4 ms·

Not only my point stands, I still remember a world almost without narcissists, people traveling for fun, not to take a photo to brag, times where people listene

by stiray 2y ago

Not only my point stands, I still remember a world almost without narcissists, people traveling for fun, not to take a photo to brag, times where people listened to doctors not some people recommending horse dewormer, UK not suffering due to Brexit consequences ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8425058/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8425058/ ), people actually bonding in person,... Or in words of Umberto Eco ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco ): “Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots” You are underestimating the horror that Facebook did to human society. I am accusing them of crime against humanity. And all that, just for selling ads - where you will be able to see the comparison with IG Farben, do whatever it takes, to earn money. I accept the argument, that if they wouldn't, someone else would, but nevertheless THEY did it or we would be talking about someone else.

RealityVoid 2y ago
At most, it just laid bare to see what were the normal social interactions and thoughts of millions of people and made possible far more viral spread of ideas. On the last one, I don't even think it's social media's fault, it's probably the whole internet at large, it's just these sorts of interactions happen most there.
- stiray 2y ago
  I was thinking a lot about it, but at the times of IRC and forums (and modems ;) ) this was not an issue on society scale. Facebook actually revolutionized it and made it available to anyone including showing the more contraverse opinions to other people as it was more likely for them to click. They were/are literally pumping up all the bad in society, to earn more money.
  - zer0zzz 2y ago
    So your argument is that making computers and the internet easier to use for normal people is cause for societal destruction? I can’t be convinced, but that does seem like more of an indictment on people than it does tech.
    - kridsdale3 2y ago
      His entire argument amounts to Eternal September[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
    - stiray 2y ago
      Not my argument. You are fighting Umberto Eco (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco ) here. Let me repeat him as you probably didnt catch it (I dont understand how, but this is one of the things, I dont understand, so I wont argue about it): “Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots” I can just confirm that what he has seen and described is correct. And the more that you are standing your ground, the more you are proving, he was correct.
  - RealityVoid 2y ago
    My point is that the less savoury aspects of human interaction were still happening, just not in the open. The popularity of the internet as a medium of human interaction just made it visible, recordable, searchable and pressed the gas pedal. I wouldn't particularlyblame FB for inventing this.
- kridsdale3 2y ago
  I have been active on internet forums since the mid-late 90s. Facebook and Instagram and their other social media didn't create any of those bad human traits, they were rampant to begin with. What these normie-networks did do was make a UX for public posting so easy that scores of low-education users were able to be influenced and re-share low-infromation-quality stuff in huge magnitudes. FB is guilty of making a super accessible user experience, and then in not being aggressive early enough in having high standards for its userbase. But it didn't invent society's ills.
  - PaulHoule 2y ago
    I found myself stepping back from social media and deleted a lot of my accounts in 2016 -- the election and the Cambridge Analytica thing was a big reason. LinkedIn could have been the worst because I had spent so much time promoting myself and prospecting, I met a lot of good folks but I also met so many bullshitters who helped make me into a bullshitter. The influx of normies circa 2000 did not seem so bad to me but Facebook and Twitter were another thing.
marcellus23 2y ago
This reeks of nostalgia. The past wasn't as great as you remember it, and the present isn't as terrible as you think it is.
- zer0zzz 2y ago
  Yep
- stiray 2y ago
  Nope, I am quite rational here and if I wouldn't witness change in society, I wouldn't believe it. I am seriously worried for humanity, as what I am seeing today is: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808 (and this was shot in pre-facebook era) Fun fact, they didn't have large budget for shooting so they were searching for footwear that would look futuristic. They found some unknown company producing cheap "shoes" so horrible that the director wasn't worried for it to succeed as "no one would wear that". The company was Crocks. https://media.snopes.com/2023/09/idiocracy.png https://media.snopes.com/2023/09/idiocracy.png Anyway, this whole thread is actually proving my point. It wouldn't happen before Facebook.
  - marcellus23 2y ago
    Go back to any random year in human history and ask the older people whether they think the world was better when they were young. They will all say "yes" (evidence for this exists in countless survived writings, as well as other social phenomena like people becoming more conservative as they age). It's one of the most natural things in the world. That alone should be a very strong signal that maybe your nostalgia is not based on a rational unbiased observation of the changes in society. edit: and to be clear, obviously there have been times in history where things really did get worse for a period. But if you're proposing that that's happening now, you have a massive burden of proof to overcome, and you should be absolutely really totally sure that you're not being influenced by rose-tinted glasses. Which I'm not even sure is possible.
    - stiray 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
tirant 2y ago
Even if you don’t like it, idiots do have as much right to speak as any Nobel Prize winner. Not only that, the more they speak, the better, as the chances of stopping being an idiot increase. All Nobel Prizes were at some point also idiots, if they’re still not idiots today about some topics.
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley for a racist idiot, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling for an alt health idiot, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Josephson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Josephson for a psionics idiot https://bigthink.com/the-past/nobel-disease-great-scientists-go-crazy/ https://bigthink.com/the-past/nobel-disease-great-scientists...

by stiray 2y ago

RealityVoid 2y ago

At most, it just laid bare to see what were the normal social interactions and thoughts of millions of people and made possible far more viral spread of ideas. On the last one, I don't even think it's social media's fault, it's probably the whole internet at large, it's just these sorts of interactions happen most there.

stiray 2y ago
I was thinking a lot about it, but at the times of IRC and forums (and modems ;) ) this was not an issue on society scale. Facebook actually revolutionized it and made it available to anyone including showing the more contraverse opinions to other people as it was more likely for them to click. They were/are literally pumping up all the bad in society, to earn more money.
- zer0zzz 2y ago
  So your argument is that making computers and the internet easier to use for normal people is cause for societal destruction? I can’t be convinced, but that does seem like more of an indictment on people than it does tech.
  - kridsdale3 2y ago
    His entire argument amounts to Eternal September[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
  - stiray 2y ago
    Not my argument. You are fighting Umberto Eco (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco ) here. Let me repeat him as you probably didnt catch it (I dont understand how, but this is one of the things, I dont understand, so I wont argue about it): “Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots” I can just confirm that what he has seen and described is correct. And the more that you are standing your ground, the more you are proving, he was correct.
- RealityVoid 2y ago
  My point is that the less savoury aspects of human interaction were still happening, just not in the open. The popularity of the internet as a medium of human interaction just made it visible, recordable, searchable and pressed the gas pedal. I wouldn't particularlyblame FB for inventing this.
kridsdale3 2y ago
I have been active on internet forums since the mid-late 90s. Facebook and Instagram and their other social media didn't create any of those bad human traits, they were rampant to begin with. What these normie-networks did do was make a UX for public posting so easy that scores of low-education users were able to be influenced and re-share low-infromation-quality stuff in huge magnitudes. FB is guilty of making a super accessible user experience, and then in not being aggressive early enough in having high standards for its userbase. But it didn't invent society's ills.
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  I found myself stepping back from social media and deleted a lot of my accounts in 2016 -- the election and the Cambridge Analytica thing was a big reason. LinkedIn could have been the worst because I had spent so much time promoting myself and prospecting, I met a lot of good folks but I also met so many bullshitters who helped make me into a bullshitter. The influx of normies circa 2000 did not seem so bad to me but Facebook and Twitter were another thing.

marcellus23 2y ago

This reeks of nostalgia. The past wasn't as great as you remember it, and the present isn't as terrible as you think it is.

zer0zzz 2y ago
Yep
stiray 2y ago
Nope, I am quite rational here and if I wouldn't witness change in society, I wouldn't believe it. I am seriously worried for humanity, as what I am seeing today is: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808 (and this was shot in pre-facebook era) Fun fact, they didn't have large budget for shooting so they were searching for footwear that would look futuristic. They found some unknown company producing cheap "shoes" so horrible that the director wasn't worried for it to succeed as "no one would wear that". The company was Crocks. https://media.snopes.com/2023/09/idiocracy.png https://media.snopes.com/2023/09/idiocracy.png Anyway, this whole thread is actually proving my point. It wouldn't happen before Facebook.
- marcellus23 2y ago
  Go back to any random year in human history and ask the older people whether they think the world was better when they were young. They will all say "yes" (evidence for this exists in countless survived writings, as well as other social phenomena like people becoming more conservative as they age). It's one of the most natural things in the world. That alone should be a very strong signal that maybe your nostalgia is not based on a rational unbiased observation of the changes in society. edit: and to be clear, obviously there have been times in history where things really did get worse for a period. But if you're proposing that that's happening now, you have a massive burden of proof to overcome, and you should be absolutely really totally sure that you're not being influenced by rose-tinted glasses. Which I'm not even sure is possible.
  - stiray 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

tirant 2y ago

Even if you don’t like it, idiots do have as much right to speak as any Nobel Prize winner. Not only that, the more they speak, the better, as the chances of stopping being an idiot increase. All Nobel Prizes were at some point also idiots, if they’re still not idiots today about some topics.

PaulHoule 2y ago
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley for a racist idiot, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling for an alt health idiot, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Josephson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Josephson for a psionics idiot https://bigthink.com/the-past/nobel-disease-great-scientists-go-crazy/ https://bigthink.com/the-past/nobel-disease-great-scientists...