It's past time to take a step back and consider as a society that the predominant mechanism for communication, hence the distribution of ideas and hence the formation of socially-dependent constructions of self, and belief systems,<p>are now in the hands of companies like Facebook which by their own admission are driven all but exclusively by the necessary (sic) pursuit of growth via "engagement" at any cost.<p>This system is not just capable of, but <i>biased towards</i> the amplification of exactly that content which maximizes limbic system engagement, i.e., triggers the sub-cognitive emotional brain.<p>I.e. that content which enrages, titillates, and otherwise triggers reward centers.<p>Let's look at that again, stripped to the core.<p>Our society's primary mechanism for interpersonal communication,<p>is social networks which by their own description, depend on the purist possible amplification of that content which triggers us the most,<p>regardless of all other factors, including truthfulness, social benefit, coherency, utility to the commons, you name it, call it anything you like. The good.<p>Naturally one <i>can</i> individually work hard to use these systems for the good.<p>But the systems themselves have zero incentive to amplify you when you do; and every incentive to amplify the shit-posting trolls being paid by our enemies foreign and domestic.<p>That's not hyperbole; that's a simple statement of fact.<p>The end of this road is like e.g. the climate change that goes unaddressed in part because of these very mechanisms,<p>approaching more rapidly than we think.<p>A cognitive error to remember: we extrapolate linearly, and have no native ability to extrapolate exponential outcomes.<p>The clearly visible end game in the US for unchecked perpetuation of bad-faith high-performing "engagement" on Facebook and its properties, in particular,<p>is clearly civil war.<p>Maybe it's cool for a while; maybe it's hot only in moments; but the edge of the cliff is visible and the intense push by bad actors of all kinds to push us off it is palpable.<p>And the mechanism remains Facebook, steered as it is by an amoral culture which sprang from and is perpetuated by a literally emotionally truncated high-functioning sociopath.<p>If you think that's wrong, the onus is on you to document how the company's behavior internal and external is distinguishable from one in which that is a precise definition.<p>I've said it here many times, I'll say it again:<p>If you work for them, it's time to quit.
If you do business with them, it's time to quit.
If you think think you can't because <reason>, you're wrong.<p>The damage to yourself, and to our society, is profound and un-ending.<p>We remain at memetic war and it is reifying into a culture war on the edge of becoming simply a war.<p>Don't be part of the problem.<p>Get off now, and work to get others off, and work to unmake this.