Mark Zuckerberg is in a way today's Christopher Columbus as he wants to 'connect' the entire world. Columbus gets the blame for bringing the good but mostly the bad from Europe to the innocent Americas. Zuckerberg gets the credit for his attempt to bring the 'good' to the world that Europe had never reached. It's my opinion yes, but others also see this as Mark Zuckerberg's attempt to bring the social disease of social media to the tiniest hamlets in the furthest reaches of this world
A recent survey of 50 Nobel laureates (one quarter of living laureates) were asked for their opinion on the 10 greatest threats to mankind. One of them (the laureates were not identified) named Facebook. The British article on this survey added this as a comment...."Mark Zuckerberg's firm knows a truly shocking amount about its users. What would happen if the billionaire decided to go to the dark side? We may find out if his rumored bid to become US President becomes a reality."
Facebook doesn't have to 'go' to the dark side because that's where it came from. It fed on our narcissism, took our eyes off of where they should be, and its potential to guide this world into oblivion is real. The following is a very recent post and one of many posts over the years on Facebook. This isn't a plea to give up Facebook, it's rather a plea to realize what you are dealing with.
CLEVER FIENDISH VISIONARY(S)
Considering where this unfettered technology is going....it doesn't surprise me at all that the San Andreas Fault runs over the western edge of the Silicon Valley....or that Silicon Valley's "playground" is San Fransisco, as author Mike Hoefflinger, "builder, observer" and former Facebook general manager of Intel Inside Programs, describes it in his new book Becoming Facebook, The 10 Challenges That Defined The Company That's Disrupting The World.
We follow Facebook's explosive growth as we read through the book....more succinctly we observe Mark Zuckerberg meet one challenge after another. The Beatles may be gone but they changed music forever, and the author is quite willing to envision Facebook someday being passed up by other companies and newer ideas but Zuckerberg will always be the man who changed the world....who connected the world.
As described by the author, Zuckerberg is "inventing the future" along with "a very small group of people who run consumer technology companies that.....create the things we cannot live without." He calls the leaders of these major companies changing the world...."clever-foolish visionary(s)" but what flashed through my mind the moment I saw this was...clever-fiendish visionary(s).
One might think that chapter after chapter of philosophies developed and challenges met might be dull but the author was successful in avoiding that pitfall. Facebook "mistakes" were not only mentioned but highlighted. It all seems so humble until you realize that the book could not possibly be written without mentioning Mark Zuckerberg's faux pas, for there were so many of them. As a matter of fact this is a running theme in the book.....that one not only cannot be afraid to fail... but if one is not failing....then there must be some kind of problem....for true greatness can come about in no other way but in taking great risks and failing on some.
At times reading the book was almost like being in the board room or at least in one of the companies all-hands meetings. There was a goal to be met and that goal wasn't just greater numbers....it was actually greater ideas. There seemed to be a fairly open furlong-by-furlong description of the race with competitors......particularly Google. Of course it might be easy to be so open when one is winning.
We meet a lot of the most important personalities involved in Facebook's rise over the years, none of whom are detailed at length, but all of whom are pieces of a puzzle....but therein is the huge problem with Mark Zuckerberg's goal of connecting the world.....the puzzle....what will it look like when it is finished? Will it be a serene landscape with families of all different ethnicities enjoying together the clover and the sunshine...or will it be one of dystopian metropolitan carnage where the people are connected all right....to Big Brother? My personal belief after years of looking into and being concerned about not only social media but these giant megalithic "consumer technology companies" is the latter.
The author often gives a warning to us about the tyranny of social media without realizing it. He describes Facebook's NewsFeed in terms of a "meteoric rise," and as "becoming the lens to your world," and this to "Show you the stories that matter most to you." You are probably familiar with the Narcissus myth where the proud Narcissus was led by an enemy to a pool where he fell in love with his own reflection, and remained there, interested only in....the story that mattered most to him....himself....until he died.
According to Mr. Hoefflinger's book, Facebook noticed this back in 2006 that..."people were clicking through other people's profile's but lack a central, easy way of answering their biggest question: "What's going on?" They would then "build and launch Facebook's most important feature: NewsFeed.....the search engine of your life....a continuing updated, roughly reverse chronological listing in the middle of your Facebook page of the most important goings-on among the people and things to which you were connected that included status updates, wall posts, photos and people tagged in photos, events, group activities and new connections." The author then noted that it was...."nearly a decade later, delivering over 200 million stories to screens worldwide every minute..."
"Everything began" relates the author on February 4th, 2004 at Harvard. It quickly spread to Columbia, Stanford and Yale...then Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn, MIT, Boston U, New York U., Brown, Princeton, UC Berkeley, Duke, Georgetown, the University of Virginia, Boston College, Tufts, Northeastern, the University of Illinois, The University of Florida, Wellesley, the University of North Carolina, The University of Michigan, Michigan State, UCLA, Emory, Tulane and the University of Chicago. Soon after it spread to all U.S. colleges and then it was opened up to the high schools in the U. S. and the U. K. This progression....is in no small way....responsible for the general lack of discernment and knowledge in our citizenry today.
The mobile transition took Facebook's potential to infinity...and beyond! According to the author "Only four countries with Internet infrastructures had eluded Facebook's winning pursuits....China...Russia...Japan (and) South Korea," but over the weekend it was reported that Facebook is now attempting another risk venture in China.
There are no safeguards in place or even really considered as concerns artificial intelligence of which all of these consumer technology companies are heavily invested in. Elon Musk, mentioned often in the book, just a few days ago is reported as describing artificial intelligence as more of a danger than North Korea. This 'connect the whole world' dream so often mentioned by Mark Zuckerberg is described as nothing more than building friendships but I see it more of a fiendishly friendly persuasion in action where everyone is 'persuaded' by one means or another....to want that which they are told to want.
The author gives us these questions to ponder...."What if instead of messaging just with people, we could message with things? What if over time those things could become as intelligent as people and do work on our behalf. What if a group made up of people and intelligent things could converse and get things done together? What if this kind of messaging supersedes mobile apps the way mobile apps superseded the web?"
Take that magic carpet ride to the netherworld of artificial intelligence if you want, but if you are a Christian then you might just realize that since there is a demonic world...what would prevent demonic intrusions in artificial intelligence?
A recent survey of 50 Nobel laureates (one quarter of living laureates) were asked for their opinion on the 10 greatest threats to mankind. One of them (the laureates were not identified) named Facebook. The British article on this survey added this as a comment...."Mark Zuckerberg's firm knows a truly shocking amount about its users. What would happen if the billionaire decided to go to the dark side? We may find out if his rumored bid to become US President becomes a reality."
Facebook doesn't have to 'go' to the dark side because that's where it came from. It fed on our narcissism, took our eyes off of where they should be, and its potential to guide this world into oblivion is real. The following is a very recent post and one of many posts over the years on Facebook. This isn't a plea to give up Facebook, it's rather a plea to realize what you are dealing with.
CLEVER FIENDISH VISIONARY(S)
Considering where this unfettered technology is going....it doesn't surprise me at all that the San Andreas Fault runs over the western edge of the Silicon Valley....or that Silicon Valley's "playground" is San Fransisco, as author Mike Hoefflinger, "builder, observer" and former Facebook general manager of Intel Inside Programs, describes it in his new book Becoming Facebook, The 10 Challenges That Defined The Company That's Disrupting The World.
We follow Facebook's explosive growth as we read through the book....more succinctly we observe Mark Zuckerberg meet one challenge after another. The Beatles may be gone but they changed music forever, and the author is quite willing to envision Facebook someday being passed up by other companies and newer ideas but Zuckerberg will always be the man who changed the world....who connected the world.
As described by the author, Zuckerberg is "inventing the future" along with "a very small group of people who run consumer technology companies that.....create the things we cannot live without." He calls the leaders of these major companies changing the world...."clever-foolish visionary(s)" but what flashed through my mind the moment I saw this was...clever-fiendish visionary(s).
One might think that chapter after chapter of philosophies developed and challenges met might be dull but the author was successful in avoiding that pitfall. Facebook "mistakes" were not only mentioned but highlighted. It all seems so humble until you realize that the book could not possibly be written without mentioning Mark Zuckerberg's faux pas, for there were so many of them. As a matter of fact this is a running theme in the book.....that one not only cannot be afraid to fail... but if one is not failing....then there must be some kind of problem....for true greatness can come about in no other way but in taking great risks and failing on some.
At times reading the book was almost like being in the board room or at least in one of the companies all-hands meetings. There was a goal to be met and that goal wasn't just greater numbers....it was actually greater ideas. There seemed to be a fairly open furlong-by-furlong description of the race with competitors......particularly Google. Of course it might be easy to be so open when one is winning.
We meet a lot of the most important personalities involved in Facebook's rise over the years, none of whom are detailed at length, but all of whom are pieces of a puzzle....but therein is the huge problem with Mark Zuckerberg's goal of connecting the world.....the puzzle....what will it look like when it is finished? Will it be a serene landscape with families of all different ethnicities enjoying together the clover and the sunshine...or will it be one of dystopian metropolitan carnage where the people are connected all right....to Big Brother? My personal belief after years of looking into and being concerned about not only social media but these giant megalithic "consumer technology companies" is the latter.
The author often gives a warning to us about the tyranny of social media without realizing it. He describes Facebook's NewsFeed in terms of a "meteoric rise," and as "becoming the lens to your world," and this to "Show you the stories that matter most to you." You are probably familiar with the Narcissus myth where the proud Narcissus was led by an enemy to a pool where he fell in love with his own reflection, and remained there, interested only in....the story that mattered most to him....himself....until he died.
According to Mr. Hoefflinger's book, Facebook noticed this back in 2006 that..."people were clicking through other people's profile's but lack a central, easy way of answering their biggest question: "What's going on?" They would then "build and launch Facebook's most important feature: NewsFeed.....the search engine of your life....a continuing updated, roughly reverse chronological listing in the middle of your Facebook page of the most important goings-on among the people and things to which you were connected that included status updates, wall posts, photos and people tagged in photos, events, group activities and new connections." The author then noted that it was...."nearly a decade later, delivering over 200 million stories to screens worldwide every minute..."
"Everything began" relates the author on February 4th, 2004 at Harvard. It quickly spread to Columbia, Stanford and Yale...then Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn, MIT, Boston U, New York U., Brown, Princeton, UC Berkeley, Duke, Georgetown, the University of Virginia, Boston College, Tufts, Northeastern, the University of Illinois, The University of Florida, Wellesley, the University of North Carolina, The University of Michigan, Michigan State, UCLA, Emory, Tulane and the University of Chicago. Soon after it spread to all U.S. colleges and then it was opened up to the high schools in the U. S. and the U. K. This progression....is in no small way....responsible for the general lack of discernment and knowledge in our citizenry today.
The mobile transition took Facebook's potential to infinity...and beyond! According to the author "Only four countries with Internet infrastructures had eluded Facebook's winning pursuits....China...Russia...Japan (and) South Korea," but over the weekend it was reported that Facebook is now attempting another risk venture in China.
There are no safeguards in place or even really considered as concerns artificial intelligence of which all of these consumer technology companies are heavily invested in. Elon Musk, mentioned often in the book, just a few days ago is reported as describing artificial intelligence as more of a danger than North Korea. This 'connect the whole world' dream so often mentioned by Mark Zuckerberg is described as nothing more than building friendships but I see it more of a fiendishly friendly persuasion in action where everyone is 'persuaded' by one means or another....to want that which they are told to want.
The author gives us these questions to ponder...."What if instead of messaging just with people, we could message with things? What if over time those things could become as intelligent as people and do work on our behalf. What if a group made up of people and intelligent things could converse and get things done together? What if this kind of messaging supersedes mobile apps the way mobile apps superseded the web?"
Take that magic carpet ride to the netherworld of artificial intelligence if you want, but if you are a Christian then you might just realize that since there is a demonic world...what would prevent demonic intrusions in artificial intelligence?
