Mastodawn

Peter Thiel and other tech billionaires are publicly shielding their children from the products that made them rich

https://sh.itjust.works/post/55738498

Peter Thiel and other tech billionaires are publicly shielding their children from the products that made them rich - sh.itjust.works

Despite building an increasingly screen-focused world, billionaire tech leaders are keeping their own children away from the tech they helped create. As far back as 2010, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs told a New York Times reporter his kids had never used an iPad and that, “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.” Since then, the trend of Silicon Valley billionaires keeping their families away from technology has become even more pronounced, thanks in part to the rise of social media and short-form video. At the 2024 Aspen Ideas Festival, early Facebook investor and billionaire Peter Thiel joined Chen among the ranks of tech leaders who are setting strict limits on screens. Thiel said he only lets his two young children use screens for an hour-and-a-half per week, a revelation that prompted audible gasps from the audience. Other tech CEOs, including Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Snap’s Evan Spiegel, and Tesla’s Elon Musk, have also spoken about limiting their children’s access to devices. Gates has said he did not give his children smartphones until age 14 and banned phones at the dinner table entirely. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, in 2018, said he limits his child to the same 1.5 hours per week of screen time as Thiel. And finally, Musk, who bought the social media company X, formerly Twitter, in 2022, said it “might’ve been a mistake” to not set any rules on social media for his children. Yet, as the trials against social media companies continue and country after country moves toward legislating what Silicon Valley’s billionaires have quietly practiced for years, the private behavior of the world’s most powerful tech figures stands in contrast to what they’re promoting and building

shiftymccool Feb 22

Eat the rich

henfredemars Feb 22

That social rot you smell? It’s you. You’re the social rot.

mrnobody Feb 22

Hmmm it appears they understand how evil all the tech companies are, harvesting data to the fullest extent. Spying, influencing, etc.

Oh they absolutely know. Zuck’s Meta is on trial right now not only because Instagram creates an addiction for kids, but because it was made delibarately, on purpose. Kids addictron was the goal.

They’ve always known. They just don’t care for the rest of humanity.

MalReynolds Feb 22

Look to the masters, the tobacco industry with additives to make it more addictive (been a while since I researched it and that’s the one that popped up, but they spent 60+ years making it more addictive).

Social media speedran it with something apparently innocuous (‘they trust me, stupid fucks’), and a bunch of corrupt psychologists (and marketers/advertisers also known as corrupt psychologists). Do no harm my ass, wait, that doesn’t apply to psychologists, wait again, that’s more like guidelines for doctors (not an actual vow in most places).

Next bill of rights / constitution needs to address this specifically, there’s a reason why quacks have a special hatred (and if there were one, a special hell)…

12.6.2 Additives that increase the addictiveness of tobacco products - Tobacco in Australia

Explore how additives in tobacco products, like menthol and ammonia, enhance nicotine's addictiveness by increasing bioavailability and altering brain effects. Learn more about the role of sugars and acetaldehyde in reinforcing addiction.

The tobacco industry is a good historical example of all the shit world dominating companies do. The most sneaky thing I can remember is that they finance perfectly good research on a lot of causes of cancer, except for tobacco, so researchers were too busy to investigate tobacco. They also have been buying companies that used to finance legitimate research so researchers that depended on them are now forced into a conflict of interest. www.bmj.com/content/385/bmj.q1153

Personal anecdote, a young female data scientists left my current department to join Philip Morris, it blows my mind that young educated people would join this industry willingly, I guess it was for the money.

Tobacco funded research: how even journals with bans find it hard to stem the tide of publications

Tobacco companies are investing billions in pharmaceutical and medical products. These ties complicate the ongoing efforts of researchers, scientific organisations, and journals to distance themselves from the industry, find Irene van den Berg , Mathilde de Jeu , and Hristio Boytchev Research funded by the tobacco industry is still appearing in highly cited medical journals, despite attempts by some to cut ties altogether, an investigation by The Investigative Desk and The BMJ has found. Although the tobacco industry has a long history of subverting science, most of the leading medical journals don’t have policies that ban research wholly or partly funded by the industry. Even when publishers, authors, and universities are willing to restrict ties to the industry, evidence indicates that they struggle to identify funding sources, because tobacco companies have funded front groups and have diversified into pharmaceutical and health technology. “It is awkward to suddenly find yourself affiliated with a company whose sole purpose is to sell cigarettes,” says Wytse van den Bosch, a physician and researcher into pulmonary diseases at the Erasmus MC Sophia Children’s Hospital in the Netherlands. He had a research grant from the drug company Vectura when it was bought by the tobacco giant Philip Morris International in 2021. Nevertheless, his study was still published in a journal with a policy to reject research with connections to the tobacco industry. Big tobacco’s involvement in therapeutic fields has led to calls for journals to institute bans on research funded not only by tobacco companies but also by their subsidiaries. Nicholas Hopkinson, professor of respiratory medicine at Imperial College London, says that, given the industry’s “longstanding history of dishonesty,” it is “very straightforward” that researchers should cut ties to companies after they are acquired by big tobacco, as otherwise they would be “working with the tobacco …

The BMJ

Not to excuse that POS, but more on how we got here: You have a product that only makes money when people actively use it. How do you increase your ROI? Make people want to use it and want to use it longer. Do that by making it more interesting, more relevant, more stimulating and appear bottomless so people can use it as long as possible.

Addiction for EVERYONE is the only way FB continues to increase revenue. We just single out Children because they are most easily influenced and impacted.

Oh I’m perfectly aware this is most likely a chain of pressure and responsibility dodging:

the top demands more users more active,
the bottom develops some solutions they demo while refusing any responsability for its impact.
Some middle pressed to meet demand while having only one solution available at the time eventually decide to deploy it, maybe “temporarily”.

greybeard Feb 22

Many years ago a grocery store chain, which was rapidly becoming national, had its progress halted by a meat bleaching scandal. They set impossible goals for their meat department, knowing there was zero way to sell the meat at the volume they demanded, so the local stores were left to do illegal things to meet the impossible quotas. The higher ups claimed plausible deniability, while knowing there was but one answer.

What’s even crazier, is the grocery store (Food Lion) sued the journalists who went undercover to expose it, and won. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-01-23-mn-21242-story.html

Fortunately, the damage to their reputation did far greater damage than they won in the lawsuit, but as far as I could find, no legal actions were taken against Food Lion.

N.C. Jury Orders ABC to Pay $5.5 Million in Hidden-Camera Case

In a verdict that could limit undercover investigations by the nation's journalists, a North Carolina jury Wednesday awarded Food Lion Inc. $5.5 million in punitive damages for an ABC News expose on how the grocery chain sold tainted meat and fish to unwary customers.

Los Angeles Times

architect Feb 22

I doubt. I think it’s more like they fear us getting to them through their kids.

Imagine doing that to your child. Raising them in an alternate world that doesn’t really exist? That’s not fearing the tech and caring about their kids. That’s control. That’s them proving their children are the same things as a car.

Seems this would be good evidence in the case that’s currently at trial.

Goddamn, it reproduced already?

The most disturbing part is these ghouls reproduced.

IAmYouButYouDontKnowYet Feb 22

I think the most disturbing part is how stupid “regular” people are and how they let themselves get psychologically marketed into lifestyles that rape their humanity and give power and profits to the same people that raped their humanity.

So blame the victim…?

MadhuGururajan Feb 22

You can’t exactly blame people for being stupid when you realize the conditions necessary for well learned, aware citizens with empathy are always being destroyed by these so called billionaires. It’s not a coincidence that private cities and walled estates for the rich are the trend. They live in socialist utopia and sell rugged individualistic capitalism to the masses.

Think about how much industrialization and development happened. Now think about how much we have lost touch with how to live meaningful, fulfilling life without our needs going unfulfilled.

Alas, nothing can last forever. Greed and hubris contribute to the destruction of societies. History teaches us.

You look at the eugenicist natalist couples who worship Elon Musk and you realize they are indeed ghouls, and they treat their children like non-sentient garbage. Hitting them during interviews in public. Imagine what they do in private.

America’s premier pronatalists on having ‘tons of kids’ to save the world: ‘There are going to be countries of old people starving to death’

Elon Musk (father of 11) supports their cause. Thousands follow their ideology. Malcolm and Simone Collins are on a mission to make it easier for everyone to have multiple children. But are they really model parents?

The Guardian

Uranhjort Feb 22

Leave it to natalists to make extinction seem the better option.

SkyeStarfall Feb 22

That article was an insane read. I couldn’t have written more unserious people if I tried

Tangentism Feb 23

I’m sitting on a train reading that and it must have been a weird look for other passengers as I was constantly grimacing! I may have verbally exclaimed a few times as well!

EndlessNightmare Feb 22

And they turn into whining crybabies when birth rates start dropping. It’s their Achilles’ heel, an actual challenge to their control.

Grandwolf319 Feb 22

Never get high on your own supply

AbidanYre Feb 22

Does musk even see any of his kids often enough to set rules?

slackarr Feb 22

not if his kids have any say in the matter

He probably just wishes he put it in the contract signed with the mothers.

Twongo [she/her]Feb 22

Musk is the most Twitter addicted person I am aware of.

bridgeburner Feb 22

If Trump were still on Twitter he’d be a strong contender lol

ChicoSuave Feb 22

Why do they have kids? Inheritance Tax Now!

PotatoLibre Feb 22

Tech lords are among the most hated people on the planet.

“Dad, why people think you’re a self absordeb, pathetic, nazi snowflake???”

Zephorah Feb 22

Theil reproduced?

MadhuGururajan Feb 22

First of all these billionaires can afford to replace for their kids; what social media is with actual socialising that is destroyed by fear, nimbyism, and systematic destruction of third places for normal people. that’s what private cities and walled off estates are for. They will continue to enjoy the fruits of socialism while selling capitalism for everybody else.

This is not a force to be triffled with or dismissed as so easy to escape from.

aloofPenguin Feb 22

that’s what private cities and walled off estates are for

I would just like to add that there is a school (I think in California) that the rich sends their kids to, where electronic devices are prohibited (and access restricted I believe). Though from the video, it does look lie the interact with others outside of that circle.

Here’s the video: YouTube Link

Inside A Tech-Free School Where Tech Executives Send Their Kids

YouTube

I say bullshit, these people aren’t involved enough in their kids lives to even know if their “1 hour a day” or whatever rules are happening. Their kids are absolutely doing whatever the fuck they want.

NannerBanner Feb 22

That’s what the paid 24/7 nanny is for.

architect Feb 22

I honestly think this is more likely the case. It’s a story they sell us idiots. But if it’s true, it’s not because they care about their kids.

Half an hour per weekday and an hour on weekends with the switch, plus strict rules on what als can be used. No roblox.

But we flood our kids with books or comics. If they want to read a book, well make it happen

Kids are fine with it. Boredom sparks creativity.

Even when I was a kid, in the 80s and 90s, I spent plenty of time playing NES, computer and watching TV. This was of course long before social media.

I don’t see how you could possibly limit a kid to 1.5 hr screen time per week. How do we define screen time? If it’s only social media on phones or tablets, then that’s probably okay. But if you are including console, computer gaming, tv, then I don’t see how that’s even possible. (And of course now most games have an online component, so the line gets blurry there.)

It’s the shitty “social” aspect of online that is harming children, not the concept of a screen.

I think social media and any game with micro transactions. We got the kids the switch, because with Nintendo, there are no shitty loot boxes or buy diamonds to skip time shit.

The hard truth is, games are way more addictive than in out youth. And parents need to deal with that and guide kids to good games

Nothing to do with any virtue to be interested in their kid’s mental health and everything to do with avoiding getting blackmail using their kid’s identities

lechekaflan Feb 22

That’s so much Zone of Interest.

MonkderVierte Feb 22

What, Musks too? He’s not known to have much to do with family.

OldChicoAle Feb 22

But he is known to talk out his ass

BarneyPiccolo Feb 22

Most Sociopathic Oligarchs see their offspring as future organ donors, so they can live forever.

mrnngglry Feb 22

Of course you do hey do but millions of us keep eating the shit they put in front of us, me included.

Scale Theory Feb 22

@AcidiclyBasicGlitch

If they don't use the product, and it made them rich, the product is no good but they make it anyway because capitalism is better with the uneducated. Why else would the saying, "I love the uneducated" have been rehearsed by oligarch's puppet? Does anyone have principals or values anymore? Are they super powers like common sense is/has been?

wonderingwanderer Feb 22

“Our technology is perfectly safe and harmless for all ages!”

“So you would let your own children use it?”

“Nooo. No no no no no no. God no.”

BarneyPiccolo Feb 22

“Are you kidding? I KNOW how addicting we make that shit. I don’t want my kids anywhere near it.”

BarneyPiccolo Feb 22

My son was never interested in video games, nor does he use any social media. Instead, he reads and watches movies.

He’s a film studies student, and knows films inside and out because he’s seen almost everything, from every country, from every era. He’s also an avid reader of classics, and just finished Moby Dick. It wasn’t an assignment, he just wanted to read it.

He wouldn’t be that smart if he’d buried himself in video games and social media.

Passerby6497 Feb 22

And finally, Musk, who bought the social media company X, formerly Twitter, in 2022, said it “might’ve been a mistake” to not set any rules on social media for his children.

That would require him to spend more time around his children than photoshoots and using them as human shields

That should be enough evidence for the rest of the world…

ravenaspiring Feb 22

YouTube cofounder Steve Chen said at a talk at the Stanford Graduate School of Business last year that he wouldn’t want his kids consuming only short-form content, noting that it might be better to limit kids to videos longer than 15 minutes.

I hope this is introduced at the LA trial in some form that demonstrates the why.

I should not be amazed, but I still am, at the entire lack of morality that tech entrepreneurs have post dotcom bursting.

Insekticus Feb 22

They’re subhumans with no morality or code of ethics whose sights are set on more and more wealth, spiralling them further into the depths of depravity and the cardinal sin of greed.

Greed begets more greed, but unlike gluttony and wrath, the billionaires’ deterioration doesn’t manifest itself physically, so they allow themselves to become evermore corrupted by it until they become a fountain of disease, rotting and decaying everything around them.

UniversalBasicJustice Feb 23

Calling someone “subhuman” is the language of a supremacist. They are some of the absolute worst examples of humanity, yes, but they are still human. Referring to them as subhuman abdicates humanity’s responsibility to bring them to justice and to build systems that prevent a disproportionate concentration of power and influence.

WizardofFrobozz Feb 23

Nah. They’re subhuman. At best.

Earthman_Jim Feb 23

Yeah, but the Epstein class wants us conditioned to be as forgetful as their LLMs so we reset to compliance by default without connecting too many dots.

enbiousenvy Feb 22

the antichrist guy

sibachian Feb 22

the American guy who has been pushing for chat control through Europe so he can get paid destroying all privacy and spying on all European citizens through his Palintir, you mean, and ultimately delivering all power to the US.

it takes a certain kind of evil to literally recreate Sauron’s Palintir. What is it Gandalf tells Saruman?, “There is only one Lord of the Ring, only one who can bend it to his will. And he does not share power.” He is literally following the script lol.

CosmicTurtle0 [he/him]Feb 22

This behavior seems to be very similar to NFL stars and how they never wanted their kids to play football.

Everyone involved knows how dangerous social media/football is and many of them are in positions to actually do something about it. But because it benefits them personally, they won’t even rock the boat.

ToTheGraveMyLove Feb 22

Fucking degenerate assholes, pushing drugs knowing full well how harmful it is.

OldQWERTYbastard Feb 22

This isn’t new. I remember fifteen years ago some Silicon Valley app engineers forbade their children from playing the games that were being developed.

It’s because they’re engineered to use your psychology against you. This is by design.