Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media • Hacker News Board

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#91

Post by honkdaddy » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 1:35 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #68

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading articles that claimed that the China leak theory was racist against Asians and was dangerous because it would cause violence against asians. It was so incredibly stupid

It does cause violence against Asians. It adds fuel to the increasing hostility and violence that Asian communities have been experiencing ever since the outbreak began. This is the case regardless of whether or not any such theory is true, so that claim isn't incredibly stupid at all.

So in your opinion then, if it were to be true, should the facts be covered up in order to prevent more hypothetical violence? I’m confused about this line of thinking.

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#92

Post by nobody9999 » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 1:43 AM UTC

wowokay wrote: post #70

Krasnol wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of argument is that? It's not like those people invented electrical power. They spread lies which cost lives. Every day. People DIE because of misinformation. Snake oil salesman were no heroes of humanity.

Information is subjective. Do you care what the pin to unlock my door is? If someone had a post asking for a unlock code and I posted mine that would be information to me but could be construed as misinformation by them. If someone makes a post about religion wouldn’t an atheist consider that misinformation?

>Information is subjective.

Subjective (adj)[0]:

   existing in the mind; belonging to the thinking 
   subject rather than to the object of thought;

   pertaining to or characteristic of an individual;

   placing excessive emphasis on one's own moods, 
   attitudes, opinions, etc.;

   Philosophy. relating to or of the nature of an 
   object as it is known in the mind as distinct from 
   a thing in itself.

   relating to properties or specific conditions of 
   the mind as distinguished from general or 
   universal experience.

   pertaining to the subject or substance in which 
   attributes inhere; essential.

You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Old memes aside, I (as a reasonably intelligent person) don't understand what you mean by that.

Please explain what you mean by "subjective" in this context.

Are you arguing that information like "the heat of vaporization of water is 100C at sea level," or "the island of Manhattan has a land area of ~23 square miles" is only valid or correct if I as an individual decide that's the case, otherwise it's false?

How about information like "On November 19, 1863, President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address," or "I voted in the 2021 elections."

Are those subjective?

[0] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/subjective

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#93

Post by krapp » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 1:51 AM UTC

honkdaddy wrote: post #91

krapp wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does cause violence against Asians. It adds fuel to the increasing hostility and violence that Asian communities have been experiencing ever since the outbreak began. This is the case regardless of whether or not any such theory is true, so that claim isn't incredibly stupid at all.

So in your opinion then, if it were to be true, should the facts be covered up in order to prevent more hypothetical violence? I’m confused about this line of thinking.

I'm not stating an opinion on that one way or the other, only on the claim that the lab leak theory doesn't lead to violence against Asians, when increased violence against any group associated with an outbreak is common. Asians face it a lot, but gay people faced it during the AIDS crisis and Black people during Ebola.

It's not an opinion of mine, it's a well documented phenomenon[0].

[0]https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/covid-19-has-led-to-an-...

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#94

Post by monkeydreams » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

avgDev wrote: post #31

mellosouls wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this type of argument devolves into "I want to be a crappy person and not be judged for it or face consequences" Whereas I find your counter-argument devolves into "Crappy people are those who disagree with my point of view and they should face consequences"... The truth is there are extremes on both sides; but the censorship seems to be overwhelmingly driven by one.

The whole "cancel culture" concept has literally be around for years, it was just marketed now and used for politics. Humans have been cancelling people and things for eternity. People with extreme views that did not align with the majority were always pushed away. This even happened in medicine and science.

> The whole "cancel culture" concept has literally be around for years, it was just marketed now and used for politics.

Yes, but the power balance shifted so that the dissatisfaction of "small" people can now be perceived and felt by the wealthy and powerful. "Small" people can organise around a cause and make the powerful uncomfortable, so the powerful attack.

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#95

Post by nobody9999 » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 2:31 AM UTC

JoshCole wrote: post #77

austincheney wrote: post #23

The solution is simple. Exchange the client/server model for a peer-to-peer model. By peer-to-peer and I mean literally IP to IP and not something like instant messenger that bounces messages through a central server. Only then can you assure a fix to interference. This requires: * Routes - both parties to be on IPv6 or either party to have something like port address translation on a IPv6 interface. * Identity - Thi…

Calling the problems faced by social media simple is the sort of hubris that only comes about because of the Dunning–Kruger effect. You're underestimating the complexity of the problem because you're under-informed. Some aspects of your proposal have been tried before. They aren't new. History indicates that your proposal fails to achieve long term product-market fit. It also fails this entirely because of being dece…

Extrapolating your experience in one online space to cover everyone's experience in every online space, as if everything, everywhere is your use case is either hubris or naivete of the highest order. Either way, I applaud your ability to climb to such heights!

There are so many other use cases and spaces that would benefit enormously from decentralization that I couldn't even begin to list even a small portion of them.

As for leaking IP addresses and DDOSing, that's only relevant if you are communicating with those who are potentially adversarial and definitely mean spirited. My use case doesn't include any of those sorts of people.

My privacy and PII are too valuable to me to allow others to monetize them.

And I don't care to share details of my private life with people I don't know or care about.

As such, decentralization (e.g., a Matrix server for my extended family -- which exists and works wonderfully -- except for the crappy upload speeds I get) is absolutely a valid and viable use case.

That you can't see past your own experiences and prejudices says much more about you than it does about centralization vs. decentralization.

As for your assertion that "decentralization has been tried and it failed" isn't anywhere close to being the truth.

It hasn't been tried at any real scale and hasn't gained a lot of traction because of the perverse incentives of asymmetrical bandwidth, user-hostile TOS and the willingness of companies to burn cash in order to stomp out/acquire any other group that attempts to compete with them.

tl;dr: You're talking out of your ass and it smells that way too. Yuck!

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#96

Post by howaboutnope » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 5:35 AM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #48

mc32 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is the "democratization" of cancelation. Someone says something mildly controversial (some talk radio host said something terse about a neighbor) and people start lodging complaints against the employer and the hosts advertisers. It's idiotic.

As if this hasn't been happening to gay people who got outed until extremely recently. It wasn't exclusively democratic, of course: the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy was only repealed a decade ago. Cancel culture isn't remotely new; only now it's punishing bigotry, not an instrument of bigotry. And, no shit, bigots are pissed about that.

Yes, and gay people were pissed about it, too. Your point? It was an unjust way to treat homosexuals, it's an unjust way to treat supposed "bigots". Especially when it turns into vulgar Gesinnungsschnüffelei combined with double standards, and reading inner motivations and beliefs into snippets, because "it could be".

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#97

Post by FFRefresh » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 5:50 AM UTC

bastardoperator wrote: post #24

samlevine wrote: post #18

I don't want social media to censor me, people I want to communicate with or people I don't ever want to communicate with. I want tools that help me communicate with other people. Learn things, get exposed to new ideas. And we can't have that with a huge system designed to prevent people from saying the wrong things. Our ability to communicate and learn freely is dependent on the ability for people we disagree with t…

Funny, I'm not censored on any platform. Then again I don't make violent threats, spread misinformation, use racist language, or harass people. I feel free to have these discussions, and I do all the time. What's the problem? You can communicate freely, but that doesn't mean there isn't consequences for things you speak and nobody has to host you while you're broadcasting it. I find this type of argument devolves int…

Do you think you should face consequences for your username?

People of color are more likely to be called that slur, and you are their “operator”? I talked to my BIPOC friends and they think that’s incredibly racist. They say you are dehumanizing them and are clearly a white supremacist who celebrates operating POC. They are experiencing trauma right now given the outright violence of your name.

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#98

Post by JoshCole » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 6:19 AM UTC

nobody9999 wrote: post #95

JoshCole wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling the problems faced by social media simple is the sort of hubris that only comes about because of the Dunning–Kruger effect. You're underestimating the complexity of the problem because you're under-informed. Some aspects of your proposal have been tried before. They aren't new. History indicates that your proposal fails to achieve long term product-market fit. It also fails this entirely because of being dece…

Extrapolating your experience in one online space to cover everyone's experience in every online space, as if everything, everywhere is your use case is either hubris or naivete of the highest order. Either way, I applaud your ability to climb to such heights! There are so many other use cases and spaces that would benefit enormously from decentralization that I couldn't even begin to list even a small portion of the…

> That you can't see past your own experiences and prejudices says much more about you than it does about centralization vs. decentralization.

I get why you came to this conclusion, but you're pretty far off from understanding my actual point which had nothing to do with decentralization. I'm actually a fan of decentralization. There are obviously technical means of solving the failure case I shared. I'm not trying to generalize my experience to everyone. Actually, that is kind of the exact opposite of my point. I'm saying that the problems in social media aren't technical, but social, because people are different.

> It hasn't been tried at any real scale and hasn't gained a lot of traction because of the perverse incentives of asymmetrical bandwidth, user-hostile TOS and the willingness of companies to burn cash in order to stomp out/acquire any other group that attempts to compete with them.

My core point was that the problems aren't simple, because they aren't technical, and you're kind of making that point as well now.

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#99

Post by klyrs » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 6:26 AM UTC

howaboutnope wrote: post #96

klyrs wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if this hasn't been happening to gay people who got outed until extremely recently. It wasn't exclusively democratic, of course: the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy was only repealed a decade ago. Cancel culture isn't remotely new; only now it's punishing bigotry, not an instrument of bigotry. And, no shit, bigots are pissed about that.

Yes, and gay people were pissed about it, too. Your point? It was an unjust way to treat homosexuals, it's an unjust way to treat supposed "bigots". Especially when it turns into vulgar Gesinnungsschnüffelei combined with double standards, and reading inner motivations and beliefs into snippets, because "it could be".

Only gay people have suffered millenia of outright persecution, and face a death penalty in several countries to this day. Not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison here.

Re: Nicholas Carr on how to fix social media

#100

Post by morsch » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 6:47 AM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #66

nobody9999 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The solution is simple. Exchange the client/server model for a peer-to-peer model. By peer-to-peer and I mean literally IP to IP and not something like instant messenger that bounces messages through a central server. Only then can you assure a fix to interference. This is my go to response as to "what to do about social media." And I opine|rant|blather on about it whenever I see folks complaining about or claiming…

YouTube was founded when most people had slow internet and they seemed to have done ok. I have fiber at my house and do about 920mb/s both up and down. It’s only a matter of time before that becomes almost universally common enough to rule out bandwidth from any consideration. As a result I am writing a peer-to-peer application assuming universal fiber, 4K displays, and IPv6 are already common.

At the same time YouTube was founded we also had widespread peer to peer audio and video distribution, despite asymmetric Internet connections. Probably the largest peer to peer networks? It worked fine. It was on the verge of being real time for video, when it was replaced by centralised, commercial technology.