worthwhile to give a sense of how many times to click in order to get through to all the categories.. like a completion bar. have a feeling that i haven't seen all but have seen 'cryptocurrencies and prediction markets' like 4x
Show HN: Race to the Bottom
21–30 of 51 posts
Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom
#22I thought this was good but then the questions never stopped, not a progress bar in sight, eventually when I clicked the ranking list, I didn’t care because it wasn’t based on my opinions instead I’m assuming based on all votes.
I really thought the author did something here.
Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom
#23Some of the options make no sense at all.
Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom
#24Rankings not all consistent: - private military 6 but defense 39; - surveillance tech 7, data brokers 9, but facial recognition 14, social media 17, advertising 34; - polluters 3 but coal 26, oil 30, mining 37; - scam 5 but clickbait 15, MLMs 18; - influencers 22 but ads 34 (influencers *are* ads); Though some are: e.g., - lobbying / disinformation are close (1,2); - escorts, adult platforms, dating, adult content al…
my take on that: - private military is different from (and not necessary for) defence. A country having an army for defence is bad but kinda necessary. A country hiring mercenaries is not necessary. - you can have e.g. social media without surveillance tech, and the harm comes mostly from the surveillance tech. Likewise for the others. Facial recognition opens my phone, I'm fine with that. Surveillance tech is always…
How is a country having an army for defense bad?
Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom
#25The absolutely terrible rankings made me lose a bit of faith in humanity.
Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom
#26The framing of some of these is interesting. Not a criticism, just an observation.
I think many trigger a visceral negative reaction, like animal testing, but most of these can be broken up into sub-parts that are both obviously good and obviously bad at the same time. Animal testing of cosmetics: bad, animal testing of the safety of a new drug that millions of humans will take: probably good. Chemical manufacturing that produces plastic packaging for things that could use paper packaging: not great, chemical manufacturing for chemicals used in healthcare, probably good. To be clear, these are nuanced topics and I'm not interested in debating them here, just providing illustrative examples.
I realise this isn't really the point of this experiment, but it does go to show how much the framing matters. This is part of why surveys can produce radically different results depending on how you write the questions.
Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom
#27The framing of some of these is interesting. Not a criticism, just an observation. I think many trigger a visceral negative reaction, like animal testing, but most of these can be broken up into sub-parts that are both obviously good and obviously bad at the same time. Animal testing of cosmetics: bad, animal testing of the safety of a new drug that millions of humans will take: probably good. Chemical manufacturing…
In fact to go further, even just the inclusion of an item on a "race to the bottom" page implies negativity. In isolation, "cheap food" is a pretty positive thing, the emphasis may be on "food" and we all need that. But in this context it may imply the emphasis is on "cheap" and further imply bad, and most would agree that food quality is important so might downvote it, even though the concept is pretty good.
Similarly, "Wind farms" (negative connotations) vs "Wind power" (positive connotations).
Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom
#28Am I the only one who is bothered by “Choose the worst” with only two options? It should be “Choose the worse”.
Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom
#29The absolutely terrible rankings made me lose a bit of faith in humanity.
Agree, I was very surprised to see oil and coal all the way at 20s!
Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom
#30The framing of some of these is interesting. Not a criticism, just an observation. I think many trigger a visceral negative reaction, like animal testing, but most of these can be broken up into sub-parts that are both obviously good and obviously bad at the same time. Animal testing of cosmetics: bad, animal testing of the safety of a new drug that millions of humans will take: probably good. Chemical manufacturing…
Couldn't have said it better, felt the same way about it.
Another example is military and defense, or pharmaceuticals. Some rather beneficial and even necessary aspects to both, yet some disagreeable things to either as well.