What the Hell Is Going On? Effects of Information Abundance • Hacker News Board

Re: What the Hell Is Going On? Effects of Information Abundance

#131

Post by ithkuil » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 5:18 PM UTC

mirkules wrote: post #36

martythemaniak wrote: post #10

One thing that I find interesting is how none of the great dystopian works of the 20th century featured celebrities as the ruling class. The antagonists are like Bond villains, smart, sophisticated, rational, cruel. A worthy adversary you could respect and feel good about struggling against. Our reality is that we've made our lives so advanced and comfortable, that our fantasies can try to become our reality. I guess…

There was a PBS documentary almost two decades ago called Merchants of Cool, which discusses exactly the issue of celebrity status and how it is used to buy and sell “cool” to teenagers in order to influence their buyin decisions. What is scary is that this documentary was shot long before smartphones and social media - I imagine the effects are amplified by orders of magnitude since the proliferation of social media…

I wonder if the present is more determined by the fact that the generation that used to be teenagers two decades ago are now in their prime years, rather than the latest greatest technology based social distruption.

Re: What the Hell Is Going On? Effects of Information Abundance

#132

Post by tsunamifury » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 5:23 PM UTC

ModernMech wrote: post #123

tsunamifury wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes if you were to apply the Mcleod Corp pyramid they would be he clueless layer, happily indoctrinating the loser layer at the behest of the sociopath top.

It was my understanding that the loser layer understands what's going on though, which should inoculate them from indoctrination. Celebrities would then be the ones who keep the clueless from becoming losers.

Well, going too deep, there are three parts of the loser layer; committed losers, future clueless, and future sociopaths. The committed losers are aware and say things like “msm has always being lying”, future clueless are aspiring influencers, and future sociopaths are just waiting for the right opportunity to advance.

Re: What the Hell Is Going On? Effects of Information Abundance

#133

Post by akarma » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 5:32 PM UTC

throwaway287391 wrote: post #103

abvdasker wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say this. The intro seemed to think it was much more clever than it really is. It's very easy to pick descriptive language vague enough that it applies to multiple subjects. I had to stop reading after that.

[flagged]

You're generalizing 62,984,828 Americans. When you look at a number like that, combined with all the possible reasons that people voted for Trump (think those who validly wished for a Ross Perot victory in 1992), it just seems rude and unnecessary to say this.

Re: What the Hell Is Going On? Effects of Information Abundance

#134

Post by nostrademons » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

PG wrote a similar, but less well-researched, essay in early 2016:

http://www.paulgraham.com/re.html

Re: What the Hell Is Going On? Effects of Information Abundance

#135

Post by expertentipp » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

spaced-out wrote: post #119

miloshadzic wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget Idiocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGUNPMPrxvA

Ironically, Idiocracy was too optimistic. The "idiots" of the future still ultimately respected knowledge and facts. They made the main character president once he clearly demonstrated he was the best person for the job. In real life they'd just say the "big government deep state" is spreading "fake news" about Brawndo.

sure, it has electrolytes

Re: What the Hell Is Going On? Effects of Information Abundance

#136

Post by jdietrich » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

miloshadzic wrote: post #21

martythemaniak wrote: post #10

One thing that I find interesting is how none of the great dystopian works of the 20th century featured celebrities as the ruling class. The antagonists are like Bond villains, smart, sophisticated, rational, cruel. A worthy adversary you could respect and feel good about struggling against. Our reality is that we've made our lives so advanced and comfortable, that our fantasies can try to become our reality. I guess…

Don't forget Idiocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGUNPMPrxvA

Mandatory alternate perspective: Cracked on why Idiocracy would actually be a utopia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmZOZjHjT5E

Re: What the Hell Is Going On? Effects of Information Abundance

#137

Post by amelius » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 5:45 PM UTC

> I’m going to describe your least favorite politician: Everything they say goes viral. The establishment despises them, donors can’t influence them, and the media can’t tame them.

The media can't tame them?!? It's more like they love them and are the reason they continue to exist in the first place.

Re: What the Hell Is Going On? Effects of Information Abundance

#138

Post by throwaway287391 » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 5:46 PM UTC

akarma wrote: post #133

throwaway287391 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You're generalizing 62,984,828 Americans. When you look at a number like that, combined with all the possible reasons that people voted for Trump (think those who validly wished for a Ross Perot victory in 1992), it just seems rude and unnecessary to say this.

I get why you'd think it's rude/unnecessary, but I don't think it's a generalization to say it's very unlikely that anywhere near half of the audience of a blog post like this is on Team Trump. I'm sure there are Trump supporters that read and digest this kind of content regularly, but any familiarity with the typical cultural attitudes and media consumption patterns of Trump supporters makes it obvious that that's far from the norm.

Re: What the Hell Is Going On? Effects of Information Abundance

#139

Post by throwaway441 » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #137

> I’m going to describe your least favorite politician: Everything they say goes viral. The establishment despises them, donors can’t influence them, and the media can’t tame them. The media can't tame them?!? It's more like they love them and are the reason they continue to exist in the first place.

I have a theory that from now on, the candidate who wins the presidential election will be the one that generates the most advertising revenue for the media companies.

Re: What the Hell Is Going On? Effects of Information Abundance

#140

Post by itamarst » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

This article has some good points, but it also suffers a lot from the author's extremely narrow horizons:

- It's very US-centric. Public universities are AFAIK free or very cheap in Germany for example. The reason for rising costs in the US is in large part about cuts to government support for higher education.

- It's very upper-middle-class in perspective, with no understanding of anyone who isn't doing well. America is one of "the most prosperous countries" in the world if you're in top 10%—but if you're in bottom 30%, say, there are many countries where you'll be much better off. Anywhere with socialized medicine, for example: if you're poor, what is a routine trip to the doctor elsewhere can cause bankruptcy in the US.

- The author apparently knows very little history.

Consider this quote: "During the 20th century, “the people” were an ambiguous, lifeless mass. They couldn’t organize themselves, so organization came down from the commands of people who controlled the media. Nothing else was possible; deference to authority was the structural destiny of the Mass Media age."

This is absolute nonsense. The 20th century is bursting with political movements that came from below: good, bad, and ugly, whatever you might say about any particular one, there's a hell of a lot of them in total.

In the 20th century, in the US alone, you could point to the suffragettes, organized labor at different times, the KKK (4 million members at peak in 1920s!), the multitude of different workers' groups of all political stripes (from veterans' march to IWW organizers to wacky retirement-lottery scheme whose details I forget) who pushed FDR to eventually offer the New Deal to counter-act the rising tide of protest, the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-Vietnam-war protests, Stonewall and the gay rights movement... on and on and on.