6 ms·

This is a very short-sighted view. Yes it has some immediate benefit in terms of pay, but you have to consider the long-term societal tradeoff of not developing

This is a very short-sighted view. Yes it has some immediate benefit in terms of pay, but you have to consider the long-term societal tradeoff of not developing addictive mental candy for people or developing societally useful technologies (or vice-versa, as it now stands). We can focussed on getting paid a lot now, or improving the wealth of everyone and generative the value we can all enjoy later.

acdanger 8y ago
I agree with your premise, that many Facebook employeees would give society a better return on its investment if they were employed elsewhere, but that’s hardly Facebook’s fault.
- chalkandpaste 8y ago
  I didn't pin the blame on them. I place it as a cultural issue.
- prostoalex 8y ago
  It's tempting to think that without Facebook they would get involved in cancer research or interplanetary travel, but given the Silicon Valley's funding cycles, they would be more likely to end up building yet another food delivery startup or revolutionizing something by putting it on blockchain. Also, a bunch of recruiting venues exploited by Facebook are not that accessible to smaller startups. E.g. one of the top previous employers for Facebook employees was Google (or some other outfit within Alphabet group, like YouTube). Most likely those people would've stayed at Google. Another hiring source was university recruiting, which involves participating at job fairs at various universities, exhaustive days of back-to-back interviews, flying candidates for on-campus interviews, and eventually covering relocation costs (and potentially visas and immigration paperwork) for someone moving from Pittsburgh, Waterloo or Romania. Would a smaller startup have the financial oomph to run a similar recruiting pipeline?
repolfx 8y ago
What makes Facebook "addictive mental candy" other than you not personally liking it? I know lots of people who feel they get and have got tremendous practical benefit from Facebook. It isn't "addictive" unless you use that term to mean anything some people make that other people enjoy.
- nrook 8y ago
  Here's a study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28093386 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28093386 "Our results showed that overall, the use of Facebook was negatively associated with well-being." Naturally, even if this study is accurate it isn't definitive; the causation could go in the other direction, that the unhappy use Facebook more often than the contented. But it's still quite suggestive. I saw this study referenced from this article: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/21/17144748/case-against-facebook https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/21/17144748/c...
blablabla123 8y ago
Still living in Europe, I must admit I always envied the people who work at Facebook, Google etc. This neutralizes my envy
prostoalex 8y ago
> the long-term societal tradeoff of not developing addictive mental candy Along with React, GraphQL and a bunch of other technologies with various degrees of popularity https://opensource.fb.com https://opensource.fb.com Along with various startups building around the projects incubated at Facebook - Asana, Interana, Phacility, Qubole, etc.
- yaseer 8y ago
  React + GraphQL < B Where B is the sum of the set consisting of: -Breaking democracy in the US and the UK by being _the_ platform for disinformation. -Disinformation assisting genocide in Myanmar. -Use correlating strongly with poor mental health -Manipulating behaviour to encourage poor attention spans for the sake of ad-clicking -Constantly violating basic standards of privacy -(I could go on..) Oh wait, excuse my arithmetic. I forgot to add another JS framework like Relay to the LHS of the equation, that makes it a net positive from Facebook! :D
  - justaman 8y ago
    I don't think its fair to blame FB on the decay of democracy in the information age. Surely Twitter is also to blame them. I think the blame is on the users. Its not possible to be perfectly informed. It is possible to keep your mouth shut if you don't know something for sure. Perhaps its the fact that in real life, to say something you need to say it to someone's face and on social media you don't have that social weight to carry. This brings about people more likely to share misinformation. If this is the case, its not the fault of social media, rather the fault of internet culture. More personal responsibility is the solution. Not an improved ML system to detect fake news.
    - yaseer 8y ago
      Yes, Twitter is also to blame. It is a problem inherent in the structure of most social media companies. And Facebook is the most significant social media company, and thus contributor to the problem.
  - chronid 8y ago
danso 8y ago
There's also its ostensible goal to connect people. I logged in for the first time in months just to see if I had been compromised. In about 15 minutes of goofing around, I got to enjoy countless happy baby pics posted by old college friends, and had a nice chat with someone I hadn't talked to in almost a decade, after I randomly commented on a status update. Then I logged off. I know that my kind of limited use is likely not the average scenario, and I can definitely understand people suffering when they get sucked in. But it's a site that does a damn good job of making it easy for me to find and interact with friends, and I don't believe the tech and design involved is trivial.

acdanger 8y ago

I agree with your premise, that many Facebook employeees would give society a better return on its investment if they were employed elsewhere, but that’s hardly Facebook’s fault.

chalkandpaste 8y ago
I didn't pin the blame on them. I place it as a cultural issue.
prostoalex 8y ago
It's tempting to think that without Facebook they would get involved in cancer research or interplanetary travel, but given the Silicon Valley's funding cycles, they would be more likely to end up building yet another food delivery startup or revolutionizing something by putting it on blockchain. Also, a bunch of recruiting venues exploited by Facebook are not that accessible to smaller startups. E.g. one of the top previous employers for Facebook employees was Google (or some other outfit within Alphabet group, like YouTube). Most likely those people would've stayed at Google. Another hiring source was university recruiting, which involves participating at job fairs at various universities, exhaustive days of back-to-back interviews, flying candidates for on-campus interviews, and eventually covering relocation costs (and potentially visas and immigration paperwork) for someone moving from Pittsburgh, Waterloo or Romania. Would a smaller startup have the financial oomph to run a similar recruiting pipeline?

repolfx 8y ago

What makes Facebook "addictive mental candy" other than you not personally liking it? I know lots of people who feel they get and have got tremendous practical benefit from Facebook. It isn't "addictive" unless you use that term to mean anything some people make that other people enjoy.

nrook 8y ago
Here's a study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28093386 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28093386 "Our results showed that overall, the use of Facebook was negatively associated with well-being." Naturally, even if this study is accurate it isn't definitive; the causation could go in the other direction, that the unhappy use Facebook more often than the contented. But it's still quite suggestive. I saw this study referenced from this article: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/21/17144748/case-against-facebook https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/21/17144748/c...

blablabla123 8y ago

Still living in Europe, I must admit I always envied the people who work at Facebook, Google etc. This neutralizes my envy

prostoalex 8y ago

> the long-term societal tradeoff of not developing addictive mental candy Along with React, GraphQL and a bunch of other technologies with various degrees of popularity https://opensource.fb.com https://opensource.fb.com Along with various startups building around the projects incubated at Facebook - Asana, Interana, Phacility, Qubole, etc.

yaseer 8y ago
React + GraphQL < B Where B is the sum of the set consisting of: -Breaking democracy in the US and the UK by being _the_ platform for disinformation. -Disinformation assisting genocide in Myanmar. -Use correlating strongly with poor mental health -Manipulating behaviour to encourage poor attention spans for the sake of ad-clicking -Constantly violating basic standards of privacy -(I could go on..) Oh wait, excuse my arithmetic. I forgot to add another JS framework like Relay to the LHS of the equation, that makes it a net positive from Facebook! :D
- justaman 8y ago
  I don't think its fair to blame FB on the decay of democracy in the information age. Surely Twitter is also to blame them. I think the blame is on the users. Its not possible to be perfectly informed. It is possible to keep your mouth shut if you don't know something for sure. Perhaps its the fact that in real life, to say something you need to say it to someone's face and on social media you don't have that social weight to carry. This brings about people more likely to share misinformation. If this is the case, its not the fault of social media, rather the fault of internet culture. More personal responsibility is the solution. Not an improved ML system to detect fake news.
  - yaseer 8y ago
    Yes, Twitter is also to blame. It is a problem inherent in the structure of most social media companies. And Facebook is the most significant social media company, and thus contributor to the problem.
- chronid 8y ago

danso 8y ago

There's also its ostensible goal to connect people. I logged in for the first time in months just to see if I had been compromised. In about 15 minutes of goofing around, I got to enjoy countless happy baby pics posted by old college friends, and had a nice chat with someone I hadn't talked to in almost a decade, after I randomly commented on a status update. Then I logged off. I know that my kind of limited use is likely not the average scenario, and I can definitely understand people suffering when they get sucked in. But it's a site that does a damn good job of making it easy for me to find and interact with friends, and I don't believe the tech and design involved is trivial.