Just curious, why? Performance reasons? Compatibility? Something else?
Speaking for myself, I run Linux on the desktop and Windows in a VM for office applications and so forth and it works fine. But obviously I'm not running Photoshop or gaming or anything like that (though in the case of the latter, Proton is already great and is poised to get even better)...
Just no pressing need. I don't have any problems with Windows, and trying to get everything working in Wine or virtualization introduces more updates and new problems.
On the first point, I agree, the article was very much misleading and I hope they correct it.
As for the rest, frankly, this just adds more fuel to my belief that the first thing we need from these companies is simply transparency. If they're running mass psychology experiments on people, we should know about it.
The idea that Facebook can operate as a black box while literally weighing how much to value individual human emotions is deeply deeply disturbing me.
> As cited in this article, Frances Haugen is arguing against allowing Facebook to use end-to-end encryption because she suggests Facebook should have more surveillance of private communications: https://twitter.com/AlecMuffett/status/1452309133928054799?s...
That's because encryption is incredibly problematic. And I say that as a huge fan of digital privacy and an avid user of Signal.
I'm not so blind as to think that perfect encryption is an unalloyed good, and in that screenshot (which, I'll point out, excludes any broader context for her remarks) Haugen touches on just one of many very legitimate problems with the technology.
Now, in the end, I think (though I'm not certain) I believe the upsides outweigh the downsides. But don't pretend as though she doesn't raise a valid concern, even if you don't agree with her conclusion.
> A lot of people jumped to the defense of the Facebook leaker because the media so successfully framed it as a “whistleblower” situation, but that’s not really what’s happening here. She’s very much an activist
All whistleblowers are activists.
Do you really think Snowden didn't have an agenda? Of course he did! His act was specifically and explicitly political.
Hell, Wikileaks has proven itself to be nakedly political.
The only reason I'm betting you don't see it that way is you happen to agree with their politics.
> some of her suggestions really do not align with what the tech community wants at all.
Don't deign to speak for me. There is no unified "tech community" on this topic, even if your echo chamber leads to to believe otherwise.
Man, there is a profound lack of self-awareness when you cite 1984 in an article defending Facebook, when Facebook is complicit in the creation of modern surveillance capitalism and the slow but inexorable shift to the digital panopticon...
Eh, you can get that distraction-free experience with modern technology if you want it. When I want to focus on writing, I have a Vim setup that gives me a screen with a cursor. I run that full screen, turn off notifications and whatnot, and get to it. And when I'm done I can go back to using my modern technology to do everything else I want with the content, whether it's formatting/typesetting, sharing, etc.
There's really no reason to sacrifice all those additional capabilities at the alter of focus or productivity. Just find ways to use modern technology more effectively.
I get used to things. I have spent hundreds of hours using modern laptop computers to develop software, read articles, mindlessly consume social media content, watch porn. Because of these hundreds of hours, when I come to interact with my laptop computer, a set of pre-established affordances, feelings, and thought patterns immediately present themselves.
This goes away if I write in my notebook or type on my alphasmart, where a whole other host of feelings and thought patterns immediately appear. Usually, these are feelings and thought patterns that are localized to what I'm writing about, which makes writing (and thinking) much easier.
Digging up and using some old piece of technology instead of using an existing, multi-purpose computing device is the definition of "[building] his life around it", as it requires adapting your workflows to the technology instead of adapting the technology to your workflows.
> There's really no reason to sacrifice all those additional capabilities at the alter of focus or productivity. Just find ways to use modern technology more effectively.
It could be that the screenwriter used to use that MS-DOS program back in the day, and already knew and liked it, had a well-developed workflow around it, etc. Then running it on DOSBox or an old machine you happen to have lying around makes perfect sense imo.
> It could be that the screenwriter used to use that MS-DOS program back in the day, and already knew and liked it, had a well-developed workflow around it, etc. Then running it on DOSBox or an old machine you happen to have lying around makes perfect sense imo.
Absolutely!
But I wasn't responding to the article. I was responding to the original comment, which stated:
> There's something to be said for the focused nature of older technology.
My response and point was that this isn't somehow precluded with newer technology. That is, if what you're getting out of older technology is "focus", you can get that with newer tech without having to sacrifice other capabilities.
If what you're getting out of older technology is "familiarity" or "nostalgia" or "joy" or something similarly aesthetic, then obviously, keep on keeping on. :)
Depends on your "resources of personality". Maybe it's my ADHD or maybe just weakness of character, but I need to place an extra barrier between myself and distraction that I can't simply dismiss with a mouse click.
Ah, well, in that case what you're getting out of older technology is "externally imposed self-control". Douglas Adams' publisher famously locked him in a hotel room because he was such a chronic procrastinator. I can definitely relate!
The problem for me was that distraction was still one alt+tab away. Ultimately, what worked for me best was writing in very boring and rather inconvenient conditions. Waiting at a car wash, or in a car shop worked best.
I really wish I could see an industry/education level cross tab. Anecdotally, we're seeing a lot of churn in tech where education levels are typically quite high, but in the data in the article, if you don't break down by sector, the numbers would suggest quit rates should be lower than normal...
There's clearly a very complex dynamic going on, here, and I have a very strong suspicion that while the macro numbers say one thing, what's going on at the ground level actually varies significantly from sector to sector, geography to geography, and demographic to demographic.
> It just gives people with bad thoughts a thing to look at.
The word "just" is doing a lot of work, here. By your line of reasoning, propaganda isn't anything anyone should worry about.
Not to go full Godwin, but the Nazi regime is an instructive analogy, here. By your reasoning, all the Nazis did was "just" promote a lot of anti-Jewish propaganda. Would you really go on to say "Blaming the Nazis for negative outcomes in the world is just like blaming violent video games. All they did was put the messages out there, then the people with the bad thoughts did the mass murder..."?
And to preempt the objection that Facebook isn't intentionally distributing material that, say, promotes ethnic violence, while Facebook corporate obviously does not have that as an official policy, their algorithm is doing precisely that, by actively promoting these types of materials. Facebook's own internal research has shown that it can and does steer individuals to increasingly extreme content.
So if we agree that a) Facebook's systems steer individuals to violent or extremist content (as proven by their own research), b) propaganda is a tool that works to steer public opinion and drive human behaviour (as proven by historical precedents like Nazi regime), c) extremist content serves as effective propaganda (which is well trod ground in research on extremism), and d) that Facebook knew all these things and failed to curtail what was going on (as now revealed in these internal documents), then I don't see how you can possibly defend Facebook, here.
Honestly, as a pedestrian and cyclist myself, wearing closed-backed, ear-obstructing, or noise cancelling headphones as a pedestrian, cyclist, or driver, is pure insanity as far as I'm concerned.
And yes, I'm looking at you, oblivious jogger who can't hear my bell as I pass on a dual-use path.
Get yourself a set of bone conducting headphones if you want to be out and active and listening to music or whatever. The technology is amazing and it's infinitely safer.
> There is a significant population of folks who are car-hostile here on HN
And there's a significant population of folks who are bike-hostile here on HN.
In fact, there's probably a significant population of folks who are X-hostile, for any value of X you can conceive of, given the size of the HN userbase.
I think the point is to poison the well. When people point out an issue with cars, it isn't because they're using evidence-based reasoning, it's because they're just a bunch of nasty car haters (and communists.)
Contrary to OP's assertions, I actually do enjoy cars, but I don't think they work well at all in the city. I think there are better solutions out there (Japan is a leading example.)
I am not trying to poison the well. I just can't help but observe how often people here post things anti-car and then ascribe all sorts of societal problems under the sun to the fact that the United States is so car-centric. I've also noticed that the car-hostile folks have a tendency to assume malice whenever someone defends the automobile. I mean right now I was just accused of poisoning the well.
The GP mentioned that people here are bike-hostile, but you don't see dozens of submissions from StrongRoads about how terrible bicycles are and how they're responsible for toxic individualism.
>you don't see dozens of submissions from StrongRoads about how terrible bicycles are and how they're responsible for toxic individualism.
I think the reason we don't see dozens of submissions about how terrible bicycles are is because they don't kill car drivers to even remotely the same degree. I mean, come on.
You absolutely see bike-hostile people; they just couch their rhetoric in "the risk is worth the reward", while usually being a driver themselves so experiencing much more of the reward than the risk. It's a well-known phenomenon that when you encounter viewpoints that oppose your own that they will stand out to you more than viewpoints that agree with you, hence why we all see opposition to our ideas everywhere we go.
Does your little observation, here, have any bearing on the article? Does it make the facts less factual? Does it make the numbers less number-y?
Hell, I tried to go back to the top-level comment to figure out what might've triggered you, but your original comment is a non sequitur as far as I can tell.
This comment is an illustration of what I am "triggered" about. I disagree with the article because of the tone it uses, the assumptions it makes, and what it ascribes to our 'culture'. So when I see yet another post that is so obviously biased and rhetorically underhanded (toxic individualism, implying a total lack of empathy) I can't help but point out this is a trend here on HN.
>"Does your little observation, here, have any bearing on the article?"
>"what might've triggered you"
My "little observation", is pretty condescending. So does the triggering comment. Again, illustrates my experience when having a dialogue with car-hostile people. You want to engage me on facts and numbers but you're using rhetorical swipes to try and discredit me.
> I disagree with the article because of the tone it uses
This is not a valid reason to disagree about the article. The feelings the tone caused may also cause you to misjudge the rest of the evidence provided and may limit your ability to form a judgement based strictly on the facts presented.
In an ideal world people would be easily able to dismiss any aspect of an article that isn't purely rational or feelings related. I believe there is something to be said for being critical about what is being presented when the authors bias is so clearly displayed. Especially when we are talking about a subject that is so multivariate and chaotic as society and how it is impacted by cars, city design, and how it impacts the economy, etc.
This was actually a pretty even handed article compared to others I've seen on this topic.
It's fascinating because it sheds light on internal work Facebook is doing; work that, if they were more transparent, might have actually helped their public image.
Personally, if we're going to look at regulating big tech, the first thing I'd like to see done is plain and simple transparency. Just give researchers and policy experts access to aggregate, anonymized data, as well as visibility into policy decisions so we can understand how these massively influential companies operate.
If they're truly working to do better, as Zuck claims, then I can't see why that would be a problem. And given their enormous power, we as individuals have the right to understand how they work.
