I don't know what will happen in the future, but now human beings can't live without the support of the community. For millions of years, human beings have become accustomed to the lifestyle of small groups, with no more than dozens of people in each group. According to Dunbar number theory, 150 is the maximum value of human population. Without the support of small groups, human beings will feel lonely.

The close community relationship of human beings is disintegrating. Although we can contact people all over the world now, everyone feels much more lonely than in the past. Many social and political disputes originated here.

Zuckerberg of Facebook hopes to rebuild the human community through online social networks. This vision will be an important test: if successful, the algorithm will also become a master of human social networks; If it fails, it shows the limitation of the algorithm in social problems.

002 offline community and online community

Zuckerberg believes that online communities help to cultivate offline communities. But in some cases, the activity of online community will be at the expense of the experience of offline community, which is essentially different. After all, online friends can talk again, and they can't pour you a glass of water through the internet cable when you are sick.

The offline community has a depth that the online community can't match, because people have bodies. The development of science and technology makes people feel farther and farther away from their bodies. Humans have lost their sense of taste, smell and hearing, roaming in the network world, and are more interested in what is on the network than what is around them. You pay attention to the pain of people thousands of miles away, but you have no feeling about the physical discomfort of people around you. Once people's body and senses are increasingly alienated from the real environment, they are likely to lose their way and feel lonely.

Zuckerberg's dilemma

The limitations of network relations limit Zuckerberg's vision. If you spend too much time with netizens who are thousands of miles away, you will sacrifice the opportunity to get to know your neighbors.

Facebook's business model is online time and users' attention. Once we pay attention to the offline world, it will have an impact on Facebook's tax revenue. Historically, enterprises are by no means an ideal carrier for leading political and social revolution. In order to realize the vision of rebuilding the community, Facebook needs to further narrow the distance between online and offline.

In short, the algorithm can't solve the current problems such as community collapse, increasing inequality and global polarization.