can do fine without gasoline because you do. Even when technically true for some values of "fine" and "need", it's not useful.
  - zepto 6y ago
    Ignoring most of this, because you really are just talking about your own assumptions about what other people are thinking, which are nothing to do with me. However your example: > You dislike all my examples, try this one "Nobody needs a fossil fuel engine car". Obvious, right? Electrics are available and better in every way (just ask your favorite tesla owner). Telling people they can do fine without FB because you do is a bit like telling them they can do fine without gasoline because you do. Even when technically true for some values of "fine" and "need", it's not useful. Is interesting for two reasons. On the one hand, it’s just as bad as your prior ones, because the impact of doing without a car at all will be for many people quite significant in a way that I maintain is simply not the case with Facebook. I know all kinds of people who have stopped using Facebook and it just hasn’t been a big deal, unlike all the examples you bring up. On the other hand, I would imagine most people would simply accept that electric cars are a viable alternative to gasoline cars today, and that they will eventually switch to one in the future at some point, even if the economics don’t make sense now, which again makes this analogy just inapplicable to talking about Facebook. What I take from this is that you are arguing against an amalgam of views you have seen elsewhere and trying to dispel a kind of misunderstanding that is somehow implicit to what you have seen. I don’t really have anything to do with all that. What I’m suggesting is that you dispense with these analogies, and simply consider the possibility that people don’t actually need Facebook, and that quitting Facebook wouldn’t actually have much impact for most people. Of course there are exceptions, but that’s not the point. Being willing to consider this possibility sheds light on Facebook’s own behavior as well as the current situation with regard to what would make things better. Why would you think it ‘laughable’ that people don’t know their own best interests? That seems to just trivialize a complex issue. Many of us hold that it is important for society to treat people as though they do, but for the most part that is an ethical assumption that restrains abusive institutions. It’s equally true that most people know that they don’t know their own best interests in many ways, and we all obviously hold many false beliefs about both ourselves and the world. It’s pretty easy to think something is more (or less) important to you than it actually is.
    - ska 6y ago
      Ok, you haven’t said anything remotely convincing to me as to why these are a actually different category, rather than a scale. And you seem to be misunderstanding what I’m truly if to say prettty consistently. Regardless of whose “fault” that is , this really isn’t a good forum for getting into properly, so I guess I’m out.

by ska 6y ago

zepto 6y ago

That makes the point a lot worse, and really just comes across as you responding to a set of assumptions nobody is actually making. What is the ‘it’ which you imagine people think is trivial? Who is saying anything is trivial? Where is anyone saying it’s just technology? Who said people don’t have a preference to use Facebook? How do you know how hard people have thought about this? I don’t think Facebook is trivial to replace, but that isn’t because people are dependent on it in a way that is comparable to the other examples you mentioned. Unlike the examples you listed, people can easily do without Facebook. There just isn’t much incentive for most people to do so, since they don’t perceive the downsides adequately.

ska 6y ago
I think we're down in the weeds here - so I'll leave it at this. I shouldn't have focused it on tech so much, other people make the same category of mistake. The assumptions that I am talking about are basically this. (1) "people can easily do without Facebook", or the variant that "Facebook isn't very important to them" (2) There are viable replacements available to the people who do value this, at least in their own estimation. Both these assumptions are (empirically) incorrect, at least for many people. If you reject them both, you are basically saying people are incapable of really knowing their own best interests, which is laughable. The best you can do is advocate they understand the implications better. Hence this falls in to the category I was drawing, mainly that if you say "People don't really need X" and lots of people are at the same time saying "I really need X" and "I don't see a good replacement for X" then you are far more likely to be wrong than they are. You dislike all my examples, try this one "Nobody needs a fossil fuel engine car". Obvious, right? Electrics are available and better in every way (just ask your favorite tesla owner). Telling people they can do fine without FB because you do is a bit like telling them they can do fine without gasoline because you do. Even when technically true for some values of "fine" and "need", it's not useful.
- zepto 6y ago
  Ignoring most of this, because you really are just talking about your own assumptions about what other people are thinking, which are nothing to do with me. However your example: > You dislike all my examples, try this one "Nobody needs a fossil fuel engine car". Obvious, right? Electrics are available and better in every way (just ask your favorite tesla owner). Telling people they can do fine without FB because you do is a bit like telling them they can do fine without gasoline because you do. Even when technically true for some values of "fine" and "need", it's not useful. Is interesting for two reasons. On the one hand, it’s just as bad as your prior ones, because the impact of doing without a car at all will be for many people quite significant in a way that I maintain is simply not the case with Facebook. I know all kinds of people who have stopped using Facebook and it just hasn’t been a big deal, unlike all the examples you bring up. On the other hand, I would imagine most people would simply accept that electric cars are a viable alternative to gasoline cars today, and that they will eventually switch to one in the future at some point, even if the economics don’t make sense now, which again makes this analogy just inapplicable to talking about Facebook. What I take from this is that you are arguing against an amalgam of views you have seen elsewhere and trying to dispel a kind of misunderstanding that is somehow implicit to what you have seen. I don’t really have anything to do with all that. What I’m suggesting is that you dispense with these analogies, and simply consider the possibility that people don’t actually need Facebook, and that quitting Facebook wouldn’t actually have much impact for most people. Of course there are exceptions, but that’s not the point. Being willing to consider this possibility sheds light on Facebook’s own behavior as well as the current situation with regard to what would make things better. Why would you think it ‘laughable’ that people don’t know their own best interests? That seems to just trivialize a complex issue. Many of us hold that it is important for society to treat people as though they do, but for the most part that is an ethical assumption that restrains abusive institutions. It’s equally true that most people know that they don’t know their own best interests in many ways, and we all obviously hold many false beliefs about both ourselves and the world. It’s pretty easy to think something is more (or less) important to you than it actually is.
  - ska 6y ago
    Ok, you haven’t said anything remotely convincing to me as to why these are a actually different category, rather than a scale. And you seem to be misunderstanding what I’m truly if to say prettty consistently. Regardless of whose “fault” that is , this really isn’t a good forum for getting into properly, so I guess I’m out.