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I believe it was Ben Thompson who recently suggested that it's possible a platform like Facebook is fundamentally incompatible with human nature as well. Maybe,

I believe it was Ben Thompson who recently suggested that it's possible a platform like Facebook is fundamentally incompatible with human nature as well. Maybe, at least, incompatible with society as it exists today. I've been thinking a lot abut that. Edit: Not a defense of Facebook. Regardless of what I said, I still don't think Facebook is trying to be a good company (morally and ethically) and I don't like them

jacquesm 5y ago
That may very well be true, but FB is clearly not built with the best interests of society at heart, and until a platform rolls along that is we are pretty much in the same situation as where we are with communism: it may well be a great system to base a society on but all known implementations were made by people that were in it mostly for themselves.
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
Totally agree, though with a tad of nuance. I believe a Facebook could be at least marginally compatible with human nature if the feed was just your friends, new posts in chronological order. But the economic incentives to make Facebook addictive, to traffic in outrage, and that demand that Facebook track your every move on and off the platform are just immensely strong. I mean, I think Facebook would easily be a far better platform for users if they could only see my actions on Facebook itself, instead of the god awful behavior of getting flooded with "retargeting" ads because I happened across some website somewhere, but look how bitterly Facebook fought against the iOS changes.
Fricken 5y ago
The media theorist Marshall McLuhan accurately out the dangers of "Peer to peer electronic media" in the 1970s, as thought experiment. His theories on media were pretty good.
joelbluminator 5y ago
Smartphones are also not compatible with human nature, and neither is office work.
robertlagrant 5y ago
Facebook are spending a lot of money on engineering around this (they call it Community Integrity I think) to try and figure some of these problems out. Not sure how well it's going, but they're certainly spending lots of money.

jacquesm 5y ago

That may very well be true, but FB is clearly not built with the best interests of society at heart, and until a platform rolls along that is we are pretty much in the same situation as where we are with communism: it may well be a great system to base a society on but all known implementations were made by people that were in it mostly for themselves.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

Totally agree, though with a tad of nuance. I believe a Facebook could be at least marginally compatible with human nature if the feed was just your friends, new posts in chronological order. But the economic incentives to make Facebook addictive, to traffic in outrage, and that demand that Facebook track your every move on and off the platform are just immensely strong. I mean, I think Facebook would easily be a far better platform for users if they could only see my actions on Facebook itself, instead of the god awful behavior of getting flooded with "retargeting" ads because I happened across some website somewhere, but look how bitterly Facebook fought against the iOS changes.

Fricken 5y ago

The media theorist Marshall McLuhan accurately out the dangers of "Peer to peer electronic media" in the 1970s, as thought experiment. His theories on media were pretty good.

joelbluminator 5y ago

Smartphones are also not compatible with human nature, and neither is office work.

robertlagrant 5y ago

Facebook are spending a lot of money on engineering around this (they call it Community Integrity I think) to try and figure some of these problems out. Not sure how well it's going, but they're certainly spending lots of money.