Thread by @anitaycheng

Last at #AEASF (sadface) is @movie_pundit with his talk “What If People Weren’t the Product? Building a web that loves humanity.” (Yes, we gave each other high-fives about how we had talks about becoming person-oriented! 🙌)

Back in the truly olden days, we didn’t have mirrors. To see ourselves, we needed to find a still body of water. Instead, we looked at each other. @movie_pundit #AEASF

With the advent of mirrors, we suddenly became aware of how we looked to other people. The results ranged from 1st person novels to standing armies. Now the web, where “we cannot get away from ourselves” with ad personalization. We see ourselves as a product. @movie_pundit #AEASF

It all culminates in the term “personal brand.” @movie_pundit asks if we all died a little inside when we first heard it. 😅 But as James Baldwin said, eventually the world isn’t the thing that oppresses us. We oppress ourselves. #AEASF

We see ourselves as products, and other people>products are getting more hits! The comparison is killing us. How much time should a user spend engaging with your platform? (And what would your shareholders say?) “Seriously, fuck engagement.” @movie_pundit #AEASF

This is the scariest graph about engagement. The closer content comes to being banned because of its incendiary, dangerous nature, the more people engaged with it. Even when they said they hated it! (And the more the co makes money!) @movie_pundit #AEASF

Mark Zuckerberg knew this. Facebook let content calling for the genocide of Rohingya in Myanmar stay online. They traded lives for engagement. Social media talk about fixing it, but the policies and incentives haven’t changed much. (Srsly, fuck engagement.) @movie_pundit #AEASF

There’s another way. The Siksika Nation (Blackfoot) have a concept of self-actualization that assumes everyone has already arrived, not anything you have to work for. The most wealthy are the most generous. You have nothing because you have given it all away. @movie_pundit #AEASF

Standup meetings actually display this Siksika thinking. A successful standup is when you unblock something for another. @movie_pundit #AEASF

Our current incentives are messed up! Capitalism encourages people to behave badly (to get more and more stuff), but puts in a ton of rules to try and stop people from doing immoral stuff, even if it goes against the system of capitalist rules! @movie_pundit #AEASF

What if we could consider our design process done when we have returned what we took back to the earth? (Designer Sadie Red Wing thinks about this stuff!) @movie_pundit #AEASF

The worst cognitive bias, according to @movie_pundit, is the “just world hypothesis.” With that bias, you believe bad things only happen to bad people. Everything that happens to you is your fault. It keeps us from thinking about systems (or having to fix them). #AEASF

Our current system is also based a ton of assumptions. NYTimes in Europe switched from personalized to contextual advertising and actually increased their revenue! (DuckDuckGo uses only contextual advertising and is doing great!) @movie_pundit #AEASF

To get past the just world hypothesis, instead of asking yourself “Am I a good person?” ask yourself “Am I getting closer to my values?” (Also, therapy!) @movie_pundit #AEASF

Make a list of things your company or your stakeholders are willing to leave money on the table for. The shorter that list, the more unethical your company might be! @movie_pundit #AEASF

Can we practice interdependent design instead, where we prioritize connections to the people, the land, and our values? Can we design a web that reflects our values, where we live, and ppl we can help? @movie_pundit #AEASF

.@movie_pundit is giving #AEASF some hw!
1. ID your values
2. Start looking at how your work gets you closer or further away from those values
3. Co-imagine the future with the people hurt by the present

Everything we fight were just ideas. So what’s your idea? What’s our idea?