Silicon Valley fails to take into account the human consequences of its technological wizardry. // Silicon Valley seems to have lost a bit of its verve since the Presidential election. The streets of San Francisco—spiritually part of the Valley—feel less crowded. Coffee-shop conversations are hushed. Everything feels a little muted, an eerie quiet broken by chants of protesters. It even seems as if there are more parking spots. Technology leaders, their employees, and those who make up the entire technology ecosystem seem to have been shaken up and shocked by the election of Donald Trump.

information age anxiety, Silicon Valley

Several prominent people are up in arms about Facebook charging for access to users who have already Liked their page. I believe this debate is missing the big picture, and what we are in fact witnessing is the unfurling of the full-fledged... “Blurring the lines between advertising and content is one of the most ambitious goals a marketer could have.” (I just pasted the link and noticed: this Dalton Caldwell guy seems to understand Facebook quite well, and at the same time doesn't know how to configure a proper open graph for his website... hm.. 2017 repost: open graph fixed.) .... Facebook newsfeed is an embodiment of our war on noise. We depend on the newsfeed optimizer to protect our limited attention span, and as a consequence, Facebook gets to choose what stories we do and don’t see, just as Google chooses which search results we do and don’t see. Conceptually, this seems very lucrative: Facebook is auctioning off our limited attention span to the highest bidder, as long as the bidder has a candidate newsstory to promote. This is what Like-gate is about. Welcome to the attention economy.”

information age anxiety, Facebook

If our supersmart tech leaders knew a bit more about history or philosophy we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.

information age anxiety