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Show HN: Race to the Bottom

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Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom

#41

Post by readonkeyless »

The front page mentions that the intention is to capture the public opinion. I felt that looking at the rankings didn't really meaningfully give me any useful information about a broad consensus on any of the topics. As many have mentioned, there are many nuances to a lot of the options.

Perhaps adding a text input after the selection to ask a user to describe their position on the topic and having that broadly shared would help towards that goal?

The rankings page doesn't give me any sense either of how my opinion broadly tracks against the "public opinion". This would fundamentally change the flow you have going but presenting the options and then asking the user to manually tier list them would allow for that side by side comparison.

Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom

#43

Post by jdthedisciple »

As many have correctly pointed out: A reasonable person cannot pass blanket judgement on many of the entries shown.

This also highlights a major flaw with voting and political campaigning in democracies:

Undifferentiated blanket judgements based on biased framing, polarizing society artificially into totally unnecessary camps of opposition.

Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom

#44

Post by hjkl0 »

The context or description shown for each "industry" is a massive injection of bias.

For example, Cannabis is "Cannabis cultivation, dispensaries, and marijuana-related businesses", while Sugary Food & Beverage are "Products associated with obesity, diabetes, and health concerns". So if you think there is also a positive side to sugar, the context makes it clear you are voting for the negative side. But the negative sides of Cannabis are left out of the context, so you're more likely to be neutral or positive about it.

Another example is Environmental Polluters, which are "Industries with major pollution, emissions, or environmental damage". And you also have Chemical Manufacturing, which is "Industrial chemical production and hazardous material processing". But there is no such thing as a "pollution and hazards" industry. So what are we voting for as "worst" here? Nitrogen and Cement? Industry in general?

And the rankings are just an ordered list, completely opaque. With all the overlap between the options, there has to be something actually interesting to do with the data.

Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom

#45

Post by hjkl0 »

hjkl0 wrote: post #44

The context or description shown for each "industry" is a massive injection of bias. For example, Cannabis is "Cannabis cultivation, dispensaries, and marijuana-related businesses", while Sugary Food & Beverage are "Products associated with obesity, diabetes, and health concerns". So if you think there is also a positive side to sugar, the context makes it clear you are voting for the negative side. But the negative…

It just occurred to me there's an even bigger missed opportunity with the rankings. Because every "survey question" is a 1 to 1 comparison between two concepts, the most interesting thing would be to see how different concepts stand up to each other. And perhaps also how consistent people are throughout their answers, and maybe how that correlates to trends in their choices.

Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom

#46

Post by ____mr____ »

> This is not intended to stigmatize any specific industry, but rather to capture a snapshot of public opinion. Some industries may appear harmless at first glance, while their broader societal impact is often overlooked.

This is so funny because simply by including an industry there is an attempt to sort it into signs of a failing of society. It's borderline performance art when you are asked to choose if "dating apps" are worse than the industry that makes bombs and chemical weapons which kill thousands of people daily

Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom

#47

Post by hackeraccount »

hjkl0 wrote: post #45
hjkl0 wrote: post #44

The context or description shown for each "industry" is a massive injection of bias. For example, Cannabis is "Cannabis cultivation, dispensaries, and marijuana-related businesses", while Sugary Food & Beverage are "Products associated with obesity, diabetes, and health concerns". So if you think there is also a positive side to sugar, the context makes it clear you are voting for the negative side. But the negative…

It just occurred to me there's an even bigger missed opportunity with the rankings. Because every "survey question" is a 1 to 1 comparison between two concepts, the most interesting thing would be to see how different concepts stand up to each other. And perhaps also how consistent people are throughout their answers, and maybe how that correlates to trends in their choices.

yeah. I was waiting for something to get at the consistency of what I was clicking i.e. if I think A is better then B and B is better then C why do I think C is better then A.

Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom

#50

Post by Terretta »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #37
madamelic wrote: post #10

An interesting experiment could be re-wording some of these and seeing how different the rankings are. So have an alternate card titled "Promoting your country" rather than "Propaganda" or "Personal Safety" rather than "Firearms". Some of these cards definitely present biases that could prime someone to vote a certain way such as "Exploitative Gig Economy" is clearly biased. I would strongly guess if certain cards we…

It's not advertising, it's "product discovery services". I'm actually a little amazed that marketers have branded their job so poorly.

That alternative name is how many rational adults experience the personalization industrial complex:

"Oh god, I hate it when I get a new browser and all the ads are terrible! So much better seeing ads for stuff I want, instead of a screenful of stuff I have no interest in!"

They do not perceive any outcomes from the profiling other than less annoying ads. It arguably justifies the truthy wording "Do you want to keep more relevant ads?" on Opt In pop-ups... as long as the sentence continued, "at the cost of anyone being able to buy a profile of all your most personal details that knows you better than your mother, enabling them to more easily manipulate you, discriminate against you, blackmail you, or defraud you?"

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