[Air-L] With Friends Like Facebook ....

[Jacob Kramer-Duffield]

> However all that turns out - perhaps Niel Postman had it right in 1984: we
> are in love with the technologies of our enslavement ...
>
> Or, to be provocative, did the Matrix get it right: we're confined to a pod
> of virtual existence, with (more or less) nowhere to go?
>
>   
Really, this is all a bit silly. Did you stop using Microsoft products 
because Bill Gates is a big-time Republican? No, you stopped using 
Microsoft products (or, I suppose didn't) because of their utility or 
lack thereof. It's even more true for Facebook, as a website (albeit a 
social hub of a website) rather than an OS or core program.

My take - Zuckerberg et al. are a bunch of very privileged kids who've 
never had to work a real job in their lives (not that launching Facebook 
was easy, but not traditional postgrad scutt-work), Thiel is a typically 
wacky tech-libertarian (calling him a neocon is ridiculous) of the type 
it's hard to avoid in any technology setting.

As to the article itself, I won't waste my energy getting annoyed at 
every basic innaccuracy or whinge, but I'll highlight one:

"On Facebook, you can be free to be who you want to be,"

This is just beyond wrong - on Facebook you can be not necessarily 
exactly who you /are/, but have to be something close enough to it that 
your friends don't call BS.

Okay, one more:

"For my own part, I am going to retreat from the whole thing, remain as 
unplugged as possible, and spend the time I save by not going on 
Facebook doing something useful, such as reading books."

And that's the basic critique, isn't it? This guy doesn't need Facebook, 
because he doesn't want or need to connect with other people any more 
than he already does - indeed seems to want less human contact. And 
that's his right. It's just a lot different from young people figuring 
out how to navigate their social world, or us watching them do it. The 
guy's a curmudgeon, pure and simple.
> Should we be thinking about pulling our profiles?
Only if you don't like being there, or aren't getting what you want or 
need out of it.


jkd