Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

meta.ath0.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 174 posts

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#91

Post by pathseeker »

stavros wrote: post #34
Stratoscope wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in fact that informs how to pronounce the word. It's not hah-buh-NYAIR-oh, it's hah-buh-NAIR-oh. A similar one that I used to get wrong all the time is empanada. No ñ in that either, but I always said em-puh-NYAH-duh. Then one day I noticed it was just a regular n and it is pronouced em-puh-NAH-duh. Now for a really embarrassing one. This was back in the day when I was working with my friend and colleague Alan Co…

A Chinese colleague of mine liked to say that "there are many ways to peel a cat".

I love these idiom screw-ups. One of my coworkers once tried to use an English idiom and it came out, "let's not beat a horse to death."

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#93

Post by osrec »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #20
crdrost wrote: post #7

Related to this, there is an intimacy of small community which makes you feel valued and a proper contributor, that social networks really seem to oppose: they want to make the network bigger, you are part of the biggest world context, everybody on TikTok is eating a habanero while watching Bob Ross, so only if I do the same nonsense do I have a chance of 100 people noticing and liking the video and maybe opting to s…

Could you imagine if hypothetically, HN suddenly became the world's most popular social network? It would be unusable for it's current purpose and no amount of moderating could ever fix that. This sounds harsh but not everyone deserves to be heard all of the time- myself included.

I especially hate the trend of people deliberately saying something controversial, to get more comments/likes/publicity.

One recent example is Piers Morgan in the UK, who randomly decided to criticise Emma Raducanu, a rather likeable British teenager, who just won the US open without dropping a set (including in qualifying rounds)! I can't understand why he would do that, other than to stir up some controversy, and get himself back in the public eye. Either way, it worked.

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#94

Post by mdp2021 »

blondin wrote: post #23
crdrost wrote: post #7

Related to this, there is an intimacy of small community which makes you feel valued and a proper contributor, that social networks really seem to oppose: they want to make the network bigger, you are part of the biggest world context, everybody on TikTok is eating a habanero while watching Bob Ross, so only if I do the same nonsense do I have a chance of 100 people noticing and liking the video and maybe opting to s…

wonderful remark. i have this nagging feeling that nothing good ever comes out when there is a large group of people involved. and that the most successful communities, teams or groups are small. i have seen small communities ruined when they got big or niche communities wrecked when they went mainstream. time and again. but we keep pushing for larger groups, larger teams, more networking, more friends, etc...

Small communities need less management. Population increase in the community offer chances of acquiring new assets: it has potential.

Management is everything: creating an environment and systems that facilitate the best allocation of resources.

Of course if your small team of three already contains "the masters", the result can be e.g. the CBM C64. And, they say, "in ancient Athens democracy was easier". But the small team did great thing because of the quality of its members, and a small community is facilitated by a reduced noise. Quality of members and noise control are the problem of management.

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#95

Post by fighterpilot »

I would like to see a large social network tax. Any social network with more than 300 million people gets an additional 20 percent tax on profits. Any revenues from this tax can be used to reduce other taxes.

There's three reasons for this.

One, this is compensation for negative externalities, such as the Myanmar massacres, fake news proliferation and so on.

Second, social networks are the ultimate network effects companies, where their enduring success is less about provision of a fantastic product and more about the staying power of the network once the ball got rolling initially.

Third, their success is built on the exploitation of our evolved dopamine systems, similar to opiates and gambling, and their product in many cases isn't actually improving the lives of their customers. This is seen in circumstantial evidence of rising teen depression, especially among young girls.

Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon would of course all be exempt from this tax.

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#96

Post by fsiefken »

abnry wrote: post #43
bjt wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Invite-only and self-hosted are different things. Discord is invite-only but not self-hosted. Maybe that would work for you?

I want both. Basically I want something federated but not connected to the "fediverse" as in Mastedon. Perhaps I need to look into Mastedon.

alternatives:

scuttlebutt https://scuttlebutt.nz/

twtxt https://indieweb.org/twtxt

iris.to (hypercore protocol)

meshtastic https://meshtastic.org/

bbs https://www.ipingthereforeiam.com/bbs/?step=name&all=0

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#98

Post by capableweb »

Buttons840 wrote: post #88
crdrost wrote: post #7

Related to this, there is an intimacy of small community which makes you feel valued and a proper contributor, that social networks really seem to oppose: they want to make the network bigger, you are part of the biggest world context, everybody on TikTok is eating a habanero while watching Bob Ross, so only if I do the same nonsense do I have a chance of 100 people noticing and liking the video and maybe opting to s…

I've thought of creating a social network that groups people into small groups of 100 or so, by interests and location. I would advertise it as a chance to escape the monoculture and explain that the cost if you must participate a minimum amount, like 1 post or comment per week on average or something. And then you could mix up the groups every year or two. It would have its pros and cons, but it would achieve the go…

You're effectively describing Scuttlebutt in a nutshell. Small communities that are formed ad-hoc by peering with each other. "Follow" mean you'll help replicate their content for others who follow them + you. Scuttlebutt is already successful even though it's very small so far. Tags and other things can be used to explore content on the network, as long as you've found an entry-point.

I'm a bit split about spreading the word about Scuttlebutt, I don't want to ruin it since it's already so great. But felt it was very related to what you were writing, so here goes nothing :)

In case you wanna join: https://scuttlebutt.nz/

The client I'm using is https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#99

Post by tester756 »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #20
crdrost wrote: post #7

Related to this, there is an intimacy of small community which makes you feel valued and a proper contributor, that social networks really seem to oppose: they want to make the network bigger, you are part of the biggest world context, everybody on TikTok is eating a habanero while watching Bob Ross, so only if I do the same nonsense do I have a chance of 100 people noticing and liking the video and maybe opting to s…

Could you imagine if hypothetically, HN suddenly became the world's most popular social network? It would be unusable for it's current purpose and no amount of moderating could ever fix that. This sounds harsh but not everyone deserves to be heard all of the time- myself included.

dang as a service doesn't scale

Re: Social Networks: It's worse than you think (2020)

#100

Post by a_e_k »

Stratoscope wrote: post #32
stavros wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitpick: There's no ñ in habanero.

And in fact that informs how to pronounce the word. It's not hah-buh-NYAIR-oh, it's hah-buh-NAIR-oh. A similar one that I used to get wrong all the time is empanada. No ñ in that either, but I always said em-puh-NYAH-duh. Then one day I noticed it was just a regular n and it is pronouced em-puh-NAH-duh. Now for a really embarrassing one. This was back in the day when I was working with my friend and colleague Alan Co…

I discovered just this evening that the approach I try to use to correct my kids on that sort of thing was described by Marcus Aurelius:

> From Alexander the grammarian: to avoid fault-finding and not to censure in a carping spirit any who employ an exotic phrase, a solecism, or harsh expression, but oneself to use, neatly and precisely, the correct phrase, by way of answer or confirmation or handling of the actual question—the thing, not its verbal expression—or by some other equally happy reminder.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Meditations_of_the_Empero...

Post reply on HN