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Social Cooling (2017)

socialcooling.com

91–100 of 299 posts

Re: Social Cooling (2017)

#91
post #83

This idea is old, but today it conveys a much bigger meaning. There are two new developments since then that are very scary. The first is that artificial intelligence is supposedly replacing some jobs, but not only that, it is also being used to select jobs, and the latter is something that I have seen firsthand. The other phenomenon is the advance, in places of the world that classically were liberal, of political i…

Don't forget AI being used to replace friends. AI being used for validation in place of a varied social group is scarier than anything I see on the jobs market.

Asking ChatGPT if breaking up with your girlfriend is a good idea or not? Terrifying. People should be using human networks of friends as a sounding board and support network.

What happens next?

Re: Social Cooling (2017)

#92
I'm more concerned about the fact I have no idea if the article and the HN comments are all AI generated or not. Can you tell if this comment is AI or not?

What happens when social discourse is polluted by noise that is identical to signal?

Is there anyone else out there?

Re: Social Cooling (2017)

#93

That's been featured several times on HN. I feel both bad and good about the concept of "social cooling." It's nothing new. Societal pressure is as old as humanity. Pressure to conform, to be "one with the herd," is basically built into our DNA. Constant surveillance is simply a new feature of an old pattern. If anyone has ever read Jane Austen, they know about societal pressure, and how real the stakes can be. Peopl…

It worries me that "the herd" is not anyone I know in person, not anyone I respect, not anyone who loves me, but an abstraction that helps someone else make money, or helps someone else win an election. I think that is an obvious bad thing. It is one thing to say like "I won't call my friends' political beliefs stupid when we're hanging out" versus "If I want to criticize my government, I should use a ULID and not my…

> If I want to criticize my government, I should use a ULID and not my legal name.

Oh, hell, that's even older.

Criticizing the government has always been fraught. The founders of the United States signed their death warrants, when they signed the Declaration.

Re: Social Cooling (2017)

#94

I'm more concerned about the fact I have no idea if the article and the HN comments are all AI generated or not. Can you tell if this comment is AI or not? What happens when social discourse is polluted by noise that is identical to signal? Is there anyone else out there?

The Matrix has you

Re: Social Cooling (2017)

#95
post #52

Not using the hellscape of modern social media solves the problem, no?

I dont know? does non participation now flag you as a problem person? (playing devils advocate: i dont participate in any social media besides HN)

No? Most of my peers don’t participate in social media anymore. I know few people who post online on almost any platforms outside of group chats.

Re: Social Cooling (2017)

#96
post #79
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that the fact people have had to self-censor when they held "conservative" views instead of engaging in public discourse without being villified is why they had to turn to someone like Trump when they were handing in their ballots. If they felt safe, perhaps more of them would have appreciated the other side's arguments (and vice versa, obviously). Is that what you meant? Or why did self-censorship help g…

Oh. What conservative views are those?

[deleted]

Re: Social Cooling (2017)

#97
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is really hard to extrapolate from single examples. My first two years were a little like that. Then I had to repeat a school year, got in the nicest class imaginable and had five incredibly fun years that I look back at with a lot of fondness. Having a kid myself, I think life is much worse now. There is the constant unconscious fear of getting filmed, etc. It was much easier for my generation to just exp…

> Having a kid myself, I think life is much worse now. There is the constant unconscious fear of getting filmed, etc. It was much easier for my generation to just experiment, do stupid stuff, etc., you know being a child/teenager, without the fear of repercussions. I don't know what generation you belong to, but I was still in school when mobile phones that could record video became "good enough" that most of my peer…

I don't know what generation you belong to, but I was still in school when mobile phones that could record video became "good enough" that most of my peers in school had them, today I'm ~33.

Ten years older. I'm from West-Europe and most people only got dumbphones around the time I was 18-19 (~2000 and mostly adults or 17-18 year olds). Phones with cameras became widespread quite a few years later. Even when I got an iPhone in 2009, most people were still using good old dumbphone/feature phone Nokias. After 2009 it changed very quickly. I think that aligns with you being 10 years younger + adoption in the US (assuming that you are in the US) being earlier.

Phones were simply not a factor when I was in high school. If you had to call someone on-the-go, you would use one of the many public phone booths and a pre-charged card (there were always rumors that you could spay them with hairspray to get unlimited credit :D). But that almost never happened, you'd mostly just meet people IRL if you wanted to socialize.

Re: Social Cooling (2017)

#99
post #74

The social credit score doesn't exist in China. There were attempts in some cities with very restricted scopes but they were phased out. On the other hand, in Europe and with the coming chat control regulations, these systems will likely emerge in the West.

Perhaps you can explain something then, since you appear to be knowledgeable on this matter. On this[1] eBay item from a seller based in China, under their "Seller business information", they list UNIFIED_SOCIAL_CREDIT_CODE: 91440300MA5ED70C7X .. what is that exactly, if social credit score does not exist? [1] https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305629164114

Nice, the format is even documented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Social_Credit_Identifi...

Re: Social Cooling (2017)

#100
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having a kid myself, I think life is much worse now. There is the constant unconscious fear of getting filmed, etc. It was much easier for my generation to just experiment, do stupid stuff, etc., you know being a child/teenager, without the fear of repercussions. I don't know what generation you belong to, but I was still in school when mobile phones that could record video became "good enough" that most of my peer…

I don't know what generation you belong to, but I was still in school when mobile phones that could record video became "good enough" that most of my peers in school had them, today I'm ~33. Ten years older. I'm from West-Europe and most people only got dumbphones around the time I was 18-19 (~2000 and mostly adults or 17-18 year olds). Phones with cameras became widespread quite a few years later. Even when I got an…

I think where I grew up (Sweden) it started with the Sony Ericsson "Walkman" family of phones that could record 320×240 videos I think or something like that, and I think I was around 15 when they became almost ubiquitous at school, so must have been around 2006/2007.
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