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

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

#101

Post by peakaboo »

capableweb wrote: post #98
Buttons840 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 name is awful. I certainly don't want to spread the word about "scuttlebutt". So I guess that's a good thing, keeps it small and cosy.

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

#102

Post by peakaboo »

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.

It's the same with Linux. If it would be super popular and mainstream, the corporations would destroy everything that's fun with it in order to sell you things and track your data.

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

#103

Post by austincheney »

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 have already observed the worst case scenario of this context on HN.

It was a thread about an application correcting for some aspects of ADHD. With ADHD persons there is already an information filtering disorder of variable degree; specifically an inability to separate ones-self from a context of conversation, subject matter, or even the logical distance therein. This means that under an extreme case it only takes a single person to mimic the effects of a social network echo chamber of heightened sensitivity. That thread was bizarre in that many comment replies were wildly on a tangent from their respective GP comment and the emotion expressed was completely off the chart for HN.

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

#104

Post by jcun4128 »

smichel17 wrote: post #33
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 like browsing HN from the Android app Materialistic because (1) I can't see votes on my posts and (2) it's difficult to find replies to my posts (you can view your profile, but jumping to a post only shows its ancestors, not replies). This combination, plus the annoyance of typing on a smartphone, means I usually * only comment when I have something that adds value to the conversation; I tend to engage more with th…

That's interesting about the votes. I find myself complying/wanting to fit in to avoid the "dinging" feeling of being down voted ha. I also just use another account.

I get it though, there are mental tiers I know where I am. Thankfully I can at least make a decent living/do my own thing.

I'm also aware of effort too. Looking into something/asking.

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

#105

Post by usui »

pathseeker wrote: post #91
stavros wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

The worst offenders are ones that can be solved logically if the person spent 5 seconds to think.

"I could care less" vs "I could not care less"

The amount of people who defend the former with their own head-canon is frightening. Ones I have heard are "It's sarcastic" and "I care so little that I won't put the extra effort into caring less"

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

#106

Post by rm445 »

rg111 wrote: post #56

As soon as your news feed becomes too big for you to read all of it and then decide whether to repost anything, the quality of information you propagate is going to fall because of that filtering process. I avoid this by unfollowing people very frequently. I see one stupid candid or a pout or a food shot, I just unfollow that person. Same goes for SJW/White Supremacy types. Whether you are OP or a sharer, you get mut…

Interesting. What you say makes some sense for keeping sane where the Internet is one big room of people shouting, but for preference I'd prefer the total opposite.

I would love to be part of small social media groups with bonds of friendship and tolerance. Trends, food, non-extreme politics, in proportion to their magnitude in everyone's lives, varying with people's interests but not magnified by one-issue echo chambers. Not 100% sure what you mean by normies but I suspect I'm in favour of them.

Group chats with close friends and family fulfil this need fairly well, and are quite relaxing compared to wider social networking. But they're likely only to cover a small subset of every person's interests. Something like the infamous 'Circles' might actually be useful on a larger scale.

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

#107

Post by Stratoscope »

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 just remembered a couple more of my late friend's interesting pronunciations:

"Old-timer's disease" (Alzheimer's)

"Valentime's Day"

Too late to correct him now! May he rest in peace.

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

#108

Post by Ambolia »

The lies and conspiracy theories were always there. The difference now is that there are lies and conspiracies in different directions rather than a consensus of lies and conspiracy theories.

Of course it remains to be seen if it's possible to create a consensus of a nation without centralized media like we had until now. If it's not, we will have to get used to the population fragmenting into different groups with different chains of trust, or we will have to accept the government imposing totalitarian measures on the internet to reestablish a centralized consensus. I guess each option has issues.

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

#109

Post by Barrin92 »

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.

That basically happened with Usenet's 'Eternal September'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

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

#110

Post by joelbluminator »

Ambolia wrote: post #108

The lies and conspiracy theories were always there. The difference now is that there are lies and conspiracies in different directions rather than a consensus of lies and conspiracy theories. Of course it remains to be seen if it's possible to create a consensus of a nation without centralized media like we had until now. If it's not, we will have to get used to the population fragmenting into different groups with d…

> we will have to get used to the population fragmenting into different groups with different chains of trust

This is becoming harder to do with the current culture wars. If each group would have respected the other that would have been possible, but it seems each group (especially the radical left if we are being honest) wants the other to comply to a new set of rules and philosophies. In schools, in the workplace and even when privately talking to each other. This makes it very difficult.

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