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Dead Internet Theory

kudmitry.com

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Re: Dead Internet Theory

#191

Post by kimixa »

MarkusQ wrote: post #175
wk_end wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why when the “-“ works just as well and doesn’t require holding the key down? You’re not the first person I’ve seen say that FWIW, but I just don’t recall seeing the full proper em-dash in informal contexts before ChatGPT (not that I was paying attention). I can’t help but wonder if ChatGPT has caused some people - not necessarily you! - to gaslight themselves into believing that they used the em-dash themselves,…

No. En-dash doesn't work "just as well" as an em-dash, anymore than a comma works as an apostrophe. They are different punctuation marks. Also, I was a curmudgeon with strong opinions about punctuation before ChatGPT—heck, even before the internet. And I can produce witnesses.

In British English you'd be wrong for using an em-dash in those places, with most grammar recommendations being for an en-dash, often with spaces.

It's be just as wrong as using an apostrophe instead of a comma.

Grammar is often wooly in a widely used language with no single centralised authority. Many of the "Hard Rules" some people thing are fundamental truths are often more local style guides, and often a lot more recent than some people seem to believe.

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#192

Post by eru »

sheept wrote: post #173
seiferteric wrote: post #116

My parents were tricked the other day by a fake youtube video of "racist cop" doing something bad and getting outraged by it. I watch part of the video and even though it felt off I couldn't immediately tell for sure if it was fake or not. Nevertheless I googled the names and details and found nothing but repostings of the video. Then I looked at the youtube channel info and there it said it uses AI for "some" of the…

a reliable giveaway for AI generated videos is just a quick glance at the account's post history—the videos will look frequent, repetitive, and lack a consistent subject/background—and that's not something that'll go away when AI videos get better

> [...] and lack a consistent subject/background—and that's not something that'll go away when AI videos get better

Why not? Surely you can ask your friendly neighbourhood AI to run a consistent channel for you?

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#193

Post by dang »

kimixa wrote: post #188
makingstuffs wrote: post #120

Think the notion that ‘no one’ uses em dashes is a bit misguided. I’ve personally used them in text for as long as I can remember. Also on the phrase “you’re absolute right”, it’s definitely a phrase my friends and I use a lot, albeit in a sorta of sarcastic manner when one of us says something which is obvious but, nonetheless, we use it. We also tend to use “Well, you’re not wrong” again in a sarcastic manner for s…

As a brit I'd say we tend to use "en-dashes", slightly shorter versions - so more similar to a hyphen and so often typed like that - with spaces either side. I never saw em-dashes—the longer version with no space—outside of published books and now AI.

The en-dash is also highly worthy!

Just to say, though, we em-dashers do have pre-GPT receipts:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46673869

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#194

Post by swader999 »

I think the Internet died long before 2016. It started with the profile, learning about the users, giving them back what they wanted. Then advertising amplified it. 1998 or 99 I'm guessing.

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#195

Post by dang »

mrbluecoat wrote: post #108

So interesting this is right next to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46673809 on the HN homepage. Really demonstrates how polarizing AI is.

Thanks for pointing that out, because I hadn't see it getting flagged and I don't think that's fair. Fixed now.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46674621 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46673930 are the top comments and that's about as good as HN gets.

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#196

Post by eru »

kimixa wrote: post #188
makingstuffs wrote: post #120

Think the notion that ‘no one’ uses em dashes is a bit misguided. I’ve personally used them in text for as long as I can remember. Also on the phrase “you’re absolute right”, it’s definitely a phrase my friends and I use a lot, albeit in a sorta of sarcastic manner when one of us says something which is obvious but, nonetheless, we use it. We also tend to use “Well, you’re not wrong” again in a sarcastic manner for s…

As a brit I'd say we tend to use "en-dashes", slightly shorter versions - so more similar to a hyphen and so often typed like that - with spaces either side. I never saw em-dashes—the longer version with no space—outside of published books and now AI.

It's also easy to get them in LaTeX: just type --- and they will appear as an em-dash in your output.

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#197

Post by fragmede »

wincy wrote: post #119
skwee357 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That I'm a real human being that is stupid in English sometimes? :)

I knew it was real as soon as I read “I stared to see a pattern”, which is funny now I find weird little non spellcheck mistakes endearing since they stamp “oh this is an actual human” on the work

Or the user has "ChatGPT, add random misspellings so it looks like a human wrote this" in their system config.

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#198

Post by rmunn »

fuzzer371 wrote: post #181
fsckboy wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that sounds like one of the worst heuristics I've ever heard, worse than "em-dash=ai" (em-dash equals ai to the illiterate class, who don't know what they are talking about on any subject and who also don't use em-dashes, but literate people do use em-dashes and also know what they are talking about. this is called the Dunning-Em-Dash Effect, where "dunning" refers to the payback of intellectual deficit whereas the i…

No one uses em dashes

Except for Emily Dickenson, who is an outlier and should not be counted.

Seriously, she used dashes all the time. Here is a direct copy and paste of the first two stanzas of her poem "Because I count not stop for Death" from the first source I found, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47652/because-i-could...

  Because I could not stop for Death –
  He kindly stopped for me –
  The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
  And Immortality.

  We slowly drove – He knew no haste
  And I had put away
  My labor and my leisure too,
  For His Civility –
Her dashes have been rendered as en dashes in this particular case rather than em dashes, but unless you're a typography enthusiast you might not notice the difference (I certainly didn't and thought they were em dashes at first). I would bet if I hunted I would find some places where her poems have been transcribed with em dashes. (It's what I would have typed if I were transcribing them).

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#199

Post by Avicebron »

GMoromisato wrote: post #166
callc wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I’ve been thinking about the text form of communication, and how it plays with our psychology. In no particular order here’s what I think: 1. Text is a very compressed / low information method of communication. 2. Text inherently has some “authority” and “validity”, because: 3. We’ve grown up to internalize that text is written by a human. Someone spend the effort to think and write down their thoughts, and…

This is absolutely why LLMs are so disruptive. It used to be that a long, written paper was like a proof-of-work that the author thought about the problem. Now that connection is broken. One consequence, IMHO, is that we won't value long papers anymore. Instead, we will want very dense, high-bandwidth writing that the author stakes consequences (monetary, reputational, etc.) on its validity.

The Methyl 4-methylpyrrole-2-carboxylate vs ∂²ψ/∂t² = c²∇²ψ distinction. My bet is on Methyl 4-methylpyrrole-2-carboxylate being more actionable. For better or worse.

Re: Dead Internet Theory

#200

Post by crimony »

fuzzer371 wrote: post #181
fsckboy wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that sounds like one of the worst heuristics I've ever heard, worse than "em-dash=ai" (em-dash equals ai to the illiterate class, who don't know what they are talking about on any subject and who also don't use em-dashes, but literate people do use em-dashes and also know what they are talking about. this is called the Dunning-Em-Dash Effect, where "dunning" refers to the payback of intellectual deficit whereas the i…

No one uses em dashes

Microsoft Word automatically converts dashes to em dashes as soon as you hit space at the end of the next word after the dash.
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