3 ms·

It's unfortunate there is so much cynicism and negativity in these comments. I understand many people here strongly dislike Meta but the actual article is awe i

It's unfortunate there is so much cynicism and negativity in these comments. I understand many people here strongly dislike Meta but the actual article is awe inspiring to me. I didn't know how extensive and complicated the infrastructure underpinning the modern digital world was. Reading this article and seeing the sense of scale is mindblowing to me. It feels almost like a miracle and like magic. A "wonder of the world" in terms of the amount of effort and complexity. Maybe the company in charge is bad in many ways but all of the things in the article are astounding to me. I am not an engineer like many of you so maybe the article is old news to you guys but I couldn't help but say "wow". I feel like if you took some old science fiction writers from back in the day and showed them this article, you would find sheer awe in their faces too.

teachrdan 2y ago
> I feel like if you took some old science fiction writers from back in the day and showed them this article, you would find sheer awe in their faces too. I can't tell if this is satire. The science fiction writers from back in the day wrote about humans exploring other planets, building sentient machines, encountering aliens or maybe developing psychic powers. (looking at you two, Philip K. Dick and Theodore Sturgeon) Building the world's biggest ad-serving infrastructure might impress them. It impresses me! But "sheer awe" seems a few orders of magnitude off the mark.
- teachrdan 2y ago
  I'm getting downvoted here but can't for the life of me guess why. If you've actually read Isaac Asimov and his peers, as I have, they wrote about robots with complex inner lives and space ships that traveled to alien civilizations. There is no reason whatsoever to think they would experience any more "sheer awe" at Meta's infrastructure than any other random person from their time period. I honestly think they would be disappointed that it was all done to sell advertisements to people rather than to help humanity explore the universe -- or anything else of actual value.
  - jappgar 2y ago
    The awe is really just technofetishism. To be in awe of software instructure but not espouse the same feelings about say, biology, is sad.

teachrdan 2y ago

> I feel like if you took some old science fiction writers from back in the day and showed them this article, you would find sheer awe in their faces too. I can't tell if this is satire. The science fiction writers from back in the day wrote about humans exploring other planets, building sentient machines, encountering aliens or maybe developing psychic powers. (looking at you two, Philip K. Dick and Theodore Sturgeon) Building the world's biggest ad-serving infrastructure might impress them. It impresses me! But "sheer awe" seems a few orders of magnitude off the mark.

teachrdan 2y ago
I'm getting downvoted here but can't for the life of me guess why. If you've actually read Isaac Asimov and his peers, as I have, they wrote about robots with complex inner lives and space ships that traveled to alien civilizations. There is no reason whatsoever to think they would experience any more "sheer awe" at Meta's infrastructure than any other random person from their time period. I honestly think they would be disappointed that it was all done to sell advertisements to people rather than to help humanity explore the universe -- or anything else of actual value.
- jappgar 2y ago
  The awe is really just technofetishism. To be in awe of software instructure but not espouse the same feelings about say, biology, is sad.