8 ms·

Mark Zuckerberg used to rail on those older them him that they were duds that are out of touch. Quite ironically Mark is now the one turning into a dud that’s o

by JCM9 4y ago

Mark Zuckerberg used to rail on those older them him that they were duds that are out of touch. Quite ironically Mark is now the one turning into a dud that’s out of touch. The only reason to log into Facebook these days is to see what my grandparents are up to… seriously.

loceng 4y ago
Arguably he's always been fairly out of touch. He fucked over the twins who hired him to build ConnectU - with the primary mechanism of growth of exclusivity via tapping into the social networks of each university requiring a university email to signup - Mark knowing full well, stating as much, that there don't need to be two platforms, and so purposefully leading on the twins that he was working on ConnectU while he instead of trying to launch TheFacebook beforehand; first-to-market advantage with sociopathy and a total lack of ethics. Ethically, morally, emotionally (empathy) - he's been pretty out of touch this whole time, not understanding the full breadth of consequences of his actions, and therefore not caring.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kranke155 4y ago
  He’s a pretty good picture of a boring low-grade low empathy individual causing gigantic harm. People get confused by the popular media depictions - sociopaths are just people with very little empathy and virtually no remorse. People who do tremendous harm are not sadistic cruel people, they’re often just boring people who have no empathy for others and show very little remorse or none at all when lying or engaging in deception - which is why it’s hard to tell they’re even lying - they don’t show the tells of self doubt and remorse that we use to detect deception. As far as I know, Facebook has never innovated. It’s either bought or copied every single feature it’s ever implemented, with the exception of course of giant shameless data gathering on an industrial scale that has led to cognitive warfare being part of political battles in the West. And now of course a huge increase in depression and mental illness due to poor incentives on their social media platforms. If Facebook/Instagram was a physical product that you would take, that lets say reduces anxiety temporarily but increases depression in the long run, it would likely be banned. And of course they won’t fix anything because “reducing engagement” is a mortal sin for the company.
  - lkrubner 4y ago
    This is correct. When Hannah Arendt wrote "The Banality Of Evil" she was trying to communicate how ordinary and boring some of the monsters of history were. We might expect them to be dramatic figures like Darth Vader, but in reality they are just bureaucrats who have no empathy and don't think about the consequences of what happens when they sign some document.
    - kranke155 4y ago
      Essentially. I didn’t want to go to the tired “but Nazis” analogy, but yeah basically the Russians killing civilians in Ukraine are just low empathy individuals. Same with Eichmann or whatever. These are just boring, low empathy individuals who don’t think much of anything that doesn’t affect them. Those people commit the evil, but often they’re not sadistic, they just don’t care. Sure there are paranoid delusional maniacs who sometimes lead them (and then you see the real damage). But a person with very low empathy can create enormous damage. I see them often working in finance in London and ignoring the second order effects of ie tax avoidance schemes for the super rich, or selling real estate to the Saudis while going with their friends to the local LGBT disco. They just don’t care.
      - loceng 4y ago
        It's why Jordan Peterson seriously and intensely asks are you so sure you're not someone who could do those horrible things [if the circumstance weren't equal] - because he studied and wrote the book Maps of Meaning on this exact topic: understanding how the horror of tyranny come to be. His conclusion is weak individuals.
        kranke155 4y ago
        Pretty much. I’d say individuals without a clear moral center.
  - loceng 4y ago
    Bingo. Part of the whole origin story of TheFacebook that falls in line with this is that his university actually had a print version of a compilation of people's face - I presume like a yearbook - that they were planning to make an online version of; it was actually called The Facebook from my recollection, and another place Mark wasn't creative or innovative and took from as well. Apparently they were taking a long time to make the site, Mark couldn't understand why. The reason? Apparently the group who was working on bringing the print version online were brainstorming through the potential consequences of doing so. I remember reading about it many years ago online in one of the university's student newspapers, I think I remembered it correctly but my memory of it is a little fuzzy; I believe it'll be in one of these articles: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/tag/mark-zuckerberg/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/tag/mark-zuckerberg/ I don't think the problem at Facebook/Meta is that it's a mortal sin to reduce engagement, I honestly think they just aren't creative enough and they don't understand from foundational principles why they have what they have, nor how to improve on it in a nuanced way. As you said it's basically an industrial machine with very few wheels, where all of the basic or crude parts are in place, where their guide is the most basic-shallow metric possible is whether engagement goes up or down; where it's the network effects that kept it together for so long. Mark certainly isn't a creative visionary, and so with him at the helm, all of his decisions of who he empowers under him will be random as to whether they are beneficial or not - but logical decisions looking at user numbers and growth made purchases like WhatsApp and IG no brainers. Interestingly, you are actually correct, in that the original meaning for sin is aim related - and so because of their lack of sophistication, the only thing they see or know how to aim at are engagement numbers. The sin will be by not aiming at the only thing they are good at aiming at, where they otherwise miss the mark - and sin; is it irony that his name is Mark and he's arguably been missing the mark this whole time - or perhaps a generous perspective is that he's really good at hitting one specific mark, the Mark? Anyway.. In contrast, Elon Musk functions creatively, an imaginative open mind, and has developed an understanding of first/foundational principles that he works from. Twitter will likely be a good buy once Elon re-lists it. I'll still be investing in my projects though. I have been working on my own platform solution to solve for our society in crisis mode. It unexpectedly was a relief when Elon bought Twitter, as I am primarily driven by necessity. Elon will course correct Twitter away from the ideological and censorship bent platform it was becoming, so at least there's one major battleship on our side, funded by the person who most definitely has Fuck You money and competent to boot.
- Jcowell 4y ago
  I’m confused. This reads to me that he was in touch enough to know to hoodwink the twins , make Facebook “exclusive” enough for it to be wanted and make it successful. I think a common misconception is that one’s morals and ethics prohibits them from doing not-socially acceptable actions. I don’t believe this to be true. Rather , I believe one might hesitate (and for all we know he might have) but if this incentive is greater than aligning with what’s commonly accepted as right, than I don’t see Mark’s actions as Sociopathic. It’s what I expect most people to do , especially in the business world.
  - loceng 4y ago
    Re: Hoodwinked the Winklevoss twins - Does it not have the same outcome that greed or excitement is overriding morality? That's a very pessimistic view that you expect most people to function from a lack of conscience. You're probably not wrong that it's more common in the business world as well where there's more to gain. I used to think that too, still to some degree but I understand that most people's selfishness is give themself a comfortable amount. I think maybe you're confusing my saying he's sociopathic with that it's malicious or with intent, which I don't believe Mark to have conscious or willful intent for harm behind his actions; and he's not a psychopath.
    - Jcowell 4y ago
      > Does it not have the same outcome that greed or excitement is overriding morality? Yes but many things can override morality. I believe it all comes down to how strong you hold are to your morals. But I see your point and it’s probably the case. > That's a very pessimistic view that you expect most people to function from a lack of conscience. You're probably not wrong that it's more common in the business world as well where there's more to gain. I used to think that too, still to some degree but I understand that most people's selfishness is give themself a comfortable amount. I don’t think it’s a lack of conscience but moreso an overide of it. I think depending on the incentive a lot of people would overide their morals. Though maybe not most people. Idk.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
randomdata 4y ago
Facebook only ever did one thing well, and I think it still does it well enough, and that's being the internet's answer to the telephone book. In the last few years, through the era of social distancing, needing to get in touch with people not already in your personal address book has no doubt declined, but presumably that will return again.
- ghaff 4y ago
  That's pretty much how I think about LinkedIn. Certainly, looking for someone in professional circles, LinkedIn would be my go to--not Facebook. Lots of people aren't on Facebook. Most I know have a LinkedIn profile even if they don't maintain it.
- bko 4y ago
  I think facebook does marketplace really well. Whenever I listed something it sold, and I'm talking about really trashy stuff like a $20 microwave. I get a lot of noise (weird messages) but haven't seem explicit scams like you see on CL and you can sell the stuff usually within a day. They also do events pretty well. It's easy to invite people and most people my age have a neglected facebook account so you can usually find who you want to invite. You just have to make sure you don't miss seeing the event.
  - zip1234 4y ago
    I think Marketplace quickly became a goto over Craigslist because a Facebook profile is much more trustworthy than the essential anonymity of Craigslist.
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      Underrated comment. Facebook is an informal identity provider, which has value to market participants.
      - skeeter2020 4y ago
        or cost depending on your perspective. CL is part of the weird, old internet being used in current times, with all the good & bad that comes with that.
ericmay 4y ago
> The only reason to log into Facebook these days is to see what my grandparents are up to… seriously. Instagram.... Whatsapp... FB marketplace... I don't have a Facebook account (or Instagram or Whatsapp) but Facebook (Meta) is more than just Facebook. Maybe FB is just the product targeted toward older adults and grandparents now? That seems fine.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  They’ll just have to compete against AARP’s non profit social network. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/aarp-backed-social-network-looks-to-lure-older-users-from-facebook/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/aarp-backed-soci... https://community.seniorplanet.org/ https://community.seniorplanet.org/
  - throwawayboise 4y ago
    How is AARP still a thing. All I can see that they do is beg people to join starting when they are about 55. I don't see that there would be any benefit for doing so.
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      They have 38 million members, $1.7B/year in revenue, offices in 50 states, and ~2200 employees.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
brewdad 4y ago
The primary use of Facebook today is sharing Wordle results, at least among my friends and family.
- notacoward 4y ago
  Too true. The one feature that I really miss on Facebook is decent filtering. Unlike most other platforms I'm on, FB doesn't even pretend to offer keyword filtering. I can supposedly filter by app, but they tend to throw away provenance info so that doesn't really work either. It's quite annoying.
fullshark 4y ago
Ironic? or a basic fundamental truth about growing old?
- jjulius 4y ago
  Yes! :)
- JCM9 4y ago
  He was portraying a stereotype that wasn’t founded in facts or reality. Yes there are some high flying companies founded by very young people bucking established trends, but by and large successful startups and companies are founded by those that are older and have been around the track a few times. That was true then and is true today.
throw8383833jj 4y ago
but that's all a social network can be any way. what do you expect? they already own instagram? what are all those engineers doing? if I was Facebook, i would cut the staff and development a long time ago and just rake in the profits..

by JCM9 4y ago

loceng 4y ago

Arguably he's always been fairly out of touch. He fucked over the twins who hired him to build ConnectU - with the primary mechanism of growth of exclusivity via tapping into the social networks of each university requiring a university email to signup - Mark knowing full well, stating as much, that there don't need to be two platforms, and so purposefully leading on the twins that he was working on ConnectU while he instead of trying to launch TheFacebook beforehand; first-to-market advantage with sociopathy and a total lack of ethics. Ethically, morally, emotionally (empathy) - he's been pretty out of touch this whole time, not understanding the full breadth of consequences of his actions, and therefore not caring.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kranke155 4y ago
He’s a pretty good picture of a boring low-grade low empathy individual causing gigantic harm. People get confused by the popular media depictions - sociopaths are just people with very little empathy and virtually no remorse. People who do tremendous harm are not sadistic cruel people, they’re often just boring people who have no empathy for others and show very little remorse or none at all when lying or engaging in deception - which is why it’s hard to tell they’re even lying - they don’t show the tells of self doubt and remorse that we use to detect deception. As far as I know, Facebook has never innovated. It’s either bought or copied every single feature it’s ever implemented, with the exception of course of giant shameless data gathering on an industrial scale that has led to cognitive warfare being part of political battles in the West. And now of course a huge increase in depression and mental illness due to poor incentives on their social media platforms. If Facebook/Instagram was a physical product that you would take, that lets say reduces anxiety temporarily but increases depression in the long run, it would likely be banned. And of course they won’t fix anything because “reducing engagement” is a mortal sin for the company.
- lkrubner 4y ago
  This is correct. When Hannah Arendt wrote "The Banality Of Evil" she was trying to communicate how ordinary and boring some of the monsters of history were. We might expect them to be dramatic figures like Darth Vader, but in reality they are just bureaucrats who have no empathy and don't think about the consequences of what happens when they sign some document.
  - kranke155 4y ago
    Essentially. I didn’t want to go to the tired “but Nazis” analogy, but yeah basically the Russians killing civilians in Ukraine are just low empathy individuals. Same with Eichmann or whatever. These are just boring, low empathy individuals who don’t think much of anything that doesn’t affect them. Those people commit the evil, but often they’re not sadistic, they just don’t care. Sure there are paranoid delusional maniacs who sometimes lead them (and then you see the real damage). But a person with very low empathy can create enormous damage. I see them often working in finance in London and ignoring the second order effects of ie tax avoidance schemes for the super rich, or selling real estate to the Saudis while going with their friends to the local LGBT disco. They just don’t care.
    - loceng 4y ago
      It's why Jordan Peterson seriously and intensely asks are you so sure you're not someone who could do those horrible things [if the circumstance weren't equal] - because he studied and wrote the book Maps of Meaning on this exact topic: understanding how the horror of tyranny come to be. His conclusion is weak individuals.
      - kranke155 4y ago
        Pretty much. I’d say individuals without a clear moral center.
- loceng 4y ago
  Bingo. Part of the whole origin story of TheFacebook that falls in line with this is that his university actually had a print version of a compilation of people's face - I presume like a yearbook - that they were planning to make an online version of; it was actually called The Facebook from my recollection, and another place Mark wasn't creative or innovative and took from as well. Apparently they were taking a long time to make the site, Mark couldn't understand why. The reason? Apparently the group who was working on bringing the print version online were brainstorming through the potential consequences of doing so. I remember reading about it many years ago online in one of the university's student newspapers, I think I remembered it correctly but my memory of it is a little fuzzy; I believe it'll be in one of these articles: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/tag/mark-zuckerberg/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/tag/mark-zuckerberg/ I don't think the problem at Facebook/Meta is that it's a mortal sin to reduce engagement, I honestly think they just aren't creative enough and they don't understand from foundational principles why they have what they have, nor how to improve on it in a nuanced way. As you said it's basically an industrial machine with very few wheels, where all of the basic or crude parts are in place, where their guide is the most basic-shallow metric possible is whether engagement goes up or down; where it's the network effects that kept it together for so long. Mark certainly isn't a creative visionary, and so with him at the helm, all of his decisions of who he empowers under him will be random as to whether they are beneficial or not - but logical decisions looking at user numbers and growth made purchases like WhatsApp and IG no brainers. Interestingly, you are actually correct, in that the original meaning for sin is aim related - and so because of their lack of sophistication, the only thing they see or know how to aim at are engagement numbers. The sin will be by not aiming at the only thing they are good at aiming at, where they otherwise miss the mark - and sin; is it irony that his name is Mark and he's arguably been missing the mark this whole time - or perhaps a generous perspective is that he's really good at hitting one specific mark, the Mark? Anyway.. In contrast, Elon Musk functions creatively, an imaginative open mind, and has developed an understanding of first/foundational principles that he works from. Twitter will likely be a good buy once Elon re-lists it. I'll still be investing in my projects though. I have been working on my own platform solution to solve for our society in crisis mode. It unexpectedly was a relief when Elon bought Twitter, as I am primarily driven by necessity. Elon will course correct Twitter away from the ideological and censorship bent platform it was becoming, so at least there's one major battleship on our side, funded by the person who most definitely has Fuck You money and competent to boot.
Jcowell 4y ago
I’m confused. This reads to me that he was in touch enough to know to hoodwink the twins , make Facebook “exclusive” enough for it to be wanted and make it successful. I think a common misconception is that one’s morals and ethics prohibits them from doing not-socially acceptable actions. I don’t believe this to be true. Rather , I believe one might hesitate (and for all we know he might have) but if this incentive is greater than aligning with what’s commonly accepted as right, than I don’t see Mark’s actions as Sociopathic. It’s what I expect most people to do , especially in the business world.
- loceng 4y ago
  Re: Hoodwinked the Winklevoss twins - Does it not have the same outcome that greed or excitement is overriding morality? That's a very pessimistic view that you expect most people to function from a lack of conscience. You're probably not wrong that it's more common in the business world as well where there's more to gain. I used to think that too, still to some degree but I understand that most people's selfishness is give themself a comfortable amount. I think maybe you're confusing my saying he's sociopathic with that it's malicious or with intent, which I don't believe Mark to have conscious or willful intent for harm behind his actions; and he's not a psychopath.
  - Jcowell 4y ago
    > Does it not have the same outcome that greed or excitement is overriding morality? Yes but many things can override morality. I believe it all comes down to how strong you hold are to your morals. But I see your point and it’s probably the case. > That's a very pessimistic view that you expect most people to function from a lack of conscience. You're probably not wrong that it's more common in the business world as well where there's more to gain. I used to think that too, still to some degree but I understand that most people's selfishness is give themself a comfortable amount. I don’t think it’s a lack of conscience but moreso an overide of it. I think depending on the incentive a lot of people would overide their morals. Though maybe not most people. Idk.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

randomdata 4y ago

Facebook only ever did one thing well, and I think it still does it well enough, and that's being the internet's answer to the telephone book. In the last few years, through the era of social distancing, needing to get in touch with people not already in your personal address book has no doubt declined, but presumably that will return again.

ghaff 4y ago
That's pretty much how I think about LinkedIn. Certainly, looking for someone in professional circles, LinkedIn would be my go to--not Facebook. Lots of people aren't on Facebook. Most I know have a LinkedIn profile even if they don't maintain it.
bko 4y ago
I think facebook does marketplace really well. Whenever I listed something it sold, and I'm talking about really trashy stuff like a $20 microwave. I get a lot of noise (weird messages) but haven't seem explicit scams like you see on CL and you can sell the stuff usually within a day. They also do events pretty well. It's easy to invite people and most people my age have a neglected facebook account so you can usually find who you want to invite. You just have to make sure you don't miss seeing the event.
- zip1234 4y ago
  I think Marketplace quickly became a goto over Craigslist because a Facebook profile is much more trustworthy than the essential anonymity of Craigslist.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    Underrated comment. Facebook is an informal identity provider, which has value to market participants.
    - skeeter2020 4y ago
      or cost depending on your perspective. CL is part of the weird, old internet being used in current times, with all the good & bad that comes with that.

ericmay 4y ago

> The only reason to log into Facebook these days is to see what my grandparents are up to… seriously. Instagram.... Whatsapp... FB marketplace... I don't have a Facebook account (or Instagram or Whatsapp) but Facebook (Meta) is more than just Facebook. Maybe FB is just the product targeted toward older adults and grandparents now? That seems fine.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
They’ll just have to compete against AARP’s non profit social network. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/aarp-backed-social-network-looks-to-lure-older-users-from-facebook/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/aarp-backed-soci... https://community.seniorplanet.org/ https://community.seniorplanet.org/
- throwawayboise 4y ago
  How is AARP still a thing. All I can see that they do is beg people to join starting when they are about 55. I don't see that there would be any benefit for doing so.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    They have 38 million members, $1.7B/year in revenue, offices in 50 states, and ~2200 employees.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

brewdad 4y ago

The primary use of Facebook today is sharing Wordle results, at least among my friends and family.

notacoward 4y ago
Too true. The one feature that I really miss on Facebook is decent filtering. Unlike most other platforms I'm on, FB doesn't even pretend to offer keyword filtering. I can supposedly filter by app, but they tend to throw away provenance info so that doesn't really work either. It's quite annoying.

fullshark 4y ago

Ironic? or a basic fundamental truth about growing old?

jjulius 4y ago
Yes! :)
JCM9 4y ago
He was portraying a stereotype that wasn’t founded in facts or reality. Yes there are some high flying companies founded by very young people bucking established trends, but by and large successful startups and companies are founded by those that are older and have been around the track a few times. That was true then and is true today.

throw8383833jj 4y ago

but that's all a social network can be any way. what do you expect? they already own instagram? what are all those engineers doing? if I was Facebook, i would cut the staff and development a long time ago and just rake in the profits..