6 ms·

So much engineering effort wasted with zero benefit to society.

mway 2y ago
Unfortunately, benefit to society seems to very rarely be the goal anymore. Cynically, as time goes on, it feels more and more as though we exist to be maximally extracted from, rather than to enjoy any intended benefit (where the benefit is not a happy byproduct that exists only because it is massively subsidized by aforementioned extraction).
- gary_0 2y ago
  > Unfortunately, benefit to society seems to very rarely be the goal anymore. If it ever was. Most of these businesses are still owned by the same people--the Sam Altmans, the Brins and Pages, the Elon Musks, the Steve Huffmans--who started out with the "not in it for the money" and "do no evil" rhetoric, and now their actions show that all that was just a lie from the start.
  - appendix-rock 2y ago
    > just a lie from the start Ugh. Such a naive and simplistic take. People change, for better and worse. And the figureheads that unaccountable nerds love to bash here are sometimes just that, figureheads.
    - Eisenstein 2y ago
      And apologists are sometimes just that, too.
    - exe34 2y ago
      no, money seems to only change people for the worse. the rich ones who are good were good all along.
  - OrigamiPastrami 2y ago
    Call me naïve, but I actually suspect Brin started out believing in "do no evil" and changed over time after becoming ridiculously wealthy. Having the misfortune of actually knowing some of the other people though, I firmly believe they were shitty from the beginning.
    - gary_0 2y ago
      Not living up to your word because you lack the moral fortitude, rather than having ill intent from the beginning, is still lying. You said you would do something, then ended up doing effectively the opposite. "I didn't lie, circumstances changed" is a bullshit cop-out, especially when it's a billionaire saying it.
      - sokoloff 2y ago
        When I was five, I said I was going to be an astronaut. As an adult, I took no action to make that happen; was I a big fat liar?
        worble 2y ago
        Yes, but at least the only person affected by that was yourself, and not millions of people.
        Eisenstein 2y ago
        Is a doctor allowed to abandon their Hippocratic oath because they aged 15 years?
        cgriswald 2y ago
        If he does, did he lie when he swore the oath?
        Eisenstein 2y ago
        If he lied when he swore the oath, is he still a doctor? BTW, I like this game: 'endlessly avoid making a point'. The winner is the person who gets the other one to end up questioning something that is required for a shared reality -- thus effectively admitting they might as well be arguing with themselves.
- immibis 2y ago
  This has been the norm for most of human history, except for brief periods of time after the people being extracted from organised themselves enough to kill the people doing the extracting.
HeavenFox 2y ago
I would argue that aggregated, anonymous viewership data is a net positive to society, as it helps content creators better cater to demand
- chimpansteve 2y ago
  And I would argue that this very quickly becomes a race to the bottom, where the viewing of mass produced trash accelerates because "that's what people want to watch" becomes "we'll flood the market with cheap mass produced bullshit" which immediately becomes "people love watching bullshit and our stats say so!" I also don't believe for a single second, based on their past records, that Sony, or LG, or whoever, are actually properly anonymising this data
  - developerDan 2y ago
    “Reality TV” is a prime example of racing to the bottom of mass produced trash.
- NegativeLatency 2y ago
  https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/newton-minow-discusses-broadcasting https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/newton-minow-discusses...
- djaychela 2y ago
  No,it leads to content which is attention grabbing, not better. They are not the same thing.
- rollcat 2y ago
  It also creates an echo chamber effect, X is popular so we make more X. Our culture is already revolving around rehashing what's "proven". The most original and interesting ideas may come from those who oppose that trend, and these ideas are most likely to drown in the sea of slop. Also the "content" "creators" who are most likely to benefit from tracking are the giant corporations - we're just making the rich richer. Also somewhat related: https://rubenerd.com/stop-calling-people-content-creators/ https://rubenerd.com/stop-calling-people-content-creators/
ramraj07 2y ago
Flowers can’t be eaten. They’re just for someone to look at. Heck most people probably don’t even look at them and buy it as a part of a ritual or formality. Does it mean the flower industry is of no benefit to society? Most things we do are in the end just burning energy to create, move and destroy things in the process. The guys who benefit from ads buy salad from shops employing people. It’s arguable that anything that increases economic cycles is of at least some benefit to society. That’s the advantage of capitalism.
- ok_dad 2y ago
  This isn’t some flowers that actual humans enjoy, it’s fucking spying and it’s ad industry bullshit. Don’t try and put lipstick on a pig.
- chimpansteve 2y ago
  Yeah, but people who grow or sell flowers are not on the same level as the very very good engineers who develop these dystopian systems. The people in the advertising industry who make these systems could absolutely do more good for society in a different field.
- theodric 2y ago
  This is an example of the broken window fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window)
  - card_zero 2y ago
    It's a curious thing, though. We have this idea that economic activity with consent is beneficial, and without consent it's theft and harmful. But this is a rule of thumb. The vast majority of things people do are - variously - pointless, inefficient, sentimental, superstitious, idle, crazy, and otherwise indefensible except by the reasoning that it's our right to do what we like with what we own, what we've earned and paid for. This we call wealth, and having it makes us feel happy and secure, but to actually centrally analyze it and assess its usefulness would be a bad thing. That would only make its value evaporate. We want to be free to do dumb things, and not to be told.
slothtrop 2y ago
Ad revenue means tvs priced for less than they ought to be, it's a trade-off for consumers. You could quibble about the externalities but it's ridiculous to suggest there's no upside, for anyone. If that were true they wouldn't sell.
- loa_in_ 2y ago
  It's about as fair as burning own money to sell at loss to undermine competition I'm afraid.
- Eisenstein 2y ago
  You can't claim something is a benefit for consumers if the consumers are not offered a competing product without the predatory features for more money. Let's put a 'dumb' TV on the market and regulate that 'smart' TV boxes have to say 'this is cheaper because we make most of our profit from it by screenshoting what you watch 100 times a second and selling it to the highest bidder' and see what the market thinks about it.
  - redwall_hp 2y ago
    Also if you buy a TV with no ads or other predatory features, then they push a software update that adds them. You can hardly say the customer was a "rational actor" who made an informed choice if you change their property after you sold it to them.
  - slothtrop 2y ago
    If the demand is strong enough, there will be. No one leaves money on the table. As it stands, it's deemed too risky. I'd like another querty productivity phone as good as the BB curve 9320 or Q10 was, and willing to pay, but it probably won't happen.
    - Eisenstein 2y ago
      You are presupposing that people are going to be omniscient. Without knowing the downsides of the thing they are buying that is cheaper, there will never be demand for something more expensive that doesn't have them. My argument is that if we put on the box what the thing does, many fewer people would buy it, and there would be demand for something that doesn't have those 'features'. It is easy to justify after the fact which is why they just do it and when it becomes common enough people stop caring because they already invest money into it. 'The market is the solution' is true only as long as human factors are seen as market distortions and mitigated through regulation.
m463 2y ago
You could probably say the same of engineers/scientists that are employed by wall street or google/facebook/surveillance-advertising businesses.
- advael 2y ago
  Could and would
mystified5016 2y ago
Under end-stage capitalism, the one and only thing driving the market is maximal extraction of all conceivable value within a financial quarter. There are no other concerns. The market inherently cannot consider any other consequences or benefits beyond short term gains at any cost.

mway 2y ago

Unfortunately, benefit to society seems to very rarely be the goal anymore. Cynically, as time goes on, it feels more and more as though we exist to be maximally extracted from, rather than to enjoy any intended benefit (where the benefit is not a happy byproduct that exists only because it is massively subsidized by aforementioned extraction).

gary_0 2y ago
> Unfortunately, benefit to society seems to very rarely be the goal anymore. If it ever was. Most of these businesses are still owned by the same people--the Sam Altmans, the Brins and Pages, the Elon Musks, the Steve Huffmans--who started out with the "not in it for the money" and "do no evil" rhetoric, and now their actions show that all that was just a lie from the start.
- appendix-rock 2y ago
  > just a lie from the start Ugh. Such a naive and simplistic take. People change, for better and worse. And the figureheads that unaccountable nerds love to bash here are sometimes just that, figureheads.
  - Eisenstein 2y ago
    And apologists are sometimes just that, too.
  - exe34 2y ago
    no, money seems to only change people for the worse. the rich ones who are good were good all along.
- OrigamiPastrami 2y ago
  Call me naïve, but I actually suspect Brin started out believing in "do no evil" and changed over time after becoming ridiculously wealthy. Having the misfortune of actually knowing some of the other people though, I firmly believe they were shitty from the beginning.
  - gary_0 2y ago
    Not living up to your word because you lack the moral fortitude, rather than having ill intent from the beginning, is still lying. You said you would do something, then ended up doing effectively the opposite. "I didn't lie, circumstances changed" is a bullshit cop-out, especially when it's a billionaire saying it.
    - sokoloff 2y ago
      When I was five, I said I was going to be an astronaut. As an adult, I took no action to make that happen; was I a big fat liar?
      - worble 2y ago
        Yes, but at least the only person affected by that was yourself, and not millions of people.
      - Eisenstein 2y ago
        Is a doctor allowed to abandon their Hippocratic oath because they aged 15 years?
        cgriswald 2y ago
        If he does, did he lie when he swore the oath?
        Eisenstein 2y ago
        If he lied when he swore the oath, is he still a doctor? BTW, I like this game: 'endlessly avoid making a point'. The winner is the person who gets the other one to end up questioning something that is required for a shared reality -- thus effectively admitting they might as well be arguing with themselves.
immibis 2y ago
This has been the norm for most of human history, except for brief periods of time after the people being extracted from organised themselves enough to kill the people doing the extracting.

HeavenFox 2y ago

I would argue that aggregated, anonymous viewership data is a net positive to society, as it helps content creators better cater to demand

chimpansteve 2y ago
And I would argue that this very quickly becomes a race to the bottom, where the viewing of mass produced trash accelerates because "that's what people want to watch" becomes "we'll flood the market with cheap mass produced bullshit" which immediately becomes "people love watching bullshit and our stats say so!" I also don't believe for a single second, based on their past records, that Sony, or LG, or whoever, are actually properly anonymising this data
- developerDan 2y ago
  “Reality TV” is a prime example of racing to the bottom of mass produced trash.
NegativeLatency 2y ago
https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/newton-minow-discusses-broadcasting https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/newton-minow-discusses...
djaychela 2y ago
No,it leads to content which is attention grabbing, not better. They are not the same thing.
rollcat 2y ago
It also creates an echo chamber effect, X is popular so we make more X. Our culture is already revolving around rehashing what's "proven". The most original and interesting ideas may come from those who oppose that trend, and these ideas are most likely to drown in the sea of slop. Also the "content" "creators" who are most likely to benefit from tracking are the giant corporations - we're just making the rich richer. Also somewhat related: https://rubenerd.com/stop-calling-people-content-creators/ https://rubenerd.com/stop-calling-people-content-creators/

ramraj07 2y ago

Flowers can’t be eaten. They’re just for someone to look at. Heck most people probably don’t even look at them and buy it as a part of a ritual or formality. Does it mean the flower industry is of no benefit to society? Most things we do are in the end just burning energy to create, move and destroy things in the process. The guys who benefit from ads buy salad from shops employing people. It’s arguable that anything that increases economic cycles is of at least some benefit to society. That’s the advantage of capitalism.

ok_dad 2y ago
This isn’t some flowers that actual humans enjoy, it’s fucking spying and it’s ad industry bullshit. Don’t try and put lipstick on a pig.
chimpansteve 2y ago
Yeah, but people who grow or sell flowers are not on the same level as the very very good engineers who develop these dystopian systems. The people in the advertising industry who make these systems could absolutely do more good for society in a different field.
theodric 2y ago
This is an example of the broken window fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window)
- card_zero 2y ago
  It's a curious thing, though. We have this idea that economic activity with consent is beneficial, and without consent it's theft and harmful. But this is a rule of thumb. The vast majority of things people do are - variously - pointless, inefficient, sentimental, superstitious, idle, crazy, and otherwise indefensible except by the reasoning that it's our right to do what we like with what we own, what we've earned and paid for. This we call wealth, and having it makes us feel happy and secure, but to actually centrally analyze it and assess its usefulness would be a bad thing. That would only make its value evaporate. We want to be free to do dumb things, and not to be told.

slothtrop 2y ago

Ad revenue means tvs priced for less than they ought to be, it's a trade-off for consumers. You could quibble about the externalities but it's ridiculous to suggest there's no upside, for anyone. If that were true they wouldn't sell.

loa_in_ 2y ago
It's about as fair as burning own money to sell at loss to undermine competition I'm afraid.
Eisenstein 2y ago
You can't claim something is a benefit for consumers if the consumers are not offered a competing product without the predatory features for more money. Let's put a 'dumb' TV on the market and regulate that 'smart' TV boxes have to say 'this is cheaper because we make most of our profit from it by screenshoting what you watch 100 times a second and selling it to the highest bidder' and see what the market thinks about it.
- redwall_hp 2y ago
  Also if you buy a TV with no ads or other predatory features, then they push a software update that adds them. You can hardly say the customer was a "rational actor" who made an informed choice if you change their property after you sold it to them.
- slothtrop 2y ago
  If the demand is strong enough, there will be. No one leaves money on the table. As it stands, it's deemed too risky. I'd like another querty productivity phone as good as the BB curve 9320 or Q10 was, and willing to pay, but it probably won't happen.
  - Eisenstein 2y ago
    You are presupposing that people are going to be omniscient. Without knowing the downsides of the thing they are buying that is cheaper, there will never be demand for something more expensive that doesn't have them. My argument is that if we put on the box what the thing does, many fewer people would buy it, and there would be demand for something that doesn't have those 'features'. It is easy to justify after the fact which is why they just do it and when it becomes common enough people stop caring because they already invest money into it. 'The market is the solution' is true only as long as human factors are seen as market distortions and mitigated through regulation.

m463 2y ago

You could probably say the same of engineers/scientists that are employed by wall street or google/facebook/surveillance-advertising businesses.

advael 2y ago
Could and would

mystified5016 2y ago

Under end-stage capitalism, the one and only thing driving the market is maximal extraction of all conceivable value within a financial quarter. There are no other concerns. The market inherently cannot consider any other consequences or benefits beyond short term gains at any cost.