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Some biologists and ecologists think social media is a risk to humanity

vox.com

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Re: Some biologists and ecologists think social media is a risk to humanity

#71

Post by igravious »

thethethethe wrote: post #52
CodeGlitch wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't consider HN to be social media. It's a forum isn't it? Mostly anonymous and no "pushing" of feeds or content.

From Wikipedia: > Social media are interactive technologies that allow the creation or sharing/exchange of information, ideas, career interests, and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks Sounds like social media to me

Please read properly what you copy-pasted.

“[…] via virtual communities and networks”

(Friend and follower (and so on) relations create these virtual communities and networks, these don't exist on HN.)

Ergo, HN is not social media.

Facebook is social media, Twitter is social media. IRC is not, HN is not. Tiktok is, SnapChat is. Reddit isn't, Slashdot isn't. Google+ was, Orkut was. LWN isn't, Ars Technica isn't.

Social media implies a massive global social graph which under-girds the communication flows – not rooms, forums, articles, channels, "subreddits", spaces, etc.

Re: Some biologists and ecologists think social media is a risk to humanity

#72

Post by anigbrowl »

thethethethe wrote: post #32
dragonwriter wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This might be an unpopular opinion but I am getting very tired of academics thinking they can comment cross discipline If academics can't comment cross discipline, no one else can comment at all.

I never said that they cant, it's more that people are writing articles about their opinions when they are bringing nothing new to the table. Why doesn't vox write articles about a grocery store clerk or trucker's opinion on social media and society? Why does some biologist somehow know more about this stuff than other people who aren't sociologists? This is why conservatives think academics are snooty and elitist

I am absolutely interested in the opinions of biologists and ecologists on this topic because they are in the business of studying complex systems, competing populations etc.

Re: Some biologists and ecologists think social media is a risk to humanity

#73

Post by adt2bt »

docdeek wrote: post #67

There's a quote in a Michael Crichton novel (The Lost World) that seems relevant here. As part of a rant connecting the idea of the internet and evolution, a character opines: "This idea that the whole world is wired together is mass death. Every biologist knows that small groups in isolation evolve fastest. You put a thousand birds on an ocean island and they'll evolve very fast. You put ten thousand on a big contin…

See: Edison bulbs in every dark bar worldwide. This phenomenon is real.

Re: Some biologists and ecologists think social media is a risk to humanity

#74

Post by amelius »

docdeek wrote: post #67

There's a quote in a Michael Crichton novel (The Lost World) that seems relevant here. As part of a rant connecting the idea of the internet and evolution, a character opines: "This idea that the whole world is wired together is mass death. Every biologist knows that small groups in isolation evolve fastest. You put a thousand birds on an ocean island and they'll evolve very fast. You put ten thousand on a big contin…

On the other hand, are tribes or nations which are not intimately connected to the western world that much better off?

And science evolved greatly in the highly interconnected parts of the world.

Re: Some biologists and ecologists think social media is a risk to humanity

#75

Post by [deleted] »

docdeek wrote: post #67

There's a quote in a Michael Crichton novel (The Lost World) that seems relevant here. As part of a rant connecting the idea of the internet and evolution, a character opines: "This idea that the whole world is wired together is mass death. Every biologist knows that small groups in isolation evolve fastest. You put a thousand birds on an ocean island and they'll evolve very fast. You put ten thousand on a big contin…

[deleted]

Re: Some biologists and ecologists think social media is a risk to humanity

#76

Post by jack_pp »

docdeek wrote: post #67

There's a quote in a Michael Crichton novel (The Lost World) that seems relevant here. As part of a rant connecting the idea of the internet and evolution, a character opines: "This idea that the whole world is wired together is mass death. Every biologist knows that small groups in isolation evolve fastest. You put a thousand birds on an ocean island and they'll evolve very fast. You put ten thousand on a big contin…

That's a pessimistic way of putting it.

"In a mass-media world, there's less of everything except the top ten books, records, movies, ideas"... but aren't those brought about by evolution as well? And as far as I can see the top ten keeps changing, evolving.

My argument is that the internet has enabled hyper-evolution. You get access to the best possible information, you have through torrents and libgen access to all the media and books ever produced at your fingertips, free of charge. What you might've figured out in 30 years of your own trials and tribulations can now be learned in a couple of years reading books. Of course pride and arrogance keeps us from learning but that's a different story and will probably be weeded out by evolution much faster now than ever before thanks to free access to information.

Re: Some biologists and ecologists think social media is a risk to humanity

#77

Post by Ko76 »

docdeek wrote: post #67

There's a quote in a Michael Crichton novel (The Lost World) that seems relevant here. As part of a rant connecting the idea of the internet and evolution, a character opines: "This idea that the whole world is wired together is mass death. Every biologist knows that small groups in isolation evolve fastest. You put a thousand birds on an ocean island and they'll evolve very fast. You put ten thousand on a big contin…

I am a big Crichton fan and wish he was around to skewer Fuckerberg & Co.

Truth is we haven't got to 5 billion online. Just getting 3 billion online has run into massive issues that has split the net in many ways no one imagined. It doesn't look like we will ever get to 5 billion.

So there is some baked in natural resistance. Andrew Odlyzko is looking like he was onto something when he said Metcalfe and Reeds Law of network growth would not hold.

Primarily the limitation is the 6 inch chimp brain and the Dunbar number. If the avg chimp has the channel capacity for a 100 ppl max what's the point of all this connectivity?

We are taking our sweet time to realise it.

Re: Some biologists and ecologists think social media is a risk to humanity

#78

Post by errantmind »

wwweston wrote: post #54
polalavik wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But who will be the arbiter of truth?

Any society that is premised on the rule of law already has to solve that problem in the enforcement; there is no rule of law without arbitration of facts relating to whether the law is upheld or not. So, probably the courts. That's an imperfect solution, but it beats the hell out of the position that any attempt to arbitrate the truth is unacceptably oppressive. On another level: everyone has an obligation to arbitr…

The courts are specialists in the law, not the truth. I sincerely doubt them deciding what is true and what isn't "beats the hell out of the position that any attempt to arbitrate the truth is unacceptably oppressive". It would quickly turn into a dystopian nightmare.

Have you never thought about why freedom of speech is an important and worthy fundamental right?

Re: Some biologists and ecologists think social media is a risk to humanity

#79

Post by jdmoreira »

docdeek wrote: post #67

There's a quote in a Michael Crichton novel (The Lost World) that seems relevant here. As part of a rant connecting the idea of the internet and evolution, a character opines: "This idea that the whole world is wired together is mass death. Every biologist knows that small groups in isolation evolve fastest. You put a thousand birds on an ocean island and they'll evolve very fast. You put ten thousand on a big contin…

On the other hand if "global uniformity" stops us from nuking each other to smithereens than maybe it's not a bad thing. Sure... we might not innovate enough, hopefully we don't decline to the point of pre-industrial levels but at least we might have a chance to make it out alive; instead of being in a creative destruction process akin to evolution.

Re: Some biologists and ecologists think social media is a risk to humanity

#80

Post by paulpauper »

docdeek wrote: post #67

There's a quote in a Michael Crichton novel (The Lost World) that seems relevant here. As part of a rant connecting the idea of the internet and evolution, a character opines: "This idea that the whole world is wired together is mass death. Every biologist knows that small groups in isolation evolve fastest. You put a thousand birds on an ocean island and they'll evolve very fast. You put ten thousand on a big contin…

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