Maggie's Farm

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook.
I hate that so much 'stuff' goes on there. Celebrities posting nonsense, people building 'personalities' which make them 'celebrities', and tons of malware/malvertising.

On the other hand, it's an extremely effective tool for reconnecting with old friends and remaining in contact with far-flung family. It's also a great photo album. Old albums would get filled with pictures and sit in a drawer somewhere. Few people would ever really want to look at it. Now you can share, and that can be fun and useful.

I posted my entire Italy trip on Facebook, and many of my friends and family (who either have never been or can't go) got to see and learn interesting things.

A blog can accomplish the same thing - if you generate the interest. Facebook (as old Doc Mercury once said to me) is a poor man's blog, and doesn't really fill the role properly. But most of us don't need that.

Facebook also does one other thing pretty well - act as a newswire. Much like Twitter (which I REALLY don't get and won't join), if you sign up for desired feeds, you can get a steady stream of updated news and information.

People call Facebook and Twitter news sources. They aren't. They are just distribution points.

Mike Rowe has used Facebook VERY effectively to promote Mikeroweworks.com.

You're 100% correct about the tracking.

Depending on your level of acceptance of this, joining or not joining is up to you. Facebook, and others, can track you sufficiently without joining. There are many ways to do this, one of the most common today is known as "browser settings" - each person has specific browser settings that don't identify you personally, but do identify your use of the computer. That information can then be aggregated to find out more information like where you live, what your income is, and potentially your gender.

That's just one way. There are myriad other ways - and you have no idea they are even being tracked. Facebook just simplifies it.

Even so, that's the least of your worries. In fact, letting a company have that much information about me doesn't worry me much at all. There are ways to get around the distracting and annoying parts of it. My fear is government forcing firms to share that information with them - such as the case in San Bernadino and the hacking of the iPhone.

If you think your phone offers any kind of relative anonymity, you're incorrect. Aside from your phone number, there are at least 3 other commonly used "identifiers" which can not only let someone know who you are, but even target you specifically and potentially collect information about you. There are host of other less well known identifiers, particularly if you text, take/share/send pictures, email, or even browse the web or use apps on your phone.

The only revealing thing about Facebook is what you put up there. And if you're smart about it, you don't put up anything which can make you look bad. The problem, of course, is that everyone's sense of humor varies. I've posted things I think are hilarious that others have vehemently objected to. I keep pointing out to people "they don't have to look."

A frightening issue is how employers and schools use it today, though. That's truly scary. But there are privacy settings which give varying levels of protection. In the end, it's kind've like life....if you don't want it to come back and bite you, then don't say it or post it.

I use Facebook for personal friends. Never work and I will not connect to work acquaintances until 1 year after I've left a firm. This leaves a degree of separation, but it's mild. I have no illusions about the privacy it provides, though. In the end, if someone wants to find out something about you - Facebook or not - they are going to find it out.

Living entirely off the grid is the only solution. But I believe the benefits outweigh the potential losses of being on the grid.

I'd argue Friedman was tepidly free market. He believed in a strong central bank, which is really one of the biggest price disinformation vehicles there are.

However, he did support a negative income tax, which isn't too different from universal basic income. But his support was mild and based on free markets - the concept he based it on was if you're going to do it, then stop giving away coupons and chits in exchange for goods and services and just give money back. The coupons and chits are, after all, usually traded for cash for the things people REALLY want, and are traded at a discount - thereby depriving those folks of their 'benefit level'. Give them money and let them decide how to spend.

However, as you point out, there are still big flaws with this concept. Don Boudreaux recently wrote about it at Cafe Hayek, and libertarians, in general, range pretty broadly on the topic. My feeling is if you're going to do something, the cash solution is best. But assuring people that you're going to collect $X each year in basic income and it will decline as you find work will only prompt them to find under the table work.