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Comment by mrtesthah | Hacker News Reader

>successful people who didn't die

Did you just move the goalposts to “it didn’t kill me”?

We’re talking about society-wide effects here, including harm to children for which Facebook is paying 17 billion dollars.

https://oag.dc.gov/release/attorney-general-schwalb-announce...

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For a supposedly science-based cohort we aren't using any science aren't we?

There is ZERO proven causality between social media usage (specifically Meta products) and long-term happiness of a person. All the social science are spurious correlations that can be attributed to anything (including higher education where hysteria about the modern world reins)

As far as $17B settlement, it has nothing to do with causality. It's just some $$$ set aside for Meta to remove operational headaches.

I could even say Meta-haters make more irrational life decisions compared to normal people who just browse Instagram and use WhatsApp without paranoia

Did you just accuse others of not being science-based, while casually handwaving studies away?

Can you point me to causation studies please? or are you the type who believe in social sciences (using self-reported, biased data) with 0.10 R2 values and think that's the smoking gun?

Nope, it’s on you to either provide counter-studies first, or even just provide one solid, concrete example of what issue you have with these studies, rather than just handwaving them away as if such a rhetorical flourish can substantiate any sort of argument.

Science 101. There is no causation and very poor correlation

You are still writing in generalities. You need to actually pick a prominent study and state how it specifically mistakes correlation for causation. Just saying “oh all the existing science is wrong” doesn’t advance your argument. You’re assuming the reader knows what you’re talking about.

I don’t have any vested interest in upholding those studies, for all I know you might be entirely right. But if they’re the only studies out right now, the onus is on you, as a minority dissenter, to say specifically why they’re wrong. To just handwave it away is to undercut your own position because it makes you look like a crank who is just casually attacking the state of the field. And in the context of a forum such as this, it’s very off-putting, obnoxious behavior.

You’d get no pushback if you actually substantiated your points rather than tossing around general criticisms.

And those children are $17B richer today.

The ones that did not commit suicide get a tiny tiny fraction of that, yes.

Your comment implies no harm matters so long as people can sue for it later?

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