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Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

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Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#211

Post by maccard »

zonidjan wrote: post #149
godelski wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We wanted it. I'm not entirely convinced this is accurate. It definitely is in part, but not in whole. We wanted these better search tools and we like recommendation systems. But I know a lot of people are frustrated with algorithms like YouTube's recommendation system trapping them. (e.g. watch one Joe Rogan video and you get firehosed with more JRE videos). The thing is we also don't notice that this reinforcemen…

I would love, so much, for Youtube to just stop targeting recommendations. At least then I'd see new things once in a while...

Ivr seen what YouTube recommends for my partner and I definitely don't want that in my feed. I'm not sure that what YT is doing now is the best, but it's better than nothing. At least I get recommendations for topics in intery in, not just whatever the latest insta trend is

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#212

Post by throwaway87378 »

logicalmonster wrote: post #64

The biggest societal altering impacts may be in terms of dating and reproduction. This has major cultural consequences. * There’s more than 1 reason for this, but approach patterns have changed. Men approaching women in real life is now rarer than it was in favor of online meeting through Apps. * Many relationships now happen based on online dating. In a sense, a series of algorithms are already dictating human repro…

> Men approaching women in real life is now rarer than it was in favor of online meeting through Apps.

Ask your female friends (if you have any) about this. You might be surprised.

> Elite men can get dozens of sex partners.

Why so low? I have a few friends who have had more than 100 partners.

> Average or subpar men are essentially invisible in the dating market as evidenced by declining rates of sex by most people.

Nothing to do with dating apps. 70% of the adult US population is obese or overweight. Those people have a very hard time finding partners, and obese men have associated coronary issues that can make even maintaining an erection difficult.

> Dating Apps are part of the reason that birth rates are generally dropping in first world countries

About time; if only the population crisis could be solved by dating apps! World population in 1969 was 3.6 billion, today it is 7.7 billion. We need any and all measures to bring down population levels.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#213

Post by fao_ »

fao_ wrote: post #122
ltbarcly3 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newspapers were at least, historically at least in the 20th century, were expected to inform and keep a separation between opinion and news. They clearly had a political slant, but they couldn't just ignore facts that they found inconvenient, or only mention them in hit pieces meant to discredit them. Exceptions to this, like Yellow Journalism and Hearst's use of his papers for personal and political ends were at lea…

> Newspapers were at least, historically at least in the 20th century, were expected to inform and keep a separation between opinion and news. They clearly had a political slant, but they couldn't just ignore facts that they found inconvenient, or only mention them in hit pieces meant to discredit them. Exceptions to this, like Yellow Journalism and Hearst's use of his papers for personal and political ends were at l…

It is worth adding that the strike failed because a majority of the people involved could no longer feed themselves, rather than any moral imperative.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#214

Post by winrid »

gorgoiler wrote: post #167

Journey time calculations in Google maps, Uber etc. mean no one I know is ever on time. If you need to be somewhere at 8:30 and the journey “takes 17 minutes”, one psychologically sets 8:13 as the deadline for leaving the house. You pick up your keys at 8:13, actually leave a few minutes later, hit traffic or take a wrong turn or two, and end up crossing the threshold at your destination fifteen minutes late. It’s no…

Google should calibrate it by how long it takes to leave your house :)

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#216

Post by basq »

gorgoiler wrote: post #167

Journey time calculations in Google maps, Uber etc. mean no one I know is ever on time. If you need to be somewhere at 8:30 and the journey “takes 17 minutes”, one psychologically sets 8:13 as the deadline for leaving the house. You pick up your keys at 8:13, actually leave a few minutes later, hit traffic or take a wrong turn or two, and end up crossing the threshold at your destination fifteen minutes late. It’s no…

Additionally those time estimates aren't always accurate. I used to do deliveries all over my county using gmaps, and it was usually 5 minutes off, even as much as 10 minutes off for some of the further destinations.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#217

Post by tonyedgecombe »

lovehashbrowns wrote: post #22
dylz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The charity people here border on harassment, have card readers, physically try to stop you or block you, and apparently none of what you donate actually goes to the charity, it's mostly paid out in commissions to rent seekers.

Are you talking about the charity people with clipboards in SF? They're seriously the most aggressive people I've ever seen. I'm surprised they have card readers now. I think they used to just write your credit card details on a piece of paper.

We call them chuggers in the UK although I haven't seen so many lately.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#218

Post by jackcodes »

mauli wrote: post #166
imoverclocked wrote: post #41

Noise. Auditory: I can't tell you how accustomed to hearing stuff constantly everyone is. Cars (even just the tires on a busy street), Air Handling, Refrigerators, Beeping timers (ovens/microwaves/calendar reminders). Visual: Web notifications, web advertisements, billboards, "news," spam phone calls/texts. Social: Many people have an expectation that sending a message entitles them to an immediate response. In the a…

I came across more bird scare devices [0] lately and most are at ~19-23kHz at -20~30dB (personal measures, device ranges differ). I can hear them and it hurts. Fortunarely they are mainly only deployed near entrances and do not have a broad field of effect. Would be interesting to know how many people do not hear this and feel kinda weird/sick while standing at those places for a longer period of time. [0] https://en…

I’d run across these all over Tokyo, practically unavoidable on most walks. The worst ones were when you’d be queuing for a ramen for upwards of 30 minutes but you’d be unable to do anything about it.

Re: Ask HN: What are unintended consequences of new tech you've noticed?

#220

Post by pbosko »

gorgoiler wrote: post #167

Journey time calculations in Google maps, Uber etc. mean no one I know is ever on time. If you need to be somewhere at 8:30 and the journey “takes 17 minutes”, one psychologically sets 8:13 as the deadline for leaving the house. You pick up your keys at 8:13, actually leave a few minutes later, hit traffic or take a wrong turn or two, and end up crossing the threshold at your destination fifteen minutes late. It’s no…

Google's estimation for my country is always less than what is achievable if you stick to the speed limit. I guess they calculate it based on other drivers.
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