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The other oppressive and authoritative thing about it -- completely aside from the whole surveillance and tracking aspect -- is that it obliterates the past. T

The other oppressive and authoritative thing about it -- completely aside from the whole surveillance and tracking aspect -- is that it obliterates the past. There was a time when, if you just met someone at a bar or some event or while traveling, there was still a bit of mystery to them. You had to interact with them a bit more until you found out about their family, their friends, and where they've been in life. Now it's all "up there", but at a cost, in that although this information has become more available and transparent, it's also cheapened, somehow. It's like you suddenly "know" these people... but you don't know them, really. All you have are factoids about them... drowning in the sea of all the other factoids you're continually digesting about everyone else you've become "friends" with. The sad part is, this "other" time -- before the intrusions not just of FB, but of the whole ecosystem of social media tools -- wasn't that long ago. But pretty soon no one is going to be able to remember a time when people had an entirely different sense of intimacy and space. They won't be able to intuitively and viscerally assess the tradeoffs of being "always" in reach, or at the very least, findable to anyone they've every come into contact with -- simply because they won't have any baseline to compare it to.

noduerme 15y ago
I find this dark, disturbing, and terrifying. As a never-was, non-social-media user... I'm only 31... 5 years ago, I felt like I couldn't understand kids who were a few years younger than me. Now I feel like there's a total rupture between my mode of being and that of almost everyone else. When I give you my attention, I'm giving it to you. Completely. I don't multitask people. And you know I want to talk to you, because you can plainly see me ignoring people I don't want to talk to. Not only that, but all my relationships are from the "other" time, and I don't think I could deal with trying to develop them online, in some way that's mediated by a giant corporation. Especially one run by one of the all-time least-sexy nerds on earth, whose apparent sense of inadequacy and misunderstanding of the nature of personal relationships are written large across every aspect of that system. (It was probably inevitable that someone like that would end up mediating "friendship" for the rest of the world, but come on). What you're talking about reminds me of the groups that got together to share memorized books, in Farenheit 451. I'm already a smoker so I know how to cut 75% of the world out of my potential-new-friends & dating pool... cutting out social media users isn't that hard. I don't want to see the preview if it ruins the movie, and I don't want to meet people on Facebook. If I like them in person, I'll like them.
- fudged 15y ago
  whose apparent sense of inadequacy and misunderstanding of the nature of personal relationships are written large across every aspect of that system I believe the contrary is true. Facebook is successful because Zuckerberg et al understand social ties to the point where they have locked people into their system, got them to interact more, provide all their private information, and then profit off them by serving them all intrusive advertising. I don't think it would be at all possible if they didn't understand social relationships. They know them intimately enough to skew our idea of privacy and social communication to the point of profit. I say kudos to them for their brilliance. But I also think they are one of the most evil corporations in existence.
  - noduerme 15y ago
    I think FB was able to quantify and monetize a certain kind of social tie its founders were probably aloof from themselves - bullshit friendship. I'm guessing Zuckerberg approached this with the irony of any self-respecting geek, ensaring phonies in their own "Let's be friends" routine. Sure, it's brilliant. But it's incredibly misanthropic, because it really thrives on the worst impulses in human nature. Underneath those phony platitudes might be genuinely caring individuals, but now thanks to Zuck, that one lie they told in college - "Let's be friends, call me" - will be etched on their facebook pages long after they're gone.
    - fudged 15y ago
      Absolutely. The site thrives off of a small set of human social weaknesses and tendencies. And when a competitor comes around, they do this even further. Each set of privacy changes is pushed out with a proportionate UI change; people spend their time complaining about the UI change instead of the underlying changes to privacy. Again, brilliant but evil.
  - Baba_Chaghaloo 15y ago
    Yeah Zuckerberg understood social ties the same way Karl Rove understood politics but that doesn't make it good. Exclusivity, ostracization and social cliques are part of our nature but are definitely on the dark side. I'd like to somehow know how many people made friends on facebook compared to how many have lost friends, husbands, wives, etc.
omegant 15y ago
It is very interesting that very same lack of privacity that is experienced with facebook is very similar to the kind of privacy you "enjoy" on small comunities( you can find recent articles on how is living in the malvines and it is pretty much a facebook live). Maybe is due to the fact that we are a social species, and group sizes have been mostly small till not so long ago, that you can explain the facebook success( we are in a certain way wired to an unanonymous live). I use facebook and I use it a lot(lots of iddle time that can't be used in a more productive way), but mostly to post "lame" links or videos or pics. There are no personal pics or data in my account. The way the people usually manage their privacy settings and how they share with facebook, is due to the fact that they are not aware of the possible consecuences and how openly that info will be accesed by people who are not friends.
- noduerme 15y ago
  Great point...I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm from LA but I moved to a village in europe with just over 1000 people. I see the same people every day, and everyone talks about each other's business. I've thought a bit about how FB is sort of trying to recreate this, and the ways in which it's failed. It can be somewhat oppressive to live in a place where everyone knows your business, even if they're all nice people. I think the difference boils down to walls and boundaries. I have a porch in front of my house where only friends will likely drop by, if I'm sitting out there. Unlike with FB, random people I barely know would be uncomfortable suddenly showing up on my porch and standing there without saying anything interesting. I have a yard in back where my girlfriend and I can be alone. If the phone rings at a bad time, or someone knocks while we're out back, we don't feel compelled to get up and answer it, or even to find out who it was; whereas with FB, we would feel bad ignoring someone completely, since they'd know we had a record of the contact. Conversely, if we're out in public and waiting in line at the bakery while the people in front of us are having a super-long 20 minute chat with the baker, we wait patiently because it would be obscenely impolite to interrupt; but we don't eavesdrop or intrude on the conversation, as we could with FB. If I'm cornered by someone in town I don't really want to talk to, I can talk for a few minutes and then leave; comfortably knowing they won't see live status updates of where I'm walking. Maybe a better way to say it is that small towns, for all their gossip, have a decorum and a sense of human dignity that facebook simply hasn't developed, and maybe never will.
Duff 15y ago
You nailed it. The worst part about that is that the people behind Facebook think this is a great thing.

noduerme 15y ago

I find this dark, disturbing, and terrifying. As a never-was, non-social-media user... I'm only 31... 5 years ago, I felt like I couldn't understand kids who were a few years younger than me. Now I feel like there's a total rupture between my mode of being and that of almost everyone else. When I give you my attention, I'm giving it to you. Completely. I don't multitask people. And you know I want to talk to you, because you can plainly see me ignoring people I don't want to talk to. Not only that, but all my relationships are from the "other" time, and I don't think I could deal with trying to develop them online, in some way that's mediated by a giant corporation. Especially one run by one of the all-time least-sexy nerds on earth, whose apparent sense of inadequacy and misunderstanding of the nature of personal relationships are written large across every aspect of that system. (It was probably inevitable that someone like that would end up mediating "friendship" for the rest of the world, but come on). What you're talking about reminds me of the groups that got together to share memorized books, in Farenheit 451. I'm already a smoker so I know how to cut 75% of the world out of my potential-new-friends & dating pool... cutting out social media users isn't that hard. I don't want to see the preview if it ruins the movie, and I don't want to meet people on Facebook. If I like them in person, I'll like them.

fudged 15y ago
whose apparent sense of inadequacy and misunderstanding of the nature of personal relationships are written large across every aspect of that system I believe the contrary is true. Facebook is successful because Zuckerberg et al understand social ties to the point where they have locked people into their system, got them to interact more, provide all their private information, and then profit off them by serving them all intrusive advertising. I don't think it would be at all possible if they didn't understand social relationships. They know them intimately enough to skew our idea of privacy and social communication to the point of profit. I say kudos to them for their brilliance. But I also think they are one of the most evil corporations in existence.
- noduerme 15y ago
  I think FB was able to quantify and monetize a certain kind of social tie its founders were probably aloof from themselves - bullshit friendship. I'm guessing Zuckerberg approached this with the irony of any self-respecting geek, ensaring phonies in their own "Let's be friends" routine. Sure, it's brilliant. But it's incredibly misanthropic, because it really thrives on the worst impulses in human nature. Underneath those phony platitudes might be genuinely caring individuals, but now thanks to Zuck, that one lie they told in college - "Let's be friends, call me" - will be etched on their facebook pages long after they're gone.
  - fudged 15y ago
    Absolutely. The site thrives off of a small set of human social weaknesses and tendencies. And when a competitor comes around, they do this even further. Each set of privacy changes is pushed out with a proportionate UI change; people spend their time complaining about the UI change instead of the underlying changes to privacy. Again, brilliant but evil.
- Baba_Chaghaloo 15y ago
  Yeah Zuckerberg understood social ties the same way Karl Rove understood politics but that doesn't make it good. Exclusivity, ostracization and social cliques are part of our nature but are definitely on the dark side. I'd like to somehow know how many people made friends on facebook compared to how many have lost friends, husbands, wives, etc.

omegant 15y ago

It is very interesting that very same lack of privacity that is experienced with facebook is very similar to the kind of privacy you "enjoy" on small comunities( you can find recent articles on how is living in the malvines and it is pretty much a facebook live). Maybe is due to the fact that we are a social species, and group sizes have been mostly small till not so long ago, that you can explain the facebook success( we are in a certain way wired to an unanonymous live). I use facebook and I use it a lot(lots of iddle time that can't be used in a more productive way), but mostly to post "lame" links or videos or pics. There are no personal pics or data in my account. The way the people usually manage their privacy settings and how they share with facebook, is due to the fact that they are not aware of the possible consecuences and how openly that info will be accesed by people who are not friends.

noduerme 15y ago
Great point...I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm from LA but I moved to a village in europe with just over 1000 people. I see the same people every day, and everyone talks about each other's business. I've thought a bit about how FB is sort of trying to recreate this, and the ways in which it's failed. It can be somewhat oppressive to live in a place where everyone knows your business, even if they're all nice people. I think the difference boils down to walls and boundaries. I have a porch in front of my house where only friends will likely drop by, if I'm sitting out there. Unlike with FB, random people I barely know would be uncomfortable suddenly showing up on my porch and standing there without saying anything interesting. I have a yard in back where my girlfriend and I can be alone. If the phone rings at a bad time, or someone knocks while we're out back, we don't feel compelled to get up and answer it, or even to find out who it was; whereas with FB, we would feel bad ignoring someone completely, since they'd know we had a record of the contact. Conversely, if we're out in public and waiting in line at the bakery while the people in front of us are having a super-long 20 minute chat with the baker, we wait patiently because it would be obscenely impolite to interrupt; but we don't eavesdrop or intrude on the conversation, as we could with FB. If I'm cornered by someone in town I don't really want to talk to, I can talk for a few minutes and then leave; comfortably knowing they won't see live status updates of where I'm walking. Maybe a better way to say it is that small towns, for all their gossip, have a decorum and a sense of human dignity that facebook simply hasn't developed, and maybe never will.

Duff 15y ago

You nailed it. The worst part about that is that the people behind Facebook think this is a great thing.