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I think I expected to see more of this by now given the number of incredibly liberal folks who work in Adtech. Sorry to break it to you, you don't get to wash

I think I expected to see more of this by now given the number of incredibly liberal folks who work in Adtech. Sorry to break it to you, you don't get to wash your hands clean of it's incredibly detrimental effects on people mental health, the state of mis-information, and the creation of tooling that manipulates the way people think. Ads made money before hyper-targeting, and will continue to make money long after. Most folks in Adtech are making an incredibly comfortable living - while ignoring the collective harm that is being done by the industry. No matter where you work, it's worth asking yourself a few questions. * What is the mission of my company ? * What is the revenue generating unit of my company ? * Are the two aligned ? * Am I comfortable with the answers to the above questions ?

ryandvm 6y ago
If there's any lesson that sums up the way the world works, it is: people follow incentives If you want folks to work on the cure for cancer or ending world hunger or curtailing climate change, then you're going to have to pay them enough to do it. The reality is that people have families, people have futures to think about, people have material desires. You can chastise them for making personal choices that prioritize their needs, but as long as a climatologist makes 1/10th of the salary of a software engineer at Google, that's not going to change. Is happiness found in wealth? Not at all. But it's like fat and sugar, we are literally programmed to acquire resources. It was just that for most of human history, it wasn't actually possible to overdo it.
- voisin 6y ago
  > You can chastise them for making personal choices that prioritize their needs, but as long as a climatologist makes 1/10th of the salary of a software engineer at Google, that's not going to change. The issue is not that we aren’t willing to pay a climatologist 10x more. It is that companies like Google and Amazon and Facebook can lobby to continue to externalize costs and internalize profits that allow them to retain the ability to pay a software engineer 10x more than someone working for the common good. No one votes on this. It is entrenched in a broken system that is powered by money.
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    It's not their lobbying that got them to where they are today. Both of those companies delivered tremendous value to many, many people, some of whom gave them tons of money in return. I agree with you that the society we live in sucks in terms of delivering resources to the best products, but I personally, even after anything, wouldn't want to live without good search engines (i.e. Google). Facebook I personally use less, but I know that so many people derive amazing value from it, and who am I to say they're wrong?
disgruntledphd2 6y ago
> incredibly detrimental effects on people mental health > the state of mis-information, and the creation of tooling that manipulates the way people think. Strong words. Do you have any evidence behind them? Like, books manipulate the way people think, should we ban books? How about newspapers? Where do you draw the line?
- analog31 6y ago
  We don't ban books. We criticize books and hold their authors accountable. Should we criticize advertising? Where do you draw the line?
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    We should definitely criticise advertising. I like to focus on how much it doesn't work, and how much of the industry is borderline fraud. I worry a lot less about it manipulating people, because it's pretty bad at that. Maybe at the margins (and that's great for large businesses), but advertising can only push you towards something, it's not going to drag you kicking and screaming.
- luckycharms810 6y ago
  I draw a distinction between introducing ideas to people and manipulating the way people think. Reading a book, digesting ideas and having a conversation in your mind with the author is incredibly healthy and IMO should be promoted. Optimizing for "engagement" requires that you offer the mind an endless set of distractions in lieu of good engaging content. Over time the mind starts to degrade to a point where its difficult to digest long-form content and enjoy it as a much healthier habit.
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    > Optimizing for "engagement" requires that you offer the mind an endless set of distractions in lieu of good engaging content. Over time the mind starts to degrade to a point where its difficult to digest long-form content and enjoy it as a much healthier habit. This is another really strong claim. I find it odd that most people are so sceptical of the claims established by social science research, except when it confirms a previously held theory. TV optimises for engagement. Do you think that TV lead to the destruction of people's ability to engage meaningfully with the world, or is that distinction reserved for products invented after (I assume) you were born. Cos I remember how much everyone gave out about TV (and I was one of those people!) and to see the entire argument wholesale lifted and applied to a completely different medium of communication is disconcerting, to say the least.
Bluestein 6y ago
> tooling that manipulates the way people think. ... this, being perhaps the most troubling part.-

ryandvm 6y ago

If there's any lesson that sums up the way the world works, it is: people follow incentives If you want folks to work on the cure for cancer or ending world hunger or curtailing climate change, then you're going to have to pay them enough to do it. The reality is that people have families, people have futures to think about, people have material desires. You can chastise them for making personal choices that prioritize their needs, but as long as a climatologist makes 1/10th of the salary of a software engineer at Google, that's not going to change. Is happiness found in wealth? Not at all. But it's like fat and sugar, we are literally programmed to acquire resources. It was just that for most of human history, it wasn't actually possible to overdo it.

voisin 6y ago
> You can chastise them for making personal choices that prioritize their needs, but as long as a climatologist makes 1/10th of the salary of a software engineer at Google, that's not going to change. The issue is not that we aren’t willing to pay a climatologist 10x more. It is that companies like Google and Amazon and Facebook can lobby to continue to externalize costs and internalize profits that allow them to retain the ability to pay a software engineer 10x more than someone working for the common good. No one votes on this. It is entrenched in a broken system that is powered by money.
- disgruntledphd2 6y ago
  It's not their lobbying that got them to where they are today. Both of those companies delivered tremendous value to many, many people, some of whom gave them tons of money in return. I agree with you that the society we live in sucks in terms of delivering resources to the best products, but I personally, even after anything, wouldn't want to live without good search engines (i.e. Google). Facebook I personally use less, but I know that so many people derive amazing value from it, and who am I to say they're wrong?

disgruntledphd2 6y ago

> incredibly detrimental effects on people mental health > the state of mis-information, and the creation of tooling that manipulates the way people think. Strong words. Do you have any evidence behind them? Like, books manipulate the way people think, should we ban books? How about newspapers? Where do you draw the line?

analog31 6y ago
We don't ban books. We criticize books and hold their authors accountable. Should we criticize advertising? Where do you draw the line?
- disgruntledphd2 6y ago
  We should definitely criticise advertising. I like to focus on how much it doesn't work, and how much of the industry is borderline fraud. I worry a lot less about it manipulating people, because it's pretty bad at that. Maybe at the margins (and that's great for large businesses), but advertising can only push you towards something, it's not going to drag you kicking and screaming.
luckycharms810 6y ago
I draw a distinction between introducing ideas to people and manipulating the way people think. Reading a book, digesting ideas and having a conversation in your mind with the author is incredibly healthy and IMO should be promoted. Optimizing for "engagement" requires that you offer the mind an endless set of distractions in lieu of good engaging content. Over time the mind starts to degrade to a point where its difficult to digest long-form content and enjoy it as a much healthier habit.
- disgruntledphd2 6y ago
  > Optimizing for "engagement" requires that you offer the mind an endless set of distractions in lieu of good engaging content. Over time the mind starts to degrade to a point where its difficult to digest long-form content and enjoy it as a much healthier habit. This is another really strong claim. I find it odd that most people are so sceptical of the claims established by social science research, except when it confirms a previously held theory. TV optimises for engagement. Do you think that TV lead to the destruction of people's ability to engage meaningfully with the world, or is that distinction reserved for products invented after (I assume) you were born. Cos I remember how much everyone gave out about TV (and I was one of those people!) and to see the entire argument wholesale lifted and applied to a completely different medium of communication is disconcerting, to say the least.

Bluestein 6y ago

> tooling that manipulates the way people think. ... this, being perhaps the most troubling part.-