You are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

0
5

[–] NOMOCHOMO [S] 0 points 5 points (+5|-0) ago 

Justin Kosslyn leads product management at Jigsaw, the Google (erm, Alphabet) subsidiary working on technological solutions to problems like online censorship and radicalization. Before that, he worked at Google News, Google+, and Google AdSense.

The experience must have radicalized him a bit, because in an essay published at Motherboard, he takes direct aim at not just one of Silicon Valley’s founding assumptions, but one of his parent company’s core business strategies.

“The philosophy of the Internet has assumed that friction is always part of the problem,” writes Kosslyn. But look around. The problem now isn’t too much friction; it’s too little. “It’s time,” he says, “to bring friction back.”

Less friction means more time spent, more ads seen, more sales made. Tech companies lose customers during login screens and security verification, and as a result of slow load times. The country’s top computer science talent is paid billions of dollars to further reduce the milliseconds of delay separating our desires and their fulfillment.

But these technological wonders do not seem to have made our lives or societies more wonderful. Depression, anxiety, loneliness, drug overdoses, and suicide are rising. Productivity growth has slowed. Income inequality has skyrocketed. Politics is more bitter and more tribal. Donald Trump is president of the United States. Something is wrong.

[–] [deleted] 0 points 5 points (+5|-0) ago  (edited ago)

[Deleted]

0
4

[–] Trust_the_Lizard 0 points 4 points (+4|-0) ago 

And they will never understand their contribution to the world they have created. Unless it is turned around on them, their own tactics used against them. Granted I am not even sure they would realize it even then.

0
3

[–] NOMOCHOMO [S] 0 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago 

The double-talk NEWSPEAK is insane.

"technological solutions to online censorship" ....."SLOW IT DOWN, the GOYIM KNOW"