Are you sure this is tech-related? Professor Peter Turchin, writing in 2012 (I saw a rough draft of the book he eventually published) predicted a peak in American polarization in around 2020, based on trends that go back many decades. We certainly see it on the Internet, but there's good evidence it would be happening regardless, because it can be (and was) predicted based on trends which go back well before the Internet.
https://www.amazon.com/Ages-Discord-Peter-Turchin/dp/0996139...
Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
671–680 of 859 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#672Allow lawsuits against content providers, to be liable for what their users post.
Hear me out: There's another article here about how the EARN IT would attack Big Tech and reduce user freedom by limiting Section 230. Maybe Section 230 has helped the Internet grow into what it is today, but it might also be the reason for a lot of the toxicity.
I'm personally in favor of privacy and digital freedom, but if repealing that law would turn the Internet into a forum for civil intellectual discourse, it might be worth it.
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#673YES, UPVOTE SYSTEMS ARE POLARISING.
Reddit, Facebook and this website are some of many with this issue. Leads to echo chambers, inability to see the opposing point of view as it is literally hidden.
As a start point, higher karma should be allocated for highest quantity of votes where total votes plus ones and minus ones total to zero. That way you are swarded karma for posting both sides of an argument, not being just some karma whore mindlessly agreeing with someone else.
Reddit and Hacker News REWARD groupthink, and REWARD brigading. They are the problem.
I enjoy posting counter arguments, but no-one ever sees them because they get downvoted to invisibility quickly.
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#674Recreate USENET and we can put it all back where it came from..
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#675Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe start in this extremely well-sourced article: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/trump-r...
Thanks for the link. The story about the 1975 housing discrimination case does indeed look like Trump Management was racist. I think the question is was this driven by personal racial animus or by competitive business considerations? Also to what degree was Donald Trump setting these policies versus his dad Fred? (Donald was 29 or 30 at the time). The rest of the article is just stuff that really isn't that clear cut…
I didn’t respond to the original comment, just to this question:
>> What did he do to call him a bigot?
His track record is long, clear and consistent.
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#676>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…
> Twitter, aka the comments section they removed from their web presence Oh my, I never thought about it but this is absolutely true
It would be if there weren't a comment section on almost every news story published in mainstream media. As someone who pressed aggressively for exactly that starting back in the 1990s I now view it as a mistake.
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#677Earlier quoted context omitted.
The data suggests that deplatforming works. Milo; Katie Hopkins; InfoWars et al have all lost their former agenda-setting influence following deplatforming. And studies have shown that banning hate sub-Reddits does _not_ cause that content to “pop up elsewhere”, it causes it to decline overall. It’s important to remember too there are incentives for people to argue and behave otherwise: FB, Twitter, hate-speech monge…
A lot of people are skeptics of "anti-racism" and "feminism". Not everyone thinks that racism is causing black people to be poor (IMO a lot of current anti-racists are like people who see a snake-bite victim, and start screaming out that we have to kill the snake - the snake might have caused the problem but treating a snake bite is not just chasing after snakes), and not everyone thinks that essentially every differ…
The overarching issue isn't the snakebite incident, it's the loss caused by having people repeatedly being bitten by snakes. So chasing down snakes is a prescribed if not demanded response.
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#678Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe the reason for the uptick is two-fold. 1.) In general, this is a reactionary movement from the elite class of society(straight, white, cis people) to keep a death grip on the social and systemic power they see being taken from them in the form of diversity, equality, feminism, etc. This has been happening for a long time now, but it got real, real bad after... 2.) ...Trump was elected. Him winning the elect…
> Trump was elected. Him winning the election was a shot of weapons-grade steroids into the ass of these regressive movements. It’s actually exactly the opposite. We lurched left in a very short time. As recently as 2007, a plurality even of Hispanics said there were “too many immigrants” in the US. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/19/latinos-hav... . Little more than a decade later, every mainstream Dem…
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Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#679Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Not everyone who is bigoted is an extremist, but maybe it's easier for you to argue as though this is the case. How is "I don't consider you human" not an extreme position?
The trouble is, not everyone is saying that. A few people here and there are, but what about some mode nuance things? For example, what if someone says they're fine with trans-people and think everyone should live their lives whoever they want, but trans M2F shouldn't participate in professional sports because it's not fair. That's an incredibly polarizing statement, and one who makes it is immediately labeled as a b…
"You have to be careful because there is so much room in the details and someone not accepting 100% of x world view doesn't immediately make them a terrible human being."
Like what? What could be the "not a terrible human being" part be about someone who wants the state to disacknowledge someone's humanity?
Re: Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?
#680> is this more of a social problem that code can't solve?
Yes. Any tool for communication can be used both ways. The way to fight negative uses of the tool is to use it positively, not to try to limit the tool.