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Started with a typo & then couldn't stop myself

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Joe 5 years ago
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@ -33,12 +33,12 @@ be “move fast and break things”, however, after Zuckerburg was
lambasted in front of congress, that motto is slowly changing.
Facebook like many tech companies creddits its major success to
Facebook like many tech companies credits its major success to
optimizing a sometimes niche problem -- this is something that
programmers love to do and computers are perfect at. Facebook
optimized how people consume media, but they did it at the detriment
optimized how people consume media, but they did it to the detriment
of quality content. Youtube tremendously optimized how we view videos
by suggesting us recommended videos to watch, but, if often suggests
by suggesting us recommended videos to watch, but, it often suggests
repulsive content. Uber optimized how people found rides, but it
resulted in an influx of part time drivers that are slowly pushing out
full time drivers. This is not to say that optimization is a bad
@ -54,24 +54,24 @@ This now begs the question: how do we do we solve these issues? This
is something that Thompson didn’t discuss in depth nor had a great
answer for. We could point our fingers at governments, companies, or
consumers and tell them to solve the problem. Surely having the
government enact some well constructed public policy based on the
government enact some well-constructed public policy based on the
current policy environment would solve the issues… right? The problem
in the age of big data is that things are changing at a rapid pace and
by the time we realize the dangers of a particular issue, it may have
already caused grave damages or morphed into another form. Look at
gambling for example, we have had decades of laws and regulations
surrounding underage gambling, however, online gambling issues has
been consistently creeping its way into policy discussion over the
last five. It is fascinating that most public policy generated in the
surrounding underage gambling, however, online gambling issues have
been consistently creeping their way into policy discussion over the
last five years. It is fascinating that most public policy generated in the
technology field is actually created in the court systems. This is
good in the sense that the court system is often faster than passing a
new law, but, it is also very problematic. Old laws when used to
interpret a nuanced technological problem often yields outcomes that
interpret a nuanced technological problem often yield outcomes that
the original authors of the law would possibly disagree with.
Although Thompson’s talk raises more questions and problems than
tangible easy to implement solutions, we must start having discussions
tangible easy-to-implement solutions, we must start having discussions
like this so we can enact a cultural change around how we approach
optimization tasks. Adding back careful reflection and deliberation
back to currently optimized tasks on the internet could give us more

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