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Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

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Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#261

Post by fzeroracer »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #248
fzeroracer wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I really get why herd immunity is important to you. It's not academic to you; instead, it's life and death. But, if I understand you correctly, you're saying that you can't get vaccinated, because you have adverse reactions . That is, there are greater than zero persons who have significant negative effects from vaccinations. And you would be seriously harmed if the state required - forced - vaccinations, at least un…

Except no one when talking about mandatory vaccinations is saying people with allergic reactions or medical conditions would be forced into being vaccinated.

Creating a massive strawman in attempt to discredit my argument does not a good argument make, especially as I'm making it from the PoV of someone that has had such an experience in the past. I feel no need to engage with such a point because it has zero bearing in reality.

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#263

Post by dx87 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #41
dx87 wrote: post #25

I don't think you can fix it, it's just the nature of the Internet. I was talking to some older coworkers who were adults before the Internet became mainstream, and they said that before the Internet, your social circle was neighbors and co-workers, so being an ass would have direct, and sometimes physically painful, ramifications. They said that on the Internet, there's no real ramifications for being a horrible per…

It's not just that, it's the fact that most interaction on the net is text based so you miss out on tone and body language. I feel like some discussions escalate too high on the net due to the text based format.

Definitely. I remember one time a manager from another group at work asked me a question about when a project would be done, and I responded along the lines of "I'm working on it, and I don't know when it'll be done." because it was the truth, and there was nothing else to say about it. They interpreted my single sentence reply as rude and dismissive, then complained to my manager about it. When my manager talked to me about it, he said something like "Oh, ok, your reply is fine, dont worry about it."

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#264

Post by hinkley »

Honestly I don't think we're the people to do it. Software developers are grossly susceptible to the Principle of the Excluded Middle. We spend so, so much time arguing about extremes (see also the post yesterday about Monoliths being the future), while those calling for moderation only see modest amounts of support.

If we want to be those people, the answer is 'personal growth', and lots of it.

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#265

Post by gbrown »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #260
gbrown wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They frequently do see things in that way - and they're wrong. In fact, they're worse than wrong, because many people see the dueling assertions of fact and give up on knowing the truth of a situation altogether. This is a classic disinformation technique. We do have the ability to determine truth from fiction, it just takes more work than cynically throwing up your hands and smugly concluding all sides are lying.

> We do have the ability to determine truth from fiction, it just takes more work than cynically throwing up your hands and smugly concluding all sides are lying. It also takes more work than "But I'm right!" If you've done the research, if you know that you're correct, it's one thing. (Even then, not everyone who is incorrect is lying.) But it's a real temptation to say "I'm right, they're wrong, they're lying" when…

I don't disagree with anything you've said, but I often find myself in situations where I have gone out and tried carefully to understand what's true. When you've done the research, it's very frustrating to be confronted with exactly what you're describing.

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#266

Post by Jamwinner »

claytongulick wrote: post #152
dragonwriter wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the desire to correct other people who are wrong is the fundamental impulse of pedantry. The desire to compel others to conform to one’s ideal of correctness is the fundamental impulse of authoritarianism. ...but also libertarianism, for a particular aspect of correctness.

Huh? Can you explain? My understanding is that the core value / principle of libertarianism is individual liberty. How do you derive compelling others from that?

Yeah, I agreed until his comment went off the rails there. I have noticed a movement to try to brand libs as 'crypto-republicans' recently for whatever reason. Its okay, and rational to not only think along 2 (or 3 or 5) party lines.

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#267

Post by luckylion »

dependenttypes wrote: post #141
CM30 wrote: post #21

Truth be told, the most practical solution is to stop centralising everything and using these giant social networking sites that force people with nothing in common together. The bigger your audience gets and the less focused on any one topic it is, the harder it is to moderate/keep under the control, and the more drama you'll inevitably have when groups clash there. Smaller internet forums, subreddits, Discord/Slack…

> stop centralising everything Even federated approaches like mastodon also have big issues with toxicity.

Just making a smaller Twitter won't change the nature of the Problem. It's less about the size of the community than the amount of topics, I believe. If you have a community that is about trains, and trains only, you may get a heated discussion about some train stuff, but you won't get a brawl about the political issue de jour.

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#268

Post by 0xff00ffee »

We don't.

It is a feedback loop. The American ideal of rugged individualism has mutated into anti-neighbor and is exactly the model for echo chambers (not neighbors with diverse opinions but cultural clones!), which are facilitated by technology. The ease at which our culture Balkanizes is backed up by trillion dollar profits from a handful of companies, which then pay politicians to look the other way.

This online toxicity is a reincarnation of the populist hate that has driven wars for millennia. It is a cancer that has been given super-steroids because of the intersection of huge amounts of cash and limitless political control. Not to mention the propaganda that idolizes billionaires and strongmen.

I think the crash and burn of America would be a solution: the collapse of trillion dollar companies and monopolies that own the government. Unfortunately this is infecting other countries where the top 1% want's to be as rich as America's, hence their urgency to imitate what is happening here for their own profit.

There's no cure: the tech monopoly and insatiable greed of the top 0.1% will be the main drivers of global poverty and oppression, and to get there they need to keep us hating each other and divided. They even picked wedge issues like race and religion, which are almost 100% irreconcilable.

I would give the top-tier credit, but I think stimulating base beliefs for profit isn't really that hard, you just need a country-sized platform.

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#269

Post by shadowgovt »

tengbretson wrote: post #212
shadowgovt wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 k…

Exactly. Mostly because we've discovered that the small town is oppressive, but the Wild West is full of gangsters. ;)

Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

#270

Post by AnimalMuppet »

gbrown wrote: post #265
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We do have the ability to determine truth from fiction, it just takes more work than cynically throwing up your hands and smugly concluding all sides are lying. It also takes more work than "But I'm right!" If you've done the research, if you know that you're correct, it's one thing. (Even then, not everyone who is incorrect is lying.) But it's a real temptation to say "I'm right, they're wrong, they're lying" when…

I don't disagree with anything you've said, but I often find myself in situations where I have gone out and tried carefully to understand what's true. When you've done the research, it's very frustrating to be confronted with exactly what you're describing.

Sure. But even then, knowing that in other circumstances it can be you behaving that way can give a bit more empathy for the other person. That doesn't make it less frustrating, but it may help you handle it a bit more gracefully.
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