Idk if you’ve noticed, but in just 15 years, social media turned half of Americans into Nazis. People like McCain and Romney seem positively centrist.

the effect of Facebook on Brazil:

By comparison, smoking shortens people’s lives. Personally, I’d prefer a shorter life than a world where 90% of the most popular podcasts are a bunch of psychopaths.

As someone steeped in technology, if I had a button that destroys the internet, I’m not sure if I should press it. Probably. Probably.

Social media isn’t even in the same class as smoking in terms of harm. It’s civilization ending. Smoking shortens lives on average. Social media is an existential threat. How do you think Trump got elected?

Currently it’s illegal for kids to smoke cigarettes, which is nowhere near as harmful as social media.

You can read any of the gazillion pieces of research to reach this extremely obvious conclusion.

It’s not as bad as drugs.

Hard disagree.

need to upload all our data

This isn’t necessary. For instance, simply require any device to which children have access to preinstall software that blocks 90% of the internet. Problem solved.

You’re confused by the assertion that access to social media is at least as bad for children as some banned drugs? Is this your first day on earth?

Sure, legalize smoking for 12 year olds so parents can regulate it themselves. Imbecilic reasoning.

Even less plausible. There was a paper published recently arguing that by design LLMs are quite literally incapable of creativity. These predictive statistical models represent averages. They always and only generate the most banal outputs. That’s what makes them useful.