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Spot on. I have a golden rule of social media discussions. If I can tell your politics by listening to your complaints about social media, you don't have anyth

Spot on. I have a golden rule of social media discussions. If I can tell your politics by listening to your complaints about social media, you don't have anything interesting to add to the conversation. These are systemic issues. They exist because the systems exist in symbiosis. What you would like social media to do or say is not only besides the point, it's indicative (to me) that you don't even understand the nature of the problem. And that's not getting into the self-serving nature of saying something like "I love everything I did and the jobs I took, but somehow we lost our way" No, you did not. You built a business on a model that shouldn't exist. Made a ton of money doing it. Now somebody's got to fix it. If all of us can't admit to ourselves or others the root cause of the problem, it'll never go away.

dogman144 5y ago
> it's indicative (to me) that you don't even understand the nature of the problem And this is spot on. It what makes me alternatively have head-exploding frustration or pretty dark nihilism, and check out of politics beyond keeping tabs on what tech regulations might impact the industry. 99% of the "what's next" commentary from leaders and systems with power outside of the tech industry totally miss the point. They aren't even on the same page with the actual systemic problems. The 1% is gleaning some hopeful analysis from leaders like Yang or Buttigieg campaign on, but even then it's often an indirect reference. I'm very much a match concerns to actions type, but what does one do in this dynamic - call your Senator? That seems a laughably inept option at the moment after watching this play out for the last several years.
- DanielBMarkham 5y ago
  Systemic problems get worse the more you pull on the levers that are normally used to correct things. That's why they're called systemic problems. Good, intelligent people in various symbiotic systems can act wisely and with good intent and intelligence and still things get worse. To use a recent HN headline, it's a meta-stable catastrophe. In fact, the greater the attempts to correct, the worse it gets. Intuition fails us. Apologies that I have no advice as far as what to do. My plan is to keep being the annoying person every now and then in the back of the room that says "It's broken. Here's why" without being too obnoxious or over-the-top. As I used to tell teams I managed, we can't always solve all of the problems we're given, but it's our responsibility to publish our problems to others in the hope that somebody else has a missing piece. A big part of the mess we've created so far has been people thinking they could understand the entire thing and just tweak it a little bit to get it to do what they want. We should not join that crowd.
  - DenisM 5y ago
    I can scarcely find any powerful entity interested in opposing social media. It clearly expands the reach of American influence in the world, so the state must be happy. It’s good for advertising, so pretty much all businesses are happy too. The public gets their high-sugar circuses. Who has the interest in opposing social media? Apple?
    - DanielBMarkham 5y ago
      I don't think this ends by something or somebody you can point a finger at and say "that did it" Looking throughout history, these kinds of interlocking systemic crises always end in ways the participants did not expect and could not have been expected to deal with even if they had known. Taking the Roman Empire as a loose example, if you had sat down with the Senate and Emperor in, say 100 AD and told them exactly what would happen? First they wouldn't have believed you and second even if they had believed you there was nothing they could have done about it. You see, the Romans expected a state that was the same as a religion, they expected threats to the Empire to come in the form of large armies with single, great wars. They expected a cultural "soft power" that was unmatched. None of that was true. Or rather, it was true until it wasn't, and even then it took hundreds of years to completely fizzle out. As an economist once said, things that can't continue won't continue. But in this kind of situation, by definition we're unable on this side of it to see what it'll look like from the other side of history.
      - DenisM 5y ago
        Very astute observation, as always, Daniel. The interesting thing about Rome’s fall is that it was Rome’s success that planted the seeds of self-destruction. Equitable wealth distribution and loyalty to the republic produced very powerful armies, producing a corrupting influx of wealth for the rich and the army and an impoverishing influx of slave labor, destroying the very two factors that allowed it. The republic thus succumbed and lacking loyalty the society fell into a never-ending series of coups and back-stabbing, sabotaging Rome’s ability to wage war and peace. Looking back one couldn’t have foreseen the Huns dealing the crushing blow, but the destruction of the Roman virtue was on display, and decried by Cicero among many. I have to wonder what are the seeds of destruction in Facebook itself that are results of its success? Petty, patronizing censorship can be both the product of success and the poison that takes two decades to cause atrophy. Another candidate is the Eternal September, the influx of different demographic that will mold the network to their ways and expel the early adopters, who will move on to the next hot thing. Zuckerberg knows this, hence why he keeps buying up all competition, akin to using the blood of virgins to stave off aging. Regulations could be another, obvious option. There is also something in the outrage and clickbait dynamics, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Any other ideas?

dogman144 5y ago

> it's indicative (to me) that you don't even understand the nature of the problem And this is spot on. It what makes me alternatively have head-exploding frustration or pretty dark nihilism, and check out of politics beyond keeping tabs on what tech regulations might impact the industry. 99% of the "what's next" commentary from leaders and systems with power outside of the tech industry totally miss the point. They aren't even on the same page with the actual systemic problems. The 1% is gleaning some hopeful analysis from leaders like Yang or Buttigieg campaign on, but even then it's often an indirect reference. I'm very much a match concerns to actions type, but what does one do in this dynamic - call your Senator? That seems a laughably inept option at the moment after watching this play out for the last several years.

DanielBMarkham 5y ago
Systemic problems get worse the more you pull on the levers that are normally used to correct things. That's why they're called systemic problems. Good, intelligent people in various symbiotic systems can act wisely and with good intent and intelligence and still things get worse. To use a recent HN headline, it's a meta-stable catastrophe. In fact, the greater the attempts to correct, the worse it gets. Intuition fails us. Apologies that I have no advice as far as what to do. My plan is to keep being the annoying person every now and then in the back of the room that says "It's broken. Here's why" without being too obnoxious or over-the-top. As I used to tell teams I managed, we can't always solve all of the problems we're given, but it's our responsibility to publish our problems to others in the hope that somebody else has a missing piece. A big part of the mess we've created so far has been people thinking they could understand the entire thing and just tweak it a little bit to get it to do what they want. We should not join that crowd.
- DenisM 5y ago
  I can scarcely find any powerful entity interested in opposing social media. It clearly expands the reach of American influence in the world, so the state must be happy. It’s good for advertising, so pretty much all businesses are happy too. The public gets their high-sugar circuses. Who has the interest in opposing social media? Apple?
  - DanielBMarkham 5y ago
    I don't think this ends by something or somebody you can point a finger at and say "that did it" Looking throughout history, these kinds of interlocking systemic crises always end in ways the participants did not expect and could not have been expected to deal with even if they had known. Taking the Roman Empire as a loose example, if you had sat down with the Senate and Emperor in, say 100 AD and told them exactly what would happen? First they wouldn't have believed you and second even if they had believed you there was nothing they could have done about it. You see, the Romans expected a state that was the same as a religion, they expected threats to the Empire to come in the form of large armies with single, great wars. They expected a cultural "soft power" that was unmatched. None of that was true. Or rather, it was true until it wasn't, and even then it took hundreds of years to completely fizzle out. As an economist once said, things that can't continue won't continue. But in this kind of situation, by definition we're unable on this side of it to see what it'll look like from the other side of history.
    - DenisM 5y ago
      Very astute observation, as always, Daniel. The interesting thing about Rome’s fall is that it was Rome’s success that planted the seeds of self-destruction. Equitable wealth distribution and loyalty to the republic produced very powerful armies, producing a corrupting influx of wealth for the rich and the army and an impoverishing influx of slave labor, destroying the very two factors that allowed it. The republic thus succumbed and lacking loyalty the society fell into a never-ending series of coups and back-stabbing, sabotaging Rome’s ability to wage war and peace. Looking back one couldn’t have foreseen the Huns dealing the crushing blow, but the destruction of the Roman virtue was on display, and decried by Cicero among many. I have to wonder what are the seeds of destruction in Facebook itself that are results of its success? Petty, patronizing censorship can be both the product of success and the poison that takes two decades to cause atrophy. Another candidate is the Eternal September, the influx of different demographic that will mold the network to their ways and expel the early adopters, who will move on to the next hot thing. Zuckerberg knows this, hence why he keeps buying up all competition, akin to using the blood of virgins to stave off aging. Regulations could be another, obvious option. There is also something in the outrage and clickbait dynamics, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Any other ideas?