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

Google has sent internet into 'spiral of decline', claims DeepMind co-founder

telegraph.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 390 posts

Re: Google has sent internet into 'spiral of decline', claims DeepMind co-founder

#181

Post by matheusmoreira »

firtoz wrote: post #166
matheusmoreira wrote: post #157

I agree but the root cause isn't Google, it's advertising in all its forms, Google's ads just happen to be the most profitable ones. Kill advertising and the web will be fixed automatically and permanently. Using uBlock Origin is everyone's duty towards a better web. It should come pre-installed in Firefox.

You may be interested in trying Brave. Though that's using chromium and therefore connected to Google, kind of? Would be curious to hear the community's thoughts on this tbh.

I use both Brave and Firefox on mobile. I'm using Brave right now.

Re: Google has sent internet into 'spiral of decline', claims DeepMind co-founder

#182

Post by jack_riminton »

simpaticoder wrote: post #108
Roark66 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think step 2 has been figured out a long time ago: personal not for profit blogs and sites with an rss feed and a "links" section (preferably divided by interests). Such sites still do exist, but usually around various hobbies.

Yeah but we need a name and a recognizable advocacy position. The open web, the indie web, minimalists, even luddites are related terms, but nothing really fits. Then there is the community, the scene - like a webring, but better. Dignified, driven by a simple, solid technical aesthetic, capable, self-sufficient, independent, rational, (classic) liberal, etc. Those are some adjectives I associate with these ideas. I…

How about non-ad web? imo all of the ills come from misaligned incentives to extract ad/marketing money

Re: Google has sent internet into 'spiral of decline', claims DeepMind co-founder

#183

Post by fredgrott »

Most do not know that Google search has an API to turn into a programmable topical search engine...see

https://developers.google.com/custom-search/docs/topical

Basics is that you create a programmable search engine starting with this tutorial

https://developers.google.com/custom-search/docs/tutorial/in...

I have played with it and does seem somewhat useful enough for me to create my own custom search engine using Google's API for my own needs.

Re: Google has sent internet into 'spiral of decline', claims DeepMind co-founder

#184

Post by _lvbh »

firtoz wrote: post #166
matheusmoreira wrote: post #157

I agree but the root cause isn't Google, it's advertising in all its forms, Google's ads just happen to be the most profitable ones. Kill advertising and the web will be fixed automatically and permanently. Using uBlock Origin is everyone's duty towards a better web. It should come pre-installed in Firefox.

You may be interested in trying Brave. Though that's using chromium and therefore connected to Google, kind of? Would be curious to hear the community's thoughts on this tbh.

If it wasn’t for all the crypto bloat, Brave would be nice to use. Every time I install it, I got to spend a few minutes toggling all the settings and disabling everything. I use Librewolf not because of the fingerprinting stuff but because it just has sane defaults.

Re: Google has sent internet into 'spiral of decline', claims DeepMind co-founder

#185

Post by hashar »

evertedsphere wrote: post #105
Gareth321 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I know you’d like this recipe for potato salad, but first, let’s explore the history of the humble potato. Where did it come from? What is its cultural significance? Could this mighty spud someday change the world? Hi, I’m Leslie Snark, and I’ve travelled the world eating delicious food to bring you the best recipes.”

"But before we finally get to the recipe, I'm sure you're dying to know many languages my grandmother knew the word for 'potato' in. Excellent question! In 1710, according to what I've been able to find out from my Ancestry.com results [affiliate link], my great-uncle's ..."

"But first you need the proper cooking tooling. I recently came across Acme Inc. tea spoons to provide an healthy cooking suitable for vegans. Made of stainless steel based on the latest research, the cheap spoon can be bought through my refer link which you can find here among an assorted list of recommended tools"

Re: Google has sent internet into 'spiral of decline', claims DeepMind co-founder

#186

Post by jack_riminton »

stavros wrote: post #114
simpaticoder wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but we need a name and a recognizable advocacy position. The open web, the indie web, minimalists, even luddites are related terms, but nothing really fits. Then there is the community, the scene - like a webring, but better. Dignified, driven by a simple, solid technical aesthetic, capable, self-sufficient, independent, rational, (classic) liberal, etc. Those are some adjectives I associate with these ideas. I…

The small web?

The basic web? hear me out... why has hacker news remained steadfastly under the radar? in part because it looks like an academic message board of the 90's

If intelligently produced text content is what is needed then perhaps we need to design a format that excludes, if not automatically diminishes, images and videos

Re: Google has sent internet into 'spiral of decline', claims DeepMind co-founder

#187

Post by chmod775 »

SideQuark wrote: post #162
majewsky wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first does not follow from the second. Historically, incentives on human behavior have tended much more towards collaboration than competition. If all human behavior was framed as a competition, we would not have been able to construct communities.

>Historically, incentives on human behavior have tended much more towards collaboration than competition Humans spent far longer in kill others mode than in don't kill others mode. Incentives to not kill others is fairly new in history.

Can you cite the pop-sci TV show you got that from? You've got it exactly the wrong way around.

Evidence of deadly human-on-human violence mostly starts showing up with the Neolithic period, before that humans didn't go out of their way to kill each other as much. It looks a lot like you need to be settled and amass possessions to give people a good enough reason to kill each other. That's recent behavior as far as our species is concerned.

Re: Google has sent internet into 'spiral of decline', claims DeepMind co-founder

#188

Post by mnky9800n »

simpaticoder wrote: post #78
mnky9800n wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've recently deleted Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, etc from my phone and it's like night and day. I basically only go to hacker news now or look at my own websites. Suddenly all of the noise of the internet was silent.

That's great but there's a step 2. The sub-culture of people who like things better that way need to sustain each other and itself. Ideally, to grow in happiness and other measures of strength such that the surrounding dominant culture cannot destroy it, and in fact can influence the dominant culture to become more like it. It's that step 2 that I think we haven't figured out yet. Without step 2 we are merely opinion…

There was something posted recently about websites that are like web 1.0 in design. And they had like a wiki or a search or something. Stuff like this

https://indieweb.org/POSSE

https://indieweb.org/Homebrew_Website_Club

Re: Google has sent internet into 'spiral of decline', claims DeepMind co-founder

#189

Post by theGnuMe »

dalbasal wrote: post #121

"Search results plagued with ‘clickbait’ would have been an understatement 20 years ago. The parts of the open web you access from Google/search (most of it) is almost entirely made-for-google' ranking algorithims. The situation is worse than it is on closed social media, including Google's YouTube. Professional YouTubers are also making content for rankings above all, but the fact that it's their own face/voice keep…

I guess the lonely planet books are still valuable.
Post reply on HN