
Sean Parker unloads on Facebook “exploiting” human psychology - jbuild
https://www.axios.com/sean-parker-unloads-on-facebook-2508036343.html
======
dalbasal
For a big enough digital product, "hacking psychology" happens by default,
more than intentionally.

First, it happens through competition. Good psychology hacks are things like
tinder's fast paced swiping. Out of the squillions of dating apps, the one
with a good hack won. I think Facebook used an identical hack for its first
version, the hot-or-not version. Twitter's basic concept. Snapchat's. Lots of
examples. All good "psych-hacks" that formed a core of successful products,
arrived at through a sort of natural selection process. I suspect that almost
any app which does not "solve a problem" leverages some hack instead.

Second, psych-hackers FB actually employ are not psychlogists. They're data
scientists doing split tests. If this works like that, will you like more
posts. A/B testing is really behavioural psychology expirementation,
weaponized.

I think both of these are quasi-inevitable. But, constant optimization towards
viral drek is not.

Where I think FB should be sheepish about is allowing the optimization to go
on directionless. The only goals are quantitive. Quality is a foreign concept.
No one has asked the question "what should FB be." The answer is simply
"popular."

This isn't inevitable. Applied to businesses as a whole, you could replace
"popular" with profitable. All businesses are under this imperative. But, that
doesn't mean directionless. Businesses can strive to be all sorts of things in
addition to (or preferebly as a path to) profitable. FB is itself an example
of this.

What I want from FB (and Google) is a recognition that they are media
companies, the biggest media companies. After that, they need to start dealing
in quality. If you only optimize for quantity of reactions, shares and such
while disregarding quality you become a shitty tabloid. No taste. No
integrity. Just clickbait.

FB need to ask themselves "is the content (eg news) on FB of good quality?"

~~~
indigochill
I'd dispute the notion that Facebook is optimizing directionlessly. It just
turns out when your entire business model is "sell ads", then profitability
and popularity become synonymous.

I'm very curious if you have a proposal for how to gauge content quality at
scale. Back when I majored in journalism, "community engagement" was a massive
topic. People wanted to create content that wasn't just "good" in a vacuum,
but actually motivated society towards positive change. The theory went that
if we reported on social issues in a certain way, perhaps we could influence
society for the better. This was even the topic of my capstone project.

In the end, I became disillusioned. My observations contradicted the notion
that content quality (news content in my case) matters in either a commercial
or social sense when conducted at scale.

In my capstone project, some people volunteered to be interviewed about their
volunteer work and their motivations. It was really interesting talking to all
of them, but what I found in every case was that these people were motivated
by life experiences, not media. I talked to an ex-con who had his life turned
around by a books program, so he volunteered with the program when he got out.
I also talked to a soccer mom who organized community events for her kids.

This was admittedly a qualitative study on personal anecdotes with a small
sample set so it's not hard science. But the hypothesis that content quality
is irrelevant at a mass scale seems to hold up in practice.

This also tangentially ties into a hypothesis I have on US presidential
elections, which is that once it's down to two candidates, name recognition is
all that matters. Every time (I'm aware of) that a president dominated the
mass media of the time, he won the election. From FDR on radio to Kennedy on
TV to Obama on social media and now Trump who rode on the public obsession
with gossiping about every stupid thing he did or said.

Okay, rant over. I am legitimately interested, though, in any ideas for
determining content quality at scale just because it seems like an interesting
project.

~~~
crdoconnor
>This also tangentially ties into a hypothesis I have on US presidential
elections, which is that once it's down to two candidates, name recognition is
all that matters. Every time (I'm aware of) that a president dominated the
mass media of the time, he won the election. From FDR on radio to Kennedy on
TV to Obama on social media and now Trump who rode on the public obsession
with gossiping about every stupid thing he did or said.

Makes more sense than blaming Russia and Facebook.

~~~
nickbauman
Why would you think the two thesis cannot work together as force-multipliers?
If name recognition matters, then why can't Russian troll farms influence an
election by hacking what names you recognize most using Facebook?

~~~
crdoconnor
Because occam's razor says that the mundane reasons (terrible Democratic
candidate, poor economy, Trump's name brand value) are more plausible than
sinister conspiracy theories involving unimpressive ad budgets pushed by media
orgs who just happen to be large DNC donors.

~~~
uoaei
Occam's razor applied by neglecting evidence is just bad reasoning.

~~~
crdoconnor
Not if the evidence is poor.

------
darepublic
There's many people out there, myself included, who signed up with Facebook
years ago and don't use it today. I don't like FB personally but don't
understand the steady stream of criticism about -- that it's too addictive,
that the site should be curating content in the wake of the last election?
Pretty sad if you ask me. FB is not responsible for verifying the truth of
every FB news post, nor helping its users to live productive meaningful lives.
If you are addicted to FB you should do some soul searching.

~~~
dalbasal
I was with you until recently. Don't like it, don't use it. I log in once a
month. Never felt strongly about FB one way or another.

But lately, I flipped. I think responsibility needs to correlate to some
extent with power, to be useful. FB have power now, big power. They are not
some site, they're a core social and political institution of society.

In some circles, FB's just a very common way to conduct part of your social
life. In that context, complaining about FB is like complaining about your
local town square. It's noisy and filthy and making our social time suck. I
consider this an appropriate complaint, considering what FB is and does.

"Go start your own social network" is a red herring. It's like saying "if you
don't like this country, leave". At least, I consider these similar.

On the news point, I consider this a seperate point and a bigger deal. This is
what flipped me. FB is the world's most important news outlet. I think this is
undeniable in 2017. They have tremendous power (and responsibility) in this
role. News/journalism is an institution of democracy and political life
generally. FB decide who sees what news, and this is a huge deal. If they
peddle crap quality news, the overall quality of journalism in society
deteriorates. The quality of news (taken as a whole, including the news
bubbles and everything else) on FB is terrible. It's a valid complaint and we
should be louder about it.

~~~
zupreme
I love your comment but disagree on one point. I don't think Facebook has ANY
obligation to improve the quality of the "news" shared on it.

I favor freedom of speech and freedom of association. If I have a friend who
keeps posting BS articles from shady sources (and I do) then I just block them
from my feed or simply ignore their posts about current events and conspiracy
theories.

I think asking FB, or any other platform, to start policing the quality of
what we post is dangerous. What happens is if a story breaks that official
authorities deny, but which is actually true. Would you want FB being the
arbiter of truth, in such a case, or would you prefer for individuals
(preferably alot of them) to be free to do their own research and to come to
their own conclusions?

~~~
burkaman
But they aren't just an anonymous background hosting provider, they
algorithmically promote some posts over others. If Facebook just hosted static
pages where all posts were treated equally I might agree with you, but they're
actively seeking out "good" content and pushing it to other people.

Imagine you run a coffee shop, and a local political group hosts a weekly get
together there. They're weird people, always talking about crazy theories and
plans, but they're not hurting anyone and they're great customers, so you
don't want to kick them out. If some other people come in and start getting
freaked out at the conspiracy talk and "time to march" proclamations,
shouldn't you walk over and say "hey don't worry about them, this stuff is
completely crazy, I actually looked it up myself since they talk about it
every week. I'd be happy to show you some articles if you're worried." Maybe
you're not technically endorsing their ideas, but you're hosting them, serving
them, giving them a prominent place in your shop. You could put a sign out
front that says "I don't endorse anything said in my shop", but that just
protects you, not your customers.

Now imagine it's not just a coffee shop, but the only coffee shop, everyone in
town goes there, and half of them get all their news just by talking to other
patrons. Is there any obligation to pay attention to what's being said and who
gets to reserve your best tables? If you didn't want to be involved in this,
you should have grown so much. If you buy up every other shop and meeting
place in town, you have to accept the responsibilities that come with all that
power.

~~~
GuiA
If you run a coffee shop where Nazis regularly come to hang out, hold their
group meetings, spread their propaganda, etc all while wearing swastika tee
shirts, people will call your shop a Nazi coffee shop, and they will be very
right to do so - even if you swear that you are not a Nazi and are just doing
your best to protect freedom of expression.

This is what Twitter and Facebook are today (Twitter will even hide these
accounts in their German digital coffee shop, where spreading Nazi propaganda
is illegal, but are fine letting it be for the rest of the world).

~~~
white-flame
Both the left-wing zealots & right-wing zealots (and others) peddle their
propaganda and skewed opinion pieces on Facebook. It's not like one crowds the
other out, like a coffee shop with a shared physical space might. Everybody
has their own little view of the world from inside FB, curated to their own
preferences and propagated by AI similarity recommendations.

Facebook itself isn't a cesspool of just 1 side, so isn't meaningfully
associated with any one. Independent and overlapping cesspools of all strokes
form and grow in multitudes there.

~~~
GuiA
_> It's not like one crowds the other out, like a coffee shop with a shared
physical space might. Everybody has their own little view of the world from
inside FB, curated to their own preferences and propagated by AI similarity
recommendations._

This statement is incorrect. Twitter has a huge harassment problem, that users
have been begging the company to fix for years, to no avail. There are users
openly associating with nazi ideology (not exaggerating here - we are talking
about users with swastikas as their avatars, nazi references in their bios,
etc.[0]) harassing others on the platform. In no way is this people in their
little bubble, being perfectly isolated from others who don't share their
ideology.

As far as left-wing vs right-wing or whatever, I don't really care. I chose
nazis as the main example because this is a very clear ideological group that
has been unequivocally responsible for crimes against humanity in the past,
against which Twitter chooses to do absolutely nothing (even if this
contradicts their own TOS). Well, they choose to do one thing: make those
accounts invisible in countries where they would be breaking the law if they
didn't. So they literally have a `isNazi` flag in their database, but they
only choose to use it to not get in trouble with German/Austrian/etc. law
instead of, you know, just banning people who are calling for ethnic
cleansing. Great job, Jack Dorsey.

If there are other similar ideologies (left wing, right wing, or other) you
would like to put in the same bucket, please do - I have no issues with that.
The only fundamental issue is that Twitter is choosing to let extremist, well
defined, communities such as nazi ideologues thrive on their platform because
growth or something.

[0]: if you really need proof:
[https://twitter.com/anp14](https://twitter.com/anp14)

------
harryf
Paul Graham wrote a great piece on this in 2010
[http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html)

> As far as I know there's no word for something we like too much. The closest
> is the colloquial sense of "addictive." That usage has become increasingly
> common during my lifetime. And it's clear why: there are an increasing
> number of things we need it for. > The next 40 years will bring us some
> wonderful things. I don't mean to imply they're all to be avoided. Alcohol
> is a dangerous drug, but I'd rather live in a world with wine than one
> without. Most people can coexist with alcohol; but you have to be careful.
> More things we like will mean more things we have to be careful about. > You
> can probably take it as a rule of thumb from now on that if people don't
> think you're weird, you're living badly. We'll have to worry not just about
> new things, but also about existing things becoming more addictive. That's
> what bit me. I've avoided most addictions, but the Internet got me because
> it became addictive while I was using it. Sounds pretty eccentric, doesn't
> it? It always will when you're trying to solve problems where there are no
> customs yet to guide you. > And unless the rate at which social antibodies
> evolve can increase to match the accelerating rate at which technological
> progress throws off new addictions, we'll be increasingly unable to rely on
> customs to protect us.

That means there's going to be a market for products to manage addiction. My
bet would be driven by parents and schools

~~~
amelius
> As far as I know there's no word for something we like too much.

There is an expression that could be relevant: Supernormal stimulus, [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernormal_stimulus)

~~~
0xADADA
NAILED IT

~~~
amelius
Yes, the wikipedia article also mentions:

> Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett argues that supernormal stimulation
> govern the behavior of humans as powerfully as that of animals. In her 2010
> book, Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary
> Purpose, she examines the impact of supernormal stimuli on the diversion of
> impulses for nurturing, sexuality, romance, territoriality, defense, and the
> entertainment industry’s _hijacking of our social instincts_.

------
Lich
I went to a hackathon a few years ago. At the end of the hackathon, my team
member (about 10+ years older than me, I am in my early 30s) asked to contact
her on Facebook. I told her I didn't have one, because I didn't. Not even an
account that I didn't log-in to. She gave me a weird look, then frowned, as if
I was shunning her. My other team member looked shocked as well.

I thought it was weird that if you don't have a Facebook account you're kind
of looked at weird now.

~~~
blhack
About 80% of US, internet-using adults have Facebook accounts. I think her
surprise was warranted.

In fact, Id bet that tech-savvy adults aged 20-50 who have Facebook accounts
is in the high 90% range.

You are weird for not having one. She isn't weird for expecting you to.

[http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/11/11/social-media-
update-20...](http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/11/11/social-media-update-2016/)

~~~
cglace
Would you say he is "weird" for not having one? It's like saying someone is
weird for not liking sandwiches. It's just a preference. I have a facebook
account but have not logged into it in years. I can't say I feel like I'm
missing anything.

~~~
free_everybody
Who doesn't like sandwiches?? I would say that's pretty weird too!

~~~
cglace
I have a friend who just doesn't "get" why people like sandwiches. So they do
exist.

------
overgard
I have to admit, sometimes I worry about the ethics of capturing peoples
attention given all we know about psychology now, whether it's through social
media or video games or other things where optimizing for people's attention
is important. I work in video games, and on the one hand I'm pretty proud of
the work I do, but on the other hand you see people get a little bit over-
invested in these things and it's easy to wonder if it's totally a good thing
to be able to push people's buttons like that. Once you're past the naivety of
like "is this fun", and you start thinking in terms of like intermittent
reward schedules and ways to monetize players it starts feeling... weird?

I don't know what you can do about it though. I can't imagine any company
willingly dumbing down engagement with their product for the common good. I'm
guessing that as all these psychological techniques become more prevalent,
cultural norms will probably shift to counter.

~~~
ravenstine
Social climate is really the most reliable way to temper the effect of social
media. If the mainstream media wasn't paid for years to repeat the words
"Facebook" and "Twitter", it's possible our present would be significantly
different. People should not feel as if they must be on some company's
advertising platform in order to maintain friendships with people. It's pretty
sick that a lot of people feel this way.

Messages about the damaging effects of social media need to be promoted in
society, just as we hammered home the cancer-causing effects of tobacco. In
fact, it would be great if there was a counter-advertising campaign against
social networks that told people how they worsen depression, how many
hours/days/years you're wasting on Facebook, and that you can put down your
phone and actually do things with your friends. If Facebook has any real
value, it can fight negative press. But they won't because they have very
little value; just with big tobacco, they'd spend a bunch of money on
misinformation and slander, which would come out and make them look worse than
when they started.

------
mindlessmarty
The thing is...by nature humans are a group species. If the group is using
facebook, you will be compelled to use this too, either for social
validation,feeling of belonging or whatever. You will always be weakened even
if you don't need facebook. This is the hack. Even if you don't use it because
"I value my real-life interactions. I value the moment. I value presence. I
value intimacy.' you as an individual will always lose power in the group and
will always be looked as weak, because in nature, humans are a group species.
Sean Parker seems to know this and these guys abuse of this power

~~~
nine_k
Of course, if you are a leader, you can sway your entire group to use
something else as a primary medium. I've seen a few examples.

The catch is twofold.

Leaders, by definition, are few and far between.

Moreover, for a leader, FB offers tools and prospects to gain an ever-
expanding audience. The leader must have a strong aversion to FB to ignore
this lure.

------
dang
pg "unloaded" on this ten years ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=77173](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=77173).

The submission can be read here:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20071109094843/http://ycombinato...](https://web.archive.org/web/20071109094843/http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html)

Surprisingly to no one, a year later the issue hadn't gone away:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=372593)

~~~
hammock
Is this the equivalent of "Android had it first" anytime there's an iPhone
feature announcement?

~~~
dang
For me it is more like "Crack used to be addictive; it still is, and it used
to as well."

------
ChanningAllen
It's such an interesting discussion to me because it's kind of an open
question: is the problem really with exploiting human psychology per se? Or is
it with exploiting human psychology to achieve non-constructive ends?

The time investment that Facebook exacts from its users far outweighs the
benefits it provides — e.g. social cohesion. So we feel much less comfortable
with the platform's effective psychological hooks. But take an app like
stickK[1], which cleverly recruits social and financial pressure to
incentivize user-defined good behavior, and the effectiveness of the hooks
don't make us so uneasy. Nir Eyal recently discussed this distinction on the
Indie Hackers podcast[2].

I suppose a part of this is due to consent; stickK users consciously sign up
to be manipulated. But consent can't be the entire equation, or else we'd let
modern-day cigarette companies off the hook. It's 2017 — smokers know what
they're signing up for, and yet they sign up.

[1] [http://www.stickk.com/](http://www.stickk.com/)

[2] [https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/023-nir-eyal-of-
hooked#...](https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/023-nir-eyal-of-
hooked#1153.017)

------
glitcher
> When Facebook was getting going, I had these people who would come up to me
> and they would say, 'I'm not on social media.' And I would say, 'OK. You
> know, you will be.'

I think the tide has been steadily turning on this. I never did use social
media beyond creating an account for work or curiosity, quickly getting bored
and abandoning. Sure there may have been a time where I felt a little less
connected, but those feelings have diminished over time.

The "workarounds" available for those not on social networking are abundant,
and more importantly to me, much simpler and time effective for me to use.

~~~
ben_jones
As someone who "left" social media I still frequently feel a void from it.
Recently I moved back to my hometown and realized I had completely lost touch
with anyone I knew in high school. Different phone, didn't port contacts. I
know they all live nearby but I feel like I lost them forever.

The bottom line is there is no connection.

~~~
ravenstine
Before social media, those are people we forgot about and moved on from. And
for good reason.

Social media, especially Facebook, seems engineered to create this illusion
that we're more connected with our "friends"; while those people may have been
our friends in another time, that doesn't mean they're our friends now just
because we have Facebook connections with them. If it only takes not having a
Facebook profile to not exist to people, they're not really our friends to
begin with. I can say this about the vast majority of people who are my
"friends" on Facebook; I know for sure that 99% of them will never contact me
unless Facebook prods them to post "Happy Birthday" on my timeline. This isn't
to say that my connections are bad people, but it's to say that social media
has distorted what friendship and human bonding actually mean in order to
profit on peoples' loneliness.

It's not difficult for a truly lonely person to come to that conclusion, but
that perspective solidified in me when I became real-life friends with a
neighbor of mine. It had been several years since I made a non-superficial
friendship. And no social medium was required. I was reminded that real
friends are actually interested in seeing you, talking to you, and coming to
you first when they've got news about something. Just one friend like that is
far more valuable than all the "friends" I ever had on Facebook.

You may still feel a void from it, but I do hope you eventually make some
real-life connections like I have and forget about your old "friends"
entirely. I abstained from Facebook for 9 months, and even near the end I was
feeling the void. Going back to it was starkly different and I realized how
much of a waste of time it is. I do still use Facebook, but only as a photo
repository since I do have some semblance of friends and family on there.
Though I'm sure they wouldn't bother with me if I wasn't there to bolster
their friend-count.

~~~
musage
> _Beadie:_ All the guys at the bar, Jimmy, all the girls; they don't show up
> at your wake. Not because they don't like you. But because, they never knew
> your last name. Then a month later, someone tells them, "Oh, Jimmy died."
> "Jimmy who?" "Jimmy the Cop." "Ohhh," they say, "him". And all the people on
> the job, all those people you spent all the hours in the radio cars with,
> the guys with their feet up on the desk, tellin' stories, who shorted you on
> your food runs, who signed your overtime slips. In the end, they're not
> gonna be there either. Family, that's it. Family, and if you're lucky, one
> or two friends who are the same as family. That's all the best of us get.
> Everything else is just...

\-- The Wire

------
eanzenberg
It's fine.. in 10 years when Mark leaves FB and starts philanthropy he will be
hailed as a tech savior in a similar vein to Bill Gates

~~~
ng-user
I'm going to assume he will never leave FB by choice

------
untilHellbanned
Social media companies are cigarette companies. They should be taxed and
frowned upon accordingly.

Remember way back when when cigarettes were cool? Well fast-forward 70 years
and that’s social media now.

~~~
dbmikus
That's a very hyperbolic statement. Facebook still has merit as a way to
organize and communicate with your social group, even if there are some
negatives. For cigarettes, I don't know what positives people can claim with a
straight face. That you get to go outside at work for a smoke break?

~~~
pdkl95
The analogy works surprisingly well.

I really wish I didn't have to breath the Facebook's (and Google's)
_secondhand smoke_ every time when I interact with _other people_ (or
websites). Just like smoking, putting a "like" button on your website or using
any of their services to chat with someone inflicts causes "secondhand" damage
on people that choose to people that chose not to "inhale".

> I don't know what positives

Nicotine is a drug. It should be obvious that some people enjoy its effects
and/or find it useful. The tolerance effect may reduce those benefits for some
(most?) people, but that doesn't change that it had (or continues to have)
positive effects.

> claim with a straight face

Maybe you should ask the doctors at the Harvard Medical School[1] _et al_
about the benefits nicotine seems to have for several mental health issues?
Now that we are finally moving oast the taboos on any nicotine-related
research, these discoveries might lead to entirely new types of medication.

[1]
[https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Nicotine_I...](https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Nicotine_It_may_have_a_good_side)
(paywall - google cache bypass:
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:t8ekKU...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:t8ekKUjkJosJ:https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Nicotine_It_may_have_a_good_side+&cd=26&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)
)

------
ChuckMcM
And the scarier quote is this one: _" Because, you know the [Warren Buffett]
expression about compound interest. ... [G]ive us billionaires an extra
hundred years and you'll know what ... wealth disparity looks like."_

Having a large ranch of data cows is one of the ways of getting there.

~~~
nostrademons
It's worth noting that a hundred years ago, people were saying that about
Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Carnegie. Today the phenomena is exactly the same
but the people are different.

Compound interest only works if you can maintain your returns without going
negative. Even ignoring death & family members, the world changes around you
and your mental models become outdated. A hundred years ago, investing in
steel, oil, and automobiles was a sure path to riches. Now, not so much.

~~~
groby_b
Yeah, no. Money tends to stay around.

[https://qz.com/694340/the-richest-families-in-florence-
in-14...](https://qz.com/694340/the-richest-families-in-florence-in-1427-are-
still-the-richest-families-in-florence/)

The Rockefellers are still the 24th-richest family in the US:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2016/06/29/billion-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2016/06/29/billion-
dollar-clans-americas-25-richest-families-2016/#3984cb3232f5)

Sure, it takes work keeping up - the Vanderbilts are a great example of what
not to do - but money does usually beget money.

Carnegie is, I think, the most interesting example: He gave away almost all
his money. His belief was summed up with "The man who dies rich, dies
disgraced".

The Carnegie Corporation (a foundation), however, held on to the money neatly
- their current endowment is $3 bln.

~~~
nostrademons
24th richest with $11B spread across 174 surviving heirs doesn't seem all that
rich to me. That averages out to about $60M/heir, which is about what you get
for selling a medium-sized technology company with cofounders & investors, or
a relatively small one you own yourself, or owning 0.01% of Facebook or Google
(roughly first 50-100 employees, if my equity experience with other startups
is any guide).

~~~
opportune
With $60m you can live a very nice lifestyle without ever having to work a day
in your life. I think that's pretty much the definition of rich.

Just because you can sell a company for that much money doesn't mean it's not
a lot of money

------
ninegunpi
I don't think that this leap of efficiency in "exploiting human psychology" is
anything different from propaganda/marketing leaps of previous aeons. Reading
the books of the past, they felt equally exploitative and novel back then.

We've coped with that, our descendants will cope with social networks we've
created, as well. Attention management and rapid critical thinking would
become as crucial mental capacities as IQ and EQ are today.

If, of course, smart people acquiring these skills over the next generations
are still going to have descendants and the volume is significant enough,
because typical "exploited" subjects are going to, you bet.

------
avenoir
Wanted to share something that I think is relevant to this discussion. I'm an
avid listener of Rogan's podcast and I found his recent interview [1] with
Sebastian Junger very insightful. Junger is a journalist who spent a lot of
time with American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. He talks a lot about how
social media makes us asocial and how a lot of people who experienced war and
turmoil oddly miss the experience because it brought everyone closer together
and gave everyone purpose, much like what used to happen when societies were
tribal. It's a long interview but I would highly recommend giving it a listen.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iurXFfNriyg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iurXFfNriyg)

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audiolion
Hereis a great talk by Simon Sinek on how these dopamine hits and how
technology are affecting the millennial generation

[https://youtu.be/hER0Qp6QJNU](https://youtu.be/hER0Qp6QJNU)

~~~
known
Good one

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edwina
Name recognition is not important in Presidential elections anymore as a way
to predict who will win. In the days of massive social media, all candidates
have name recognition.

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1290cc
"Because I'm a billionaire, I'm going to have access to better health care so
... I'm going to be like 160 and I'm going to be part of this, like, class of
immortal overlords."

Not really an 'immortal overload' but closer to a vampire seeing all of your
friends & family pass away while you never age and only those that you decide
to keep are allowed to continue living until they arent.

------
o_____________o
> exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with

The hubris! Napster wasn't his idea or tech, Facebook wasn't his idea or tech.
This man is the most undeservedly rewarded person in tech history. The
commentary that we're dissecting here is tepid and late.

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frogpelt
Sean Parker has a knack for making billions of dollars off of unethical
behavior.

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chiefalchemist
1) It's not just children's brains.

2) That said, when parents use technology as a pacifier, baby sitter, etc. why
is that acceptable?

3) Let's say Parker is correct. What are the long term implications? Is The
Matrix closer than we hope?

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systematical
This guy just comes off as really full of himself. With the amount of money
and success he has had he can be that all he wants, he earned it I guess. But
he still comes off as a pompous bitch.

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anocendi
"Make them drop their "brains." It's cleaner."

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bobsil1
Setting aside addictiveness, it’s way too spammy, trying to get you to do work
to juice some PM’s engagement #s. Deleted my acct.

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malloreon
Then spend the billions you made off fb taking it down, Sean.

~~~
kyledrake
I think cancer immunotherapy research is a far better use of his money than
"taking down" a social network (with what, guns?)

I've got plenty of critical things to say about social panopticons, but
perspective, please.

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jstewartmobile
" _Because I 'm a billionaire, I'm going to have access to better health care
so ... I'm going to be like 160 and I'm going to be part of this, like, class
of immortal overlords. [Laughter] Because, you know the [Warren Buffett]
expression about compound interest. ... [G]ive us billionaires an extra
hundred years and you'll know what ... wealth disparity looks like._"

After Peter Thiel's blood thing, and quotes like this, I think the French were
a little too hard on Marie Antoinette.

~~~
vldx
I think this was intended to be ironic? Thought it’s funny.

~~~
jhiska
Ironic? He's just perceptive and doesn't fool himself.

He sees what he and his friends are doing as potentially immoral and, by
telling us, his conscience is asking us to stop him and his friends. At the
same time, he's gloating about getting away with it and profiting handsomely.
He believes he can't be stopped -- even if he tells us all about what they
will do.

He won't stop by himself. It's in his self-interest. He enjoys the power and
the technological challenge.

~~~
jstewartmobile
If only someone would stop him!

Not holding my breath though. Years from now, he and Thiel will probably be
chilling in their dr. evil compounds in new zealand while the rest of us are
fighting it out over scraps in apocalypto-shanty-town USA.

~~~
jhiska
I have no hope as well. It's the status quo.

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jstewartmobile
" _The inventors, creators — it 's me, it's Mark [Zuckerberg], it's Kevin
Systrom on Instagram, it's all of these people — understood this consciously.
And we did it anyway._"

All of the recent social media handwringing looks more like dismay over alt-
right shitposters co-opting their psyops weapon than a moral awakening.

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panabee
does beyonce exploit human psychology to make addictive music?

does j.k. rowling exploit human psychology to make addictive novels?

does steven spielberg exploit human psychology to make addictive films?

could downvoters explain why it's evil for facebook to present interesting
content but not for the individuals above or publishers like the NY Times, who
tweak headlines and article content?

~~~
fluxic
This comment is pretty disingenuous. It's one thing to create a compelling
piece of art; it's another thing entirely to create a platform with no real
intention beyond sucking in eyeballs for advertisers.

~~~
panabee
facebook allows people to connect and communicate with friends across the
world. profiting from ads is one intent, but it feels biased to say it is the
only real intention.

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tryingagainbro
Facebook cares about EARNINGS, every quarter. The same thing that made Sean
Parker super rich. Not "exploiting human psychology" isn't in their 10k report
or mission statement. Yeah, they care about the world being connected or
whatever, so they can serve ads.

