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

The internet wants to be fragmented

noahpinion.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 246 posts

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#51

Post by watwut »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #46

One of the most frightening bits of social science/philosophy I heard came from Slavoj Zizek, because it's about harbingers of big change. I have tried in vain to find a written reference. It's buried within some of his often tediously tangential talks - but I would love to know if any former Yugoslavians can attest to the truth or falsity of it. Zizek said that the former Yugoslavia was a tense but stable amalgam fo…

Escalating racial and ethnic hate was lead up to war. Just like, before Russia attacked now, the anti Ukrainian propaganda went up.

And before WWII, nazi went up with hate and their anti Jews language went up both in lead up to war and during ir, culminating in holocaust.

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#52

Post by nickthegreek »

lapcat wrote: post #16
machina_ex_deus wrote: post #4

The biggest problem is the like button. The like button is not only a bad metric - it's the worst possible metric. Speaking up used to be something you do to change someone's mind or yours. What's the point in speaking up if nobody does anything with what you said? The like button reprogrammed people. They started getting positive feedback for speaking in an echo chamber, for saying and doing things their audience al…

1) "Speaking up" is just one of many forms of speech. Why is speaking up "the purpose of speech", or even the purpose of social media speech? 2) There are many reasons to speak up. One may be to organize like-minded people into an effective advocacy group. Another may just be to lament something that you can't change. 3) I'm not trying to be snarky, but do you have any examples of changing people's minds on HN or soc…

I’ve had my mind changed due to HN. But the posters of comments would never know. I’ll give them an upvote and move on.

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#53

Post by crazygringo »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #14
amadeuspagel wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you say about the like button also applies to votes, so if the like button is what makes social media bad, I don't see why HN should be better.

HN's vote count is not public, and negative count is capped at -4 so you can't downvote someone into oblivion.

When -4 pushes you to the very bottom of the page in text so grayed-out that it's not even readable unless you highlight it first, I'd still call that oblivion. Also, flags from just two (?) people remove your comment entirely.

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#54

Post by seydor »

tshadley wrote: post #31

If twitter dies, where do I find a site where I can follow at least one expert/leader in every major discipline/social/political-movement to get a sort of snapshot of what's happening in the world? I don't need to agree with every expert/leader, I just want to know what they think.

First of all it needs a Change of attitude, from expecting recommendations to venturing into the unknown by ourselves. There are tons of people's online who can do this.

Unfortunately, even the adventurous ones got sucked into the populatity contest of social media and wasted a lot of time repeating the same points that others make.

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#56

Post by hattmall »

falcolas wrote: post #49
machina_ex_deus wrote: post #4

The biggest problem is the like button. The like button is not only a bad metric - it's the worst possible metric. Speaking up used to be something you do to change someone's mind or yours. What's the point in speaking up if nobody does anything with what you said? The like button reprogrammed people. They started getting positive feedback for speaking in an echo chamber, for saying and doing things their audience al…

Why does someone’s position need to change? That implies that somebody is wrong, and that’s not necessarily the case. More often, the “wrongness” comes from having a different point of view. For example, it’s easy to say “fuck cars” when you live in the city and they are only polluting, noisy nuisances that are, at best, optional for living your life. But when you live where I do, not having a car means a significant…

It's not a binary. The position doesn't have to change from one to the other. It's that with more information from each side, both positions should evolve. That's where progress can be actualized. Echo chambers don't get results, they just echo.

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#57

Post by crazygringo »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #46

One of the most frightening bits of social science/philosophy I heard came from Slavoj Zizek, because it's about harbingers of big change. I have tried in vain to find a written reference. It's buried within some of his often tediously tangential talks - but I would love to know if any former Yugoslavians can attest to the truth or falsity of it. Zizek said that the former Yugoslavia was a tense but stable amalgam fo…

I don't know about the specific case of Yugoslavia, but I'd be incredibly wary of drawing any broader conclusions, even if it were a factor in that specific case.

The US Civil War certainly had plenty of "jaw jaw jaw" before it, there was no "political correctness" at the time, and that didn't prevent it.

Similarly we've had something like three and a half decades of "political correctness" in the US without any civil war yet (Jan 6 notwithstanding). While you'd think that if political correctness really had such a strong effect, there would have been a second civil war by the late 1990's.

Not to mention that "jaw jaw jaw" can be the horrible hate speech that works to incite war.

If you look at history, the counterexamples seem incredibly more numerous. So hopefully we can feel less frightened by political correctness. :)

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#58

Post by ehnto »

falcolas wrote: post #49
machina_ex_deus wrote: post #4

The biggest problem is the like button. The like button is not only a bad metric - it's the worst possible metric. Speaking up used to be something you do to change someone's mind or yours. What's the point in speaking up if nobody does anything with what you said? The like button reprogrammed people. They started getting positive feedback for speaking in an echo chamber, for saying and doing things their audience al…

Why does someone’s position need to change? That implies that somebody is wrong, and that’s not necessarily the case. More often, the “wrongness” comes from having a different point of view. For example, it’s easy to say “fuck cars” when you live in the city and they are only polluting, noisy nuisances that are, at best, optional for living your life. But when you live where I do, not having a car means a significant…

Great example, because people saying "fuck cars" probably aren't talking about your cars or your situation. They mean the cities. They too have a different point of view. What discussion is good at is allowing us to talk about topics even with differing points of view, but a like/dislike button only rewards or disuades what you said. There is no opportunity for the meeting of minds, and it makes an echochamber.

Had you seen a video titled "Fuck cars" and disliked it, Youtube would a stop showing you that content, and now you only get pro-car content. Or someone who loves bikes sees the video, they like it, they would never get pro-car content, and would never see your point of view. No one is challenged, no one is brought closer together in understanding.

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#59

Post by Taek »

seydor wrote: post #50

The internet is vast. But if your attention is fully absorbed between twitter and substack (like the author is), you feel trapped, because, well, you are. Maybe try to venture out of your internet comfort zone. It's not all spam out there, nor is it worthless because it was not recommended by someone cool. Just don't be lazy

This comment doesn't offer any practical advice on where to find content of higher quality, it just condescends people who don't feel like they have high quality options.

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#60

Post by vorpalhex »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #10
machina_ex_deus wrote: post #4

The biggest problem is the like button. The like button is not only a bad metric - it's the worst possible metric. Speaking up used to be something you do to change someone's mind or yours. What's the point in speaking up if nobody does anything with what you said? The like button reprogrammed people. They started getting positive feedback for speaking in an echo chamber, for saying and doing things their audience al…

Speech is also about comfort and venting where echo chambers shine. And those chambers predate the social media. IME even IRL people tend to congregate mostly with like minded individuals. And if the congregation turns out to have too many views in contrast to ones own then folks tend to leave.

> even IRL people tend to congregate mostly with like minded individuals

Historically, forming these tiny niche communities wasn't possible. Sure you had different social groups but they were geographically limited. You are also stuck to a degree when there is conflict.

> if the congregation turns out to have too many views in contrast to ones own then folks tend to leave.

Sure and it tends to be moderate people who leave first. Groups become more dogmatic and cultish, more extreme over time as they demoderate.

Post reply on HN