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The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley (nytimes.com)
Kara Swisher, writing for The New York Times: I kept pressing Mr. Zuckerberg on how he personally felt about the damage his creation had done. [Editor's note: Ms. Swisher is referring to her recent interview with Mark Zuckerberg.] Was he beginning to understand the power that he held, and that the world that he controlled was not such a rosy place? Facebook was "probably," he admitted, "too focused on just the positives and not focused enough on some of the negatives." Fair enough. But it was impossible to get him to acknowledge any personal pain as both the creator and the destroyer. "I mean, my emotion is feeling a deep sense of responsibility to try to fix the problem," said Mr. Zuckerberg. "In running a company, if you want to be innovative and advance things forward, I think you have to be willing to get some things wrong. But I don't think it is acceptable to get the same things wrong over and over again."
It was a classic Silicon Valley engineer's roll-up-your-sleeves answer, which leaves many cold when it comes to, say, the manipulation of democracy. Fending off bad actors like the Russians has been and will be increasingly expensive; it may even be impossible. But Facebook could have done much more than it did, and it certainly needs to do more than it's doing. Mr. Zuckerberg is now trying to fend off talk in Washington of regulating his company like the thing he once told me it was: a utility. He has also spent the last month meeting over dinners with a range of academic experts on free speech, propaganda and more to try to understand where to go from here. Call it the education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley, but on the world's dime. How much that has -- and will -- cost is probably immeasurable.
It was a classic Silicon Valley engineer's roll-up-your-sleeves answer, which leaves many cold when it comes to, say, the manipulation of democracy. Fending off bad actors like the Russians has been and will be increasingly expensive; it may even be impossible. But Facebook could have done much more than it did, and it certainly needs to do more than it's doing. Mr. Zuckerberg is now trying to fend off talk in Washington of regulating his company like the thing he once told me it was: a utility. He has also spent the last month meeting over dinners with a range of academic experts on free speech, propaganda and more to try to understand where to go from here. Call it the education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley, but on the world's dime. How much that has -- and will -- cost is probably immeasurable.
Sounds like a people problem if Russia's campaign is credited for so easily enhancing the divisive environment created by our bipartisan political system. Most important part of education is learning how to educate yourself. Obviously a majority did not do that; now they are all credited as victims regardless. MERRICA!
In short - we'd make up an enemy if required to keep the status quo in power.
I think HL Mencken had something to say about it:
"Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary."
Yep, that describes our (and most other) governments. Russia's done the same using us as the boogyman, North Korea...maybe it's why we don't like looking in the mirror much. It's the oldest trick in the book - hey, look, a bear is even more attention-getting than hey, look, a squirrel.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
No, people are in a tizzy because that sack of shit Zuckerberg is making stupid mistakes for which he isn't the one paying the price ... and I don't mean his loss of fucking stock value for his overvalued company.
It's not his fucking personal information he's leaking.
I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire, and I'm sure as hell not going to accept him saying "yeah, we're an invasive company who is violating everyone's privacy and helping foreign agents to influence elections, so we'll try harder next time".
No, sorry, Facebook should have been thinking of this shit before they became a problem.
Zuckerfuck fiercely defends his own privacy, while treating ours like a commodity. As such, anybody in the employ of Facebook should be doxxed, hacked, and abused ... along with their entire fucking families. The higher up the food chain, even more so.
They've given up any right for us to give a fuck about their privacy. So publish every goddamned bit of information about them .. their banking information, where their children go to school, their phone numbers ... everything.
In this case, turnabout is definitely fair play.
Electoral college would function like that if electoral college votes were proportional. Our current system gives the most leverage to the states that are large, but not firmly controlled by either party.
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