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Still amazed daily at how many people eagerly line up to work at Facebook and Google, two companies engaged in mass fuckery with long-term harm to the entire po

Still amazed daily at how many people eagerly line up to work at Facebook and Google, two companies engaged in mass fuckery with long-term harm to the entire population.

mistrial9 4y ago
one of those two did not start that way
- b112 4y ago
  Neither did.
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    you mean when I toured the new Facebook campus in California, with a data science group from Berkeley, and the Facebook guide stood on the stage and showed us on a thirty foot screen, that any one of us can make a map-reduce job in a certain format, Facebook will sell us info on any way to slice the hundreds of social tags and categories they had mined.. that was perfectly OK? I think the example the guide gave was "bowlers in the upper midwest" .. it was made clear that we could make a job submisison and be sold data on those people. Someone asked if law enforcement was a customer and the answer way "yes we do business with all branches of law enforcement".
    - throwaway6093 4y ago
      They don’t sell the data, they sell targeted ads.
ocdtrekkie 4y ago
There's going to be a point where choosing to work at Google in 2020+ is going to be a black mark on your entire career. Nobody has the excuse of claiming they still don't know what's going on. If you work there, you chose to put profit over society. And at least in my hopes and dreams, someday that will cost you a job.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  What amazing companies are most people working at that don’t exploit their workers or society? Almost every one puts profit over society to some significant degree. We live in a hyper capitalist society. Being on the side of this hyper capitalist society as the majority of people are, is the problem.
- edgyquant 4y ago
  This is ridiculous. Working at one of the most cutting edge companies solving problems at global scale will not be a black mark on your career.
  - ocdtrekkie 4y ago
    Google is neither cutting edge nor solving problems at global scale. They are an adtech company that produces ho-hum messaging apps that abuses human rights as defined by the United Nations as their primary business model. Choosing to work there today means choosing to hurt society for personal gain, full stop.
    - otachack 4y ago
      Ostracizing friends that work in these big companies is no simple task. And I wouldn't exactly put all the blame on them when society and capitalism has built the platform for these companies to succeed. I would accept friends and acquaintances recognizing their participation, as well as my own as a user of some products, and observe plus work together to figure a way out of this mess (regulations, break up of big tech?) One also must recognize the philanthropic arms of these companies. They may be some attempt to balance the shit they're doing.
    - tester756 4y ago
      >nor solving problems at global scale. if they don't, then who does?
charcircuit 4y ago
Both of these companies improve the lives of billions of people. You are acting biased if you purposefully ignore that.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  Do you have some source to corroborate that Google and Facebook have a net positive effect on the lives of billions of people? Making false assumptions is also a way of acting biased.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Facebook has allowed anyone to spread video capturing police misconduct that the mainstream press has ignored for decades. Google with Android and ChromeOS has put computing devices in the hands of people who could never afford the alternative and YouTube has allowed anyone to publish video. I myself find Google’s products second rate and I prefer business models where I give the company money and they give me stuff. But I realize that a $1200 iPhone Pro Max is an indulgence that many walking around with a $35 unsubsidized phone can’t afford.
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
      Sure, it's helped people spread some information. It's also helped people massively disseminate misinformation though. What I asked for was some corroboration that there is a net positive.
    - skinnymuch 4y ago
      Without Android, would WebOS and other mobile OSes never have come out? Do the people using $35 phones care it’s Android vs what ever other OSes they’d have if it never existed? There were video sites besides YouTube. YouTube cornered the market. That doesn’t make them special. All the examples are one brand cornering a market without having done any exceptional innovation that would be incredibly missed without them. Cornering markets is almost never a net positive for people. I should probably say it never is.
scarface74 4y ago
You’re amazed that people willingly work at companies where they can get paid more than 90% of American straight out of college?
shadowgovt 4y ago
Having worked at one of those, I can give you some insight. ... They think exactly the opposite. Google even has an estimate of how many lives their services save per year on average. Privacy concerns become extremely secondary when you're stranded in the woods and all rescuers have on your location is the last time your GPS-equipped smartphone pinged. Googlers think of themselves as working on systems like that.

Still amazed daily at how many people eagerly line up to work at Facebook and Google, two companies engaged in mass fuckery with long-term harm to the entire population.

mistrial9 4y ago

one of those two did not start that way

b112 4y ago
Neither did.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  you mean when I toured the new Facebook campus in California, with a data science group from Berkeley, and the Facebook guide stood on the stage and showed us on a thirty foot screen, that any one of us can make a map-reduce job in a certain format, Facebook will sell us info on any way to slice the hundreds of social tags and categories they had mined.. that was perfectly OK? I think the example the guide gave was "bowlers in the upper midwest" .. it was made clear that we could make a job submisison and be sold data on those people. Someone asked if law enforcement was a customer and the answer way "yes we do business with all branches of law enforcement".
  - throwaway6093 4y ago
    They don’t sell the data, they sell targeted ads.

ocdtrekkie 4y ago

There's going to be a point where choosing to work at Google in 2020+ is going to be a black mark on your entire career. Nobody has the excuse of claiming they still don't know what's going on. If you work there, you chose to put profit over society. And at least in my hopes and dreams, someday that will cost you a job.

skinnymuch 4y ago
What amazing companies are most people working at that don’t exploit their workers or society? Almost every one puts profit over society to some significant degree. We live in a hyper capitalist society. Being on the side of this hyper capitalist society as the majority of people are, is the problem.
edgyquant 4y ago
This is ridiculous. Working at one of the most cutting edge companies solving problems at global scale will not be a black mark on your career.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  Google is neither cutting edge nor solving problems at global scale. They are an adtech company that produces ho-hum messaging apps that abuses human rights as defined by the United Nations as their primary business model. Choosing to work there today means choosing to hurt society for personal gain, full stop.
  - otachack 4y ago
    Ostracizing friends that work in these big companies is no simple task. And I wouldn't exactly put all the blame on them when society and capitalism has built the platform for these companies to succeed. I would accept friends and acquaintances recognizing their participation, as well as my own as a user of some products, and observe plus work together to figure a way out of this mess (regulations, break up of big tech?) One also must recognize the philanthropic arms of these companies. They may be some attempt to balance the shit they're doing.
  - tester756 4y ago
    >nor solving problems at global scale. if they don't, then who does?

charcircuit 4y ago

Both of these companies improve the lives of billions of people. You are acting biased if you purposefully ignore that.

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
Do you have some source to corroborate that Google and Facebook have a net positive effect on the lives of billions of people? Making false assumptions is also a way of acting biased.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Facebook has allowed anyone to spread video capturing police misconduct that the mainstream press has ignored for decades. Google with Android and ChromeOS has put computing devices in the hands of people who could never afford the alternative and YouTube has allowed anyone to publish video. I myself find Google’s products second rate and I prefer business models where I give the company money and they give me stuff. But I realize that a $1200 iPhone Pro Max is an indulgence that many walking around with a $35 unsubsidized phone can’t afford.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    Sure, it's helped people spread some information. It's also helped people massively disseminate misinformation though. What I asked for was some corroboration that there is a net positive.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    Without Android, would WebOS and other mobile OSes never have come out? Do the people using $35 phones care it’s Android vs what ever other OSes they’d have if it never existed? There were video sites besides YouTube. YouTube cornered the market. That doesn’t make them special. All the examples are one brand cornering a market without having done any exceptional innovation that would be incredibly missed without them. Cornering markets is almost never a net positive for people. I should probably say it never is.

scarface74 4y ago

You’re amazed that people willingly work at companies where they can get paid more than 90% of American straight out of college?

shadowgovt 4y ago

Having worked at one of those, I can give you some insight. ... They think exactly the opposite. Google even has an estimate of how many lives their services save per year on average. Privacy concerns become extremely secondary when you're stranded in the woods and all rescuers have on your location is the last time your GPS-equipped smartphone pinged. Googlers think of themselves as working on systems like that.