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The internet wants to be fragmented

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Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#211

Post by wilsonnb3 »

tux wrote: post #183
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money does this to everything. Radio used to be cool, now it's mostly ads. Circulating pamphlets was once a potent political tool, now they come sandwiched between ads in a newspaper that nobody reads. Evaluate a randomly chosen NFT-referent for artistic merit and see how it stack up to a randomly chosen pre-nft art. I'm still optimistic about the web though. It's more configurable than the other media. We may yet fi…

There are many online radio stations without ads, and you can already wall off advertising with something like PiHole or extensions like uBlockO. I never hear or see ads anymore :)

There are also many very good publicly funded radio stations out there. Shout out to WNRN in central Virginia.

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#212

Post by slater- »

seydor wrote: post #181
causality0 wrote: post #44

Being the same person online as offline destroyed everything great about the internet. When you were an asshole you got banned from the website, and then you had to trim some of your sharp edges off so you didn't get banned from the next one. These days being an asshole results in either you aurrou ding yourself entirely with other assholes or getting your real life ruined by losing your job or even being arrested in…

Internet discussions don't scale. I think we are at the end of the road, it has already become impossible to have honest debate about something online. Some of us maintain the illusion that things will return to a somewhat more bearable state but it is futile. I think newer generations know it's not going to happen. I fear that AI will lead to people basically talking to themselves and to their imaginary perfect frie…

Maybe you're right about us being at the end of the road for internet discussion, and at first I want to say "oh no," but maybe it's not a bad thing. No use continuing to pursue something once you know it won't work, and it's stupid to kill yourself trying.

I worry about your AI point, too. An imaginary perfect friend/sex bot/super advanced furby/whatever would be compelling in the short term, but ultimately it leads down a cold lonely road. I can immediately think of some acquaintances who already kind of live like this. It breaks my heart.

What do we do about it? Raise our kids so their allowance depends on the amount of broken phones they bring us?

Oh hey also could you please prove you're not an AI designed to say things I agree with?

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#213

Post by slater- »

astrange wrote: post #195
isaacremuant wrote: post #122

> weirdos mad about video game journalism. Funny how being interested in accountability, transparency and good journalism makes you "a weirdo" worth ignoring. Oh well, if you're moderately effective about highlighting a problem you'll always get attacked with labels. Funny too how he lumps them and other groups with "Nazis". Feels like yet another person who is suddenly whining because their authoritarian websites ar…

> Funny how being interested in accountability, transparency and good journalism makes you "a weirdo" worth ignoring. Yes, that’s correct, because video game journalism literally doesn’t and can’t ever matter, so it doesn’t matter if it’s bad or not. Just like it doesn’t matter that tech gadget journalism or boat owner journalism is bad.

i love playing video games, and also you're completely right.

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#214

Post by watwut »

Taek wrote: post #62
crazygringo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 civi…

January 6th is a significant data point and shouldn't just be handwaved away. I've watched political correctness erode the dynamic of my own family, it's continuously sewing resent between people who have different angles of non-PC opinions.

It is freaking ridiculous to blame political correctness for actions of people who were literally at the opposite spektrum of politics for years. These are people that lived in opposite kind of bubble and listened to hard-core right wing media for years.

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#215

Post by watwut »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #82
watwut wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Escalating racial and ethnic hate was lead up to war. That's exactly what I'd think. And historically I'd wager every well documented example shows it. And yet Zizek gave that as a first hand account (that's where he is from please correct me if I am wrong), and it's an intriguing hypothesis. Certainly an unpopular one judging by my immediate down-vote for even mentioning it (as an open question no less) I don't th…

In 90 ties is when the nationalist movements grew. Serbian nationalism became Army ideology. That won't happen woth political correctness. The other nationalities build own separatist movements.

All of that involved a lot of talking. The run up to genocide was also not some kind of politically correct gentle talking period, not for everyone anyway.

When a country with by your characterization full of edgy race insults eventually descend into genocides and crimes against humanity, maybe some intellectuals refusing to engage with race insults in the run up to genocide are not the cause. Maybe they are people who realized where this is going and did not wanted to contribute.

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#216

Post by seydor »

slater- wrote: post #212
seydor wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet discussions don't scale. I think we are at the end of the road, it has already become impossible to have honest debate about something online. Some of us maintain the illusion that things will return to a somewhat more bearable state but it is futile. I think newer generations know it's not going to happen. I fear that AI will lead to people basically talking to themselves and to their imaginary perfect frie…

Maybe you're right about us being at the end of the road for internet discussion, and at first I want to say "oh no," but maybe it's not a bad thing. No use continuing to pursue something once you know it won't work, and it's stupid to kill yourself trying. I worry about your AI point, too. An imaginary perfect friend/sex bot/super advanced furby/whatever would be compelling in the short term, but ultimately it leads…

I try to look at the bright side. It is true that many things that need discussion cannot be discussed online because people slide in moral arguments and derail it. But with an AI one can have a patient/unemotional discussion to see ho w deep the rabbit hole goes. Supposing AI can indeed converse, this will be productive.

But we have to detach social life from this. There is a role for the AI but communication is social and has other purposes. Perhaps we could communicate the results of our introspection with the AI, though

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#217

Post by seydor »

borski wrote: post #200
seydor wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, really people's behavior has changed. Did you care about your online profile in 2002 (if you were around?). Now people primarily care about how they are seen online The internet is in a feedback loop that both facilitated and is facilitated by this change.

Been around the internet for a very very long time :) And sure, people absolutely cared. That’s why AIM profiles were a thing, and why people were so excited when they could build web pages easily with Frontpage or Dreamweaver or with Angelfire or Geocities, etc. What’s changed is arguably that it is less acceptable to be anonymous now, but the concept of wanting to share and be seen is not new.

it feels very different. back then my 'profiles' were avatars, virtual personas, and people were careful to never dox themselves. Now the proportions are reversed

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#218

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

crazygringo wrote: post #53
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've seen my comments come back from -4, and being flagged. Apparently, 'unflag' action cancels one 'flag' action. Thus, local oblivion is not irrecoverable.

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#219

Post by OhioMan2943 »

seydor wrote: post #181
causality0 wrote: post #44

Being the same person online as offline destroyed everything great about the internet. When you were an asshole you got banned from the website, and then you had to trim some of your sharp edges off so you didn't get banned from the next one. These days being an asshole results in either you aurrou ding yourself entirely with other assholes or getting your real life ruined by losing your job or even being arrested in…

Internet discussions don't scale. I think we are at the end of the road, it has already become impossible to have honest debate about something online. Some of us maintain the illusion that things will return to a somewhat more bearable state but it is futile. I think newer generations know it's not going to happen. I fear that AI will lead to people basically talking to themselves and to their imaginary perfect frie…

Many of the newer generation don't know what the world was like beforehand, so they may not be able to replicate it, know that something is missing or feel the need for that something.

Re: The internet wants to be fragmented

#220

Post by lifeisstillgood »

>>> Community moderation works

Meh. Community moderation upholds the values and standards of the community. So a community of neo-nazis will moderate themselves and protect their values and standards.

As will community of flat earthers etc etc

And this is why it's really hard to have any sort of "truth based ML moderation" - because in the extreme and obvious cases "the earth is actually round" directly threatens the community.

And in the middle case "excluding Mary simply because you'all don't like her or her family is unfair" also threatens the community.

In between those two is a spectrum of truth and decency that threatens every community

Humans are rubbish

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