Careless People/Sarah Wynn-Williams

[cbabe]

First hand account of Facebook and the people and the decisions and the chaos, misogyny, racism, naïveté.

Watching entitled kids with way too much money and power.

Disturbing.

Thoughts?

[txwhitedove]

1. Wow, super hot book at library with long line of holds on all formats, book, audio, and ebooks.

[cbabe]

2. Mark tried to get it banned. Made it required reading.

[txwhitedove]

3. Did not know that but, of course we DO read all the banned books! On my library list.

[cbabe]

4. Some ugly truths: fb rape culture, Myanmar genocide, China human rights violations, etc.

[jfz9580m]

5. Meh

Current Affairs had a piece on this person.

It’s such a predictably bogus charade that I don’t know who buys it.

First you pretend that “helping society” or whatever the fuck isn’t something difficult and worthwhile as just about any boots on the ground environmental/anormal rights activist knows. Instead it is going and working for Facebook, McKinsey etc. I mean who buys that shit ever?

That narrative should be mocked. The pretense that it was ever sincere is kayfabe.

The use of terms like “performative” or kayfabe have increased in recent years because of: 1) all the moronic influencers trying to be their authentic selves-which is sad and lame and 2) this sort of horrible charade by pseudo elites. I never get what is elite about these people.

The only elite person I have ever seen associated with Facebook is Yan LeCun and he is the reason I overcame my aversion to that company enough to install WhatsApp (which is in fairness a useful app).

But back to this woman, you are fired by those creeps and then there is an equally fraudulent “crisis of conscience” and you bilk the whole thing a second time around with a sleazy little tell-all that those gullible morons or the equally fraudulent pseudo-elites at the NYT and The Atlantic gush over saying “omg that is a very serious expose”.

Actual whistleblowers are more like Timnit Gebru of DAIR or worse they are like the Fannie Mae whistleblower who went to jail, poor Daniel Hale (who should have known better than to trust a greasy rag like The Intercept). They have hard lives.

The glorious state of China knows how to deal with “troublemakers”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr46npx1e73o

(On a tangent, I find the left enthusiasm for China truly baffling. Nathan Robinson who is generally one of the very few people I respect is not even immune to it. I get it up to the hypocritical criticism of the “China will do it so let’s do it first” plutocrats.
I part ways where an American-centric view by people like Robinson falls prey to this constant human bias where criticism of one group leads to a less clear sighted take on the one it attacks. There is a reactionary element to left/liberalism I don’t get.

I suppose the platonic ideal of hating everyone is hard for all but the most seasoned, hardened, cynical, bitter curmudgeons and actual innately green. Being green is a learned behavior for humans unfortunately, but where it is who you are, living in this society involves constantly pretending to buy into this rapacious plunder of the planet and exploitation of animals by this one annoying species. And long explanations of how you aren’t the Unabomber nor advocating for a return to mud huts nor antinatalism, but that this economic and sociopolitical model (falling birth rates not overpopulation/overconsumption are the issue! Need more growth! Cancer good! (right); Aging societies loom, not angry unemployed young men! Need more growth! Migration will fix it!(“left” if Koch-parroting, meninist shills like Ben Wray/or the Cato plant Betsy Hartmann are considered left) is pegged at an extreme and broken.)

I don’t think one should be cynical of all people, but certainly of people like this woman. Even Carlin might find it hard to see the universe in this woman’s dead eyes:

https://thehumanist.com/magazine/september-october-2015/features/strange-bedfellows-misanthropy-humanism-the-many-faces-of-george-carlin

[cbabe]

6. Ok. You don't like the author. What do you

think about the book? Do you have an insider’s take on fb?

I’m always looking for good criticism.

[jfz9580m]

7. Well I haven't read the book

But I definitely increasingly see a lot of the net/social media as a cynical tool of the amoral, mercenary, global military industrial complex.

Nothing original there..but if it’s not precisely an insider’s take, I still have some experience with how social engineering and emotion manipulation are built into these technologies. Probably a little more than the average person.

But it’s not specific to Facebook so much as our overall technology landscape.

It’s frustratingly hard to pinpoint beyond the rather vague outline I just gave you.

[cbabe]

8. I was a member of a proto burning man artsy group. Smart

techs messing around with art. I was struck how second hand/old hat ideas were applauded as long as there were a few blinking lights.

Someone remarked: it’s because they can talk good.

So ‘sales’ was the point. Not creativity or beauty or…

[jfz9580m]

9. Well I don't have any juicy stories

But I can say that proximity to the sort of military industrial complex that is increasingly Google/Meta etc and corporate culture in general does not have the best effect on publicly funded academic science.

Academic science is very competitive and people are insecure. But when you are a very bright person, at some point, you have to get that the sort of cowardice/liability and obsession with image curation sans real character that results from being adjacent to these basically corrupt, sleazy, shifty, disingenuous corporate dimwits is not a good thing.

These are bleak times and the reality is that everything is more arbitrary, political and shitty than anyone wants and you are not going to get through them with this douchey, blandly cowardly and dimwitted corporate douchebag approach.

You should be able to use your brain outside strictly field related work and when you do it shouldn’t be this faux edgy assholery that is dickish to anyone you can get away with fucking over and obsequious to the worst morons.

I get the realities of society. I saw that stupid witch hunt against Dr Fauci. That bs about lab leaks etc. These societies are a joke with endless nitpicky conversations about a few trivial scandals and completely apparently oblivious acceptance of large scale corporate fraud, rule breaking etc.

These are times when scientists should be like Norbert Weiner instead of some sort of Google creep.

And I also know that people who are completely spineless flounder in times like these and worse that’s contagious.

Rather than image curating PR..especially when you are good scientists, not creeps etc, but merely worried due to the insecurity of the life-yes academia is competitive and the American society is sadly precarious..I get it, but there comes a point where intelligent scientists who are not even shifty or creepy, but still a bit craven and douchey..I don’t like saying craven and douchey but..I mean honestly if the shoe fits..

You shouldn’t endlessly mimic corporate douches. Which was never my main mentor but it definitely is a problem with even good pis who are adjacent to those greasy google etc creeps.

The real security against slander, ransomware, unfair attacks etc isn’t bogus forms of “open” and theater or to kowtowing to the worst people in the most craven ways. It’s to take a risk sometimes and have a spine. I don’t like politics near science either. But there tech creeps make life hard and no longer feasible to pretend this atrocious meninist libertarian tech creep coup is in your head.

I am worried too. It’s not casual bomb throwing..

I live in this part harmless podunk part blatantly misogynistic hell which is supposed to be..awww it’s just a misunderstanding..it’s not…it’s mostly harassment. It’s not possible to see the stuff that grows around you bot or human creep and be oblivious or ascribe it all to chance or non malicious stuff.

This is not the effect technology should have on society-some baubles but a bleaker women’s rights landscape, less democracy and if this isn’t the time to acknowledge it when?

The drill is first it’s cowardly and “somebody else’s problem” while navigating these complex labyrinths of tech exploiting plausible deniability with actual corrupt misogynists and corporate dickheads in the woodwork. Then calling women like me crazy. That’s screwing yourselves over in the long run and painting yourself into an indefensible corner with any actually decent person. The threat is not bs scandals and lawsuits. It’s whatever you end up having in place of what was once a semblance of a conscience.

Cowardice is not an option once the world is this bleak. Either don’t start non routine shit. If you do, don’t do it this execrably.
I am sick of suffering stupidity.

And well I was disoriented and out of it but I am fine now. But I don’t have any patience with drivel and never will. This like Covid is a reset point. These guys should try to do better not reliably worse and worse as time goes on and the stuff I am thinking of clearly represents an error.

Instead of hiding behind red tape when that’s convenient, being okay with casual rule-breaking (stuff that should implicitly be clearly to anyone with a functioning brain who is not engaged in self-deception). Copying repellant companies like Google and buying into lame behaviorist shit is ..well lame..

It’s not anything specific. It’s the culture that comes from being adjacent to these creepy tech cos and that’s so stupid in scientists who are not even sleazy or creepy, but worst case kinda lame and douchey and apparently what is appropriate is pretending not to get that and instead babble like a glassy eyed hostage with severe Stockholm Syndrome.

I suppose I should state all that in “professional and appropriate language”-fuck that. It’s craven and unpardonably stupid if nothing else to bang on about what is appropriate..language..I mean really? Ffs. As superficial as you can get..
Skin deep professionalism..

I may swear like a sailor, but I wouldn’t ever be unprofessional the way a Google/Meta or other tech creeps dickhead is.

And yeah it’s not juicy and well when I am decoupled from douchebag central ;-/, I can handle this stupid better alone honestly.

But douchey cowardice is contagious..even if emotion contagion is Facebook fluff..

I really feel like these guys endanger their labs and futures with how cowardly they can be in the face of any crisis. Corporate pr and liability culture is not a good fit for basically honest scientists. Which in my experience is most scientists. But this corporate tech creep culture is a cultifying influence.

And well if people want to be that way, they can. I won’t. You actually come off as shady when you aren’t if you behave like that.
So stupid..