> don't make any sense unless they're decentralized
Things that make sense decentralised to service freedom have a track record of becoming centralised to service convenience. Source: The Master Switch by Tim Wu.
You are talking about people with mental illness. I think the platforms produce mental illness. If you influence and produce a certain kind of behaviour through appropriate reward mechanisms and then after a few years of conditioning reduce/remove the reward what do you think happens? Mental illness.
YouTube has conditioned a generation of people to chant "subscribe like and share" like a robots. The day the "subscribe like and share" model stops being viable the robots will break down.
For those who care about doing something here is a starting point - humanetech.com
People doing things that you consider irrational is not automatically "mental illness." To conflate the two is both to absolve criminals and terrorists of moral responsibility and to stigmatize the mentally ill, most of whom are not homicidal.
Unless you have specific evidence of a particular mental illness, this kind of statement is irresponsible.
A position doesn't become "relativism" just because you don't want to hear it. It's not relativism to point out that people have responsibility for their actions, nor to point out that mental illnesses do not generally make people homicidal.
Regardless of what is ultimately found out about the case, people were claiming mental illness before they had information to support that, as they do in nearly all of these cases.
Mental illness is described in terms of deviance from "normal" behavior and conformance to generally accepted morals. I think this is trivially proven from a lay read of the DSM.
A shooting spree in reaction to an website's policy change is both immoral and irrational. No conceivable context would make that chain of actions acceptable.
How could one look at this action and assume mental illness does not exist?
It's not relativism to point out that people have responsibility for their actions, nor to point out that mental illnesses do not generally make people homicidal.
Saying mental illness exists based on their behavior is not even close to the same thing as saying that they did not have culpability for their actions, and it's both unfair and disingenuous to imply I did.
>Mental illness is described in terms of deviance from "normal" behavior and conformance to generally accepted morals. I think this is trivially proven from a lay read of the DSM.
Deviation from normal behavior and generally accepted morals is absolutely not a definition of mental illness. A bank robber isn't mentally ill by virtue of robbing a bank. I don't believe you've ever read the DSM in any of its editions.
>No conceivable context would make that chain of actions acceptable.
No one said they were acceptable.
>How could one look at this action and assume mental illness does not exist?
People do horrible, outrageous things without diagnosable mental illnesses all the time.
>Saying mental illness exists based on their behavior is not even close to the same thing as saying that they did not have culpability for their actions, and it's both unfair and disingenuous to imply I did.
The assumption that any horrible, irrational crime must be due to mental illness--obviously this diminishes culpability. Have you never heard of pleading insanity? If someone is genuinely out of their mind, they cannot be held responsible for their actions in the same way a normal person would be held responsible.
Diminishes and eliminates are two different words for a reason. The other thing I think you're missing here is that there's a certain level of rationality implied with someone who robs a bank. Ignoring morals, sure, but rationality nonetheless.
Random shooting sprees tend to lack that rationality - as this one does. There's no chain of cause and effect that goes from "youtube demonetized my videos" to "I'm going to shoot random people at youtube with no understanding of their responsibility, and later myself".
This I just wrong from the start. If there’s a single overarching definition of mental illness, it’s “clinical significance” and not deviation from the norm. Of course it’s not that simple either, but it is a common thread throughout all of them.
This only moves the definition down one level. If clinical significance (in general, not just in psychology) isn't based on deviation from a norm, what is it based on?
The degree to which something interferes in someone’s life, their ability to function, etc. If you’re suicidally depressed, or psychotic, it’s a clear distinction for obvious reasons. It’s not about comparing to some standard, you can believe strange things, be unhappy, and so on, but if it starts to make you unable to live your life, it might be a problem.
Well ever since social media converted the US into the United States of Meme Generators & Consumers, it is not really possible to go back without mass lobotomies.
He should resign. Or this bullshit will keep repeating. As it already has too many times.
Tech/Engineering folk are totally unfit to run social companies of the scale of YouTube/twitter/facebook etc. They don't have the skills or the experience or the sense in handling this stuff.
They know how to scale things and that's where their expertise ends and contribution should end.
They should be run by elected politicians with an advisory board filled with people who understand sociology, psychology, religion, culture, law and security. Those are the people who keep society running not the fucking plumbers.
It doesn't cease to amaze me how a few years ago social media was the beacon of democracy, back when they were part a wave of political revolution in the Arab world.
But now the US has another bad election (IMO not as bad as the one that landed Bush as far as elections go, though which president is worse is up for debate), and social media is trash that have just enabled "global bullshit".
USA, if your population is largely gullible consumers taught to rely on their "feelings" and be egotistic, proud patriots instead of critical thinkers, that's your own fault. Social media, if anything, has been a net positive as far as politics go in my country.
> It doesn't cease to amaze me how a few years ago social media was the beacon of democracy, back when they were part a wave of political revolution in the Arab world
Almost all of those revolutions failed or dissipated. Similar "social media driven" revolutions in the US, like Occupy Wall Street also died with a whimper. The enabling power of social media has always been greatly overrated. The effect of social media, and in particular Facebook, has largely been a net negative.
I find it surprising how much people underestimate the long-term impact of Occupy. Now when people say “the 1%”, everyone knows what they are talking about. The most popular Democrats, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, would not be where they are if OWS had not lain some groundwork ahead of time by introducing wealth and income inequality as mainstream conversation topics. And maybe they will have a successful presidential run in the future.
In my country, the big media companies and the state are highly colluded. Social media has come as a welcome alternative for broadcast and dissemination of information by reporters who don't follow the state's agenda.
Independent and small-party candidates opposing the ruling party have also found in social media a vehicle to reach their constituents being they can't rely on the big networks. Social media has been used to make wrongdoings public, including during the election, and raise the public's awareness on stuff TV networks don't report.
I can't and won't speak in absolutisms, and I think you shouldn't either. IMO though, in my home country and in terms of political action and public awareness I disagree with you.
I really doubt the US population is any more or less gullible than any other population and the ability of social media to be destabilizing is not uniquely American either. There is no mob of critical thinkers, it's always just a mob.
Those revolutions evolved into garbage bullshit in all(?) of those countries, so we got off fairly easily since we didn't have to face an active, public military crackdown on US citizens across the US.
Because the others among the Facebook leadership are not going around writing and promoting books?
Also, do you genuinely not find it disconcerting that Facebook leadership go to great lengths to avoid discussing the privacy implications of their service? And the only person in that group who puts herself "out there", so to speak, is instead writing "success literature"?
Is there some specific evilness to writing books? Because I don’t see how her writing books is reason to single her out for criticism.
> Also, do you genuinely not find it disconcerting that Facebook leadership go to great lengths to avoid discussing the privacy implications of their service? And the only person in that group who puts herself "out there", so to speak, is instead writing "success literature"?
So you’re angry because they don’t talk about privacy. And you’re especially angry at her because ...she doesn’t talk about privacy?
That argument also doesn’t make much sense when comparing her to Zuckerberg explicitly, who’s at least as “out there” as she is. Didn’t he go on a “50 states listening tour” last year?
I guess she likes money and success literature earns more then privacy literature.
If there would be someone in Facebook leadership that writes about privacy and political implications for it, it would absolutely make sense to single out that person. Success literature is irrelevant to topic.
But, I think she was single out, because she is only name besides Zuckenberg the parent knows. Never underestimate ignorance on discussion forum.
HN used to be a daily source of nourishment.
But today it is a source of "informed bewilderment" like everything else on the web. Google the term. Understand it's consequences on you and the people around you.
Hardly matters what groundbreaking research the US does if it's happening neck deep in a celeb worshiping, engagement metric obsessed culture. Unless you are an Elon Musk type P.T. Barnum character good luck getting any attention. All I forsee happening is NASA, National Science Foundation etc being run by YouTube stars soon.
Things that make sense decentralised to service freedom have a track record of becoming centralised to service convenience. Source: The Master Switch by Tim Wu.