Caro FloresJan 21

For social media moguls, "the fact that relationships are irreducibly qualitative is a serious bug. So Zuck... incinerated all the qualitative elements by quantizing them, and then did math on the dubious residue that remained".

Hence the replacement of friends with content creators that maximize Z's numbers, says @pluralistic

But there is a more intimate danger, I think 1/2

https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/19/billionaire-solipsism/

#tech #technology

Pluralistic: Social media without socializing (19 Jan 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Show threadCaro Flores

@pluralistic

Mogul values ended up capturing our own values. We fell into caring more about # likes, follows, etc. than maintaining relationships.

We *ourselves* incinerated the qualitative in our lives and replaced it with Zuck's numbers. The change was internal, not just external.

Jan 21 at 12:15pmWeb
Show threadArazilJan 21
@floresophize @pluralistic Social media has replaced much of the "social" in our life with the "parasocial" and now everyone is lonely and miserable.