Start with ending the class war in favor of the 99%.
The .000001% is heavily invested in keeping everyone divided and conquered.
Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
211–220 of 859 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
I definitely wasn't cynically throwing up my hands and smugly concluding all sides are lying. All I intended to do was demonstrate how cheap it is to call someone a liar on the internet. It costs nothing to the reputations of you or your "lying friend" to call one another a liar and thats why it doesn't mean anything. The sooner people realize this the better off we'll be.
My prediction is that this is what will, in the end, change; technology will advance far enough to severely de-anonymize online interaction, at which point one's reputation again comes into play and people will find there are consequences for thoughtless shitposting. It has begun to happen, with phenomena such as people being fired for Facebook or Twitter posts. It doesn't seem impossible to tie a sufficiently-advanc…
Economically I think this will be huge. Reputation based economies are incredibly more efficient than regulatory ones. Theres no amount of regulatory compliance that can tell consumers the information they want in the way a 2 star average uber driver review does.
On the social side I can't even imagine how destructive it could be. People (especially on HN) love to lament how restrictive and oppressing the "everyone knows everyone" small town life can be. So now that we have the anonymity online we can escape to, we've all turned around and started building the biggest "small town" imaginable! One with no escape.
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#213>I've noticed a huge uptick in the toxicity online in the last 5-7 years. You're crazy my dude(tte). I've been on the interbutts since 1991 and Usenet days, and it's exactly as it always was. The big difference is we have reporter ding dongs on Twitter thinking Twitter, aka the comments section they removed from their web presence, is the real world. Also old people on Facebook who never learned the lessons of being…
I'm really tired of mainstream articles which are essentially a reporting finding 3 people on twitter who are for/against something and saying "internet is in uproar about whatever"
Same here. And it's not just based on Twitter posts either. I've seen a depressing number of news articles (especially gaming related ones) which are based on random internet petitions signed by maybe three people.
Anyone can set up an internet petition about anything. The presence of one does not meant there's some gigantic audience clamouring for some game idea/casting idea/etc.
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#214It's worse than the Eternal September. It's definitely more toxic than it's ever been, and people are definitely more polarized. The 2016 election news cycle got a lot of otherwise normal people really radicalized and hostile. Sure most of the old-timers among us remember, often fondly, the constructive insanity of usenet. And the younger generation remembers the torrent of pure id that was 4chan in the early days, and 8chan later.
Here's the thing. It's leaking. This stuff used to be contained, kept in a little secret segmented-off piece of your world that was 'the internet'. Now it's invading your real life, your real-world friendships, your workplace, even your family.
Think of the Greater Internet F-ckwad Theory: "Normal Person + Anonymity + an Audience => Total F-ckwad". Now run that function over the entire populace, map/reduce style. Now take that F-ckwad, and remove the Anonymity by requiring them to use their real name. And bingo, now you live in Interesting Times.
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#215I don't think we can do anything about it, so why don't you take your stupid question and shove it up your loose butthole?
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think ignoring the nutters is viable. Enough people are believing anti-vax lies to start bringing back deadly disease which affect more than just themselves. Enough people are believing climate change propaganda which is slowly harming the habitability of our planet for our human race. What was once contained on the internet is leaking out onto the streets and is already affecting you and I in many ways.
Propaganda has always been there. During the Golden Age of broadcast TV and Radio (pre-internet), the big networks broadcasted plenty of unchallenged lies. The difference now is that laymen can fact check the content put out by the big players. But the price for this is that every troll or nutter has access to the some of the same tools to spread their own lunacy. I far prefer the current situation over the previous.…
Trolls (either human or bots) are way more dangerous that TV propaganda because the act as legitimate actors in the public discourse.
It gives them the ability to hide between other people and manipulate the conversation.
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#217There's a Bernard Cornwall book where an Arthurian warrior collaborates with the druid Merlin. It takes place in Britain during the Saxon invasion period.
At one point Merlin's in a library. We learn that Druid's are not allowed to write. Once you write something down, it becomes fixed. Fixed on paper. Fixed in your mind. Rigid and unalterable... this is not conducive to magic, which cannot work under such rigidity.
It reminded me of Socrates & Phaedrus' conversation on reading & memory. Words in a book don't work the way words in your head do. Reading about a conversation isn't like discussing a topic in Socrates' garden. When writing replaces memorisation as a method of learning, things are lost as well as gained. The ideas themselves change.
It's particularly interesting as Socrates was famous for his conversational philosophical methods, where allegory and flexible style make the case. His student is famous for his writing, and the more precise, detail-oriented, reductive and uhm... platonic in his method.
Anyway... the internet has made us all writers. We write whatever enters our head. Then it becomes fixed. Then we defend it... like cranky old academics defending pet theories they wrote in their youth.
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#218Not to be pessimist but more realistic of an approach: I do not believe there is any way to stop the polarization now; especially as any attempt to stop the polarization appears to only increase the polarization.
And, well, polarization isn't exactly the end of the world. Polarization has occurred throughout human history and is only occurring once again, and is a seemingly integral part of the human condition.
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#219[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#220As an intellectual exercise,since you seem so passionate about the subject of anti-vaxxers... Are all vaccines good? If not, who chooses? The government? What about when Gov. Rick Perry tried to force the HPV vaccine on all teenage girls in TX, even though it was suspected he had financial incentive to do so? Is it ok for the state to force you or your kids to receive a medical treatment? Even when there are multiple…
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