dewme

Marvin said:

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I’m responding to your post but cut out the copied text to reduce page size.

First of all, thank you for composing such a well formed and articulate post. It’s always a pleasure to read a person’s opinion when it is presented so clearly. Whether or not I agree or disagree with what you’re saying isn’t the point. You’ve provided food for thought and added another perspective to consider along with all of the other perspectives stated here.

I believe there is one common theme that permeates many of the contentious subjects we are dealing with in a highly connected world that we now live in. First of all, I don’t think people in general were quite prepared for the environment we live in when it comes to the massive amount of differing opinions that social media provides. When we got our information through personal contacts, newspapers, and magazines the volume and frequency of the information and opinions was limited and arrived at a much slower rate. This allowed more time to contemplate and absorb what was being presented. The amount of time we allowed ourselves to be immersed in discourse on any one issue was a small slice of our daily lives. With social media we can be engaged with an unlimited number of issues nearly 24x7.

 In addition to the massive increase in volume and frequency of information and misinformation we now can engage with a certain amount of anonymity and degree of separation that shields us from personal responsibility, at least for people who are not public figures, influencers, or celebrities. There is little to no accountability for engaging in behavior that would be deemed unsuitable in person to person conversation. We are still learning how to deal with it, and like a new discovery we’ve learned that it can be a tremendously useful tool and a tremendously effective weapon. We can’t stop humans from being humans and humans are often incapable of self moderation, especially when it’s so easy to run nope loop.

One response I have to your post is concerning using AI to moderate social media content. I’m not so sure that would work because we’d have to all agree on which AI we would all agree to use and there would always be claims that the AI is itself biased. In the end I doubt that humans will ever defer to AI in policing their personal behavior, which includes a lack of self discipline, empathy, and self moderation. 

But thanks for weighing in. I think your comments contributed to the conversation in a positive way and gave us another perspective to think about.

I also agree with Wes so anything I say would just be piling on. One underlying issue with the current social dynamic is that money buys power and influence. When someone reaches that level of money and power they have what Howard Stern used to call "F-You Money," meaning that you no longer have to answer to anyone for any reason. Being in that space gives you an enormous amount of power to influence other people's lives. At that point it comes down to the manner in which you want to influence other people's lives. Is it for the greater good of strangers and humanity, is it for evil, is it to force your beliefs on other people, is it to accumulate even more money and power, is it to punish your enemies, polish your legacy, elevate yourself to demigod status, act out your perverse pleasures, or whatever? All people at that level have a choice to do whatever they want.

I'm disappointed in Musk and Zuckerberg when they act on their destructive inclinations because they have a unique opportunity to make such positive changes that aren't shaded by their own ideologies. To me it doesn't matter if you donate millions or billions to charity when you're at the same time causing suffering in other people's lives, or you're donating to charities for causes you want to control implicitly. I'm very impressed by philanthropists like MacKenzie Scott who donate to people and causes without restrictions or any strings attached. I don't see her donating a million dollars to help fund an inauguration party of a political zealot. She's a great example of someone who has F-U Money but isn't using it to seek political favors or special consideration that enhances your own causes or lines your pockets with more money.

I’m definitely ready to replace my one AppleTV HD with a newer version beyond the latest 4K that I have on a different TV. Apple TVs have always been super stable and reliable for me. 

As an Apple customer, all I can say is that Apple Silicon was a masterfully engineered and superbly executed innovation that will forever be seen as yet another major inflection point in computer evolution, and it was driven by Apple. It tamed the Power Monster that looked like it would be an insurmountable brick wall to further performance improvements, unless of course we considered using liquid nitrogen cooling systems for personal computers. Apple Silicon may end up being "Peak Silicon" because the silicon fabrication technology looks like it will hit an atomic limit in the near future. 

No amount of revisionism will dull the shine on what Apple has accomplished.

gatorguy said:

A well-written article overall. Kudos to the author. 

I have just one suggestion, which isn't unique to this specific article:
Make it more clear that the writer has no evidence that either Google or Amazon sell otherwise private user data, which is not unlike Apple. They may use collected data internally in ways that Apple doesn't, or at least does in a far more limited fashion. But none of the three ever sell your data to any outside parties, whether it be an advertiser or data broker or government agency.  What is entrusted to them stays with them.

Sometimes readers are left with the impression that's not the case, which may not be the writer's intent. 

Very well said. The article and several comments are pushing back on the presumption of guilt being unreasonable. At the same time the author is implying that Google and Amazon may be involved in doing what Apple is being accused of. Good catch.