
Early Facebook and Google Employees Form a Center for Humane Technology - stanleydrew
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/04/technology/early-facebook-google-employees-fight-tech.html
======
mstank
Facebook and other social media platforms might be heading for the type of
reckoning the fast food industry had in the late 90s and early 2000s.

[http://marko.la/facebook-is-mcdonalds/](http://marko.la/facebook-is-
mcdonalds/)

~~~
Chathamization
I wonder how much the push back against McDonald's is class based. It's not
healthy, but the same can be said for a lot of the food we eat. A lot of fast
casual burgers, which seem to hold a higher position in the public perception,
have more calories. Of course, overall health is more complicated than just
calories, but it's worth pointing out since that's one of the main complaints
against McDonald's (including in the article you linked to). Cereal has
declined in popularity, but it doesn't seem to have had quite the same
negative stigma, even though a lot of it is simply processed flour and sugar
(which was then marketed as being "part of this balanced breakfast"); neither
do brands like Starbucks or Coke.

~~~
platz
Is an egg-mcmuffin with no cheese and no hash-brown really that bad for you?
It's literally an egg on bread.

~~~
brahj123
it's not real egg and the processed bread-resembling muffin isn't very
nutritious either

~~~
rhizome
Do you really think they'd be allowed to call it an Egg McMuffin if it didn't
have real eggs? It would be a pretty clear-cut case of false advertising.

~~~
simplemts
Do you read the ingredients of anything you eat/drink? This happens all the
time. Read ingredients of "Apple Juice" or "Orange Juice" and it will often
say upon inspection "Contains 12% juice" or something of the like.

Yeah... your Egg McMuffin probably has SOME egg in it, but that's about it.

~~~
vertex-four
There was a promotional document a couple of years ago which describes each
type of egg they do.[0] The egg mcmuffin is actually the best, as it's
entirely just an egg, cracked and cooked from scratch right there.

[0]
[http://static6.uk.businessinsider.com/image/54c920c1dd08950d...](http://static6.uk.businessinsider.com/image/54c920c1dd08950d4a8b4682-960/eggpreparation_ingredient_storytelling_full.jpg)

~~~
platz
Ok, so the worst thing I can find about the egg McMuffin is that it is
prepared with 'liquid margerine' which appears to contain some trans fats in
the form of 'partially hydrogenated soybean oil'. My understanding is anything
that is partially hydrogenated is trans fats.

Apparently it is has 1/3 of you daily allowance of sodium as well.

~~~
vertex-four
On the other hand, if you're eating at McDonald's, I suspect the presence of
trans fats in the oil isn't something you're super worried about - it's not
like it's junk food loaded up with things you can barely pronounce,
specifically designed to make up 75% of your recommended allowance of calories
while containing as little meat/veg as possible.

McDonald's, as long as you approach the menu reasonably, is honestly probably
one of the better fast food options - not something you should be eating every
day, but once every couple of weeks probably isn't going to kill you any
faster than anything else you do.

------
chiefofgxbxl
Looking at their website, they should really swap the landing page [0] with
their "Problem" page [1] if they mean to communicate the strongest message
they can about this issue. The landing page isn't as clear at what they're
looking so solve.

I'd love for them to have a sort of "shop" to raise awareness. If I could just
get my hands on some stickers, I'd be posting them around in public to point
people to the /problem page.

[0] [http://humanetech.com](http://humanetech.com)

[1] [http://humanetech.com/problem](http://humanetech.com/problem)

------
tw1010
Their hearts are probably in the right place, but I wonder if there's a more
effective strategy than what they're suggesting; trying to teach teens about
the dangers of tech via ads. That hasn't been a very effective strategy
historically. If anything, it feels like it just produces the opposite desired
effect.

~~~
woolvalley
I've found teens react fairly well to messaging on how to avoid 'the man' from
manipulating you.

~~~
tw1010
I think we've had enough ads about how books make you smart and tv makes you
stupid to know that whatever is cool and enjoyable is more likely to win in
that crowd, no matter what well meaning parents and teachers and PSAs try to
tell them.

~~~
filoleg
I think the "TV makes you dumb" propaganda worked just fine over time, and in
big part because it was honest and non-aggressive (as opposed to something
like DARE). I know it is just anecdata, but out of the people in their 20s
that I know, very few have cable, and those usually do it because with their
provider it is cheaper to have it bundled as opposed to internet alone.

~~~
sjg007
Well it’s now YouTube that makes you dumb.

~~~
watwut
I would argue that YouTube makes kids way more dumber then TV used to.

------
nothrabannosir
_Amen, hallelujah, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc_

With that out of the way:

 _> Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft can help solve the problem, because keeping
people hooked to the screen isn’t their business model._

Isn't it? "How often do I use my phone, and how much does the price work out
to in $/minute used?" is a real metric I consciously use to determine how
expensive a phone I can buy. If I only used my phone for calling, texting,
maps and e-mail, I would buy the cheapest phone possible. But the more apps I
use, the more sense it makes to get a more expensive phone.

I assume most people would act the same way, in the end, no? That sounds like
a pretty significant issue with this position they're taking. Or is it not
relevant?

~~~
gaius
The big 5 is a misleading concept because Microsoft, Apple and Amazon make
money by providing actual products and services. The whole sleazy attention-
economy stuff could be outlawed tomorrow and they wouldn’t skip a beat. Unlike
the other two.

~~~
IntronExon
Amazon in particular has AWS, I think as a majority of profit. Apple and MS
might care due to secondary effects, such as a reduced rate of mobile device
replacement? It would probably not matter too much though, and they could
adapt.

FB and Google would just implode with a wet _thuck_.

~~~
skybrian
I suspect Google could get a lot of people to pay for a "Google Prime"
subscription if they had to.

~~~
IntronExon
Sub to what? Their search engine? I’d rather use DDG most days without Google
trying to charge me. To something like YouTube? How is YouTube Red going?

~~~
skybrian
Search engine + maps + docs. Yes, there are others (just like there are
alternatives to Amazon) but my bet is that most people would rather pay than
switch.

(That's entirely speculative on my part, but I don't think a few people
preferring DDG is a compelling argument. There are alternatives to Amazon
Prime too.)

~~~
IntronExon
You’re not really pretending that Prime isn’t first and foremost, about
shipping products, right? Google exists because people are slow to associate
non-monetary costs with their services. I mean, I think Bing is a bad joke,
but Google erecting a paywall would be a gift to MS, and Apple.

Fortunately I can’t believe that anyone at Google believes more than a
fraction of a fraction of their current user base would pay.

------
fma
With smartphones being ubiquitous, and we all have a few minutes here and
there to spare...we just need to come up with a better and productive way to
kill those time where you are idle. Any suggestions? Right now I'm waiting on
my wife to get ready before we head out and spending it here on HN, but still,
it's not productive.

~~~
rock_hard
Maybe I missed the bulletpoint when I was born that said “you shall be
productive every single second of your existence”

Procrastination is a healthy part of live! Whether you do that on Facebook,
poking your nose or playing chess...it’s all fair game!

~~~
wu-ikkyu
I am reminded of an old zen saying:

"Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and grass grows by itself."

~~~
notyme
We seriously underestimate the importance of boredom. I used to be like
OP,constantly seeking stimulation/engagement with either books/mobile when
bored but reading this [https://hbr.org/2010/06/why-i-returned-my-
ipad](https://hbr.org/2010/06/why-i-returned-my-ipad) has deeply impacted me.
While commuting, waiting in queue etc. I just let my thoughts wander and
wonder at its nimbleness. Thank you for the quote.

------
woolvalley
Not using facebook or a smartphone is the new 'I don't watch TV'. The
parallels and complaints are fairly similar.

~~~
filoleg
Don't even have to go far to see that. Open any thread on HN that is about
Facebook or has it in the title, and you can already predict half of the
comments, with a variation of "I quit facebook N months/years ago, and if you
are still using it, you must be a sheep" being in the top 5. As soon as
someone reasonably objects to this by saying that facebook is helpful to plan
and coordinate events with friends, there will be the token reply saying "if
they are real friends, they would reach out to you specifically through other
means, no matter how impractical that is." It's as if some people live in this
fantasy world where everything is binary.

------
fancyfacebook
Is there any trend currently for young people or new college grads to avoid
these huge manipulative companies like Facebook or Google? I honestly have no
idea, I haven't talked to a student or recent grad in awhile, but after the
events of the past 24 months I wonder what a 20 year old pondering internships
thinks about all this?

When I graduated in '98 the most "cool" thing was to work for the biggest name
possible (so Microsoft or IBM at the time), but I imagine things have changed.

~~~
siruncledrew
This is purely personal experience based on what my university colleagues tell
me, but I think the solidarity gets surprisingly diluted as money is thrown in
their faces. Tech aside, money is really the game changer in getting people to
cave on their personal values. As long as these companies have huge salaries
to throw around, people will take it, even if it means biting their tongue and
closing their minds. It's depressingly ironic how many students will vocalize
their anti-Facebook or anti-Google sentiments, then turn around and interview
with those same companies because who doesn't want to make $200k+ with
cushiony perks after living off fast food and dealing with college debt. Then
if they leave after 2-3 years, the next batch of hired help comes in to run
the machine, and it's just rinse and repeat for Facebook and Google.

------
clusmore
Oh, this is the Time Well Spent movement - I thought it sounded like them but
it wasn't in the article and wasn't until halfway down their landing page [1]
that they mention this. I first heard about this via Max Stossel's talk at
Google:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkeZJh937sE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkeZJh937sE)

[1] [http://humanetech.com/](http://humanetech.com/)

------
gnicholas
> _Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, told The Guardian last month that
> he would not let his nephew on social media_

Does anyone else wonder how old the child in question is? Much of the media
attention has been framed as "Tim Cook wouldn't let a kid use social media",
ignoring the fact that the statement was about one child—not all children. We
can't really draw meaningful conclusions about Cook's philosophy without
knowing if this kid is 9 or 17.

~~~
T-A
From [http://fortune.com/2015/03/26/tim-
cook/](http://fortune.com/2015/03/26/tim-cook/) : "He plans to give away all
his wealth, after providing for the college education of his 10-year-old
nephew."

So presumably 12 when he said that.

------
rco8786
Cool, I'm in. That said, using a Facebook group as a way to "get involved" is
on a whole new level of ironic.

~~~
intopieces
I think it’s rather un-ironic. The central thesis is not that the technology
itself is flawed, but that it needs to be done in a way that is more adaptive
to the needs of humans. The best way to reach people is where they are, and
people are overwhelmingly on Facebook.

~~~
ppbutt
Younger generations are increasingly not on Facebook. They're on other various
social platforms.

~~~
darpa_escapee
Which is why Facebook buys them out.

------
KhanMahGretsch
There certainly appears to be a swell of anti-Facebook sentiment in recent
times.

Leading in from a lengthy public discussion around it's role in Russia
influencing the Presidential Election (the facts of that matter rendering the
discussion almost comical), and a recent high-profile call-out by George
Soros, I've noticed a glut of hand-wringing articles alleging it's clear-and-
present-danger to the population and, in particular, children.

While I agree with many of Facebook's detractors, I will be paying particular
attention to what _solutions_ are proposed as the narrative develops. Given
that some of the louder-voices were also heavily in favour of "Net Neutrality"
regulation, I'm anticipating calls for direct regulatory intervention (as
opposed to, say, pursuing violations of existing anti-competition laws, and
eliminating anti-democratic lobbying influence of these and other entities).

------
dawhizkid
I feel like mobile gaming is Facebook at a smaller scale but 10x worse...not
only are they trying to hook you but the hook is actively extracting money
from you.

~~~
gukov
Both prey on our increased dependency on an instant dopamine release.

~~~
notyme
In the movie,The Insider (1999) a Big Tobacco CEO says "We are in the nicotine
delivery business", substituting nicotine to dopamine and you have your
Tencent and Facebook. They now are increasingly targeting women for social
media gaming. [0][https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-31/fueled-
by...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-31/fueled-by-wechat-
female-gamers-power-tencent-s-3-billion-hit)

------
amirmc
Nice idea but I think this is only really going to change when either the
incentives change (i.e. not ad-based) or there’s legislation/regulation of
some kind.

Until then, the BigCos will keep doing what they’re doing, because that’s how
everything is set up.

~~~
fancyfacebook
People are fleeing facebook in droves. Read last week's release. Something's
gotta change, it's more of a debate as to what or how.

~~~
scarface74
Yes for Facebook owned Instagram...

Meet the new boss.

~~~
fancyfacebook
It's not quite that simple, but yes insta is helping facebook hide their
problems due to them stealing everyone from snapchat.

------
seangrogg
There's something sublimely humorous about the fact that ex-employees from the
world's largest ad distributors are working to start an ad campaign.

~~~
gukov
It's a hot niche right now, that's for sure.

------
anonytrary
People don't stop using horses until they can go out and buy a car. So, what's
the product? I read their site, it seems to just complain about all of the
downsides of social media. Is this just for awareness? I like some of their
ideas, but I don't really understand how they aim to change things.

------
staunch
If the current technology services are like cigarettes, then the solution is
to solve the disease and addiction problems, so people can smoke in a safe
way. That's kind of what vaporizer technology is attempting.

Facebook and Google are built on old technology, and it's technology that we
now know to have fundamental flaws.

The answer to out-dated bad technology is next-generation good technology.
Technology is supposed to work for us, and to the extent it doesn't, that's a
bug to be resolved.

No amount of warnings or education is going to solve the problem. No panicked
response is necessary. If you want to fix the problem, just create, fund, and
promote the new and improved technology.

~~~
confounded
> _No amount of warnings or education is going to solve the problem_

The most effective solutions (the closest we've got to "solving the problem")
to habitual cigarette smoking so far seem to be regulation; increasing prices,
making things socially arduous.

> _The answer to out-dated bad technology is next-generation good technology._

The problem is not technology, and neither is the solution. There's nothing
that technologically innovative about aggregating and re-ordering
images/hyperlinks via a PHP app.

The problem is one of power, control, informed-consent, and incentives.

~~~
staunch
If the problem isn't modern technology such as Facebook and smartphones, then
why didn't we have this problem in the past? And if it is modern technology,
then why couldn't it be the solution?

As one example, why can't we create a social network that's _designed_ to help
users mitigate the negative aspects of using it?

~~~
confounded
What about Facebook is modern technology?

------
mlinksva
> Governments can pressure technology companies toward humane business models
> by including the negative externalities of attention extraction on their
> balance sheets

What does this mean? I'm genuinely curious. Meanwhile, easier: tax ads.

~~~
lend000
I think you have effectively come to the same conclusion, but without the
abstract idea to back it up.

------
sidcool
This has a Silicon Valley episode written all over it.

~~~
rapnie
its a community.. if you are non-SV and join you can help steer the direction,
become a prominent member :)

the problem, i think, is very real.. many people in this thread seem not to be
affected, and that is good. but people are getting addicted in droves.. and
they need the help!

sure, it is fighting bad tech with more tech - but that will be _good_ tech,
hopefully.. besides that more regulation is needed - as others have rightfully
stated. but this is not an either/or choice.. both are needed and tech is not
going to be ditched any time soon.. on the contrary i would think :)

------
DoreenMichele
So, it sounds to me like "Tech is eating our world. Let's create some more
tech to counteract that!"

Um, maybe we should fix healthcare and affordable housing and institute
maternity leave and other policies so parents can spend time with their kids
instead of having the iPad babysit them?

I know. Radical thought that maybe something other than more tech is the
solution to our tech problem. Like... _less_ tech.

But someone had to toss out the stupidly obvious answer.

~~~
Santosh83
That's loss of productivity.

------
scarface74
It's interesting how all of these early employees can now speak out about the
ills of their former employers after they have cashed out all of their RSUs
and gotten rich...

~~~
rapnie
interesting indeed.. but any persons can repent and change their ways, so
let's see where this is going :)

------
tanilama
Fear mongering lobbying group for traditional media.

~~~
rapnie
that is a tiny bit easy.. read their problem statement and tell me if you
don't see these things in your everyday life :)

if not, are you living off-grid? (which is also interesting, but a different
topic altogether)

------
dang
> _Ads warning teens about the dangers of technology, that 's definitely going
> to work._

That's a good point of course, but on HN if you make your point as a snarky
dismissal, we get lousy discussion. So please don't do that. There's no point
worth making that can't be made thoughtfully.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16304411](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16304411)

Edit: since the comment was edited
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16304414](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16304414))
I'll detach this bit and mark it off-topic.

------
gowld
Title is misleading. Harris's job at Google was the same thing he is doing now
(but obviously he realized he could do it better from outside), so he's not
"fighting what he built".

~~~
dang
If you or anyone can suggest a better title, we can change it. A good title is
accurate, neutral, and uses representative language from the article.

Edit: I took a crack at it above.

------
samnwa
It's always fun to see what rich people do to find meaning.

~~~
dang
Maybe so, but that's no reason to post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16304411](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16304411)

------
rock_hard
Go get those speaker fee’s and book deals!

Seriously though...this is such hyperbole! Quotes taken out of context, etc.

Follow the money folks

------
rhizome
_" It will be aimed at educating students, parents and teachers about the
dangers of technology, including the depression that can come from heavy use
of social media."_

So, treating the symptoms rather than the disease, and at any rate nothing to
do with these companies' pervasive and invasive data practices. Maybe they
still have positions in their former employers, I don't know, but following
the money will have to be a task for the future.

All I can say is, "good luck." I'm sure some good speaker fees and book deals
will come of this.

~~~
dang
Please don't post reflexively dismissive comments to HN, especially when
talking about other people's work, and extra-especially when it's the first
comment to a thread. You might have a good point, but the genre itself drowns
it out in a medium-is-the-message way. Discussions are sensitive to initial
conditions and we're hoping that HN can be better than that.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
whatshisface
I think the pattern where the comments usually disagree with the article is
healthy. It's a point-counterpoint argument structure, where the odd layers in
the tree are arguing opposite to the even layers.

The article makes its case, the first comments make the case that was missing
from the article, the replies make the case missing from _them_... and so on.

~~~
dang
You're right, and we're not asking commenters to always agree with an
article—but when disagreeing, to reflectively engage rather than reflexively
dismiss. The article doesn't necessarily deserve such treatment, but the
community does. We all share an interest in HN being a place for quality
discussion, and this is how quality discussion emerges.

It is most important early in the thread, because discussions are sensitive to
initial conditions and the blank page is most vulnerable to rapid, shallow
responses. By the time the more thoughtful ones have had time to emerge, the
thread is often already choked by faster-growing weeds.

------
yaacov
> “The largest supercomputers in the world are inside of two companies —
> Google and Facebook — and where are we pointing them?” Mr. Harris said.
> “We’re pointing them at people’s brains, at children.”

I'm not sure if I should be concerned that the leader of this initiative is
wrong about something so trivial.

[https://www.top500.org/lists/2017/11/](https://www.top500.org/lists/2017/11/)

~~~
gowld
You should be considered that you are intentionally missing the point by using
an overly narrow and domain-irrelevant interpretation of "supercomputer".

Do you think that the users of any of those supercomputers would turn down an
offer to run their projects on Google or Facebook's fleet instead of their
"one" supercomputer (given some time to adapt their software)

~~~
smnscu
This brings me back to something I discussed here in the past - are there
scientific problems that are simply not compatible with running in the cloud,
and require a supercomputer? I can't, off the top of my head, think of
anything where the performance would degrade enough with the increase in
communication latency between components, that the increase in available (on-
demand!) resources wouldn't keep up.

~~~
allthenews
Well, 3D physics simulations a la finite difference or finite element are not
trivial to break up for parallelization, because the state of individual cells
is mathematically dependent on the state of its neighbors, so communication
latency between loop cycles would be a bottleneck on a distributed system
without some kind of clever optimization.

Edit: for clarity, finite difference and finite element simulations both
involve discretizing a 3D volume into individual cubes (I believe other
geometries exist, but are less common) and running an update loop which
performs calculations for each of millions or more cells. Of course, models
with spatially small divisions, and/or those designed to handle high frequency
wave propagation, require potentially enormous amounts of memory (e.g. climate
simulation, or large seismic dataset processing). Depending on what math
you're solving, there are heuristics which you may be able to use to update
only a subset of active cells, or divide up the model to split among multiple
machines with minimal loss of accuracy while retaining high precision.

