The billions - trillions of bits adds up to a lot of characterizing information which can be used to decide what advertisements for what product to serve. — Bitter Crank

This is why Facebook is facing a major threat with the decline of text updates and the rise of memes. Without text updates, no advertisements can be catered to the user.

You'll have to explain a bit for me.

Basically Facebook derives a lot, if not most of its income by users clicking on advertisements. These advertisements are catered to the users by an analysis of their text-based updates, i.e. "going to the mall!", "dinner @ the breakfast club!", etc. Software programs "interpret" your posts and create a kind of custom advertisement scheme that caters to your perceived interests. However, there has been a decline for a while now in the amount of text-based updates, while the number of picture-based memes have been skyrocketing. This means that it is difficult for Facebook to accurately target the audience with advertisements, thus making it difficult for Facebook to earn money.

Ah, that makes sense. I haven't used FB enough to notice that.

Personally, I don't care. If FB went broke tomorrow, that would be fine by me.

I'm of the generation that is sceptical to everything that you put about yourself publicly for everyone to see and for the companies to use as data. I'm not ideologically against it: yep, there's no free lunch, there has to be somehow a way to collect the money to make things profitable. Yet still I'm not the type that just thinks "there's nothing for me to hide hence it doesn't matter". It's simply that if someone wants to be in contact with me, they can call or even send an email. Not just to be linked on facebook as a friend. Makes it far too easy to give a "like"-sign or few comments "to be in touch". Today far too many things are made too easy for us.

In my work they have said it would be a good thing to have a facebook-page.

Nah. Not me.

As a reservist I've noticed that for years it has been here standard procedure that if any classified issues are talked about, then you don't just shut your phone (or any electronic gadget), but you leave the goddam thing in another room. What I like about it is that it was standard procedure many years earlier than Snowden's leaks came around.

I'm not on Facebook. I don't have the time for it, considering the time I spend here. It is amazing what people put online, especially those in their late teens and early twenties. People let you follow every detail of their life on Twitter. I don't get why someone would do that.

I'm told that one way they caught Osama bin Laden was that they found a home that was dead - no internet, no phone service, no cable, nothing. So, if you want to engage in some counter surveillance, you'll need to create just enough activity so as to not look suspicious. But don't fool yourself. Those clever bastards are going to figure out what you're up to one way or another, which might mean that the best way to avoid detection is to behave.

As an expat who travels around a fair bit, Farcebook has its uses. I arrive somewhere and post a picture - easy way to mass inform. My siblings post videos and pics of themselves and their families - helps me to keep up with goings-on in the family. I don't really care too much about the data collection - Mark Zuckerberg in a ski mask knocking at my bedroom window is not a problem I anticipate having any time soon.

If I weren't an expat or if members of my family weren't, I doubt I'd use it though as I wouldn't see the point except as a kind of exercise in self-propaganda, which one could get lost in (as pointed out by Bitter Crank).

People let you follow every detail of their life on Twitter. I don't get why someone would do that. — Hanover

They need validation.

It's part of the bullshit 'positivity' society we are living in. 'That's so sad', 'this makes me angry', pouty faced emoticon, 'oh wow', the sound babies make when they are amused in adult form.

OMG, at last a discussion about Farcebook and Twatter.

I have several accounts in each, plus a few other sites. I have them because I get bored sometimes and go there to have a laugh at the idiot that post pics of themselves doing the most stupid things and leave the accounts open to the public. The reason I have several accounts is that the time between one visit and the next is sometimes so long that I forget the password.

As Baden mentioned, and I see he adopted my use of Farcebook, these sites do have legitimate and helpful uses. But as with any tool you have to know how to use it. Most of those on these sites would break the anvil with a plastic hammer.

These sites are most occupied by infantile minded people looking for attention because of their total lack of ability to do anything else to to impress people. The idiots that run the modern electronic media are to blame for a lot of this. Yahoo, MSN and many others run NEWS about the kartrashians, beckhams, justin beaver and a host of other famous for being famous or married to famous people. Thus giving the most ridiculous role models for the intellectually challenged young people of today to follow. And you can blame the education system of most countries for the young people being like they are. And the legal system is to blame for the schools not having the ability to enforce enough discipline to be able to teach the young.

And don't forget the media reinforced vanity that the youth of today suffer from. So many of the people on farcebook try so hard to imitate the medias idea of what is beautiful, that is painful to look at sometimes.

I'm leaving now before I start ranting.

And you can blame the education system of most countries for the young people being like they are. — Sir2u

In what way are education systems changing people for the worse? And when you say "the young people being like they are", what do you mean? What do you think is wrong with young people now that was not wrong with you and your peers when you were young? I take it you think they have a "total lack of ability to do anything else to impress people". Can you refer to any research that discusses this?

And the legal system is to blame for the schools not having the ability to enforce enough discipline to be able to teach the young. — Sir2u

I can't tell what you're getting at here. Maybe you could expand on it.

So many of the people on farcebook try so hard to imitate the medias idea of what is beautiful, that is painful to look at sometimes. — Sir2u

I have several accounts in each, plus a few other sites. I have them because I get bored sometimes and go there to have a laugh at the idiot that post pics of themselves doing the most stupid things and leave the accounts open to the public. — Sir2u

Are you saying that you are on Facebook and Twitter just to laugh at Facebook and Twitter users, who you think are idiots in some way? Can you go into more detail about this behaviour?

The reason I have several accounts is that the time between one visit and the next is sometimes so long that I forget the password.

All of these sites have a "forgotten your password" facility.

In what way are education systems changing people for the worse? — jamalrob

I never said that the educational systems are responsible for changing people for the worse. What I said was that it is to blame for the young people being like they are, big difference.
The educational systems in a lot of places around the world cater towards getting kids through school, not necessarily giving them an education. School is supposed to prepare students for the world, how many kids nowadays have any idea how to defend themselves out of school.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading
https://www.studentsfirst.org/pages/the-stats

School is also supposed to try and teach kids the difference between right and wrong behavior, that job now seems to have passed on to the people that run the entertainment medias.

I can't tell what you're getting at here. Maybe you could expand on it. — jamalrob

Why do you think that so many good teachers are leaving the classrooms?Because they are not being allowed to do their jobs properly. Teachers now have little authority in their classrooms. They are not allowed to punish kids for misbehavior nor force them to work. The educational laws forbid them from teaching things in certain ways and talking about things that are now taboo in the classroom. Their hands are tied by low budgets and in many cases lack of support from superiors whose hands are also tied.
The legal system also makes things difficult because teachers have to be extremely careful not to say anything, do activities, ask for opinions that might offend anyone because they might lose their job or be sued. A friend of mine was asked to leave his job because some of his students stated their opinions about another religion in his history class that offended a member of that religious group. He was blamed for their ideas!!!! Go figure.
And many kids today are so vain that they take offense at anything and everything.
Twenty years in education has been more than enough for me, I cannot wait for the next three years to end so that I can get out.

What do you think is wrong with young people now that was not wrong with you and your peers when you were young? — jamalrob

We were not that much different in some ways from the youth of today, we just did things differently.

• Most of us wanted people to like us. But people that we actually had around us, not some might look like the avatar person we will never know in real life and can never even be sure exists.
• Most of us wanted to take photos to remember places, things and events. but one or two was usually enough and they were mostly about the places or people around us. Kids now have to take dozens of selfies of themselves cleaning their teeth, showing of their junk, eating a sandwich and every other insignificant detail of their lives. I saw some, there were too many to see but a few, of my students vacation pics. Most of the images were of them or contained them in more than half of the image. Some contained meals they ate, a lot showed them modeling and posing and some were group selfies. A lot of the photos were taken at historical or even exotic places but contained little of the place in the images because their grinning faces took up most of the frame.
• We used to like dressing up cool, but we dressed up because we wanted to. Not to impress they people on farcebook.
• We probably did more stupid things maybe than most kids can even imagine today. But we did not publish them for all the world to see just to get a few likes. Most of us actually tried hard to get others to forget the whole episode. I doubt that our parents would have been happy to see photos of us go-cart skiing or playing at knights on monkey bikes spread around the neighborhood.

I take it you think they have a "total lack of ability to do anything else to impress people". — jamalrob

Misreading again I think. I said nothing at all about their ability to impress or lack thereof. But they do spend an awful lot of time trying to impress (read "get likes").

Can you refer to any research that discusses this? — jamalrob

As far as I know, no one has bothered as yet to do any research into the validity of my opinions. What a lose for humanity.

Are you saying that you are on Facebook and Twitter just to laugh at Facebook and Twitter users, who you think are idiots in some way? — jamalrob

No, once again you have misread my words I am saying that I go on farcebook, twatter, insanegram and a few others to laugh at the idiots that are there. I don't think that these people are idiots in some way, it is obvious that they are idiots in most ways because of the stupid things they do. But I don't laugh at the people who are not doing anything to laugh at, that would be silly.

Can you go into more detail about this behaviour? — jamalrob

http://runt-of-the-web.com/dumbest-facebook-posts

Or just google "stupid facebook posts"

So many people have their pages open and their friends are usually just as smart as they are.

All of these sites have a "forgotten your password" facility. — jamalrob

It takes too long to recover it because I have to try and remember the account names and all of the false info(names, my dogs names,places and so on etc.etc . etc.) I gave them. I tried it once and they told me that I was not me. How the fuck do they know these things?

It's part of the bullshit 'positivity' society we are living in. 'That's so sad', 'this makes me angry', pouty faced emoticon, 'oh wow', the sound babies make when they are amused in adult form. — discoii

Thumbs up for this one!!! (Y) Oh and a smiley... :D

Humanity has actually lost something from the time when the only method of long distance communication was to write a letter (which took ages from our perspective to be delivered).

(which took ages from our perspective to be delivered) — ssu

It took even longer to write them when you were a kid.

It takes too long to recover it because I have to try and remember the account names and all of the false info(names, my dogs names,places and so on etc.etc . etc.) I gave them. — Sir2u

O what tangled webs we weave
when first we practice to deceive.

How the fuck do they know these things? — Sir2u

THEY control the vertical and the horizontal. Didn't you know that? What sort of failed media observer are you anyway? You're a disgrace!!!

Go to YouBoob and watch the opening of The Outer Limits:

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical ... You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to – The Outer Limits.

And you can blame the education system of most countries for the young people being like they are. And the legal system is to blame for the schools not having the ability to enforce enough discipline to be able to teach the young. — Sir2u

Yes, the schools are doing a crappy job--but only as a secondary or tertiary knock on effect.

"School" [[i]for 70% of the population, give or take a few[/i]] beyond a minimal levels of literacy and social functioning is no longer important.

Why?

Because faster, cheaper, better, ubiquitous means of training people have been found: MEDIA.

Before the Little Red Schools were built across America, there were the academies and colleges that educated the ambitious upwardly mobile and the elite. With mass immigration and a more complex industrial and business structure, it became necessary to educate large numbers of people in literacy, numeracy, civics, and so forth -- turn them into people capable of functioning in the late 19th and 20th century economy.

The media of radio couldn't really cut it as far as teaching people how to act. It just wasn't vivid enough -- though, it had one feature that mattered (and matters) ubiquity. Television, however, was up to the task, as was film and print media [when people could still read, he said sarcastically]. By the latter third of the 20th century, changes in the economy and a cessation of large-scale immigration meant that schools were no longer needed to prepare people to function adequately--EXCEPT for the elite 10% - 20% of the population who still get first rate education.

For the 80%, school now functioned as a control on the labor pool: keeping people in school (off the labor market) for as long as possible. Keeping youth under observation and corralled is another function. Training them into a lifetime of empty tedium at work and trivial pursuits after work is the primary task.

But mostly, business can now use media (television, cable, internet, social media, all those instruments) to instruct people how to behave in the area that is most important: buying merchandise. What to buy, where, for how much, and how long to keep it drives most media. Content is bait for the advertising. Twitter, FaceBook, and such are essentially games which amuse people while advertising is served to them (or while data for future advertising is collected from them).

Google, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and all the other social media business run on advertising revenue -- there isn't any other money generating activity going on there. Amazon sells stuff. Google may do a great job searching for the source of "we control the vertical and the horizontal" but they don't make money on search. What Google profits from is advertising revenue.

O what tangled webs we weave
when first we practice to deceive. — Bitter Crank

Damned right, I ain'ta gonna be putin me stuff out der fer ever'un t'see.

Didn't you know that? What sort of failed media observer are you anyway? You're a disgrace!!! — Bitter Crank

What sort of a failed criticizer are you that you don't recognize a bit of sarcasm when you see it? Maybe I worded the question wrong though, let me try again.
How the fuck do they know that I am not me when I don't even know that?

Yes, the schools are doing a crappy job--but only as a secondary or tertiary knock on effect.

"School" [[i]for 70% of the population, give or take a few[/i]] beyond a minimal levels of literacy and social functioning is no longer important.
Why?

Because faster, cheaper, better, ubiquitous means of training people have been found: MEDIA. — Bitter Crank

I agree to a point , but.

• There are too many leaving school without the minimum level of literacy
• It is no good having all of the information out there if they people don't know what to do with it nor how to evaluate it. For example: a university instructor that I chat occasionally with on another forum(educational) told me about the growing number of students that have no idea if the internet research information they are presenting is what was asked for. They bring everything they can find in the hope that what was asked for is in there somewhere and the the instructor will find it.
• School is supposed to teach kids not just to read but to understand as well. I have met students from the US of A and Europe that are taking their break year and they cannot differentiate between the main idea in a paragraph and the supporting information.
• School is supposed to teach not just how to write but also the correct things to right. A lot of colleges have dropped their basic language course to force the responsibility back on the schools where it should be. Student should know how to write an essay before they leave school I think.

School will always have a place in society until they find a way to upload the info straight to the brain.

For the 80%, school now functioned as a control on the labor pool: keeping people in school (off the labor market) for as long as possible. Keeping youth under observation and corralled is another function. Training them into a lifetime of empty tedium at work and trivial pursuits after work is the primary task. — Bitter Crank

I will try to remember to post a sign that I have over my desk.

School is a 12 year minimum sentence for the crime of being ignorant.

I stopped using Facebook when they forced me to put my real name up. In a weird way it was actually a benefit, because I didn't realize just how much of a time suck it was, nor how much anxiety I felt because of the site.

I still have a twitter account open, but it functions more like an RSS feed for news when I want to see what's going on in the world. So it's not so bad.

I don't foresee returning to the site. I much prefer staying in contact with the telephone.

What sort of a failed criticizer are you that you don't recognize a bit of sarcasm when you see it? Maybe I worded the question wrong though, let me try again.
How the fuck do they know that I am not me when I don't even know that? — Sir2u

Our jokes don't seem to be working on each other today.

School is supposed to teach kids not just to read but to understand as well. I have met students from the US of A and Europe that are taking their break year and they cannot differentiate between the main idea in a paragraph and the supporting information.

School is supposed to teach not just how to write but also the correct things to right. A lot of colleges have dropped their basic language course to force the responsibility back on the schools where it should be. Student should know how to write an essay before they leave school I think. — Sir2u

I did a decade in the trenches dealing with poor reading skills, poor writing skills, poor arithmetic skills, poor study skills, etc. -- mercifully before the Internet was born. I couldn't agree more that schools should be teaching these skills -- some of it by 5th or 6th grade, let alone by the 12th grade, or merciful god, before they get into college.

IF the parents' aspirations are high, they will insist on literacy and if necessary move to a district where the schools are good. Unfortunately, not all parents insist on literacy, and it isn't possible for everyone to move into a good school district. At the present time, children in the US tend NOT to exceed the accomplishments of their parents and parental economic and cultural attainments have not been on an upward-bound slope.

From the most negative point of view--the student as future consumer and not much more--it doesn't make much difference whether they can read, write, think clearly, or not -- they just need to get a job that pays them enough to be adequate consumers. 100 million stupid low wage earners can still make a batch of people quite rich. THAT is what matters from that cynical negative point of view.

I have met some children, teen agers, and young adults who are doing just great in school. They are doing just fine intellectually. These people are not elite children -- just the children of parents with reasonably high aspirations who are insisting on performance.

Clearly, many children are from homes and communities (not just black kids) where aspirations are not high (they don't see avenues of advancement available to themselves or their children) and they are not insisting on achievement from the children. Why would they, if they themselves can't see any way forward?

No, that's not what I think. I think more and better intellectual preparation is ALWAYS better, no matter what. Still better is having an economy which can actually produce a future for intellectually prepared people and where intellectual achievement is esteemed.

Schools that must take all comers can not buck the downward trend in aspirations and expectations. Abysmal home conditions (like poor black children who's exposure to language is about half the level of white children and where negative strokes are about twice as common as for white children) result in children who are literally behind in Kindergarten, and fall further behind each year. By 6th grade they are too far behind to do well, no matter what.

Children who come from chaotic homes; couch surfing homes; homeless families; troubled, screwed up families; impoverished homes; families with drug/alcohol abuse; and so on and so forth are presenting problems which schools just can't solve. If even 20% of a school's population falls into these categories, it will probably result in less effective education for everybody concerned.

Whatever the solution is, it will be achieved in the community with actual job opportunities with decent pay, adequate housing, robust social work programs to help child-rearing-skill-deficient families, stable communities with "amenities" like parks, libraries, music and arts programming, and stuff like that. I don't expect to see anything like this being proposed, let alone being funded.

I have met some children, teenagers, and young adults who are doing just great in school. They are doing just fine intellectually. These people are not elite children -- just the children of parents with reasonably high aspirations who are insisting on performance. — Bitter Crank

One of my ex students came to see me last week, she had been accepted into Harvard. I honestly never thought that she would get quite that high but apparently the competition is not as intense as it was before.

IF the parents' aspirations are high, they will insist on literacy and if necessary move to a district where the schools are good. Unfortunately, not all parents insist on literacy, and it isn't possible for everyone to move into a good school district.

Whatever the solution is, it will be achieved in the community with actual job opportunities with decent pay, — Bitter Crank

This is something that pisses me off. Where I work is a private school and I know a lot of other teachers in both public and private sectors. We all have a common complaint, even the ones with economic means and insistent parents show little interest in getting ahead. I don't mean all of them, there are always some that want to better their situation even if it is good already. So many of them pick careers like doctors or lawyers because they can earn good money here not because of interest in the job itself.
Parents who are rarely there for them because they are working to bring in cash often have high aspirations for their kids, but they INSIST the teachers to do all of the work. I have been cursed at because I did not make sure kids have done their HOMEWORK. How the hell am I expected to do that, go home with them maybe.

Their attitude sucks. I have been told so many times that they don't need to remember this or that because they can always GOOGLE it, but then they use the internet to farcebookize and twatterize instead of doing something useful.

For the 80%, school now functioned as a control on the labor pool: keeping people in school (off the labor market) for as long as possible. Keeping youth under observation and corralled is another function. Training them into a lifetime of empty tedium at work and trivial pursuits after work is the primary task. — Bitter Crank

As a child, I was two years in the US School system, then went back for third grade here in Finland. I visited my former classmate friends when I was 16 (that happened in the late 80's).

What was then (at the age of 16) quite apparent that the standards were far lower in the US than in the Finnish system. OK, I attended a so-called elite-school which finished usually second or third place in the matriculation examination (basically the finishing test of the gymnasium) in the country, but still. The standards were obviously lower in the US.

Perhaps it's something you are talking about, Bitter.

Their attitude sucks. — Sir2u

No doubt you are correct about their suctive attitudes. Suctivity is endemic.

I have been told so many times that they don't need to remember this or that because they can always GOOGLE it, — Sir2u

You probably read Is Google Making Us Stupid?.

I don't know whether it is or not. I use Google a lot to get information I know exists but which I can't remember clearly enough to quote (like "Is Google making us Stupid" -- couldn't remember which magazine published it). I use it to find information I think exists, but which I haven't read. Of course I use it for derelict purposes as well. I'm 69, however. My learning style was put together when magazine articles had to be looked up in the index of periodical literature, and the card catalog was how you found books in the library. Then you had to actually read the book, take notes, and all that folderol.

What many avid users of internet resources don't get is that there is an enormous difference between locating information and copy/pasting the text on the one hand, and actually absorbing and integrating the information in one's brain on the other hand.

There is a difference [as you well know] between googling "causes of WWI" and inserting the bulleted list into a composition, on the one hand, and reading a good discussion of WWI causation. The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922 by Edmond Taylor 1963 has given me a much better understanding of WWI than I ever had before. It's a thick book with few pictures (I'm reading a digital copy). Showing how the Romanov, Hapsburg, Hohenzollern, and Osman dynasties were allied and opposed, detailing the decay into which these core European power blocks had fallen, even explaining what decay meant, and showing how they ended up at war, despite themselves, just isn't reducible to 5 bullet points.

When I was the age of the students you are working with, I didn't know any better. I did slipshod work and wasn't very interesting in much of anything. The efforts of several teachers eventually paid off - years later - when I finally did get interested and worked harder.

You probably read Is Google Making Us Stupid?. — Bitter Crank

Not until you sent the link.

“I can’t read War and Peace anymore,” he admitted. “I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.”

This caught my eye as I skimmed through it.
Holy shit the matrix is taking over my brain.

Here is the part that worries me.

When we read online, she says, we tend to become “mere decoders of information.” Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged.

Kids today are not learning to process the information so that it has any real meaning nor creates any long term memory. The instant availability of info makes it unnecessary to remember so they don't even try.

What many avid users of internet resources don't get is that there is an enormous difference between locating information and copy/pasting the text on the one hand, and actually absorbing and integrating the information in one's brain on the other hand. — Bitter Crank

Like the friend of mine that I mentioned earlier, he made the comment to me after receiving an assignment that was 32 pages long when it should not have been more than 10. They fail to even check out the content to make sure it is correct, probably because the don't know how to analyze it.

When I was the age of the students you are working with, I didn't know any better. I did slipshod work and wasn't very interesting in much of anything. The efforts of several teachers eventually paid off - years later - when I finally did get interested and worked harder. — Bitter Crank

To be honest, I never tried too hard either. I was happy to get middling grades. I used to make sure that I never failed by reading the chapters of the book and writing summaries. But even then I did recognize the fact that a decent education would be beneficial even though all I wanted to do in life was be a hippie. Kids nowadays do not seem to realize that they will need an education simply because the good jobs are so much more complicated and there is going to be more competition for decent jobs as more and more people go to university.

As a child, I was two years in the US School system, then went back for third grade here in Finland. I visited my former classmate friends when I was 16 (that happened in the late 80's).

What was then (at the age of 16) quite apparent that the standards were far lower in the US than in the Finnish system. OK, I attended a so-called elite-school which finished usually second or third place in the matriculation examination (basically the finishing test of the gymnasium) in the country, but still. The standards were obviously lower in the US.

Perhaps it's something you are talking about, Bitter. — ssu

Selective, elite schools in the US, Finland, or Timbuktu always do better than general, public schools because elite schools can assemble a homogeneous, academically oriented student population. Public schools in the US (and other countries) are composed of highly diverse students who range from "fuck all you faggots" to students who are highly motivated. It's difficult to teach to such a wide range of students and achieve good results.

There is the phenomena of minority control and despotism. If you are going to invite 20 people for dinner, and 3 of them tell you they are principled vegans, you will probably put together a menu that accommodates their personal kink, rather than making two separate menus, dishes for 17, dishes for 3. Everybody is going to miss out on pork roast or leg of lamb.

Similarly, if in a class of 20 or 30 students, 3 or 4 of them are unable to operate in an orderly fashion, the teacher will be spending an inordinate amount of time dealing with them. Or, if a few students do not speak English well, or if a few students are blind -- whatever the minority make up, will tend to dominate the planning and execution of lessons. It can work in the other direction. If most students are sleeping, one will teach to the 3 students who are alert and listening.

Elite schools can do a better job because they have largely eliminated 'minority' elements. Everybody is operating on a similar high level. I did work for a year with a group of young adults (18-21) who were at the bottom end of the academic distribution. That program was organized to accommodate their very significant limitations. We only attempted to teach them how to read, write, fill out forms, and how to perform manual work. Some of these guys were really very pleasant people, and some of them were quite smart -- but they had been abysmally failed by school and society. (Some of them were liars, thieves, knaves, and scoundrels, too.) In about a year we were able to give them basic literacy at a 6th grade level. Not high by any means, but high enough to operate in society. They had sub-standard manual skills, but better that than nothing. (Part of our success was having a large group of senior citizen volunteers who helped the guys work through their lessons. The 1 on 1 attention made a huge difference.)

Another thing about our success, we were a Civilian Conservation Camp out in the middle of nowhere. We had a "captive audience". Our urban guys found the surrounding woods and swamps to be kind of horrible places, especially at night, and we didn't have to lock them in.

http://www.businessinsider.com/former-stanford-dean-shares-the-8-skills-everyone-should-have-by-age-18-2016-4
Something of interest.

I agree with everything you just said. I also hate that its starting to force people to give more and more details when trying to make a profile.

I quit Facebook in 2012 or 2013 or something right about when there were issues with my adblocker. I use Instagram since two years and have a private account, mostly for pics of my daughter (and now son) to share with some friends and my wife.

Recently I wanted a Facebook account to be able to sell some things I don't use anymore. Instead I asked someone else to post on my behalf.

I have Twitter but don't use it and can't seem to delete the account for some stupid technical reason.

That leaves Google. For which I perform this once a year:

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/google-history-search-tracking-data-how-to-delete

The way this is all going I think, was nicely summed up by Charlie Brookers 'Black Mirror'

The episode NOSEDIVE presented a not too distant future.

Summed nicely in this article by the Atlantic.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/10/black-mirror-nosedive-review-season-three-netflix/504668/

When facebook first appeared to everyone, it was a nice idea that genuinely was concerned with connecting people. I believe it's emergence directly affected the fall of the then popular Friends Reunited.

However, "They" (and I'm sure we all have varying ideas of whom they are) saw the potential as the sites popularity grew, Data is the new gold, and Facebook must have the monopoly on the mines. So many people click through privacy agreements without reading the small print, but as the age old adage goes, If you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to fear.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/you-may-have-nothing-hide-you-still-have-something-fear

Having said all that, I do use Facebook, I do try to keep my privacy tight.

Throughout the Congressional hearing, Zuckerberg mechanically emphasized that Facebook's overarching mission was to "connect people". There is strong evidence, however, that Facebook's news-feed algorithm does not lend to that mission. I can't recall where I read it - but I saw a story of a women who became friends with someone from a gaming community. They friended each other on Facebook and would occasionally catch-up with each other through the platform. One day, the woman found out that her friend died from a terminal illness, and that the friend had posted about the illness a few times in the months leading up to his or her death. Despite it's purported mission to "connect people", the woman never saw any of the posts from her friend, although I guarantee she saw plenty of ads, sponsored posts, links to news articles, etc., because the actual mission of Facebook, along with most other prominent social media sites, is to monetize the user base.

In fact, the less you use Facebook, the less visible you are to others when you do post, effectively punishing you for not using Facebook enough.

It maybe interesting to realize that Zuckerberg has never invented anything.

If one googles "lifeLog", which was a program under DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), one may begin to understand why the source code patent was essentially stolen from the actual code writers by the defense department. Zucks has had steady military employment since helping this occur.

LifeLog began in 2002 or 2003 and was cancelled within a month before facebook's launch in Feb 2004.

I think the facebook model would have been seen to be easier to sell publicly and by getting people to willingly subscribe to their own surveillance and state control.

One needs to look into which entities and people ran and run the US patent office. The military and it's various complexes apparently have some wartime inspired right to steal away any patent it itself can use.

It is as if we have never really not lived under anything else other than martial law. I think Facebook is just a pretty face of martial law.

Evil genius, I suppose.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_LifeLog

https://www.wired.com/2004/02/pentagon-kills-lifelog-project/