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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

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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
      Pretty much. I’d say individuals without a clear moral center.
loceng 5y 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.

lkrubner 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
    Pretty much. I’d say individuals without a clear moral center.

loceng 5y 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.