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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

#141

Post by lovich »

sr2 wrote: post #89
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 intere…

True, but since everything is saved you only need to fuck up once and now everything can be pointed at you. The asymmetry in effort between staying anonymous and someone de-anonymizing you is getting bigger every day

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

#142

Post by nether »

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…

> 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.

That's nice. And we shouldn't have to maintain physical appearances or be judged for it. We should just accept all of our imperfections, celebrating all forms of expression. But lookism and online-lookism are here to stay. Conventions of "good" info content are strengthened by karma/gamification, for every vote you give, including here on HN. It's noble to desire for a time when we can just all be ourselves, but with attention spans vanishing I don't think anyone will care.

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

#143

Post by agumonkey »

DougN7 wrote: post #30
bottled_poe wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Future employer can blow me.

I understand the sentiment, but future you might be pissed at your current cavalier attitude.

If the situation reach that toxic point it's time to revolve.

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

#144

Post by socialcooling »

vladf wrote: post #85
WalterSear wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The difference is: - scale - transparency (ability to complain or discuss decisions). - culture: people can recognize normal discrimination, but think algorithmic judgements are 'neutral'.

Check out https://www.mathwashing.com

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

#145

Post by agumonkey »

zeteo wrote: post #28

> People are starting to realize that this 'digital reputation' could limit their opportunities. (And that these algorithms are often biased, and built on poor data.) That's interesting of itself, but the bigger underlying issue is that opportunities are becoming more concentrated. When only a few companies dominate hiring in many fields, their mistakes get seriously amplified. Back in the day you were fine if Google…

Separation of power

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

#146

Post by socialcooling »

randommm wrote: post #65

It is obviously bogus that Foucault raised that issue in 1975. For example Erving Goffman introduced the term "Total Institution", which implies total surveillance already in 1961. Subsequently, there have been many public reports concerning the information society and the problem of data bases. For a legal assessment see Westin, Columbia Law Review 1966, pp. 1003ff.

It's not 'obvious'. The goal of that chart is not to be a perfect representation of history. It's to show 'greatest hits'. Foucault was a superstar-philosopher who was a regular TV guest. His panopticon analysis is way more widely know than Goffman's analysis (as much as I love Goffman).

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

#147

Post by nxc18 »

rdrey wrote: post #140

HN can help us investigate this phenomenon by tracking how often users click on 'reply' but then shy away from submitting it.

I've done this multiple times over the last 2ish months, and every time it has been because I don't want to create the wrong perception of myself. In fact, I almost did that with this comment, but decided the irony was too much.

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

#148

Post by dsfyu404ed »

qwtel wrote: post #112
kirykl wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Thank you for applying to ProfitCorp. While you have excellent credentials and passed all levels of interviews, your web sentiment analysis score does not meet the threshold for hire. Best of luck in future endeavors"

> your web sentiment analysis score does not meet the threshold for hire except you would be lucky if one well-meaning employee would tell you the above sentence off the record in violation of every contract he/she singed with ProfitCorp. more likely, your life would be a mysterious series of surprise rejections with no or spurious reasons, the latter being especially insidious, since it would lead you to to believe…

>these systems are invisible * once you know about them, they can be gamed

Like listing the full stack of every product you ever worked on in white 2pt font in your resume to pass naive keyword filters and pasting in irrelevant blocks of tags on craigslist

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

#149

Post by rdrey »

nxc18 wrote: post #147
rdrey wrote: post #140

HN can help us investigate this phenomenon by tracking how often users click on 'reply' but then shy away from submitting it.

I've done this multiple times over the last 2ish months, and every time it has been because I don't want to create the wrong perception of myself. In fact, I almost did that with this comment, but decided the irony was too much.

Then HN can sell the "self-censorship index" data to data brokers... oh, wait. :P

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

#150

Post by [deleted] »

wolco wrote: post #114
_jal wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you say is all true, but unfortunately misses the point of the article and discussion. Also, just a note, but you have some interesting tells in your text. 'anon iden' is a phrase I don't recall seeing, at least not very often. You used "it's" correctly, another signal, along with the 'moar' spelling, and a few other shorthand phrases. You might want to start thinking about methods for scrubbing your text if you…

He might have already and the personality you see may not be tied to reality

[deleted]
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