Meta | They Asked For It!

[Antonioo Giano]

Meta talks for the 1 billion users that uses their platform, if you are in a village in Africa of course you have something else to think about.

[NevaehHeartstrings]

29 minutes ago, Antonioo Giano said:

Meta talks for the 1 billion users that uses their platform, if you are in a village in Africa of course you have something else to think about.

That just depends on if you believe in western stereotypes that every black child is starving in Africa and needs Caucasian American moral policeman to come save them. the narrative is always being pushed daily so you can be forgiven if that was your impression.

There is trouble in Africa just like anyplace else, but just know if you do the resource you will find those countries that are destabilized mostly in the north like Libya, Sudan or Somalia is the direct result of western nations interfering and regime changing in those reasons. the return of slavery in Africa is the direct result of actions by America but the victims of those situations do not get a voice by Meta on it's social media side so how can Meta offer anything as a metaverse escape when it's policies regulate them to an almost unhuman status as leaked internal documents show. 

The reality is most of Africa is modernizing fast with technology and infostructure and these are nations Meta wants to prey on but never will be given the chance.

Africans have a very rich oral history, unlike Europeans who wanted to write everything down the culture in most ethnics groups in those areas believes in a living history handed down from elder to child orally, one of the reasons many are unaware of a rich cultural history it's often private or reserved for the local community, kind of like how the Aztec's documented everything with fabric stings and colored textiles. yes foreign to use and that's the main example of what that can mean.

The reason Timbuktu was even rediscovered the lead searchers went to villages of decedents were they were able to build a very accurate map and history by listening to many tribal elders. all the history was oral. not written.

So it's easier to see Meta(facebook) Horizons may never make inroads in any of those nations for cultural reasons. they know us better then we would know them it seems.

Meta needs to maybe start saying Metaverse of the Western World or some other poor marketing slogans.

I spent 3 months in Africa last year helping distribute laptops and like most of the world outside america/europe its a really different experience then we are told, It was a very humble experience interacting with people so human, so honest and sincere. to me Exposing those people to Meta would be inhuman of me that's why we filtered out all social media(firewalled) and setup innerwebs for community in community interactions.

I see a very bright future for Africans in my experience the village people do not worry as much as some might think and even have things to teach us.

[Antonioo Giano]

How this is related with this post is a mystery. But ok..
What I meant with my comment is that Meta doesn't speak for all the world, but for their 1 billion users. "The village in africa" (now if we want to deny that there are villages in Africa that suffer starve, poverty and don't have internet ok....... but this is another story) was an example, there is no need to focus on that and start a totally unrelated campaign against the west, the america or the caucasian.. 😐Is not what we are talking about. Who can't use Meta for any reason is totally another story.. Meta is a business they aren't there to save the world. Their business is focused on "connecting people" (of course is a sort of slogan) not "we will save the world and solve all the problems in the world".
At the end what I meant was that who has other major problems for sure will not get many benefits (in the near future) from the metaverse, but is the same for any business that can't do anything for problems that are all around the world, so Meta speaks to those that can have access and benefit (eventually) from the Metaverse.

Edited July 27, 2022 by Antonioo Giano

[Charolotte Caxton]

6 hours ago, Istelathis said:

While we may share many similarities, there are key differences such as a lust for power is something I never wanted, if anything I want the exact opposite and to be left relatively alone by most people.  The thought of having that much control over someone else repulses me, just as it would for others to have control over me.  I'm relatively anarchistic in such a way, and by merit of my own sense of ethics will oppose such power structures.

 

What I fear though, is that we are building one - well at least something that resembles one.  An all seeing contraption, which has the ability to influence the thoughts of the masses, through knowledge of their desires and fears.  Not necessarily a sentient one, but one driven through some people's desire of power over others, while many who lack imagination of such hells, can not fathom such a world where we have become shackled to a God of our own creation.  I don't trust humanity enough quite yet to build such a thing.  The Gods we have created and only reside in the imagination of many, have resulted in a lot of harm already.  I do believe it has the potential to do great harm to many, and evidence of this as far as I have seen, is the dividing of this country, and the frothing of many mouths in desire to have a great civil war, and see others suffer.

I for one, do not welcome our potential new overlords 😜  

Sorry for going off the wall there, but this is something that disturbs me greatly, and has been of a concern for a while.  I would not consider myself a luddite, as I greatly value technology, I see the potential good in it, and how it liberates humanity - I also see how it can be used as a tool for those who seek to enslave us to their will.

Thankfully, I don't believe we have hit such a point yet, and I do hope it is only in my overactive imagination, that such a world will ever exist.

I greatly admire your vision and with you and others like you I think the monster won’t win.

[Charolotte Caxton]

6 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I hope there are indeed omnipotent monsters. We can gain their powers by killing and eating them! 

Just like companies do when they merge.

Eating monsters is actually a cool cafe at the end of the world.

[Charolotte Caxton]

6 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

While I agree that the "us" you reference (those outside the larger corporations and financiers who wield more power in our society) are also selfish I hesitate equating them by proclaiming "oh we're all selfish" as an excuse to become lackadaisical about the crisis we're facing due to overconsumption.

I have to wonder how many of us would feel okay about using certain technical devices if we knew some of the elements were obtained via children working under horrid conditions in far away places. Or if we could see the actual cost being paid by migrants presently being forced from their homes due to our overconsumption in the Western world.
Instead, such information is usually reported via statistics or with an odd article here and there, hidden from view or presented in ways that don't evoke greater concern. Media is controlled by the wealthy and those in power and disallows much news to filter down to the general public -- growing their own wealth is their primary concern.

So I do blame, more, those who hold the most power and actively campaign to deceive us with the intention of claiming a bigger piece of the pie. I can't equate "them" and "us" although both contain an element of selfishness.
We can't revolt unless we know what's actually happening because of our overconsumption, and even if we know a little and try to change we are often held down by those who police us and seek to maintain their interests.

Capitalism is an omnipotent monster with a fatal flaw -- in order to stay alive it needs to grow and abuse others in the process, but it's impossible to have infinite growth on a finite planet, and its growth is gained through the exploitation of others.  While it's true we all created this monster of Capitalism, it is those who justify inequality that insist on feeding the monster.

How media brainwashes us in service of the wealthy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

Yet here we are. In a game fed by consumerism. There is no monster. Just mirrors.

No complaints here.

[Luna Bliss]

45 minutes ago, Antonioo Giano said:

How this is related with this post is a mystery. But ok..
What I meant with my comment is that Meta doesn't speak for all the world, but for their 1 billion users. "The village in africa"...

At the end what I meant was that who has other major problems for sure will not get many benefits (in the near future) from the metaverse, but is the same for any business that can't do anything for problems that are all around the world, so Meta speaks to those that can have access and benefit (eventually) from the Metaverse.

My understanding is that their plan for the Metaverse is for it to be like the internet is today, only in VR (with the goggles, eyewear, implants, or whatever facilitating the participation).

If that is the case, it should be viewed as a public good and not simply a company that can do whatever they want because they own it. Even in the USA we are already viewing the internet more as a public good, and offer subsidies for broadband and smart phones for free because we are needing this connection more and more to function in very basic ways as a member of society to, for example, find a job. I believe some are even working on building the infrastructure for the internet in Africa now, and in other places broadband isn't currently able to reach. 

So we really do need to focus on inclusion with a Metaverse in the same way we are with the internet, and not let any one company own it -- that's too great a concentration of power and the abuse potential is therefore too great.

[Luna Bliss]

6 hours ago, NevaehHeartstrings said:

SL grew into what it became from a dream of a shared virtual world, with Meta it is a money grab upfront while a tool to control by a powerful corporate entity that only cares about itself above all others.

The future of any shared fully immersive virtual metaverse will not come from a business plan. but, will grow like a young flower rising up out of the earth by a strong global community with a non profit roadmap. a multipolarity world of societies bound together on a decentralized platform while empowering those inside to be anything or anyone they want to be while providing new tools for education, understanding and diversity in thought and practice without fear of government censorship and indirect control using corporate partnerships to conceal human rights violations.

We of the world cannot allow a small narrow perception of the future to bound us to a certain future, snowcrash & related genre was a good idea for its time but was limited in scope and in inclusivity,

It's imperative that the ideas, dreams & perceptions from the peoples of Asia, Africa & Latin America also count, eastern and other non western ideas of a global metaverse should not only count but they are the majority of the world. I believe also this current plan of a metaverse is rooted in long deep sexiest ideology masked behind social equality will practicing bigotry and modern imperialism and in itself uninclusive, destructive and the completely wrong direction.

I will not go into further detail or debate anyone, this was my own thoughts about Meta right or wrong. Have a good day!

Didn't catch your post earlier. A lot of good points to ponder.

[Luna Bliss]

If I remember right, I read that Meta intends to work with others to build the Metaverse (not to be confused with one aspect of the Metaverse, Horizon Worlds), and that they were just providing a kind of architecture for its development. This sounds good if they don't, in some unknown ways, maintain too much control over the process.

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, NevaehHeartstrings said:

I spent 3 months in Africa last year helping distribute laptops and like most of the world outside america/europe its a really different experience then we are told, It was a very humble experience interacting with people so human, so honest and sincere. to me Exposing those people to Meta would be inhuman of me that's why we filtered out all social media(firewalled) and setup innerwebs for community in community interactions

not to be a downer, but how is this any different to what the missionaries did by bringing what they believed was best for the natives ?

is futile to do this as it presupposes that the natives will not use the introduced technology as they deem fit, for themselves by themselves, both individually and severally

 

[Mollymews]

2 hours ago, NevaehHeartstrings said:

Africa is modernizing fast with technology and infostructure

on a more positive note is things technological that have come out of Africa that I think has been of enormous benefit

like the M-PESA system, initially leveraging then quite nascent SMS technology, that enabled much wider (safer) participation of people in the economy in places (particularly rural) which had previously been predominately cash-based trading societies with all the issues that cash-based transactions incur

[AnthonyJoanne]

On 7/26/2022 at 12:49 AM, Antonioo Giano said:

Do you realize how this is "so common" and a clichè? Hating people with money... Stuff you see in movies. Evil corpos doing bad stuff etc. In reality? They are just rich people having companies that make billions and improve our lives. Socials can be used in many different ways and they helped many people in so different ways. Same with other things other big companies gave to us.
And a part from this we are all free to use or not their services, so I don't see how that can impact negatively a person or the world.

 

Let's cut to the chase, shall we?

Evil corpos doing bad stuff IN REALITY:

Johnson and Johnson selling asbestos contaminated baby powder for years

Pfizer to Pay $2.3 Billion for Fraudulent Marketing

Improve our lives? Tell that to the people who were addicted to opioids which were being aggressively pushed by Corporations:

4 drug companies agree to pay $26 billion to resolve opioid lawsuits

But perhaps you prefer something specifically about Facebook as it was that the time:

Facebook will pay an unprecedented $5 billion penalty over privacy breaches

I'll quote a bit of it for you:

Quote

The settlement resolves a formal complaint by the FTC alleging that Facebook "used deceptive disclosures and settings" that eroded user privacy, violating a prior agreement Facebook signed with the commission in 2012. Facebook also broke the law, the FTC alleged, by misusing phone numbers obtained for account security purposes to also target advertisements to its users. And the company allegedly deceived "tens of millions of users" by implying that a facial recognition feature on the service had not been enabled by default, when in fact it had.

 

Is that sufficient evidence that corporations can, and do, take actions which are more than sufficient grounds for people to have a justifiably negative opinion of them? I can, if you wish, provide you with MANY more examples.

 

 

[Love Zhaoying]

7 hours ago, Mollymews said:

10 hours ago, NevaehHeartstrings said:

Africa is modernizing fast with technology and infostructure

on a more positive note is things technological that have come out of Africa that I think has been of enormous benefit

like the M-PESA system, initially leveraging then quite nascent SMS technology, that enabled much wider (safer) participation of people in the economy in places (particularly rural) which had previously been predominately cash-based trading societies with all the issues that cash-based transactions incur

I hope we get infostructure someday!

[Love Zhaoying]

9 hours ago, Charolotte Caxton said:

Yet here we are. In a game fed by consumerism. There is no monster. Just mirrors.

No complaints here.

Magic mirrors! Make us look nice and tell us we're the fairest of all.

 

[nieru]

you teleport in VR because walking makes many people feel nauseous. 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

20 hours ago, AnthonyJoanne said:

Is that sufficient evidence that corporations can, and do, take actions which are more than sufficient grounds for people to have a justifiably negative opinion of them? I can, if you wish, provide you with MANY more examples.

Another interesting and relevant example from about a half year ago.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/14/facebook-google-lawsuit-advertising-deal

[diamond Marchant]

Meta upped the price of Quest 2 by $100 ha ha ha - this post is OK cause the article I linked speaks of Second Life favorably

Quote

Meta’s aggressive marketing push has often come off as underdeveloped and overconfident — especially considering that the concept has been around for literal decades via titles like Second Life

 

[Kiera Clutterbuck]

1 minute ago, diamond Marchant said:

Meta upped the price of Quest 2 by $100 ha ha ha - this post is OK cause the article I linked speaks of Second Life favorably

So what does this mean? It must be selling well?

[Love Zhaoying]

27 minutes ago, Kiera Clutterbuck said:

So what does this mean? It must be selling well?

I would guess the opposite, less sales means higher cost per unit? Guess I could read the article. 😹

[Love Zhaoying]

Can't Meta just put cloth to hide where the naughty-oh-no legs would be, like Victorians did to hide table and piano legs?

[Quartz Mole]

Gentle reminder that, fascinating though these topics doubtless are, aliens, colonisation, horse breeding and Salvador Dali aren't really on topic for a thread about Meta.  

[Luna Bliss]

On 7/27/2022 at 4:36 PM, Mollymews said:

On 7/27/2022 at 3:07 PM, NevaehHeartstrings said:

I spent 3 months in Africa last year helping distribute laptops and like most of the world outside america/europe its a really different experience then we are told, It was a very humble experience interacting with people so human, so honest and sincere. to me Exposing those people to Meta would be inhuman of me that's why we filtered out all social media(firewalled) and setup innerwebs for community in community interactions

Expand  

not to be a downer, but how is this any different to what the missionaries did by bringing what they believed was best for the natives ?

is futile to do this as it presupposes that the natives will not use the introduced technology as they deem fit, for themselves by themselves, both individually and severally

I think we need to separate out 'technology' itself from Meta's social media which is provided via technology (Nevaeh was alluding to social media and not technology itself).

Meta (Facebook) is dangerous in our developed countries, and could be doubly so for those without the context and knowledge to assimilate social media in less-developed countries.  So caution is necessary when spreading Meta to the unprepared.

[Codex Alpha]

Meta's sole purpose is to drive the population of the world to it's virtual universe and closed environment by any means possible.

Discerning creators and participants may enjoy it as an escape, but as a way of life may not be so fun.

"You will own nothing and be happy" is closely linked to such goals, a trojan horse of sorts, a dance with the devil - mind your toes because you might get burned.

[Luna Bliss]

20 minutes ago, Codex Alpha said:

Meta's sole purpose is to drive the population of the world to it's virtual universe and closed environment by any means possible.

They do indeed have what I described in a post that has been removed, a Wetiko spirit (a Native American term describing this excessively selfish mindset).

@Quartz Mole   Pretty please, can I put that post back in the thread that describes Meta as this selfish type company?

[Persephone Emerald]

2 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

They do indeed have what I described in a post that has been removed, a Wetiko spirit (a Native American term describing this excessively selfish mindset).

@Quartz Mole   Pretty please, can I put that post back in the thread that describes Meta as this selfish type company?

I think it's fine to use terms that describe social behavior or personality types (eg. Wetiko, selfish), but it's not a good idea to question the moderation of the Moles.  🤫

I also wondered if maybe Quartz just doesn't like horses? 🐎 🤨 ?

Disliking Salvador Dali makes sense though.  

Edited August 1, 2022 by Persephone Emerald