Category Archives: Personal Development

A year ago, I tweeted about #TheSocialDilemma. I figured I should also create a post about it https://twitter.com/michaelurmeneta/status/1307853103430066176

• “For the last 10 years, the biggest companies in Silicon Valley have been the business of selling their users” – Roger McNamee
• The classic saying is that “If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product” – recounted by Tristan Harris
• “Its the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behavior and perception that is the product” – Jaron Lanier
• “There are only two industries that call their customers “users”: illegal drugs and software” – Edward Tufte
• “…we have a digital pacifier for ourselves that is kind of atrophying our own ability to deal with (when we’re uncomfortable or lonely or uncertain or afraid).” – Tristan Harris
• “Processing power has increased a trillion times. Nothing else has evolved that fast. Cars are roughly twice as fast. Our brains have not evolved at all.” – Randy Fernando
• “What people are missing is that AI already runs the world today right now.” – Tristan Harris
• “AI is a metaphor” – Justin Rosenstein
• “We’re all looking out for the moment when technology would overwhelm human strengths and intelligence. When is it gonna cross the singularity, replace our jobs, be smarter than humans? But there’s this much earlier moment when technology exceeds and overwhelms human weakness.” – Tristan Harris
• “This point being crossed is at the root of addiction, polarization, radicalization, outrage-ification, vanity-ification, the entire thing. This is overpowering human nature and this is checkmate on humanity.” – Tristan Harris
• “There’s an MIT study that fake news on Twitter spreads six times faster than true news.” – Tristan Harris
• “We’ve created a system that biases towards false information. Not because we want to, but because false information makes the companies more money than the truth. The truth is boring”. -Sandy Parakilas
• “What we’re seeing is a global assault on democracy. Most of the countries targeted are countries that run democratic elections… We in the tech industry have created the tools to destabilize and erode the fabric of society in every country all at once everywhere.” – Tristan Harris
• “The manipulation by third parties is not a hack. The Russians didn’t hack Facebook. What they did was they used the tools that Facebook created for legitimate advertisers and legitimate users, and they applied it to a nefarious purpose.” -Roger McNamee
• “We are allowing the technologists to frame this as a problem that they’re equipped to solve. That’s a lie. People talk about AI as if it will know truth. AI’s not gonna solve these problems. AI cannot solve the problem of fake news – Cathy O’Neil
• “If we don’t agree on what is true or that there is such a thing as truth, we’re toast. This is the problem beneath other problems” – Tristan Harris
• “There’s no fiscal reason for these companies to change and that is why I think we need regulation…. tax these companies on the data assets that they have. It gives them a fiscal reason to not acquire every piece of data on the planet” – Joe Toscano
• “We have almost no laws around digital privacy” -Sandy Parakilas
• “Notice that many people in the tech industry don’t give these devices to their own children.” – Tristan Harris
• “What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable too that we’ve ever come up with. And it’s the equivalent for a bicycle for our minds.” – Steve Jobs
• “The attention extraction model is not how we want to treat human beings. The fabric of a healthy society depends on us getting off this corrosive business model. We can demand that these products be designed humanely. We can demand to not be treated as an extractable resource. The intention could be: “How do we make the world better?” – Tristan Harris

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon in the midst of the French Revolution the revolting citizens led a priest, a drunkard and an engineer to the guillotine. They ask the priest if he wants to face up or down when he meets his fate. The priest says he would like to face up so he will be looking towards heaven when he dies. They raise the blade of the guillotine and release it. It comes speeding down and suddenly stops just inches from his neck. The authorities take this as divine intervention and release the priest.

The drunkard comes to the guillotine next. He also decides to die face up, hoping that he will be as fortunate as the priest. They raise the blade of the guillotine and release it. It comes speeding down and suddenly stops just inches from his neck. Again, the authorities take this as a sign of divine intervention, and they release the drunkard as well.

Next is the engineer. He, too, decides to die facing up. As they slowly raise the blade of the guillotine, the engineer suddenly says, “Hey, I see what your problem is …”