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We Don’t Need a New Twitter

calnewport.com

101–110 of 121 posts

Re: We Don’t Need a New Twitter

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trolls are creating misinformation and using it for political gain. That's my point. Yes, I understand that is your point. Just as I could make it my point that the sky is blue. But why would we want to make these points? These non-sequiturs add nothing of value.

Because Reddit and Twitter are havens of misinformation (especially more recently as moderators are protesting / refusing to do as much of a job they did before). And other websites have higher levels of trust with me. You know. The point of the discussion? The entire crux of Twitter and Reddit is about discussions, and IMO, truth-seeking is one of the most important roles discussion plays. How well a webpage, or oth…

Well, yeah, Reddit is a comedy website. It's not supposed to be truthful in any meaningful sense. It's there for when you want a laugh. The CEO even admits to editing other people's comments when they are deemed not funny enough.

Like I stated in another post, I only really ever see weather forecasts on Twitter, from people who have allegedly dedicated their lives to meteorology and not just some "pretty weather girl" like you find in more common weather channels. I have found them to be as truthful as forecasting the weather can be, and are open about the limitations of their models. They don't always get it right, but that is entirely understandable. We don't understand the truths of weather. Nor do we need to because not worrying about the truth has allowed us to focus on what is actually important.

So, I don't know, Wikipedia's weather forecasts have been far less reliable in experience. That's not really its thing. I see no reason to trust either because it doesn't matter what the truth is – the weather will come the same either way – but if I had a gun to my back forcing me to choose, Twitter would win. But, realistically, they're not meaningfully compared. They offer a completely different service.

Re: We Don’t Need a New Twitter

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Reddit says X but Wikipedia says Y, do you trust X to be true or do you trust Y to be true? Neither. One – or both – of them might be true, but who cares? It is not advantageous to give it much concern. We have evolved to not rely on truths. "Is that a lion rustling those bushes or just the wind? Let me be absolutely certain it is a lion before I run." said no one who successfully passed on their genes ever. Tru…

It's not a measure of _their_ success we're concerned with. It's a measure of _our_ success if we trust them. Nobody is perfectly reliable. But some people and orgs are more reliable than others. How you choose to navigate this spectrum affects your life. I think that's all dragontamer is saying. And it seems reasonable.

> And it seems reasonable.

It does seem reasonable. But is it true? We must ensure it is true before we do anything else!

Just kidding. Whether or not it is true makes no difference.

Re: We Don’t Need a New Twitter

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Reddit and Twitter are havens of misinformation (especially more recently as moderators are protesting / refusing to do as much of a job they did before). And other websites have higher levels of trust with me. You know. The point of the discussion? The entire crux of Twitter and Reddit is about discussions, and IMO, truth-seeking is one of the most important roles discussion plays. How well a webpage, or oth…

Well, yeah, Reddit is a comedy website. It's not supposed to be truthful in any meaningful sense. It's there for when you want a laugh. The CEO even admits to editing other people's comments when they are deemed not funny enough. Like I stated in another post, I only really ever see weather forecasts on Twitter, from people who have allegedly dedicated their lives to meteorology and not just some "pretty weather girl…

Twitter is for pumping illegitimate, unregulated securities like LunaCoin / Terra and other failed cryptocoins.

And this has seemingly gotten worse over the past year, at least in my eyes. Now to get boosted, you can just pay $7/month and force feed scamcoins to the masses.

Re: We Don’t Need a New Twitter

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a measure of _their_ success we're concerned with. It's a measure of _our_ success if we trust them. Nobody is perfectly reliable. But some people and orgs are more reliable than others. How you choose to navigate this spectrum affects your life. I think that's all dragontamer is saying. And it seems reasonable.

> And it seems reasonable. It does seem reasonable. But is it true? We must ensure it is true before we do anything else! Just kidding. Whether or not it is true makes no difference.

I'll leave you to apply sophistry to your heart's content, and your evolution will be some impossible-to-anticipate effect of your decisions regarding things you consider to be true or don't care about the truth of.

Re: We Don’t Need a New Twitter

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yeah, Reddit is a comedy website. It's not supposed to be truthful in any meaningful sense. It's there for when you want a laugh. The CEO even admits to editing other people's comments when they are deemed not funny enough. Like I stated in another post, I only really ever see weather forecasts on Twitter, from people who have allegedly dedicated their lives to meteorology and not just some "pretty weather girl…

Twitter is for pumping illegitimate, unregulated securities like LunaCoin / Terra and other failed cryptocoins. And this has seemingly gotten worse over the past year, at least in my eyes. Now to get boosted, you can just pay $7/month and force feed scamcoins to the masses.

> Twitter is for pumping illegitimate, unregulated securities like LunaCoin / Terra and other failed cryptocoins.

Okay, and if you don't get wrapped up in thinking the message is true, what difference does it make? You could get yourself in trouble if you are concerned about the truth, and then pick the 'wrong truth', indeed. But why would you do that?

> And this has seemingly gotten worse over the past year, at least in my eyes.

They say the Twitter algorithm feeds you what you want to see. This may be a "you" problem. I've never seen anything about crypto on Twitter. Mostly weather-related content and sometimes farmers posting pictures from the field. That's about it.

Re: We Don’t Need a New Twitter

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is for pumping illegitimate, unregulated securities like LunaCoin / Terra and other failed cryptocoins. And this has seemingly gotten worse over the past year, at least in my eyes. Now to get boosted, you can just pay $7/month and force feed scamcoins to the masses.

> Twitter is for pumping illegitimate, unregulated securities like LunaCoin / Terra and other failed cryptocoins. Okay, and if you don't get wrapped up in thinking the message is true, what difference does it make? You could get yourself in trouble if you are concerned about the truth, and then pick the 'wrong truth', indeed. But why would you do that? > And this has seemingly gotten worse over the past year, at leas…

How old are you?

Are you really so young that you've never had to make a decision in your life? Like, what to do with your money? Which goods to purchase? Whether or not Car X or Car Y is good / bad / shilled / whatever? Is school district X better or school district Y better, or is it just local FUD / fake crap? Investments is yet another decision for anyone who is trying to provide for themselves and/or their families, so the truth in stuff to invest into (or not invest into) is of high importance.

Do you not make decisions that affect you... or people you care about? I'm struggling to figure out how naive you are and what your background is.

If truth doesn't matter to you, so be it. I'm not here to convince you. But I'm still curious who you are and how you can get through life with this attitude.

There's a myriad of such choices I encounter on a daily basis, be it at work, at home, in my family, in the families of my friends and so forth. To see someone so disinterested in such details (and apparently ignorant of the importance of truth in these situations) is... intriguing to me.

------------

I decided that Lunacoin was a scam, as are many other cryptocoins. So I am safe.

My coworker, a close friend of mine, also agreed it was a scam. However, he didn't realize that Celsius was wrapped up in it. And therefore, lost $X0,000 to the situation. That's $X0,000 that his children will not be able to use through schooling, or for his next car or retirement.

He placed his trust in Celsisus and got overrun by the Terra/Lunacoin disaster, despite paying attention to it he was unable to predict the trajectory of that situation in time to save his money.

Those who found out the truth faster got their money out in time, before everything collapsed.

----------

I mean, I guess it hasn't really affected his life or my life. We all can afford a $X0,000 mistake here and there and not really sweat it. But it does change our purchase habits over the next few years to save back up and put our financial house back in order when these kinds of things happen.

Re: We Don’t Need a New Twitter

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Twitter is for pumping illegitimate, unregulated securities like LunaCoin / Terra and other failed cryptocoins. Okay, and if you don't get wrapped up in thinking the message is true, what difference does it make? You could get yourself in trouble if you are concerned about the truth, and then pick the 'wrong truth', indeed. But why would you do that? > And this has seemingly gotten worse over the past year, at leas…

How old are you? Are you really so young that you've never had to make a decision in your life? Like, what to do with your money? Which goods to purchase? Whether or not Car X or Car Y is good / bad / shilled / whatever? Is school district X better or school district Y better, or is it just local FUD / fake crap? Investments is yet another decision for anyone who is trying to provide for themselves and/or their famil…

> How old are you?

Old enough that I'm past the "I must know the truth!" phase of my life. Don't get me wrong, I was there once upon a time. I came to see it as a fool's errand.

> Like, what to do with your money?

Outside of basic things like food? Save it, mostly.

> Whether or not Car X or Car Y is good / bad / shilled / whatever?

I don't buy many things, but I have most certainly tried the whole agonizing over what is good, bad, shilled, whatever – studying a product in intimate detail in the past. I knew what was true, but when I got it home I was still disappointed in my purchase as what I thought was important turned out to not be.

Is it really worth worrying about? If you feel there is value in owning something, you kind of just have to try it and see what happens. Hopefully you made a good choice. If not, hopefully you have a chance to try again.

> Investments is yet another decision for anyone who is trying to provide for themselves and/or their families, so the truth in stuff to invest into (or not invest into) is of high importance.

I invest in things I like doing. I like farming, so that is where a large part of my portfolio is found. And, as it happens, I don't think I could have done better anywhere else – but, really, that was just a lot of luck. I won't likely remain a good investment forever, but at least I'll still have the fun. Where is the fun in crypto?

Re: We Don’t Need a New Twitter

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How old are you? Are you really so young that you've never had to make a decision in your life? Like, what to do with your money? Which goods to purchase? Whether or not Car X or Car Y is good / bad / shilled / whatever? Is school district X better or school district Y better, or is it just local FUD / fake crap? Investments is yet another decision for anyone who is trying to provide for themselves and/or their famil…

> How old are you? Old enough that I'm past the "I must know the truth!" phase of my life. Don't get me wrong, I was there once upon a time. I came to see it as a fool's errand. > Like, what to do with your money? Outside of basic things like food? Save it, mostly. > Whether or not Car X or Car Y is good / bad / shilled / whatever? I don't buy many things, but I have most certainly tried the whole agonizing over what…

Its not about "I must know the truth!" as much as its about making important decisions for myself and others in my social circle.

But as I said before, I'm not interested in convincing you. I'm just curious what your background is. Whether you're young and naive or old and jaded doesn't matter too much aside from my curiosity.

This discussion only convinces me of the further need to build communities where truth is important, as I'm sure there's plenty of people like you who I'll need to watch out for.

Some of us have important decisions to be made where the truth matters. If you're not part of it, that's fine. But don't muck up what we're trying to do or our seeking of truth to improve our lives, or the lives of people who are close to us.

Re: We Don’t Need a New Twitter

#109
post #87
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obvious? Maybe ICE driver guilt, but I have never heard a reason that made sense except for some vague accusations that too much fun is being had and that is somehow offensive. And yeah he’s made some mistakes which I guess is unforgivable because, well, it goes back to fun being offensive.

For the record we're on the same side here.

Thanks for clarifying. To me it's just never obvious what their real issue is. I suspect someone who succeeds at stuff while daring to question everything and have fun at it is just triggering for a lot of folks.

Re: We Don’t Need a New Twitter

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How old are you? Old enough that I'm past the "I must know the truth!" phase of my life. Don't get me wrong, I was there once upon a time. I came to see it as a fool's errand. > Like, what to do with your money? Outside of basic things like food? Save it, mostly. > Whether or not Car X or Car Y is good / bad / shilled / whatever? I don't buy many things, but I have most certainly tried the whole agonizing over what…

Its not about "I must know the truth!" as much as its about making important decisions for myself and others in my social circle. But as I said before, I'm not interested in convincing you. I'm just curious what your background is. Whether you're young and naive or old and jaded doesn't matter too much aside from my curiosity. This discussion only convinces me of the further need to build communities where truth is i…

> Its not about "I must know the truth!" as much as its about making important decisions for myself and others in my social circle.

It can only about "I must know the truth!".

Important decisions take in all information and use it with the worldview model to determine the best course of action. What is actually true or false doesn't matter to that model. It's able to tease out what is important, usually...

Yes, sometimes the model fails, but that happens even with truthful information fed into it. As was pointed out earlier, the truth about COVID-19 was relayed through every channel imaginable, but was still no match for an erroneous model. Such is life.

In fact, it may even be an evolutionary adaptation for some models to become erroneous. Consider the local maxima problem in machine learning. One way to break out of that is to try something different and see if you can find a new maxima. We may have gotten here as a species because some mutation causing 'random defects' in the mind occurred, and some of those 'defects' proved to be better.

> This discussion only convinces me of the further need to build communities where truth is important

Is a community of one really a community? If you can establish truth, there is no more value in community. That's why we don't sit around talking about 1+1=2 all day long. We could, but why would we? It would be pointless. People only talk about things they are unsure of in an effort to expand that model. People will share what they think they know, but as the mind cannot handle full truths, you are only ever going to hear a simplification that misses important nuance even in the best case. The model has to account for that. As such, it is optimized to function without requiring truths.

All information is useful.

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