I've Been Busy

Long time between posts. I had some things happen. Personal health issues, family issues, and work was busy. 

Personal health can be summarized in one line: chronic back pain is a bummer. 

Not interested in getting into all the details of family issues and work stuff in this forum. I will share that I had to travel to St. Thomas to bury my uncle two weeks ago. He died suddenly, but it should not have been unexpected. I say 'should', because I was not prepared for it. I will write more about what my uncle meant to me later, maybe. I was the only family member that went to sort out his personal effects and take care of his funeral arrangements, which should tell you something about how close we were. 

My uncle was a weather geek, a political wonk, and a sports geek. I will maybe write more about that later too. 

PSA: if you do not have a legal will that also designates an executor, please make one. Do not put it off. The last thing you would want when your friends and loved ones are grieving is to make their lives more difficult because you did not spend 30 minutes filling out some simple paperwork. Do not do that to your family or partner or friends or people that cared about you. 

The Buddha Was Not a Big Shopper: Your Phone is a Dissatisfaction Engine

People are finally coming around to the idea that Big Tech in general, and social media in particular, is not good for you. This is a welcome shift in opinion. You can read books about it, you can watch documentaries about it, or you can just wake the fuck up and stop looking at your phone. You've got some options, is what I'm saying. 

Facebook is the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company of the twenty first century: they know exactly what they are doing, they are in business to make money, and they do not care about any negative externalities related to their efforts to increase shareholder value. 

Increased self-harm and depression among pre-teens? Oh well. Destabilizing democracy with misinformation campaigns funded and directed by foreign powers? lol "We are not responsible for the content of our platform, we are just the platform." Propagating bizarre conspiracy theories and harmful medical misinformation? That's just the cost of doing business. Driving 'engagement' at the cost of your mental health? That's on you, because it is up to you to limit your exposure to the toxic morass of social media. 

Facebook makes money by selling your attention to advertisers. In this they copied Google, because Google had already achieved wild success in 'monetizing' your attention. In order for Facebook to sell your attention they must first get your attention, and then keep it. It turns out that getting and keeping your attention is not very difficult. It also turns out that the most effective way to get and keep your attention is to generate an emotional response, such as outrage, anger, or frustration. You do not put your phone down if you read or watch something that is wrong; instead you think about it, you comment on it, and you share your comment, you engage with it. 

It may be useful here to ask what the true goal of advertising is. What are advertisers trying to do, and what are they trying to get you to feel? Advertisers are trying to get you to spend something, usually money, but maybe also time, or attention, or all three of those things. How are advertisers trying to make you feel? Are they trying to make you feel happy, content, satisfied, fulfilled? No. Their intention is to do the opposite of those things, because happy / content / satisfied / fulfilled people do not buy things. (Buddha was not a big shopper.) 

Consider then that Facebook is an advertising platform masquerading as a 'social' platform, and that the function of advertising is to make you feel dissatisfied, to make you feel unfulfilled, to make you feel incomplete. It is literally a massive dissatisfaction engine that is designed and built to print money. No wonder people are unhappy. 

Facebook is a net positive for many people's bank accounts, but a net negative for the world. 

RJR Tobacco knew that their products were addictive, knew they were harmful, knew they were giving people cancer. They took no action until the Federal government got involved. Facebook is doing all the same things: creating hugely addictive products, marketing them to children, giving people attention cancer, all in the name of profit. Only tech companies get this type of free pass to poison their users. You should demand better. And you should delete your Facebook account today.