Is Facebook a Structural Threat to Free Society? - <AUTHOR> http://www.truthhawk.com/is-facebook-a-structural-threat-to-free-society/ <comment><USER3> When I was a kid in the 70s I remember reading a national magazine article about another kid my age who had his own computer. Amazing! This was something I wanted.

Reading on, it described how he had built his computer from electronics and operated it from his attic. He had quite a few programs for his computer. One he liked the most allowed him to simulate buying and selling of stocks.

If you've ever read any ads from that period, the implication is clear: computers are awesome because they are going to challenge us to become better people. They will teach us at a speed we can learn, they will reward us as we progress, and the obstacles and learning will get more and more advanced.

People who don't have computers are going to be missing out -- on self development.

Contrast that to my trip the other day by commercial air travel. Everywhere I went, people were on their phones. Were they learning foreign languages? Becoming experts at symbolic logic or global politics?

They were not.

Instead they were playing the stupidest games imaginable. Facebooking, taking quizzes where any moron with the ability to type would get 90% correct -- and then sharing the results with their friends.

Zuck and others figured it out. Computers don't have to be computers. They have to be video games. Who gives a shit whether the guy on the other end is learning to be a better person. Challenge them with idiotic trivial tasks, then reward them with blinky lights, sound effects, and the imagined praise of their peers. They'll do that shit all day long. All they need is more batteries.

Yes. It's a problem.

<comment><USER4> Long time deleted FB account holder here.

I don't miss it at all. Not one bit. It amazes me how much time my wife spends mindlessly looking though stuff on it and the negative feelings that sometimes flow out from it.

I recently read a truly fantastic speech by Charlie Munger, which imparted so much clear & concise information in an easily digestible way that I could instantly relate to, it made me realise just how little I know. Specifically, he mentioned that you really need to notice when technology is going to help you and when it's going to kill you. It's made me re-evaluate my current relationship with technology and how negative it can be at (most?) times. I hope over time, people start to question their relationship with technology a lot more. I already see hints of this with mainstream media in things like Black Mirror.

I am amazed at the quantity and quality of some of the content on something like Kahn Academy that I have no idea why I haven't made more of an effort to try and grasp topics that otherwise are completely alien to me. Many of these will probably help hugely in my day to day life as well.

Recently I listened to an interview with a UK fund manager called Terry Smith, who said they don't invest in tech shares like FB, Netflix, etc. as they are such new areas which are still open to such massive change. Long term (decades) they probably aren't safe bets i.e. Netflix is great now, but once upon a time so was Blockbuster.

I do wonder if "peak" Facebook is over. There's already a large generational shift happening in younger demographics to things like Snapchat, etc.

I do hope that whatever may or may not replace it has a better balance towards positivity.

<comment><USER5> Yup, deleted my account a while ago, haven't used it in years. Don't miss it one bit.

At home, we are starting to have a 'problem' because my wife is constantly on FB. In the car, on trips, in restaurants, at the dinner table. It's fucking ridiculous. I have said a few times "what can be more important on fb than what's going on in the present moment with your family?". Behavior hasn't changed much.

What is starting to freak me out is the generations coming up. I have two young kids - pre-fb age - and they already have some questionable habits on my wife's iPhone - as soon as it comes out, they wanna look at pictures, go on youtube and fight over it. The second they see it...

I've been programming since I was 13 - a long time ago. Back then, you sat down at a table/desk to use your computer and then when you left, you did other things. You went out to play with friends. Ride bikes around. Go swimming. Go look at bugs. Eat something.

Nowadays, things are different. Different though because we let them be that way. Most parents I know are helicopter and at meet ups I'm always hearing about some bad thing that happened to someone they don't even know or is half way around the world. I'm not saying we embrace ignorance, but unless you can do something about that - and you're willing - then I don't see the point of fb and the news cycle.

As a parent (and developer), I have to be proactive and get the family back into the world. I'm not against tech in general (I'm teaching my son Basic right now), but the pendulum has clearly swung a little too far in one direction and fb/snapchat/etc, with their addictive behaviors, in my mind, are not good things for society.

People, to me, just seem happier when they're not inundated with gossip and negative news. I'ld love to see fb lose its dominance on the people who have their faces buried in their phones constantly. But, I don't think that will happen anytime soon. As long as people are checked out of the real world around them, it will be that much easier for them to get sucked in to fb and the like.

<comment><USER6> Long time facebook addict. I was the kinda person that would check FB every 10 minutes -- yeah, it was a huge issue for me. I could tell it was effecting my work and job.

6 weeks ago I had my wife change my facebook password and log me out of everything. There was a genuine feeling of loss and withdrawal for the first 2 weeks. I felt very disconnected and felt like I was missing out. I asked my wife to sign me in on Sunday. I had 100+ notifications and a few messages. Only 1 direct message and 1 direct post - both from the same person about the same topic. Everything else was just junk.

It turns out that Facebook was providing nothing of value to me. It wasn't even connecting me to friends in a meaningful way. 2 messages relevant to me in 6 weeks. It is mind blowing how much time I was spending reading status and linked articles and looking at photos. Just wasting time and energy.

<comment><USER7> I'm not on FB, and haven't been for years. My problems are Netflix/Prime and news (Google News feed and Hacker News primarily). I'd literally LOVE a smartphone which limited me to maps/navigation, camera, minimal search (for looking up crucial info on the go), email, SMS, and Slack. Oh, and Kindle. I HATE that my damn smartphone makes it so easy to fritter my life away. And that the only alternative seems to be completely dumb phones and carrying around a separate camera and GPS device. Ugh. I don't want a dumb phone, or a feature phone, I just want a dumber smartphone. And hell, I'd pay what I paid for my Pixel (unlocked) for one. I want something which values my time, privacy, and life as much as I objectively do...But am, apparently, too weak to govern myself.

My issues suck because I can't simply have my wife reset my password. I can't remove the Google News feed. And as long as I have a browser I can see Hacker News. Sigh.

<comment><USER8> I have a love-hate relationship with the crappy smartphone i do have. Like you, i often read HN in dead moments but don't have FB, but find the smartphone useful for directions or quick picture snapping. I'm however still strongly considering going back to a dumb phone (although i've been saying that for about the full 1.5 years i've owned this smartphone) and to hell with the random pictures. Our grandparents seemed perfectly happy and could only capture a 24 roll of family photos every now and then (unless they were journalists or whatever, but you get my drift). I don't know. Part of me does fear i'd miss out on social events or get lost or not be able to take that one picture or...

Probably i should just have more self-control...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Facebook is:

* One of the most addictive products the world has ever seen (Opioids, another such product, were used to overthrow countries)

* The single most important media company in the world

* Controlled by one person

Threat to free society? Jury's out. But at this point, it certainly seems worth regulating.

(Edit: The above points are not meant to paint FB/Zuck in a bad light. To their credit, they've built an incredible ecosystem and a mind-bogglingly good product. We all strive to create sticky/addictive products.

My point is: When your product is incredibly addictive to a large chunk of humanity, regulation should be considered)

<comment><USER10> > When your product is incredibly addictive to a large chunk of humanity, > regulation should be considered

Yes. Let me compare FB to a phone company. When telephony was first invented, it quickly turned out to be addictive to a large chunk of humanity. Did we leave it unregulated? No, we didn't. In fact, there was regulation stating that telephone conversations may not be eavesdropped by telephone companies. Other regulations allowed other companies to be active on the same network so people could call eachother, regardless of their operator.

But somehow, we think that these types of regulation should not apply in this day and age. Strange.

<comment><USER11> That's a great comparison. Facebook has taken on that kind of quality for me. It's become one more communication channel. Fantastic for keeping up with my friends who use it, but not intrusive. I'd say telephones are still addictive (along with email and other forms of communication as a whole), but more in the category of food being addictive than drugs. Yes, some people used to ring up $2000 phone bills, but the more common case was legitimate communication.

<comment><USER12> One theoretical framework that justifies regulating telecoms, but not necessarily Facebook is that telecoms usually have special privileges granted to them by governments, up to and including monopoly status.

Building the hardware layer for a telecom network requires access to public land, and often private land where the landowners may not be cooperative. In exchange for the government enabling the telecom to build its network, the government gets to impose rules, sometimes even mandating competitor access to said network.

Facebook is different. The internet is already there, and is not owned by any single entity. Facebook does not need to compel cooperation from anyone to operate. It does not _invite_ regulation in the same way a telecom does.

Now, there are plenty of people who believe that anything is fair game for the government to regulate if it's in the public interest, but I think that position is less universally accepted than that of trading special privileges for regulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's not Facebook, it's the fact that we're all too happily Amusing Ourselves to Death: [http://a.co/frMmE2s](http://a.co/frMmE2s)

 _"We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn 't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right."_

<comment><USER14> > It's not Facebook, it's the fact that we're all too happily Amusing > Ourselves to Death:

Sounds like the audience of depressed pedants on this website will save us, then.

<comment><USER15> This sounded pedant

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The events of the last couple of years caused me to evaluate the psychological toll that me self-induced exposure to media, of all forms, was taking. I came to the conclusion that with social media, mankind was participating in the largest social experiment of all time and just hoping that things turned out well. I decided the results, so far, have not been promising and I no longer wanted to participate. I deleted my FB and canceled cable. Now I chose what I'm exposed to. I advise more people to do the same.

<comment><USER17> Unfortunately, HN is addictive too.

<comment><USER18> HN does have a noprocrast timeout available, although it's almost undocumented.

<comment><USER19> Whoa. Had never heard of that.

Check [0] if you, like me, hadn't.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The threat is that Facebook has become too big to fail. A major leak of private data and messages of its users would be devastating to society given the scale.

What happens if/when Facebook fails as a company? What happens to the data then? It gets sold off. That's a scary prospect.

Facebook is in the fickle game of Internet advertising. When the noise overcomes the signal in what Facebook shows, when the content of the users' connections gets drowned out to advertising, people will leave in droves. When advertisers fail to see the return on their investment, the money will dry up.

<comment><USER21> What data can facebook possible have that would "devastating" in a leak scenario? Facebook has only what users have put on the site to share, and all data present is at least semipublic. There are no addresses, no bank accounts, no SSNs. The valuable part of facebook is already freely available: your list of "liked" pages and your social graph.

<comment><USER22> It's very reductive to claim that only addresses, bank account [numbers], and SSNs could be dangerous if leaked.

What about people who discuss private matters in chat? (e.g. sexuality, medical history, drug use, etc.) Yes, _we_ know that's a bad idea, but most people aren't HN readers.

What about state actors using Facebook's metadata alone to quash democratic movements before they get off the ground?[1] To advertisers, most of the social graph is available only in a semi-abstracted form (e.g. target X, Y, and Z qualities and degrees of connection). A leak or sale could make that information available directly.

What about criminals using a public leak of location data and some predictive algorithms to strategically rob homes? (and maybe also using patterns of likes and connections to predict whose home is worth burgling?)

Really, to say that the valuable part of Facebook is already freely available brings to mind the words "limited imagination." Facebook keeps the valuable part to itself and meters even limited access to it. And there is extensive danger with the possibility of a leak or sale of the raw data.

[1]: [https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using- metad...](https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to- find-paul-revere/)

<comment><USER23> That's what I'm saying... Actually, it reminds me of when Wikileaks first came out, and I'd been reading the book of Revelations (as literature, it's an epic poem). There is this part where there is a scroll with 7 seals. An angel asks "who is worthy to break these seals?" People are weeping about it.

What kind of society can handle a full disclosure of information on this magnitude, now or even in the future, looking back? Imagine living 40 years from now, and your parent's full social media records have just been leaked in a mass dump of some data collection company. Could you handle that?

Okay and without appealing to apocalyptic literature, just think about the potentially devastating consequences of mass numbers of people getting access to their enemies' private data all at once. Good for you if you survive that kind of dump personally, but what about your community, your family?

But back to the metaphysical level, shit's about to get real wild if scientific knowledge keeps growing like it has been, especially as "ai" comes more able to translate and interpret these masses of digital data... Plus the vast stores of biological information waiting to be tapped.

<comment><USER21> Really, a history of likes, a corpus of chat messages, a corpus of public status, and some corpus of potential location data/ usage data depending on the devices used; that's what you liken to an apocalyptic event? Your family, your community, everyone will be just fine. Potentially some population already living in oppressive situations will be impacted (your religious family learns you're gay, etc) but the vast majority will just stop using Facebook and move to the next social media site. What kind of data do you imagine people storing on facebook (remember nothing is there you, the user, hasn't explicitly decided to share with someone aside from whatever they track internally interms of usage and location).

By default a person's friends list is visible from their public profile so if you want to go put together a graph you're welcome to.

<comment><USER23> First off, yes, I also think people will make it through this and be better in the long run. But I think this stuff is inevitably going to be a major source of heat, and it's going to take some processing. There is a lot of 'potential energy' stored up in private information (I'm not just talking about Facebook). People keep secrets, and the amount being held behind cryptographic algorithms is only growing by the year.

I'm mostly talking about private messages, browsing history, stuff that people would prefer not to be known widely because of pervasive judgements and stigmas in our society.

"What kind of data do you imagine people storing on facebook..." Nude photos and videos, secrets, accusations, candid personal details, private plans, irrational fears, fantasies, love notes to people who aren't their spouses, etc.

The human web is thickly interwoven. You say "Potentially some population already living in oppressive situations will be impacted". Well, their experiences would not be trivial, and your experience is not disconnected from "those people" either for that matter. I'd imagine they are your friends, your neighbors, your community too. People around us are having secretive relationships ("affairs"), while others hide domestic or sexual abuse. People have skeletons in the digital server closets, things they'd rather forget about and move past, but which are lingering on redundant backups somewhere.

And my larger point is not so much about Facebook messages, but about biological data... [http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Yale-study-Brain- scans-m...](http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Yale-study-Brain-scans-may- help-determine-11000433.php)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Any kind of non-democratic for-profit organization is going to have incentives that don't align with "free society".

When one of those organizations runs the top centralized content and communications silo, use it to censor, stalk its users and promote its or its sponsors interests, it becomes a threat.

<comment><USER25> Of course also democratic non-profit organizations wildly disalign with what one might call a "free society".

Those adjectives mean little (as does "free society") without a definition.

<comment><USER24> Non-democratic organizations inherently don't represent all parties and interests participating within it. If they did, they would be democratic organizations. A non-democratic organization will be influenced by, and will bend to the interests of, the few.

A for-profit organization inherently has incentives that are perverse. Historically, the profit motive has incentivized things that run contrary to the well-being, and rights enjoyed by, society. It is profitable to censor, erode privacy, erode labor protections and rights, use psychological manipulation to influence the behavior of others and push negative externalities onto others.

Yes, democratic non-profit organizations can misalign with a "free society". However, a non-democratic for-profit organization is fundamentally incompatible with the ideals expressed in the article.

> Those adjectives mean little (as does "free society") without a definition.

Merriam-Webster works for most when colloquial definitions bottom out or are hard to recall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> (Disclosure: I have accepted a job offer at Facebook, but not yet started)

Does Facebook really have a _unique_ amount of data? Google also knows a lot about people through billions of searches a day. Apple can learn a lot through people's iDevices, and Google (again) or Samsung can do the same with Android. So can any cellular service provider, or anyone running coax or fiber into your home. The government can tap any or all of those. At least Facebook doesn't have an army, or paramilitaries like DHS or just about any sheriff's department I've ever encountered.

I'm not saying the author's concerns are invalid. I've had occasion to think about these exact issues a lot, and I'm sure many of my soon-to-be colleagues have too. The way I see it, Facebook and other social media occupy much the same position as phone companies used to, both in terms of how they facilitate interaction and in their privileged financial/infrastructural positions they occupy. There's good in that (e.g. ability to pursue the kinds of speculative projects that Bell Labs was famous for). There are also dangers, no question.

The thing is, if it wasn't Facebook it would be someone else. There's no shortage of others ready to step in if Facebook alone were targeted with laws and regulations. Instead of worrying about Facebook specifically, we need to think about what a modern "common carrier" law should look like in the social- media age. Perhaps some kinds of regulations on use of information do make sense, but that dialog isn't likely to be very constructive so long as most of the people on one side seem to be free-market fundamentalists betraying their own principles by singling out one company among many.

<comment><USER27> > The thing is, if it wasn't Facebook it would be someone else.

You will make a good Facebook worker drone

<comment><USER26> Would you rather have a Facebook with people who actually think about these kind of issues, or a Facebook without such people? At least there are debates within Facebook about such things. I've heard - publicly, long before I had any thoughts of working there myself - that they can get quite fierce. Never hear of such things at Twitter or Google. Is it better that people there just don't seem to give a damn? I don't think so.

If people rule out or discourage internal regulation with nastiness like yours, all that's left is the external kind. I'm pretty sure that's against a lot of people's principles, but I guess those who failed the coding test are willing to sacrifice principles for revenge.

<comment><USER28> Look, here is a simple suggestion. Come back here in about 6 months after you join FB (settle down first). Since there is no realistic chance for FB to improve their practices within that timeframe, there will be one more complaint thread about some ethical practice or the other at that point. Give us a little inside peek into these supposed "fierce debates". Just participate and add something meaningful to the discussion by telling us the different positions people took in the debate and what the outcome was. We will even give you a handicap - you don't actually have to tell us who took which position. Since you seem to be so passionate about this, I don't think you are going to make up stuff.

If you actually manage to do this, then not only will people here appreciate you, but more importantly, I am sure you will be doing a heck of a lot of good for your soon to be employer's image.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I find it amusing that news media outlets are stoking fear and resentment over the government hacking technology to spy on us when the information it gathers is a mere shaving of what corporations like Alphabet and Facebook have access to on the back end.

How is it preferable that a handful of incredibly talented, well-funded, private companies know more about you than your mother or your best friend (or arguably yourself)? Why are people more frightened by a bureaucratic government agency led by Donald J. Trump than the world's leading researcher in artificial intelligence, who owns the index to the entire internet, and creates things like this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7xvqQeoA8c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7xvqQeoA8c)? Why is Wikileaks working so hard to protect these companies?

<comment><USER30> _> How is it preferable that a handful of incredibly talented, well-funded, private companies know more about you than your mother or your best friend (or arguably yourself)?_

It's not preferable, but it's less worrying. It's less worrying because companies can't legally throw you in jail or take all your money or kill you.

And scary robotics promo videos aside, they aren't in command of the world's most powerful military and an enormous police force to boot.

If at any time they threaten you in a meaningful way, you can freely leave their services. If things get particularly bad -- like, worst case scenario -- you can even flee to a part of the world where they have less influence. Government does not provide you any of those options.

People are right to be more worried about government intrusion than private intrusion. (They are of course also _wrong_ to be unworried about private intrusion.)

 _> Why are people more frightened by a bureaucratic government agency led by Donald J. Trump than the world's leading researcher in artificial intelligence_

If it comes down to a forced choice, I'd much prefer Page or Brin over Trump. At least the former two are on IMO the correct side of existential issues -- nuclear arms, global warming, and so forth. (Of course, as indicated above, I'd prefer neither.)

<comment><USER31> _It 's less worrying because companies can't legally throw you in jail or take all your money or kill you._

But they do this all the time. Sometimes illegally, sometimes with full force of law.

The settlement of the Americas, through what might be considered a public- private partnership on the part of several nations (Spain, Portugal, England, France, Holland, Russia, largely), resulted in the genocide of a native population once numbering perhaps 40 - 50 millions. What this lacks in the intensity of nuclear annihilation, it greatly exceeds in magnitude.

The public-private partnership of Belgium in the Congo saw untold atrocities, including the unhanding of hundreds of thousands or millions of Congo natives. See Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness.

Or of England, the East India Company, its private government and army within India, and the Opium Wars against China -- chemical, biolical, and conventional war against two entire cultures.

Labour unionisation, a concept and principle defended by Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and other classical economists, say violent opposition by factory and mine owners particularly in the UK and United States. U.S. Steel, the West Virginia Mountain Wars, the Wobblies, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and more.

Industrial accidents have killed or destroyed many tens or hundreds of thousands: the Halifax, Galveston, Port Chicago, and West, Texas, explosions -- some entirely private, some public-private partnerships. Mining accidents claimed an average of greater than 2,000 lives/year for much of the first half of the 20th century, statistics tabulated by the US Department of Labour, and available online. That's on the order of 100,000 souls over the century, virtually all of their deaths preventable. The Union Carbide Bhopol disaster. Dam failures, including Johnstown, in the United States (this was the instigation of the Red Cross as a disaster releif organisation, and of significant concepts expanding liability law). For public-private parternships, the Vajont dam disaster, claiming 2500 lives. And showing that poor management, planning, engineering, and response aren't solely the remit of nominally capitalist societies, the Banqiao Dam disaster of 1975, in China, in which some 170,000 souls perished, on par with your nuclear bombing example, though it was but 25 thousands who died immediately from drowning, the others were lost due to starvation and disease in the following weeks -- as I said, exceedingly poor planning and response.

There's the US housing bubble leading up to the 2007-8 global financial crisis, and the robosigning and fraudulent documentation depriving people of their very homes.

For raw corporate aggression, I'd suggest the Johnson County War:

On April 5, 1892, 52 armed men rode a private, secret train north from Cheyenne. Just outside Casper, Wyo., they switched to horseback and continued north toward Buffalo, Wyo., the Johnson County seat. Their mission was to shoot or hang 70 men named on a list carried by Frank Canton, one of the leaders of this invading force.

I've written on this previously: [https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/xwjjk1bh7yki6ja4lrg7ka](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/xwjjk1bh7yki6ja4lrg7ka)

There is the insidious poisoning of millions through lead, asbestos, tobacco, mercury, and dioxins, both generally and across specific sites, all whilst paid corporate shills actively and deliberately sowed confusion on the matter, knowing full well that their position was false. Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway have covered much of this history excellently in Merchants of Doubt.

And there's the little matter of carbon dioxide emissions and their effects on global tempeatures and ocean chemistry, known since the 1880s, and recognised as a major threat since the 1950s, but still actively denied by numerous interests more concerned over their trillions of dollars of accumulated wealth and power than over the fate of the planet they live on and the souls they share it with.

<comment><USER32> * > still actively denied by numerous interests more concerned over their trillions of dollars of accumulated wealth and power than over the fate of the planet they live on and the souls they share it with.*(

Interests that are now controlling the US government....

<comment><USER31> And one of the more plausible conspiracy stories I've heard for who's benefitting from the whole situation. Need to track down that article...

<comment><USER32> Not sure where the conspiracy is.

However, Trump says climate change is a Chinese hoax and bullshit. Trump's advisor Myron Ebell says the environmental movement is "the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world". Trump's head of the Environmental Protection Agency is Scott Pruitt, who believes the EPA shouldn't even exist.

Trump's Secretary of State is Rex Tillerson, former boss of Exxon. Exxon is being investigated for spending decades ignoring its own scientists' research, which tied fossil fuels to climate change. It also has a $500 billion oil deal with Putin, for which Trump will have to remove sanctions.

Trump also says he's going to bring back "beautiful clean coal".

So, under Trump, there's a green light to destroy the US environment and the whole planet for the pursuit of profit.

Trump is using the presidency as a marketing platform to promote himself, his properties (including Trump Tower and Mar a lago), his daughter and in-laws. The GOP is using it to give very rich people $600bn in tax cuts while ensuring that (if its AHCA goes through), tens of thousands of ordinary Americans die because of a lack of health insurance.

What's going on in broad daylight is bad enough. The behind-the-scenes corruption is probably worse.

<comment><USER31> As I said, it was a specific article I had in mind. Turns out it's Charlie Stross (@cstross):

[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2017/02/some- not...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2017/02/some-notes-on-the- worst-case-s.html)

 _[I]if you have heavily invested in fossil fuels, time is running out to realize a return on your investment. Buying a US administration tailored to maximize ROI while fighting a rear-guard action against action on climate change and roll-out of a new, rival energy infrastructure is therefore rational (in business terms)._

 _Russia and the Putin angle is best understood as part of this; oil and gas exports accounted for 68% of Russia 's export revenues in 2013. The possibility that Trump is personally heavily invested in Rosneft via shell proxies while being at loggerheads with Merkel might be an inversion of the normal state of affairs in international relations for the past 70 years but is entirely consistent with the big money picture: Germany is trying to push (heavily) for renewable power...._

This, quite frankly, makes as much sense to me as anything else. If not considerably more.

An: sometimes a conspiracy _really is_ a conspiracy, and _they really are out to get you_.

<comment><USER32> Interesting piece. The move to exploit dirty energy while destroying the environment is clearly the centrepiece of Trumpism, as I said above. Whether Bannon is actually planning some sort of "final solution" is open to question.

The real problem is that the world burns whether there's a conspiracy or not....

<comment><USER31> There's a tendency toward this among all living things, and worse cases in the past: Great Oxygenation Event and Snowball Earth being an extreme case. William R Catton, Jr., made the point, in _Overshoot_ , that assigning blame isn't particularly useful. It's the dynamics which drive the thing.

At the same time, humans can, and do, know better. Yet we're headed down that same path. And there definitely appear to be those capitalising on the short- term view.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> aaron-lebo Yes, as is Zuckerberg.

He wants to run for president. That's why he's found religion, why he's touring the country, why he changed some rules so he can control Facebook while holding office. There's been a creation myth about Zuckerberg for years. Even Jobs didn't get a Hollywood movie about him until he was dead.

Zuckerberg is dangerous because he's so damn vanilla. Outside of his contemptuous statements about his users being "dumb fucks" when he was a kid, everything he does is a PR move. Having a child? Better make a social statement out of it. Headed to Nigeria? Better have someone take pictures.

If you listen to Zuck obviously he's intelligent but he'll never say anything controversial or especially enlightening. He's had the world in his hands since he was 21 (or younger), never been challenged. What does that do to one's ego? Some of us talk too much and we've never ever done anything. What happens when you've been a billionaire since you were 25 or are worth $50 billion at 30?

He's far more dangerous than Trump ever was. He's normalized invasions of privacy, has more information on people than anyone in the world save maybe some government agencies and Facebook has more clout than many countries.

It'd be nice if Facebook was replaced by something better, but I hope people will stand up against what they are doing. It's unethical. If you ever combine that mindset with government, it's over. Maybe not by Zuckerberg but by the next Trump, which is the great irony in Zuckerberg and Facebook's social positions.

<comment><USER33> It'll be interesting to see if he tries.

My impression is that he has the charisma of a loaf of bread and won't do real well in politics.

<comment><USER34> Some people certainly seem to like Trump, but I can't say I see the charisma myself. Some pretty toxic, hideous, unpleasant people have been elected to very high positions.

<comment><USER33> Trump is extremely charismatic.

Look at the pundit reaction to his speech a couple weeks ago, or at how well people respond to his extemporaneous word salad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Deleted FB a few years ago, I haven't missed it for a second. I thought we reached peak FB about a year ago and was obviously wrong. I honestly don't understand why people can't communicate directly with each other given the insane amount of tools available and how cheap data, domains and services have become. There is absolutely an "us vs. them" going on between those who are on FB and those who have opted out. I'd love to get more people to opt out and this article is one of the better arguments out there. For those who want to try a true block of FB and all its works, try this... [https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporatio...](https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporations/facebook/all)

<comment><USER36> I really wish this weren't being reframed as an "opt out" discussion. The article is expressing valid concerns about the collective impact of FB. Opting out, even in large numbers, won't change the fact that the company has tremendous, unchecked influence on our lives.

<comment><USER35> I really believe if people left FB in significantly large numbers to something else with better practices, FB would be compelled to change. Even if they didn't change, at least you would not be a part of their bad privacy practices/manipulation/etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Yes and "tech savvy" people should educate their friends when possible.

Most of my friends, for instance, ignore that FB knows most of their web chronology through the omnipresent Like button.

And we must fight the "I-have-nothing-to-hide" attitude.

</comment><comment><USER38> For me, the scariest bit is that I tell people about this (techies and non- techies alike) and they are made aware of the consequences of their every move being tracked and they still don't care. At all.

We're either collectively retarded and it will take very little to rule us all, or venturing toward a society where privacy simply does not exist but it's... fine? Can society adapt to this and someone having a sextape or their browser history leaked be no big deal to anyone?

I don't know which is scarier.

<comment><USER39> One problem is that most people decide very early on in their life that they will keep their heads down and never question the violent totalitarian authority that controls them, and thus see no reason why the government would use this data against them.

But then you try the insurance / health care angle and they still just don't care. We've been raised this way. Raised to be like scared children who do not know how to look towards the future or how to accurately assess any complex situation not immediately under their area of expertise

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I deleted Facebook from my phone a while ago, and don't miss it. I've been surprised how much I don't miss it, honestly - I get less notifications and haven't been tempted to reinstall it once.

The website is another matter. I felt reluctant to cut the cord entirely. At least visiting the website feels more deliberate than reacting to all the phone notifications.

But shortly after the election, I did log out, and kept myself logged out for a while. My fingers would still take me to the page, but the login screen would remind me, and I'd close the tab.

I finally logged back in a couple of weeks ago.

I do feel like I've noticed a couple of subtle differences. I think the political discussions are a lot less useful than I used to think. I especially think my friends posting political awareness posts are less useful than I used to think. No sense preaching to the choir unless it's actual surprising information. I think the months off started to make me feel less like a Democrat and more independent (although far from Trumpy-Republican.) I'm more free-speech and less boycotty. I'm less tempted to unfriend people that voted differently than I did.

I generally believe that the most ridiculous opinions I see in comment threads on facebook are... well, I have no way of knowing whether those comments are by real people or by bots. So I feel less like engaging with them.

Facebook is more enjoyable when you use it to connect with your friends - sharing photos, good personal news, etc. Current events, not so much.

<comment><USER41> I highly recommend the News Feed Eradicator plugin. It substitutes the News Feed with a quote of the day. That way you can keep up to date with PMs/Events without getting distracted by other peoples lives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The biggest problem with Facebook is that it's a walled in garden. Whatever you write there isn't accessible outside the web. It's not even searchable inside FB itself. I'm sure this is done on purpose, if people knew that the crap they write could be searchable they'd be much more reluctant to express themselves.

</comment><comment><USER43> Black box warnings exist in the drug industry because its understood people do not understand complex risks and they don't read the fine print. Facebook IS a threat only because many of its users are sharing information ignorant of the risks.

HIPAA exists in healthcare because its understood data can be misused to the great detriment of patients. Facebook IS a threat only because its users have no recourse over the misuse of their information.

Products liability laws exist for manufactured goods because raising the costs of failure to protect your customers results in safer products, and because it decreases government's obligation to support injured consumers. Facebook IS a threat only because there is no cost associated with injuring users, and little awareness of how Facebook is injurious.

Its a systemic issue beyond Facebook. Legislative reform is required.

</comment><comment><USER44> IMO this is a side product of the "software must be free" mentality.

Frankly, software should not be free. When you let people give you things for free, you basically let them control you and take away your freedom.

<comment><USER45> >IMO this is a side product of the "software must be free" mentality.

"Software must be free" usually means free and in speech not free as in beer.

<comment><USER44> RMS definition of free still leads to free as in beer because it requires that the user has the freedom to distribute the sides for free (as in beer).

<comment><USER45> But Facebook is not "free as in speech" but is "free as in beer". That's why it is a "Structural Threat."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> "Facebook understands the emotions expressed in what you type as statuses, and in messages via Messenger or WhatsApp."

Is this correct? There was a very involved discussion about WhatsApp's encryption that I thought indicated they don't, in fact, have access to WhatsApp messages.

<comment><USER47> Facebook likely has a watson-like technology that can answer a lot of interesting questions about a user, but "understanding emotions"... that's still a ways off. Maybe a long long way off. But it's wrong not to be very, very concerned.

Suffice it to say: (Paraphrasing Dijkstra) Whether Facebook understands human emotions from text is as relevant a question as whether a submarine can swim. I think they can get a helluva lot out of what you're typing and what you're liking. That should be enough to worry about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> With the average American now spending 40 minutes on Facebook per day [0], it may be worth checking out this TedX talk: _Distracted? Let 's make technology that helps us spend our time well | Tristan Harris_ [1] (he speaks of a good design example at 4:00 in). It's astounding that this average means that roughly an entire day is wasted each month essentially scrolling through a newsfeed.

[0] [http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-monthly-average- time...](http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-monthly-average-time- spent-2015-9) [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT5rRh9AZf4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT5rRh9AZf4)

<comment><USER49> Has time spent watching TV gone down by more than 40 minutes?

"Wasting" time is not very new...

<comment><USER50> Exactly, I'm confused by all these statistics of 'x minutes of facebook per day'. We can't measure other unproductive activities that ALL humans indulge in, it's not as if society will suddenly start producing PhDs by the dozen if we ban Facebook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I have recently created an account, having resisted up until now with the excuse that my son, then a teenager, said that it was "creepy" when persons of my generation were on Facebook. He informs me, however, that persons his age are leaving Facebook in favor of SnapChat and Instagram.

(I have so far spent all my Facebook time looking into what would be required to use its OAuth functions.)

</comment><comment><USER52> People's disregard for privacy and political mobilization[0] are a threat to Free Society. Facebook is just a symptom.

[0] I can't blame FB for anything regarding the latter. Quite the opposite.

<comment><USER35> True. People still choose to join FB and give their data/privacy away. I don't know what it would take for a rebellion or if there will ever be an open decentralized platform to replace it.

<comment><USER53> Yes. I think that what must happen is a revolution of the value of one's private information. An open platform that made certain that information was only shared with particular "trusted nodes" and also was flushed from storage after a certain time would be cool. Like an information vault where your info was held, and you could selectively choose what fb could see and what must be deleted and re-cached in x many hours or days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I don't think Zuckerberg is malicious, nor are people working at or in control of facebook. However, that doesn't exclude the whole system from being bad for society, just like the constituents of of viruses or cancers are just benevolent atoms and electrons.

<comment><USER55> Regardless of whether they are malicious, their actions are causing significant societal harm. Zuckerberg retains almost complete control of the company and this is occurring under his guidance. He might not be malicious, but he is certainly at fault, as are the ridiculous and shameful engineers picking up paychecks to create a such an authoritarian product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> All mega corps area a threat to freedom, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple. Google is the one that is really fucking scary, they've started deciding which parts of the network are tasteful and which are not, regardless of your feelings on anything that should be highly disturbing to everyone.

</comment><comment><USER57> Yes, it is, and I'll tell you why:

Freedom and freedom for a society, in a modern information age, relies on the individuals that make up that society having control of that information. Any instance where they cede that control en masse is a structural threat to that freedom. The reasons are mostly irrelevant, because we can argue that people know what they are doing, or that they were manipulated into that position, but it doesn't matter, the fact is that they are giving up their informational control to a third party who then _owns_ it.

People need to start taking control of their information, and hackers like us need to stop perpetuating the mantra that privacy is dead and it's too late. I could very easily imagine infrastructures setup to protect peoples control of their own information, but it tend to not be the most business friendly, or government friendly.

Since when did hackers become so beholden to business interests? Lopht/codc warned everyone, but nobody listened, and then all the old schoolers got older and started chasing money, I mean mudge was working at darpa (it seems he is trying to do good things, but from inside the system). It's time to find that counter-business, pro-freedom resistence strain of hacking again and make it bigger.

Also, there is a reason in-q-tel, the cia's venture capitol arm, invested in facebook and google at the first stages...

Decentralized gplv3 software is the place to start. I'm not hopeles though, I think people vastly underestimate the weakness of systems like reddit, facebook, etc. The long arc of the universe tends towards justice, and they will collapse under their own dystopias.

Freedom is the real sustainable ecosystem. Individual freedom. Under individual freedom, the intellectual freedom to come up with novel solutions and apply them in novel ways is exponentially more likely than under some 1984 surveillance security engine. Freedom is therefore the strongest weapon in the fight against evil and in the fight for survival.

<comment><USER58> > The long arc of the universe tends towards justice ?

Is there any philosophical view point which thinks so? But according to natural science doesn't universe tends to entropy (granted entropy doesn't translate directly to lack of justice but still..)?

> Decentralized gplv3 software is the place to start

What course do you recommend to promote GPL adoption to tip the balance towards it? .. should people refuse to release closed source software in corporations?

Personally I would love to live in utopia where all code is free, cooperation trumping competition ..

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> This picture reminds me of a scene in a sci-fi flick called "Cypher" ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0284978/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0284978/)). I wonder if some other parallels could be applied to FB...

</comment><comment><USER60> Do you know what's a structural threat to free society? Regulating free enterprise like online communities where people voluntarily intermingle.

</comment><comment><USER61> Facebook? How about the CIA/NSA/ABC intelligence organizations? We're not at war with a country, why do we need a spy agency (much less several)?

Roll personal and funding into the FBI (Note: this does not make me a fan of the FBI) so there is at least some public oversight.

<comment><USER62> Not that I want to defend any intelligence organisation but war is not a binary thing. Other countries might be harming your country even without you knowing it. Agencies try to prevent that from happening.

<comment><USER25> Who knows? They are certainly not going to tell. Secret services are rather secret about their services.

<comment><USER62> Indeed, who knows. But would it benefit the country if they released their ops reports?

<comment><USER25> Not an expert, but as secret stuff gets leaked it tends to create huge public discourse and leads to political action.

Knowledge about their actions does seem to have an effect on the country. Secret service staff would probably not necessarily evaluate it as a good effect though.

<comment><USER62> > Knowledge about their actions does seem to have an effect on the country.

Can you give me an example?

Take the latest Wikileaks Vault thing for instance. That was a leak that created public discourse, what was the effect? I still don't trust my iPhone and pretty much most of the software I use, were any 3 letter agency looking to get me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Well, Facebook is not so much of a threat as WeChat is in China.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAesMQ6VtK8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAesMQ6VtK8)

Basically all apps converge into WeChat, and there is absolutely no way to avoid it.

</comment><comment><USER64> This is close to the platonic ideal-article for HN. Big, grand, non- falsifiable argument about current tech darling/source of controversy; endless opportunities to parse phrasing and argue edge cases.

</comment><comment><USER65> Facebook is a threat to privacy, and by hoarding too much information about people, it has power to use it against them (or be used by others against them). The rest are consequences.

Solution is also obvious - don't use Facebook, and switch to decentralized social networks. It's not an easy solution though, because of inertia and network effects.

However it won't solve the human factor. I.e. people willingly trading their privacy. Once they do it, crooks would find a way to exploit that.

</comment><comment> charles-salvia Google essentially has an entire monopoly on how information enters our brains. They exert complete control over Internet search for almost everyone on Earth outside of China, Russia and South Korea. Granted, Google is not exclusively controlled by a single individual in the same way Facebook is, but the same argument made in this article could be or could have been made about numerous absurdly influential companies throughout recent history.

<comment><USER66> South Korea?

<comment> charles-salvia [http://www.naver.com/](http://www.naver.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Glad to see them mention the virtual reality piece, although I think the implications are vastly understated.

Look at that photo of a room full of people; voluntarily absent this reality and immersed in another of one man's creation. Notice how that man is the only one not in his virtual reality, but instead "overseeing" those who are.

And, we all know how addictive VR will be, once it hits a certain point.

Sends a chill up my spine.

</comment><comment><USER68> Step one: admit, and put it into a public consciousness, that Facebook is a monopoly.

I'm a right wing free market advocate, but even I'm not a fanatic - <USER2> believe that when a single company grows to control the whole industry, it should be regulated. "Facebook is monopoly" needs to become a meme - this will help people from all the political spectrum on board to regulate it.

</comment><comment><USER69> > Remember that Facebook feeds are not chronological. Facebook decides what > posts you see, and who sees your posts.

Not my posts. I don't have a Facebook account.

<comment><USER31> Over 1 billion people do, and the information they're being fed is influencing elections in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, at a minimum.

<comment><USER69> At a minimum. Worth repeating.

<comment><USER31> Nearly 2, having read TFA. But yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Ironic that I visited HN deliberately to avoid working on my dissertation? I've been off of FB for years. This article seems overblown to me. Though, yesterday on NPR I heard a prof speaking about a survey where 48% of teenagers who were asked would rather have a broken BONE than a broken PHONE. But FB isn't the only reason teens are so attached to phones.

</comment><comment><USER71> Yes, the lack of ethics review boards for research on FB users is reprehensible. Hardly any of the internal research would be approved by ethics boards for publically funded research on human subjects. Many people who use FB have no idea what freedoms they are giving up, how their information is being (mis)used, or how they are being manipulated.

What alternatives to FB exist?

</comment><comment><USER72> What worries me is when Facebook and Google both decide to insert themselves into politics. I definitely saw Google trying to influence the last election. I would constantly get push notifications to my phone with anti Trump news. These were the very first and only push notifications I received from Google News.

There's also the question of "Fake News" on Facebook. You could conceivably abuse their reporting system to bury articles you don't want people to see. This already happens quite a bit on YouTube where people will mass report videos for copyright infringement just to get them taken down.

If we rely entirely on these global channels for our world information they could conceivably shape our world view to their benefit. It's a scary proposition.

</comment><comment><USER73> The human reward function is all jacked up. We keep looking to mesianic liars as leaders and willingly give up personal power and freedom in exchange for the feeling of safety and group belonging.

Facebook is not the cause. It is merely the symptom.

</comment><comment><USER74> Yes, but the upside of this "tool for political power" is the threat it puts on established media. Surely, expansion of liberal bias in our newspapers over the last 50 years is a bigger problem than the social media effect(?)

</comment><comment><USER75> Yes, just as TV and rock music were harbingers of the downfall of Western civilization.

</comment><comment><USER76> Facebook has an unfathomable amount of data you say?

Well, [https://www.corbettreport.com/meet-in-q-tel-the-cias- venture...](https://www.corbettreport.com/meet-in-q-tel-the-cias-venture- capital-firm-preview/)

[http://www.therealnewsonline.com/our-blogs/facebook-and- its-...](http://www.therealnewsonline.com/our-blogs/facebook-and-its- connections-to-the-cia-and-darpa)

<comment><USER77> Did you even read those links?

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Have a different view on this,fb is a publicly traded company, its not only man (Zuckerberg) show. Though Mark got supreme power but I'm sure its not him behind every single decision. But if we talk about a single company having so much data, that's a threat for sure. As it's not in our hand we can just expect fb to understand, with great power comes greater responsibility.

</comment><comment><USER79> The same can be said about any centralized service.

The difference is facebook wants to sap your time and make you addicted to checking your newsfeed.

There are far better ways to make money (as Google does). Why do these authors automatically assume that the more time you spend on facebook, the more money they make? I hardly ever click on faceboon ads. The thing lacking is intent to buy.

</comment><comment><USER80> Backup here: [http://archive.is/AUZrG](http://archive.is/AUZrG)

</comment><comment><USER31> Related, a freshly-former US Attorney from Chicago: gun violence spreads over social media.

[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3516525-03132017-Unt...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3516525-03132017-Untitled- NOTSET.html#document/p1)

</comment><comment><USER81> I get the point of the article but "facebook" could be replaced by "computing" and we could ask, "Are computers a structural threat to free society?". Ultimately we could conclude, "Humans are the biggest threat to Society/Humanity".

<comment><USER82> This argument can certainly be made. Would you rather rid the world of humans, or facebook? =P

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Yes.

</comment><comment><USER41> I highly recommend News Feed Eradictor. It substitutes the news feed with an inspiring quote, that way you can use Facebook only for PMs and Events.

</comment><comment><USER84> We'll make sure there will be laws governing social trade. Facebook will have to obey. It can't be kept unregulated, Injustice will thrive

</comment><comment><USER85> Wow that pic of Zuckerberg is really messianic looking, even without the suggestion imposed by the title of the post.

</comment><comment><USER86> "If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." \--Reagan

</comment><comment><USER87> I can't wait for Facebook, or LinkedIn, selling "backchat protection" or equivalent...

</comment><comment><USER31> Apologies for a grab-bag of links and references, but the fundamental question is one I've been thinking about, and researching, extensively over the past six months, though it's occupied me long before as well.

The realisation I had shortly before the US election was that _all_ major changes in media seem to be associated with _profound_ changes in human societies, often tremendously disruptive. Going back to the development of speech itself (better communications => better toolmaking => better weapons- making and military tactics). Writing, ever cheaper and lighter media, printing, literacy, mass media, broadcast, electronic, and online/mobile media, now with AI and A/B enhancements, all the more so.

Elizabeth Eisenstein & others on have explicitly realised this. See also: H.L. Menkin, Walter Lippman, John Dewey, de Bon, Mackay, Bernays, McLuhan, Chomsky, Jerry Mander, Niel Postman, Michael & Joyce Heusemann, Clay Shirky, Danah Boyd, Plato, esp. the Sophists

"A Revolution in Media" [https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/gqzszjwf4unuqfupzqff8g](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/gqzszjwf4unuqfupzqff8g)

A friend has come up with an observation I've been calling Woozle's Paradox of Epistemic Systems: as the size (and power) of a media audience grows, more parties will be attracted to it for the purposes of influencing that audience. (And Facebook is the largest single media audience on the planet.)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5wg0hp/when_ep...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5wg0hp/when_epistemic_systems_gain_social_and_political/)

Another set of concepts is that _Data are liability_ and _" Who are you?" is the most expensive question in inforation technology. No matter how you get it wrong, you're fucked._

#45's Twitter account is as secure as Google's gmail account security. The same which failed when John Podesta's account password was phished. security

 _Scale effects and phase transitions_ are also profound. As I've had the opportunity to note in several recent HN conversations, _both scale and rate matter._ Just because Y is "the same as X" doesn't mean that Y _is_ X, if the rate of change is 10x, or 100x, or 1000x, or 1,000,000x greater. A 10x change gets you from walking speed to a car. 100x is an aircraft. 1,000x is an ICBM. The Tsar Bomba is Greek Fire ... at scale.

 _Unintended consequences_ are the ultimate "hygiene factor" of technology. Ted Unungst's post on HN today walks through a set of cases of just these, the point being that those consequences _cannot_ be known in advance. (Though I'm working on a framework which suggests how they might be better anticipated in at least some cases.)

I've covered these and related points in some recent-ish HN comments:

"media and revolution" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13750889#13754972](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13750889#13754972)

"media and revolution" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13736414#13736903](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13736414#13736903)

"journalism" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13678413#13681938](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13678413#13681938)

"data physics" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13635230#13640423](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13635230#13640423)

And there's a bit of a grab-bag post touching on elements here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5rnjg0/state_o...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5rnjg0/state_of_the_lair_2017/)

(I'm working on a more comprehensive post or series on this topic ... there's a lot to cover, and to discard....)

</comment><comment><USER88> One thing is the influence of Facebook on the USA population and on politics there. This is dangerous - but I am sure that it will be reined in. It is yet another thing for non USA residents. With Facebook all the notions of sovereignty go down the drains.

</comment><comment><USER86> Dopamine is the culprit

</comment><comment><USER89> Facebook has become a virus that can destroy a whole generation.

</comment><comment><USER90> I think Google is more of a threat than Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER91> Late to the fuckin' party

</comment><comment><USER92> Facebook let's me send and receive messages to friends. In what way is that a "media company" or any kind of threat?

</comment><comment><USER93> Strongly disagree. Facebook is not the threat. It's individuals who make decisions to sell their data in search of convenience. Maybe individuals make this decision out of ignorance but pretty much everyone in Western world is on Facebook, so I have to think that people consciously trade their data.

Its not like Facebook is shoving the product down our throat.

<comment><USER94> > Its not like Facebook is shoving the product down our throat.

No, but network effects are a thing and you can't open a webpage these days without a Facebook 'like' button on it. (Well, ok, you can but they are definitely getting rarer and rarer.)

<comment><USER93> Sure, but this is what the majority of the population has opted for.

<comment><USER94> You wouldn't believe the amount of pressure that people put on each other to sign up for Facebook. In some of my circles I'm next to invisible because I'm not 'on facebook'.

That's never going to work on me but I can't fault people for giving in and going with the flow. Still, in many cases it's not as voluntary as it might seem to be to you, just like it almost is no longer voluntary not to have a phone, not to have email and not to have internet access.

Theoretically you should be able to live your life without those, but in practice it is getting harder all the time and a choice against any or all of these comes with a social price that not everybody is willing to pay.

<comment><USER93> I don't disagree with your comment (in fact, I face the same issues in my life). My point is that we have to accept we live in a democracy and there is probably nothing we can do. It turns out that this is just our personal preference. To give some examples:

* Cars everywhere. Nobody gives a shit about global warming or pollution.

* Gmail everywhere. Nobody cares that your email gets marked as spam if you pick some other email provider. People will just ask you to switch to gmail.

* Chrome everywhere. Nobody cares that you now use Firefox and their website does not work well.

* Waste and opulence everywhere. Nobody cares about the insane things we dump _every_ day in the oceans.

My point is that this is humanity. All these are individual decisions and not pushed down by corporations. But people are not prepared to make any sacrifice at a personal level.

<comment><USER94> > Nobody gives a shit about global warming or pollution.

Plenty of people do.

> Nobody cares that your email gets marked as spam if you pick some other > email provider. People will just ask you to switch to gmail.

Yes, that's one more example of network effects at work.

> Nobody cares that you now use Firefox and their website does not work well.

True, but then they'll lose me as a potential customer. They probably don't care so point taken.

> Nobody cares about the insane things we dump _every_ day in the oceans.

The worst to me are things that are manufactured _in order to be thrown away_. Tools that are so bad you can't use them even once, consumer goods whose sole feature is they are created to be presents that nobody ever uses afterwards, packaging, mountains of packaging, all kinds of disposable paper goods. It's incredible.

Have you watched the movie "The age of stupid?"

If you have try to reconcile that with the current head of the EPA being who he is...

So even if those decisions are all made - in principle - of people's own volition our views of the world and our actions in it are shaped to a fairly large extent by governments, corporate entities and media (this comment being a part of that because of the reference to the movie above).

> But people are not prepared to make any sacrifice at a personal level.

Some people are. Generalizations are hard.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Surveillance: A Threat to Democracy - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/opinion/surveillance-a-threat-to-democracy.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> No, surveillance is not a threat to democracy, people not caring about democracy is what threatens democracy.

Democracy has never been a right, it's always been a privilege that people demanded, and guess what, when people stop demanding it, power will naturally collude.

<comment><USER3> I'm still not seeing how that makes warrantless secret surveillance with gag orders and secret courts reporting to special committees not a threat to democracy.

<comment><USER4> OP means they aren't in and of themselves a problem if the citizens do their job and hold their democratic government accountable and force it to abide by their collective decisions.

I don't agree, though; I think _secret_ surveillance is in and of itself anti- democratic. However, OP is correct too, in the sense that once it is revealed that secret, illegal surveillance is going on, if the subjects of a functioning democracy don't care or take any action, that is probably even more corrosive to a democratic state (since presumably there will eventually always be people like Norden^W Snowden, and nothing stays secret forever).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would suggest its a threat to society, even humanity it's self.

Social interaction only works because we have the ability to keep secrets. We hide our true feelings and intents to enable the great machine to work. If those views became known to all, you'd be in trouble. Worse still, what if you really knew every one else's views. Even worse than that, say a few people knew your real views, then used them to manipulate you.

Our ability to keep things private is vital.

I hope that some people think I'm talking about interpersonal relationships, and that other people think I'm talking about international diplomatic relations. If government expects to be able to keep secrets and privacy, it had better understand my need for it too. If it doesn't want its privacy abused, then it had better not abuse mine. We both need and value it.

<comment><USER6> I'm curious if you can even attach a quantitative value to information omission and lying through experiment. I suspect that there is some sort of nash equilibrium achieved that creates more overall welfare in a system with information omission and lying than an identical system minus the information omission and lying. I'm curious what quantity of omission/lying (assuming it's measurable) produces the greatest overall welfare even if some individual actors may fare more poorly in said system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Glad the NYT Editorial board has stepped up and been so blunt.

"But Americans should not be fooled by political leaders putting forward a false choice. The issue is not whether the government should vigorously pursue terrorists. The question is whether the security goals can be achieved by less-intrusive or sweeping means, without trampling on democratic freedoms and basic rights. Far too little has been said on this question by the White House or Congress in their defense of the N.S.A.'s dragnet. "

<comment><USER8> > "The question is whether the security goals can be achieved by less- > intrusive or sweeping means, without trampling on democratic freedoms and > basic rights. "

No, NYT, the question is _how_ _which_ security goals can be achieved without trampling on democratic freedoms and basic rights.

There is no security goal that justifies destroying freedom, as freedom is the motivation for our security goals.

<comment><USER9> Go ask the villagers in the unadministered lands of Afghanistan and Pakistan how their freedom from government is working out for them.

It's easy to say that security is completely unimportant when it's not your daughter being beaten and raped for being seen outside without a veil.

<comment><USER10> More like, it is easy to say that security is completely unimportant when you have spent your entire life in such a cocoon of security, you don't know what life is like outside of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Surprised and pleased to see the NYT editorial board take this stance, considering it has traditionally supported the Obama administration.

According to a poll cited in today's WSJ and LA Times ([http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-republicans- democ...](http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-republicans-democrats- nsa-poll-20130612,0,2973289.story)), Democrats tend to support NSA surveillance, whereas Republicans tend to oppose it — a complete reversal of the situation under the Bush 43 administration. In other words, a majority of voters likes surveillance, as long as it is being conducted by their preferred political party.

<comment><USER12> You talk about liking surveillance in your final sentence, but about supporting surveillance earlier. There is a significant different between supporting something and liking something. I support visiting the dental hygienist twice a year, for instance, but I don't __like __visiting the dental hygienist.

Assuming we are talking about supporting, rather than liking, then it is quite rational to support surveillance when done by your own party. I choose politicians to support based on my belief that they largely share my values and goals and are smart enough and educated enough to act in ways that help further the advancement of those values and goals.

However, I recognize that politicians who succeed in getting elected gain access to information that is not available to me. That information will occasionally make the correct action in some cases appear to be against my values when judged by someone with the information I have, but actually in accord with my values given the extra information the politician has.

To put it simply, you are more likely to trust the politicians you support than the politicians you do not support, and so you are more likely to give politicians you support the benefit of the doubt if they occasionally do things that __appear __to go against your shared values.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why do people who knowingly trust their data and communications to a few corporations expect any privacy in the first place? Why do people who, as it now appears, care so much about surveillance use Skype and Facebook? It is not the government, but careless consumers who are killing democracy.

</comment><comment><USER14> If surveilance threathens your choice, then it's a threat to the democracy, but then US has never been a real democracy, but a representative one. As such it's congresmen and senators that might be threatened by it since the do our real voting for us.

<comment><USER15> Uh, thanks, but intelligent, educated people who are attentive to civic life (e.g. a significant portion of the HN readership) don't need to have the difference between a pure democracy and a representative one spelled out in detail each and every time the word "democracy" comes up in conversation.

<comment><USER16> I think it is important in this instance because that is the real heart of the problem. The US government is increasingly making decisions that go against public opinion. Something like PRISM would have a much higher chance of getting through Congress than being approved by national referendum. It seems like at some point the US government has gone from ruling on behalf of the people to simply ruling the people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It would be nice if people realized that the United States was built upon the premise that the individual is sovereign, not the states. Your rights come from God, not government. Many think they have all the freedom they need, since they can drive (most places) with no papers and download whatever apps they want on their phones.

The government is heading down a very dangerous path and has been for a long time. Members of both major parties are too blame, for they have allowed government to grow to a scale that is far too large to leave room for the individual to be truly free.

<comment><USER14> I'm an atheist, there is no God for me.

<comment><USER18> It is just a figure of speech, don't be pedantic about this.

<comment><USER19> Your rights come from God is not a figure of speech; it's a statement of belief in God and it's not pedantic to point this out.

<comment><USER18> No, it is a figure of speech and it is pedantic to claim that it is about belief in any deity. It is similarly used in this context: "God gave you legs, now move your ass out of my way!" It is nothing more than a way to express the idea that rights are something people are born with, regardless of who is in power or what sort of government rules over them. That is how the founding fathers (another figure of speech, nobody is claiming that any of those men are any living person's father) used the term.

<comment><USER19> You're absurd.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Surveillance is reflexive. It has no doubt already changed, irreversibly, how we all communicate. We hesitate more, we collaborate less. This is the immediate, intrinsic downside---an economic impact, even---that isn't being discussed. This loss alone makes the surveillance state a net sink on our society. Let alone the threat to democracy ,the potential abuse of power.

We need to show Obama and the other leaders that standing up against irrational fear of inevitable crime _IS_ a tenable political position

</comment><comment><USER21> > _The issue is not whether the government should vigorously pursue > terrorists. The question is whether the security goals can be achieved by > less-intrusive or sweeping means, without trampling on democratic freedoms > and basic rights..._

There is another issue that hasn't been discussed enough, and this quote from the article simultaneously refers to the need to discuss "balance" between security and freedom, while also unquestioningly keeping alive the idea that there is a grave threat and hence need for outsized security.

So, the question is also, what is the true scale and number of these so-called "terrorism threats"? And, how do you measure the required balance without a true assessment of the actual threat (vs. assuming it)?

After 9/11 we went into this permanent "War on Terror" war-footing, wherein this notion of an overwhelming threat of terrorism was simply assumed (ex. by this article).

But, when, if ever, do we question whether that posture still makes sense (or ever did, for that matter)?

<comment><USER22> On that note, if the US had a 9/11 event every month, that would still be less dead people than we lose to suicides, which was at 1.6% the number 10 cause of all deaths in 2010. Of course, every death is one too many, but imagine we put the same amount of money into mental health research and treatment that we are currently pumping into the by-definition-unwinnable "war on terror".

Less people die by terror than by any remotely significant event category. I imagine the last few years will go down in the history books as a good example why the primary product of terror is fear and hysteria, and direct damage caused is purely incidental. Of course the indirect damage terrorized societies do _to themselves_ is stupendously expansive.

<comment><USER9> If people honestly cared about the _overall_ risk to them every nation would be powered by nuclear with perhaps a smattering of renewable generation in areas where it clearly made sense.

<comment><USER23> nonsense. even ignoring the undeniable nexus between weapons and civilian power programs, where I live, nuclear power would be more expensive and much slower to roll out.

<comment><USER9> Slower to roll out, yes, but the change would have happened long ago so we'd be talking about incremental upgrades anyways, not new construction everywhere.

As far as cost, nuclear has the fewest deaths per unit energy generated (yes, even including renewables) and is only more expensive than fossil-fueled solutions which would be disfavored due to carbon emissions concerns. Renewable can be less expensive (which is why I mentioned it).

The current nuclear cost estimates include some rather insane design margins, containments, redundant system after redundant system which could all probably be reduced a bit without appreciably affecting deaths/TW-hr, which would make it cheaper.

Also, a major portion of the expense is from very restrictive contamination handling requirements to keep radiation exposure to the workers themselves at extremely low levels. These levels could probably also be increased without detectable increase in cancer rate (in fact, it may even reduce cancer incidence; see radiation hormesis). Would we really say that nuclear workers absolutely much be safer than coal plant workers, coal miners, etc.? We do now, and this also makes nuclear more expensive.

Besides, if it's true that there is an undeniable nexus between all civilian nuclear power programs and nuclear weapons programs then it is probably imperative to take much stronger action against Iran than we are currently taking, since we can't trust their assurances that their program is strictly for civilian power generation. Unless of course, we're willing to allow them to further destabilize the whole Middle East region.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Very relevant [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jxaune1z3k](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jxaune1z3k)</comment>


Open season on Virgin Mobile customer data - <AUTHOR> http://kev.inburke.com/kevin/open-season-on-virgin-mobile-customer-data/

<comment><USER2> With the brute force attack, wouldn't it shadow ban your IP address?

I know you can set up proxies, but if you shadow ban after 10 attempts, that's approximately 100,000 proxies to reach the brute force attack of 1,000,000 tries.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thank you for taking issue with this. I use Virgin, and I never even considered how insecure this is. I'm going to hound them about it.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is absolutely unbelievable! Are you staying with them? I'm with Virgin, though not sure for how much longer...

</comment><comment><USER5> > I am asked to always include my phone number and PIN in replies to Virgin.

That's probably the scariest part of all of this, although maybe not quite so much if there's a non-email way to contact them.</comment>


Show HN: Aperio Fuzzer – A mutational fuzzer for testing web APIs - <AUTHOR> https://aperiosecurity.com/blog/meet-aperio/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN! Long time lurker here.

Aperio is a black-box mutational fuzzer for finding vulnerabilities in web applications. You feed it network captures of normal usage, and it tries to break your app.

The core of the fuzzer is a genetic algorithm for finding new behaviors (inspired by AFL). It takes a new approach to fuzzing by building sequences of requests, instead of just fuzzing the inputs to single requests in isolation.

I'm super stoked about the project (and just fuzzing in general) so feel free to drop a comment here if you have any questions!</comment>


Ask HN: How to do freelance development from India? - <AUTHOR>

As a developer in India, Undergraduate with around a few years of working in C for a large multinational company(translate: less of development and more of sustenance and debugging) and no other development experience, the realization that people on the internet are REALLY GOOD at what they do, a desire to be the same and a will to see it through.<p>How the heck do people get started?!!! How do I start?!! What are the skills in demand that I should aim to build? Basically,how to be a better developer?? <comment><USER2> I won't speak harshly of C or C++.

In my opinion you need to specialize in either java or .net to make a career of it.

On the topic of programming languages, general knowledge asserts that a programmer should at least be able to program in each of the following 'types' of programming languages:

 _Procedural - C/Go etc.

_ Object-oriented - C#/Java etc.

 _Dynamic - Python/Ruby/Groovy etc.

_ Functional - F#/R/Haskell etc.

A lot of languages cross boundaries (ex. php is procedural and object- oriented) - some programming languages can be all of the above-mentioned tyes.

The real 'trick' to get started is to specialise in development frameworks. It's all about rapid application development nowadays.

There are a ton of frameworks available for traditional desktop and web development, including: WinForms, WCF, WPF, ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, Django, Rails, Grails and a ton more of opensource frameworks.</comment>


Show HN: Gifmantler – Unpack GIFs to Images - am-mgr https://github.com/am-mgr/gifmantler <comment> am-mgr This is my first true contribution to open source. Suggestions/critique are appreciated.</comment>


The data is not enough: Creative data scientists make the difference - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/06/the-data-is-not-enough-creative-data-scientists-make-the-difference/

<comment><USER2> tl;dr ask the right questions

That being said, this is hardly limited to data scientists.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, but intuition and general analytical ability is often overlooked when hiring data scientists -- because the term is so broad, what people are often looking for is a mixture of statistical know-how and programming ability, but often forget to ask for a good understanding of econometric principles.

For instance, there is a difference between understanding generalization error in the statistical/machine learning sense, and generalization error in the sense of _external validity_. You'd be surprised at how many models, even at reputed companies, use features that do not make sense or are based on implicit assumptions about the studied population. Obviously insight is always a good quality to have, but it is particularly critical for data scientists as the right or the wrong insight in the context of machine learning algorithms can have huge consequences on your company.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What services are you using for sending emails from app? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The large companies allow 10.000 emails/month for free and the base service is pretty much the same. Take your pick of Amazon SES, Mailgun, Mailjet, Postmark, SendinBlue, SendGrid, SparkPost ... (via [https://github.com/anymail/django-anymail](https://github.com/anymail/django- anymail)).

<comment><USER3> Hey, depends on what you're looking to do. Are you looking to send Marketing or Transactional? Coding your emails in HTML or wanting drag and drop capabilities? I use Mailjet for all of the above.</comment></comment>


Hyperview: build server-side rendered cross-platform apps - <AUTHOR> This is awesome... just started using this for our project.  Check it out
site https://hyperview.org/
blog post launch https://engineering.instawork.com/hyperview-instaworks-server-driven-mobile-app-framework-2db31aa13e52 <comment><USER2> Pretty cool, it's an alternative to react-native right? But server side rendered</comment>