Netflix's "The Social Dilemma"

[TitoFan]

Sort of a gloom and doom documentary... and certainly not applicable to those without a social media addiction... but probably worth a watch for anyone with kids.

I say "not applicable" to those without social media addiction... and yet the rest of humanity is certainly affected by the actions and reactions of these brainwashed and manipulated, weak-minded souls to whom the doc was referring to.

A bit hypocritical-sounding to hear these young tech whizzes sounding the alarm on the systems they themselves have helped create... but useful info nonetheless.

My favorite part was where it explains the mentality of many conspiracy theorists, monitored and fed by the "suggestion engines", as they called them.... and prompted to reach out to yet other conspiracy theorists until the whole thing becomes some kind of brainwashed feeding frenzy. Certainly would explain a lot of things you read around here.

Will probably be poo-pooed by those already addicted to and controlled by social media... which basically just drives the point even further.

Bottom line is, which was touched on toward the end, that basically parents have a huge role in offsetting the Machiavellian purposes of social media and their intended effect on young, impressionable minds.

[walrus]

Interesting you write this I just started watching it this evening but was literally 2 minutes into it when my wife got home and we did some other things. I thought it was going to be more along the lines of how tech uses our data. I’ll probably watch it anyway I have no social media accounts but some of these companies have billions of people and they obviously have a major impact on life today. Funny though because Netflix itself is joining the brainwash train.

I did watch that Challenger the last flight documentary. It’s not a happy documentary obviously but I think it did fair tribute to the seven astronauts that died and while not really shedding any new light on the subject it did show how government can so easily getting lost in so much red tape and focusing on timelines and budgets.

I guess this movie “cuties” actually caused a lot of controversy to the point where people who cancelled their Netflix subscriptions made the stock news. I’m not going to watch it to find out what the hooplas about. It certainly got Netflix a lot of press.

Now nurse Rached, that seems pretty cool. I watched a couple episodes and it seems to be done by the people who did American horror story. I’ll keep Netflix for now, I hope they don’t become to politicized there needs to be some places we can avoid all the bullshit for a while.

[TitoFan]

It's worth a watch, especially considering what other things we watch on TV sometimes that we wish we hadn't. It does touch upon how tech uses our data... you just need to get further into the program.

I thought some of the acting was a bit hokey at times... but was mostly interested in the substance of the message. Some pretty influential people in the field spoke, and I thought just reading their condensed background and putting it together with what they were saying was interesting in itself.

[walrus]

I hope to watch it tonight. One of the reasons I asked to get banned for a few months, and admittedly this is only one, the iPhone I have let’s you track the amount of time you spend looking at your phone. I timed it for a months and was amazed by the hours I spent on my phone. Then I made a decision to try to cut that time. I did ok but still felt it was too much time. I forced blocked myself from a couple of sites and my phone time went down by 70%. My will power sucks sometimes I need assistance to cut down on things. Then I got into this hiking thing. It started as I needed to develop “groups” for work, groups in the community are very difficult during covid so I hunted out parks with walking trails which lead to hiking trails which lead to me doing it everyday work or not. I like to get as remote as possible and close my eyes, hear nature, couldn’t use my phone if I wanted to. This tech just worms it’s way into your life. It certainly can warp your mind and you don’t even realize it. I think you can learn more sitting cross legged 7,000 ft above sea level disconnected, in silence, looking at the scenic views that you can consuming much of the bullshit on the internet.

Now of course meetings and appointments, which used to be actual meetings and appointments with people are done on an app. I was on one that had so many boxes of people they were all about the size of a thumbnail. I was thinking this is crazy I’m one of those thumbnails, I couldn’t tell which one.

Now I admit I’m a hypocrite of course. I bought stock in Facebook. I won’t be moving the market with my handful of shares but a couple years back I was reading about the multi billion people they connect and figured whether I like it or not it’s a real thing, they are innovative despite all the controversy they know how to make money. Ok I’ll stfu now see if I can find time to watch this documentary tonight

[TitoFan]

From the sounds of it you'll get a lot out of this documentary. I've never had that addiction to my phone and social media, but then again I'm a bit older than you and didn't grow up with the amount of communication technology that exists today. I've always believed that just about anything addictive is bad for you (I said "just about" )… and that includes phones and social media. You just have to look around at restaurants (well... before COVID), shopping centers, hell... anywhere where people congregate... and you'll find just about everybody looking down at their phone. On a bus, at a park, shit... even in places where you're just supposed to be having fun (ie: the beach). You STILL see people hooked on their phones. Waiting rooms... you name it. It's weird. People see memes or gifs making fun of that and they'll snicker... not realizing it's THEM they're making fun of.

[NoSavingByTheBell]

I'll never forget seeing the pyramids in Egypt... I'm not going to lie I did have my phone in my back pocket ready for photos and videos.... But as we stepped off the bus that drops you off across from the pyramids, I couldn't help but notice the people ahead of us were literally looking at the pyramids THROUGH THE SCREENS OF THEIR CELL PHONES WHILE FILMING.

What a one-dimensional and truncated view of some of mankind's most breathtaking constructions! Imagine not looking with the eyes that God gave you! You step out of the bus and instead of looking up with your eyes at these massive amazing structures, instead you turn on your phone's video camera and all the while as you approach the pyramids you are looking at them through the screen.....

then in the future when you watch the video of it it will look exactly as it did the first time....

So you actually never really saw the pyramids with your own eyes after having gone all the way to Egypt....

Fucking sad

[NoSavingByTheBell]

My favorite part was where it explains the mentality of many conspiracy theorists, monitored and fed by the "suggestion engines", as they called them.... and prompted to reach out to yet other conspiracy theorists until the whole thing becomes some kind of brainwashed feeding frenzy. Certainly would explain a lot of things you read around here.

Will probably be poo-pooed by those already addicted to and controlled by social media... which basically just drives the point even further.

Bottom line is, which was touched on toward the end, that basically parents have a huge role in offsetting the Machiavellian purposes of social media and their intended effect on young, impressionable minds.

Mind over matter may or may not be a part of this feeding frenzy you refer to; it seems over the past 20 years or less people are able to create a reality out of non-reality or out of possible reality; it is a scary thing and I wonder how much of this phenomenon is due to technology exacerbating it. You get a guy in Belgium saying he "believes" a hidden planet in our solar system will hit us, and then another guys "believes" that guy, and adds to it some semi-believable jibberish, and now it has compounded itself, and someone else writes a scathing rebuttal to it, but then THAT is used to try and "show" that there is a pushback, which is supposed to convince us that the pushback is FURTHER PROOF of the conspiracy....etc etc.... and it is an echo chamber of wishful thinking and creative thinking and it is boosted up by getting millions of views.... then the VIEWS are pointed to as further proof that the theory is actually true..... but NO, someone else says, because the views were ASSISTED by algorithms written by engineers who FAVORED and gave an advantage to the theory....

and you just dont know what the fuck to believe anymore.

[walrus]

Tits don’t know if you have heard about “internet 2.0”. The British dude involved in the creation of the internet and others are leading the way with its creation. The content will be run on the blockchain which would make it difficult for a couple companies to take it over and monetize it. It could create social media controlled by the people rather than an entity. How much this would help the issues presented in the documentary I’m not sure but it would decentralize things. It’s like really in depth I’m sure you have stumbled across articles about it. It is more meant to counter the monetization and controlled flow of information over the web. Really a handful of billionaires and companies currently control access to information which is completely counter to the internet’s intent. In many cases our opinions and behaviors are altered by these people and companies. It’s an interesting thought, don't think it’s a cure all but it would address part of the problem.

[TitoFan]

Tits don’t know if you have heard about “internet 2.0”. The British dude involved in the creation of the internet and others are leading the way with its creation. The content will be run on the blockchain which would make it difficult for a couple companies to take it over and monetize it. It could create social media controlled by the people rather than an entity. How much this would help the issues presented in the documentary I’m not sure but it would decentralize things. It’s like really in depth I’m sure you have stumbled across articles about it. It is more meant to counter the monetization and controlled flow of information over the web. Really a handful of billionaires and companies currently control access to information which is completely counter to the internet’s intent. In many cases our opinions and behaviors are altered by these people and companies. It’s an interesting thought, don't think it’s a cure all but it would address part of the problem.

TBH I've heard some... but don't know that much about it. From the sounds of it, seems like a worthy endeavor. Gotta wonder though, about the success of it, and whether it'll end up being just another corruptly-run enterprise.

[walrus]

Tits don’t know if you have heard about “internet 2.0”. The British dude involved in the creation of the internet and others are leading the way with its creation. The content will be run on the blockchain which would make it difficult for a couple companies to take it over and monetize it. It could create social media controlled by the people rather than an entity. How much this would help the issues presented in the documentary I’m not sure but it would decentralize things. It’s like really in depth I’m sure you have stumbled across articles about it. It is more meant to counter the monetization and controlled flow of information over the web. Really a handful of billionaires and companies currently control access to information which is completely counter to the internet’s intent. In many cases our opinions and behaviors are altered by these people and companies. It’s an interesting thought, don't think it’s a cure all but it would address part of the problem.

TBH I've heard some... but don't know that much about it. From the sounds of it, seems like a worthy endeavor. Gotta wonder though, about the success of it, and whether it'll end up being just another corruptly-run enterprise.

Well it’s a very broad discussion anyway and it goes beyond many aspects of the documentary especially regarding content but I read up on blockchain for my foray into crypto currencies and it is quite amazing. I can’t give you off hand the market cap of bitcoin bit I know it’s around 11k a coin with a max supply (which we haven’t hit yet) of 21 million coins so we are talking about a massive sum of money that as of yet as not been hacked despite many state and private actors trying. Now the exchanges have been hacked. But they are not part of “the blockchain” so to speak. So that tech behind bitcoin is being used by ibm and other companies to create more secure operations for companies. So in theory new social media platforms could be created that are decentralized and run by the participants. This would effect ownership of data giving it back to the people but the end product could still be corruptible as we see with exchanges of crypto currency. It really is a difficult topic for a non tech guy. Like they say a little knowledge can be dangerous. I have some friends who work in IT, they veered off into blockchain as they “fell in love with it”. They actually use it and build on it they will explain some things to me, some of which I grasp, others they might as well be talking Aramaic.

My wife is in engineer I will ask her for clarification but none of the projects she is involved in use this tech so her company is not providing training etc in it. Turns out the tech behind bitcoin is worth much more than bitcoin yet it was released open source to the world. Yet I use iPhones personally my job provides Samsung with android and that in itself is enough to puzzle me. Ya I’m an Apple guy but I’m not one of those “Samsung sucks” people. I figure they must be good if that many people own them it’s just a different os which I’m not used to. Anyway I’m sure there are members here who are involved in the tech field and understand this shit more than we. Certainly what we are talking about now will have changed extensively two years from now. As the documentary stated computing power is evolving while our brains aren’t. How many inventions and advances don’t have a bad side? I’m sure there are some.