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

Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 537 posts

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#341

Post by el_benhameen »

wkat4242 wrote: post #207
mbb70 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extreme personalization of the internet/modern life can lead to a feeling of isolation. I recently was on a plane with broken inflight entertainment, so all you could watch was a single movie in lock step with everyone else. When the movie ended, there was a weird sense of camaraderie; "we are all stuck in this tube and we all just sat through that mediocre movie".

You mean .. like going to the cinema?

Well, people go to the cinema for the movie. Whereas people get on an airplane for the food.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#342

Post by darkerside »

JohnFen wrote: post #138
darkerside wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would really ask your friends why they are ignoring your tweets? I would feel a little ridiculous doing that.

I absolutely would, if it were a thing that was bothering me. They're my friends, after all. Why would someone feel ridiculous for checking in with their friends about something strange?

To each his own. If my friend asked why I was ignoring his tweet, I'd tell him to please stop obsessing over Twitter for his own health.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#343

Post by pelasaco »

from the society point of view, not have a shared cultural experience is bad. I remember the time, where we used to watch the same tv shows and, get the same news, and we collectively experienced and discussed it. It is maybe one of the backbones of a society culture. Today because everyone is consuming your own media, news, you have small opportunities to shared cultural experiences, one of them being sports (Soccer World championship, for instance), or going to Kindergarten/School/Army. Work used to be a place where we could somehow have this experience, but with introduction of remote work, for those remote, it was one step away from that..

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#344

Post by dt3ft »

manx wrote: post #297

Is anybody else working on alternative social media algorithms? I'm part of a small group who does. We would like to get in touch with others. Or current approach: https://social-protocols.org/social-network/

Quoted from your documentation:

> The only assumptions are that 1) a vote reflects a users intent to give a post more/less attention (see The Law of Attention) and 2) this intent is caused by underlying beliefs that we cannot observe

The assumption #1 is unlikely to hold. People are generally biased. They will not think twice when casting a vote, will act on impulse and if presented with the opportunity, cast a downvote on things they merely dislike, without having read the article they are voting on.

I doubt this will ever change.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#345

Post by akoboldfrying »

idle_zealot wrote: post #307
akoboldfrying wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a for-profit company and they have never tried to hide that. If you know a way to make money from exclusively showing users content that makes them happier, better informed, better rested, etc., then by all means go ahead -- I sincerely wish you the best. But you won't need my good wishes, because you will soon outcompete YouTube and all the rest with your healthy-yet-still-profitable alternative.

It's almost as though basing our society around profit maximization yields negative outcomes. But I'm sure this is just a blip that the Market will correct for.

You're right. I think we should instead base society on theories that pretend that humans are better to each other than we actually really are.

If it turns out that people don't behave as we had hoped, we can always say that the approach that was implemented is not the true approach.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#346

Post by throwaway290 »

gniv wrote: post #296
mbb70 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extreme personalization of the internet/modern life can lead to a feeling of isolation. I recently was on a plane with broken inflight entertainment, so all you could watch was a single movie in lock step with everyone else. When the movie ended, there was a weird sense of camaraderie; "we are all stuck in this tube and we all just sat through that mediocre movie".

I’m surprised people preferred watching the plane movie over whatever they had saved on Netflix on their phone.

Who ever watches Netflix on the phone?

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#347

Post by randomdata »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #208
pavon wrote: post #124

Recently I was thinking about how I am completely out of touch with the culture of younger generations, and was about to laugh it off cause that's how it is with every generation, but then I realized that I don't even know how I would know. In the past if you wanted to know what kids were listening to, you change the radio station to that new loud one you normally skip, or watch that new TV show that people are going…

I was talking to my younger sister (college student) the other day, and she mentioned that she and her friends are very reluctant to post their opinions online, especially under their real names. This was a bit of a surprise to me, because she volunteers for the Democrats and is openly lesbian, so I would have thought her opinions are generally a great match for the current cultural milieu. I think maybe part of the…

> she and her friends are very reluctant to post their opinions online

I'm old, but feel the same reluctance (it slips sometimes; I am only human). Not because I fear any particular reprisal, but because I cannot comprehend that that someone else gives a rat's ass about whatever random firing of neurons happens to be going on in my mind. I certainly couldn't care less about theirs.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#348

Post by ahtihn »

throwaway290 wrote: post #346
gniv wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m surprised people preferred watching the plane movie over whatever they had saved on Netflix on their phone.

Who ever watches Netflix on the phone?

A surprising amount of (generally young) people on public transport.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#349

Post by anileated »

steveBK123 wrote: post #16
steveBK123 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would agree. Some old school journalists from NYT wrote about that phenomenon. Colleagues doing a lot of stories that were basically the groupthink of their friend group or what they saw on Twitter. Part of it is economics/incentives leading journalists to have to churn out a lot of content. Part of it is laziness as it's a lot easier than going out into the field and actually talking to people.

One sourcing was this interview with NYT publisher - https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/a... From this part: Are you saying that’s changed? That reporters are just sitting in rooms in front of a screen? I don’t think that’s the case. Of course it’s the case! It’s the least talked-about and most insidious result of the collapse of the business model that historically supported quality journalis…

In the day when a lot happens online, purely sitting in front of a screen it’s possible to produce excellent and deep investigative stories. You do own open-source intelligence, you interview sources, etc., all while in front of the screen. Bellingcat does it on a regular basis, for example. You do not need to step out of your room to spot lies and discrepancies.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#350

Post by Tade0 »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #345
idle_zealot wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost as though basing our society around profit maximization yields negative outcomes. But I'm sure this is just a blip that the Market will correct for.

You're right. I think we should instead base society on theories that pretend that humans are better to each other than we actually really are. If it turns out that people don't behave as we had hoped, we can always say that the approach that was implemented is not the true approach.

Or we could collectively ask ourselves what we want and do that, instead of leaving the decision to the most selfish of our kind. That was never a good system to begin with.
Post reply on HN