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Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

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Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#81

Post by Bartweiss »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #60
bem94 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's like any other thing in capitalism. You'll have a contingent of folk that won't do the work, based on ethical reasons, and you have folk that will, for financial reasons. That is true, but going on my peers (especially the ones fresh from university), I think a dangerous proportion of people simply aren't aware on any level of the ethical implications of what they do. It's that which worries me.

I don't think I've ever seen as much apathy in a classroom as my fellow CS majors displayed in our society and ethics course.

> society and ethics course

How was the course?

I didn't have one, but many other "engineering ethics" courses I've seen inspire apathy just because they're terrible. It's like school anti-bullying campaigns - even if you're vehemently anti-bullying, most of the campaigns are too ridiculous to feel anything good about.

On the other hand, something like Canada's Iron Ring seems to get taken very seriously. It seems like a nontrivial part of the challenge is teaching ethics in a way that reaches even the people who want to behave ethically.

Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#82

Post by vladf »

bem94 wrote: post #66
vladf wrote: post #57

I might be misunderstanding the point being made here, but at one part doesn't make sense to me. The digital reputation argument seems to be saying "big data is bad because your reputation (i.e., people's valuations of your past actions) is now more accessible to people." Such an argument can hold two ways: 1. Giving anyone access to your reputation is inherently bad. 2. Giving some amount of people access to your re…

I got the impression it was more to do with gaining access to the various pieces of information which make up your online (and offline) reputation, out of their original context. That lack of context then means the otherwise benign info suddenly makes you look awful. That's the big thing here, the internet strips context and nuance from everything you post unless you take a lot of time and thought over exactly what y…

Still, why is that distinct from offline reputation (hence my original question still holds)? All second-hand information about another person's reputation is just as out-of-context when repeated by another person. Consider (1) your friends, who might have their own political agendas, bad-mouthing a politician who disagrees with them or (2) someone recommending their friend for a job you have. It seems to me that it's even worse off-line: people actually intentionally select evidence to influence a person's reputation when trying to relay reputation about a person you don't know directly. At least when a machine does it there's code you can look at to verify whether it has an agenda.

Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#83

Post by njarboe »

I had a high school teacher once tell me, "Never write anything down you would not want published in the local paper". This was before the internet and smart phones. It seemed like good and not very restrictive advice that I used as a heuristic for many years. Maybe at that time there was a better balance between personal privacy and society's right to know things about you. Equivalent advice today might be, "Never say or do anything within 100ft of a smart phone or put into a computer anything that you would not want everyone in the world to be able to see now and at all times in the future." That is quite a bit of change and I would feel unjustly controlled following this heuristic.

Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#84

Post by WalterSear »

vladf wrote: post #57

I might be misunderstanding the point being made here, but at one part doesn't make sense to me. The digital reputation argument seems to be saying "big data is bad because your reputation (i.e., people's valuations of your past actions) is now more accessible to people." Such an argument can hold two ways: 1. Giving anyone access to your reputation is inherently bad. 2. Giving some amount of people access to your re…

The problem here, like all mass surveillance issues is two-fold. The first, and generally less serious: you will be discriminated against due to your views/behaviour, or or your past views/behaviour.

The second is much more insidious and difficult to resolve: since systems are never perfect, it is likely that many will be discriminated against due to over-generalization and mistakes in the system. The more complete the surveillance appears to be, the more confidence authorities have in the system, the more likely that people get into serious trouble due to no fault of their own.

Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#85

Post by vladf »

WalterSear wrote: post #84
vladf wrote: post #57

I might be misunderstanding the point being made here, but at one part doesn't make sense to me. The digital reputation argument seems to be saying "big data is bad because your reputation (i.e., people's valuations of your past actions) is now more accessible to people." Such an argument can hold two ways: 1. Giving anyone access to your reputation is inherently bad. 2. Giving some amount of people access to your re…

The problem here, like all mass surveillance issues is two-fold. The first, and generally less serious: you will be discriminated against due to your views/behaviour, or or your past views/behaviour. The second is much more insidious and difficult to resolve: since systems are never perfect, it is likely that many will be discriminated against due to over-generalization and mistakes in the system. The more complete t…

Sure, but what I'm saying is that the above holds for non-mass surveillance as well. So if you're OK with offline systems of social reputation (which most people are, and it seems essential to the function of society), then you owe an explanation as to why your two points [discrimination on views, imperfect generalization] don't apply to offline systems of reputation.

Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#87

Post by [deleted] »

bicubic wrote: post #3

I was going to write at length about my concerns on this topic, and then I decided not to. Because it's entirely possible that one day many years from now, a prospective employer/insurer/whatever finds such a comment and flags me for it. That's the cooling effect in a nutshell.

[deleted]

Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#88

Post by megamindbrian »

captainmuon wrote: post #59
bicubic wrote: post #3

I was going to write at length about my concerns on this topic, and then I decided not to. Because it's entirely possible that one day many years from now, a prospective employer/insurer/whatever finds such a comment and flags me for it. That's the cooling effect in a nutshell.

I've been saying this for a while: We as a society have to stop taking everything that is said on the internet so fucking seriously. You shouldn't have to think everything perfectly though that you write. It's OK to say something dumb, or even offensive. It's not great, but no big deal either. I don't want to live in a world where we have to polish and double-check every thought that leaves our minds. It used to be t…

In a world so completely connected, we are all still completely disconnected.

Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#89

Post by sr2 »

bicubic wrote: post #3

I was going to write at length about my concerns on this topic, and then I decided not to. Because it's entirely possible that one day many years from now, a prospective employer/insurer/whatever finds such a comment and flags me for it. That's the cooling effect in a nutshell.

> It's entirely possible that one day many years from now, a prospective employer/insurer/whatever finds such a comment and flags me for it

This is why you should use pseudonyms and strive for anonymity. It's trivial to signup to Hackernews under an assumed name, or handle, and start venting on contentious issues. Hackernews might shadow-ban your throwaway account, so you might have to lurk moar and share some interesting links before you can comment without being censored. I know from experience. Last time I checked, HN has no strict policy on multiple accounts and you can do this very easily.

In terms of OPSEC, you obviously shouldn't contaminate your real iden with your anon iden, or contaminate your anon idens with other anon idens. You should also deliberately alter the stylometry of your writing so nobody can link two pieces of text to each other. Anonymouth[0] is my favorite tool for doing just that.

[0]: https://github.com/psal/anonymouth

Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#90

Post by megamindbrian »

captainmuon wrote: post #78
Pigo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree, and it's the very reason social media holds no interest for me anymore. I think people have forgotten what it used to be like on Myspace and the early days of Facebook. Social media was about self expression and finding out where the party is, now it's a finely tuned marketing platform for grandmothers.

> Social media was about self expression and finding out where the party is Exactly! My next project is going to be something like that. Based on the fediverse/Mastodon, but firstly about self-expression, connecting with real friends, meeting people. You curate your own home page, share what you want to share, you are invited to interact with strangers. No social media bs. Trying to capture the feeling of local / uni…

I like it.
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