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Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

blog.ycombinator.com

311–320 of 406 posts

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#311
post #309

In many respects, Y Combinator, or really, start ups more broadly, seem uniquely ill equipped to solve this problem. Startups seem to be especially incompatible with the business challenges that face media companies right now. While perhaps the S curve of user growth could be attained by a media startup, the S curve of revenue isn't. And if it was, the quality of the journalism it produced would be terrible. Viral co…

[deleted]

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#312
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting idea, and one I've been thinking about for a while. Issue is, I think that's kind of what social media is meant for. Anyone can contribute news as a primary source and share it with others online via sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. So my worry is that any system like this would basically be just another social media service (albeit with a 'news slant' in the marketing material) and the…

Yes sure, Twitter (moments) and fb (live) are converging on this to some extent. I'm thinking of something less social and more verifiable source of info though. You'd need incentives to keep it real, probably some form of verifying in a local web of trust, and incentives to read/watch so grouping by geography and interest. I'm thinking more make your own local newspaper than share videos to your friends. Probably yo…

Thanks for clarifying on this. Such a system definitely needs a way to verify news, though I'm not quite how a web of trust might be integrated here.

Grouping by geography and interest is definitely needed (Medium/WordPress style tags can help with both here, especially if users can follow/subscribe to them).

Making your own newspaper sounds interesting as well. You mean like a sort of blog or Medium publication? Or a social network type feed?

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#313
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society. It was society that decided to have the current reward system. It is society that can change its mind.

That's a somewhat naive view. It presupposes that the current system is just, because (1) all members of society had an equal hand in shaping the current system, (2) that it was designed to serve the interests of society as a whole (rather than those who benefit most from it), and (3) that it would be easy to change the system if a consensus emerged among a majority (or even a vast majority) of society that such chan…

I made none of your 3 presuppositions. Society is society whether or not it is democratic, fair or wise. But usually it changes its mind as it becomes more democratic, fair and wise.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by this? What did I say that was false?

You're right that certain parts of the country have been hit hard by automation and globalization but the idea that the hard hit people are the Trump voters is not particularly true.

From what I've read, you are wrong. Of course there are a lot of factors that go into an election, but here's the site that tells me it's definitely a factor: https://econsnapshot.com/2016/11/14/how-trump-won/amp/

In the future, if you could provide a source for your argument, it could give more substantive discussion.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Corporate oligarchy" would be a less partisan way to say this.

I think they mean replubican in the representative democracy sense, not the GOP sense.

Yes, that's what I meant. Thanks for clarifying.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#316
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paul Graham is right that it has to be something you want to do, but it is possible to build large new media sites on short attention spans -- if your site is designed for them. My site, an actual working solution to the problem of both fake news and bias, is doing great (Over three million page views last month). However, we most likely won't apply to YC this time, or ever again, due to Sam Altman's anti-Trump bias.

> My site, an actual working solution to the problem of both fake news and bias, is doing great (Over three million page views last month). How is crowd-funded media a solution to the problem of bias and factually unsound reporting? I found a link to your site from your profile and it appears to be a gossip and tabloid site with a focus on UFC.

It's early days, so we haven't filled out a lot of our content. While our main newsline is on Conor McGregor, the UFC fighter, there is not much fake news or bias surrounding him. A far better example is to look at the newsline for Emma Sulkowicz, the so-called "Mattress Girl" [1].

Ms Sulkowicz, at that time a student at Columbia University, claims she was raped and in protest at what she saw was the University's lack of action, decided to carry a mattress around the campus for a year. The problem for readers wanting to find out more about her story is that the media is highly polarized. They are either written by feminists, or their opponents. There is no middle ground. If you try to get an overview of the case on Wikipedia [2] you will encounter that site's systemic bias, where the most powerful group on the page "owns" the content. In this case the page is controlled by people sympathetic to Ms Sulkowicz claims and reflects their bias. There is also the issue that Wikipedia does not allow embedded content such as documentation or videos.

Newslines fixes the problem of bias by allowing people to build up the page by adding news events. Each news event comprises only the factual information in the source article. Even if the source is highly partisan we can still extract non-biased information. In effect, we are converting articles to data. As each factual summary is added to our system it builds up an unbiased account of the topic, and the reader can then decide the result. Compare this with a traditional news article or biography where the writer starts out with the conclusion in mind. Also, because each post goes through editorial review, the potential for fake new is minimised.

[1]http://newslines.org/emma-sulkowicz/?order=ASC [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattress_Performance_(Carry_Th...

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#317
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paul Graham is right that it has to be something you want to do, but it is possible to build large new media sites on short attention spans -- if your site is designed for them. My site, an actual working solution to the problem of both fake news and bias, is doing great (Over three million page views last month). However, we most likely won't apply to YC this time, or ever again, due to Sam Altman's anti-Trump bias.

No offense, but looking at your website, you've solved the problem of fake news by not showing any news . Unless you're talking about no bias in UFC news specifically.

No offense taken. See my answer above.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#319

The thing that is needed most is a laboratory of ideas for what will replace the neoliberal order. A corporate democracy that increases inequality and only panders to justice by gestures towards identity politics is seemingly over. What we're faced with now is either devolving into an Ethnic Nationalist state on par with Russia, or something entirely new that has yet to be described. What needs to be recaptured is a…

Kind of sounds like the hypothetical "technocracy" [1]. I'd be wary of too much science at the same time - needs some balance. What stirs the beating hearts of people on HN likely does not do so for everyone. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy

I know this is a risk, but I think science and tech have to be at the center because of their association with forward looking narratives. Part of the reframing has to be positioning science and tech as being at the service of constituencies that have been left behind in the past order. Trump has been able to conflate them with elitism because they have thrown their political weight behind a neoliberal political order. Since that's on the its way out, the door is open to align them with a new, more democratic political narrative.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society. It was society that decided to have the current reward system. It is society that can change its mind.

This is... very wrong, at least if you're talking about CEO pay. Who decides CEO pay? The Board. Who is the Board? Well, it's usually guys who are CEOs at other companies. Boards have every incentive to make this pay as high as they can get away with, so they will get the same quid pro quo , and "society" has nothing to do with it.

You're interpreting my comment too narrowly. I agree that the concentration of power is a big problem, in fact, the biggest. But most everyone is complicit, both through their actions and inactions. Nearly everyone is putting self-interest first and foremost, including most liberals/progressives. We are complicit when we vote for people like the Clintons into power to represent progressive values. We are complicit when we take higher paying jobs at companies that put profit over people and society (and thus act behave just like those CEOs). We are complicit when we try to handsomely reward ourselves via SV get-rich-quick schemes building products that no one is willing to pay for except the advertisers who bombard us with self-serving messages in turn turning the web into click-bait, fake-news viral hell.

Also see my other reply.

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