In Thiel’s world, “good enough” systems don’t get fixed—they are surpassed by new technology. But unsticking systems is not just a technological challenge. It’s a social and political challenge as well. Since the companies that profit from “good enough” systems have few incentives to change, change needs to come externally, from social pressure or political leadership, commodities in short supply in contemporary America.

As attempts are made to unstick calcified systems, hope may be found in a practice rarely celebrated by technological innovators: regulation.

— When ‘Good Enough’ Holds Back New Inventions – The Atlantic

The Valley attitude of technology over all, and ignoring the greater world and established systems of government and society will bite it in the rear one day. Hopefully sooner, rather than later.

No technology that catches on will do so from fiat alone.

The longer I use social media, the clearer it becomes to me that the current crop of social media services we use are designed to reward immediacy above all else. Immediacy gets results, and Twitter’s focus on it is a large part of why it’s now entrenched in breaking news. That same focus on immediacy is also responsible for what drives so many people nuts about social media. By rewarding quick posts, particularly ones that invoke strong emotion, social media all-too-easily embroils us in the Outrage Cycle. Often multiple times a day.

Each Outrage Cycle begins like the same way. Someone, deliberately or not, posts something outrageous. It gets discovered by someone, anyone really, who responds with outrage. This raises visibility of the outrageous thing, driving more attention, and more outrage. Often, a troll or twenty will stoke the flames by defending the outrageous thing, and that will only increase the volume of outrage. Then comes the meta-outrage, as people make outraged comments about all the outrage on Twitter today, and how we should never have left App.net, etc. The more violent Outrage Cycles can even spiral into meta-meta-outrage over the outage against the outrage. For a perfect example of this pattern in action, just refresh yourself with the story of Justine Sacco. [1]

Twitter and similar services, reward this kind of behavior implicitly, though probably not intentionally. Social media’s speed allows precious little time for reflection. There’s a real, and somewhat valid fear, that by waiting to get more information, or even to figure out how you really feel, you’re going to miss out on something. What that “something” is could be anything from mere Favorites, Likes, and Retweets, to an @-reply from a famous person, or just a chance to have your say in a big conversation on equal footing with the rest of the world. We all want our chance at the spotlight, and Outrage Cycles are an effective tool to get us there.

Rewarding knee-jerk reactions, and placing them on the level of valid discourse does not benefit anyone except the platform. Which is probably why nothing has been done about it. More activity means more eyeballs to monetize, ad views to sell, and more impressive charts for investor storytime. I can’t say that the platforms were designed with this behavior in mind, but it’s to the benefit of their owners, advertisers, and investors that the implicit reward remain in place. So, it comes down to us, the people who feed the angry, gaping maw of the beast with our immediate reactions to whatever is handy to react to.

Changing this has to begin with us. It begins with “reading first and hitting the send key later”, but it has to go beyond that. We need to rethink the relationship we have with social media, and the people who use it—those we know, and those we do not. Most social media isn’t a prescriptivist technology, at least not completely. We have the ability to change how we use it, what for, and on what terms. We can uninstall the apps, and delete our accounts if it comes to it. Once we learn to engage on different terms with social media, we’ll be in a place that makes it that much easier to avoid the rewards of knee-jerk actions.

After the hackathon was over, Maurice gathered every team member’s contact information and wrote it all down on the back of the business card I gave him. Later that night, I received a phone call from him, and he asked if I would be able to teach him how to code. I love teaching, and Maurice seemed like a nice kid, so I offered to help. He immediately said, “okay, go,” and awaited instruction. I explained that I wouldn’t be able to teach him over the phone, but then I found out that he didn’t have internet at home. If that surprises you, you should know that this is actually a bit more common than you may think.

— Tech’s High Barrier to Entry for the Underprivileged — Backchannel — Medium

This is why the so-called “meritocracy” of technology is bullshit. When someone is so poor that they can’t afford Internet access, or even a computer, how can they learn to program in the first place? Tech is only a “meritocracy” if you are privileged enough to have the first rung of the ladder in reach. Few kids are as lucky as Maurice is to have people helping him.

People can say a thing on Twitter thinking they are being clever or funny, seeking attention and recognition for their clever funniness. But sometimes when seen from another perspective, the thing they have said makes them come across in a less than positive way—and on Twitter the leap from doing something mildly objectionable to being considered by many to be a colossal scumbag is very short. This in itself can create problems, as the rejection of one faction can shove people towards others. A person might feel like a bridge has been burned before they even got to cross it, so maybe they’ll just saunter off to hang out with some actual colossal scumbags. The process of groups aggressively rebuffing people who do not immediately measure up to their standards can be damaging in the longer term.

— Growing Up Without Twitter Saved Me From Embarrassment | The New Republic

Anger, outrage, and hatred all existed long before Twitter. Nobody disputes this. The problem is that Twitter, and most other social media, right down to website comments, are designed to promote quick bursts of emotionally charged responses. That’s what “wins.” Twitter doesn’t reward thoughtfulness, consideration, or even moderation.

Phil Hartup includes some thoughtful choices for direct action one can take to make the healthy debates that Twitter can create more likely to occur. We should all take them up.

The world of Silicon Valley isn’t like the rest of the world in many ways. I’ve written in the past about how location and context awareness break down in the urban density of New York City. It’s a lot easier for GPS-based location services to pin you down when all the places you go are separated by more than a quarter-mile. The sprawling suburbs of the southern Bay Area where so much of this technology is born presents a way of life that is alien to many, and if any of it is going to catch on and spread, it’ll have to adapt to our way of life, not the other way around.

Electric cars, as an example, are currently ill-suited to East Coast urban environments. In cities, many people lack dedicated, private parking to plug a Tesla in. No garages, no carports, no driveways. It’s either on-street parking, or not owning a car at all. So, where is a theoretical Tesla owner with no private parking space going to charge their car at home? Short of communal parking lots with charging stations, which would be tricky in places with high land value and existing construction, I can’t see a reasonable solution for residential areas. In downtowns, though, the first city to roll out combination parking meters and car charging stations stands to make a killing.

With home ownership rates falling, particularly among younger, and likely more tech savvy adults, I wonder how well the latest batch of “smart home” hardware will do. Many leases, for homes and apartments alike, don’t allow for replacement of major home hardware. Even installing simpler hardware like “smart” light switches wouldn’t be worth the hassle if you don’t plan to stay permanently. And I’m still not convinced that adding “smarts” to simple, functional hardware is an improvement, and not just adding more points of failure. [1]

Google’s self-driving car works well enough in the wide streets and highways of car-centered Silicon Valley. I’d like to see how well one deals with rush hour traffic in Manhattan. dealing with delivery trucks, fare-seeking cabbies, suicidally crazy bike messengers, and the typically lackadaisical attitude towards traffic of New York pedestrians—author included—is taxing enough for human drivers. I can’t see AI being an improvement. I could see self-driving technologies applied to urban busses, but even then dedicated bus lanes, or good old-fashioned light rail are more reliable, thought the latter is pricier.

It’s possible that most of these issues will be worked out in time for mass adoption. The only thing I’m truly skeptical of is wide adoption the self-driving car. With the global rates of people living in dense urban environments already high, and growing, if the businesses behind these technologies want real mass adoption, they’ll have to figure it out. Shaping the technology of the future is a give and take process, and right now it’s more give than take.