People vastly overestimate leverage of design and the abilities of companies to actually make emergent behaviors conform to their intentions. Hanlon's razor. If you think the platforms are designed and run by people who are evil masterminds AND incompetent bumblers, think again.https://twitter.com/joeld/status/1125851143580585985 …
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Not all the people who do this are bad-faith grifters running protection rackets using shaming and pressure. But enough are, and they are often worse than platform execs who are at least transparently in it for market cap/stock price. They don't pretend to be messiahs saving us.
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Full disclosure, I have done/do consulting work for tech companies that are often targets of such criticism, and know a few senior execs personally. They aren't saints either. But don't forget, critics ALSO have $ and a careers in the backlash cottage industry to protect
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Most of the people who weigh in on these debates are casual drive-by commenters with no skin in the game. But anyone who consistently, seriously, and diligently argues on one side or the other is coming *from somewhere*. Their views aren't disinterested views from nowhere.
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The NYT, the New Yorker, various people with long-established consulting careers around this stuff. A lot of what they say is solid, credible criticism that should be taken into account. But it's important not to assume they're somehow operating on a higher moral plane.
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In particular, be wary of anyone who presumes to speak for your interests, *but asks for nothing from you in return*. "If you're not paying, you're the product" logic can be applied to non-profit do-gooders as well. Your volunteered outrage is an asset others may be monetizing.
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Again, I want to emphasize: many of the people in the criticism cottage industry are good people, sincere, and acting in pursuit of WYSIWYG intentions in the genuine belief they are doing good. It's just that that doesn't mean they are effective or can be taken at face value.
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Apologies if all this is very obscure. A lot of it is subtweeting from the POV of having seen the other side of several of these actual battles close up, at multiple companies, and I have not been hugely impressed with the ethics/integrity of the backlash crowd.
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This makes complete sense, although I don't quite share the pissed-off reaction. All I’m truly, selfishly interested in is whether graph mind is going to help my kids live their best life or not. If it will, I feel good participating, cos I enjoy doing so! If not, I feel icky.
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And that's really all you need to navigate graph minds. It's not an alien superhuman monster that is mind-controlling you. You already have much of the agency required to manage your use of these services.
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it's amazing how effective that line is, though
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Just to spar here: It's kind of obvious why it's effective, right? because we can observe many powerful paperclip-maximizing corporations turning the planet into an acid bath and transparently building political moats around their ability to do so?
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