Facebook Is Run By Neoconservative Pressure Group

Facebook is a means to an end...finding old friends that you have lost contact with... other than that it really means nothing.

great article. I go through phases with Facebook. I was addicted for ages, then I became tired and only logged in from time to time. There's only so much time you can spend there now, and it does get boring. It does seem to be taking over though - at uni sometimes we would forget to invite people out if they weren't on facebook :-(

It's run by a 23 year old Harvard drop out. Sounds familiar...

I gave up my Facebook last year and haven't looked back since. It's great for finding people you haven't talked to in years, but other than that it's just a time-waster.

The good part is all the user-created content you can add to the site. Just like this site, the creative value of the group outweighs the individual utility of the site to socialize.

Have any of you guys read the article where they talk about Artificial Intelligence that is "better" than human intelligence?

Quoted below:
If life in the past was nasty, brutish and short, then in the future Thiel wants to make it much longer, and to this end he has also invested in a firm that is exploring life-extension technologies. He has pledged £3.5m to a Cambridge-based gerontologist called Aubrey de Grey, who is searching for the key to immortality. Thiel is also on the board of advisers of something called the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. From its fantastical website, the following: "The Singularity is the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence. There are several technologies ... heading in this direction ... Artificial Intelligence ... direct brain-computer interfaces ... genetic engineering ... different technologies which, if they reached a threshold level of sophistication, would enable the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence."

These technologies are probably already developed and in use by now. There have been many black operations in ongoing missions that have been working on technologies that are claimed by some to have been a result of recovered ET craft, but nonetheless have been top secret for some 40 or more years. Since Einstein and other physicists began to unveil the complex and chaotic world that is existence at the quantum level technology has accelerated at such a pace that quite soon we will be realizing "Star Trek" like matter streaming and holographic reality chambers coming to a mall near you. People will be beaming their letters and gifts from portals at malls then later they will attend holographic movies in which they participate as characters or ghosts in the immersing experience.

Welcome to the Information Age people. We saw it coming more than a decade ago. The same complaints about Facebook were happening with instant messaging in the mid 90's and text messaging in the late 90's, early 2k's. But this is how people will exchange information from now on, whether we like it or not. Society has become too fast-paced for us to take time out of our 'busy schedule' to call or visit a friend, especially during a work/school day. Some of us may not like to admit it, but without these social networking sites we may have lost touch with our friends from the past a long time ago. Now all we have to do is send them a comment such as "Stopping by and showing you some love" and we're in the clear for at least a week or two.

I read this article on the way to work this morning and it made me feel a little sick - and so may I be the first to give a name to what I predict will be happening soon, namely that people will be committing Facebook suicide (as much as we can - more of a cryogenic freeze, really)?

Yep, this is the beginning of the Booklash....

Mr. Costello, This idea seams to apply to other "social sites" take for example Current.com more and more a straight forward business right?

Has Global Warming become a Hot Global Warming profit for a small group of people yet?

I only joined Facebook because my family is scattered across three continents. We use it to keep in touch every day or so (instead of ruining ourselves on telephone bills, most of us not having powerful enough computers to use Skype) and share news and latest photos, as well as share interesting videos, music, articles, and yes, send hugs to any member who happens to be feeling down, as well as cute presents and hatching eggs and such to the young ones (kids). So, we are not trying to sell anything, neither do we buy anything , and our profiles are open only to "friends", i.e. members of the family - we are three generations in our family group, my brothers and I being grandparents (and uncles, great-uncles, aunts and great-aunts, etc.)

Great article. I'm still a big fan of Facebook but I've noticed that the backlash against the site seemed to grow a little at the end of last year and beginning of this one, mainly because of the ads tracking which I do think they messed up on by not being open with users.

I like the article a lot and I agree with some of his main points but surely the site's what you make of it. If you'd rather see your friends down the pub, go for it. Where's the problem, unless they're not answering your calls because they're too busy on social networking sites?

Facebook is definitely turning the idea of socializing on it's head. I hate it every day, yet for some reason I've yet to get rid of my account. Why? Good question. But I hate it for all the reasons this author hates it. Why should I throw random sh*t at my friends through cyberspace instead of picking up the telephone and calling them, or meeting them to have some face to face interaction? Why should I feel obligated to friend Random Dude from elementary school, that guy who was so mean to me, and let him into my life 15 years on, or feel a twinge of guilt for clicking ignore? This is a great commentary that takes a step back from the frenzy of success to look at what is really going on with Facebook. Thanks for the post!