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Agnes Callard’s theory of the uni-context

derekthompson.org

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Re: Agnes Callard’s theory of the uni-context

#81

Post by DaveZale »

dredmorbius wrote: post #73
DaveZale wrote: post #18

I've been watching both the corporate media, and social media, rot completely over the past 30 years. A large part of that was that early adopters tended to be more educated, played nicely, and were not involved in attention-seeking, sychophancy, and often, escapism. Another factor is the bright colors, moving videos and other eye candy, and psychological hacks like the emojis for "liking" and gaining "followers" whi…

Agree strongly with your first factor. Early adopters often (though not always) self-select for higher-level interaction. This has been true of media dating back to cuneiform. A third factor addressing 21st century media rot is the absolute dependence on advertising, and the demonitisation of earlier ad-supported formats (print newspapers, print magazines, radio, television, and increasingly non-social-media online p…

Sure, Germany has excellent journalism. I visit dw.com often. derspiegel has very in-depth quality journalism too. And many others surely exist, I just don't know about them.

100% agree about the personalization of news topics and stories. When I look at my spouse's newsfeed in the evening (she uses yahoo) I remark to her "that's clickbait" and get a relatively violent reaction. "Relatively" because normally she is very pleasant. But tailoring the media to past viewing history is potentially very dangerous. In the wrong hands, the news feed could be tweaked just a little bit, day by day, week by week, to enable or worsen certain biases. And surely, we see some of this daily already. Why else would billionaires purchase large US media companies?

The best guidance I've seen to have a well balanced view of world news, is to use several independent sources globally. Do not rely upon "newsfeeds" (doesn't it suggest that we are cattle in a way?), don't spend too much time in any one place, use a variety of search engines to confirm or disprove questionable conclusions, and try to read print books by reputable authors on topics that really fascinate us.

Nassim Talib offered some good advice in his books on the so-called "news" - if you really want to see the value in the news, try to go to the library for a print newspaper, and look at the news from a week ago. Is it really as important to you as the "news" today? Very often, it will seem completely meaningless, ancient history. If that is the case, we are getting something from the information other than the information itself. It's something that has to be tried to learn the lesson.

Advertising? I see very little, using linux with brave browser and various plug ins. When I use google chrome, the results are horrifying. I've used google for 30 years now, but have been de-googling for over a year now. It's been a healthy experience. I don't know what is happening with them. Maybe they abandoned the "don't be evil" prematurely?

Re: Agnes Callard’s theory of the uni-context

#82

Post by inigyou »

np- wrote: post #76
inigyou wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Hitler would fix your plumbing would you give him money, or would you look for another plumber because giving money to Hitler is bad? Now scale that principle down.

But isn’t it actually better for the world if Hitler was to spend all his time fixing plumbing rather than shun people like him from society entirely and give him all the free time and reasons to take action on his vile opinions? After all, a common theory is that if he simply got accepted into art school, the entire world would be different.

Yes, but it's worse for the world if Hitler saves up his plumbing income to fund the Beer Hall Putsch which makes him famous and leads to the Holocaust.

Re: Agnes Callard’s theory of the uni-context

#83

Post by xhevahir »

NostraDavid wrote: post #57

This doesn't seem very compatible with societies that have a Germanic majority as population. _Maybe_ the USA can be the pluriformity that adopts this, but I don't see this as an attractive idea for my society (Netherlands) at large. "Act normal, and you're already acting crazy enough", and all that. I want to be able to discuss taboo ideas in private, without getting globally cancelled for something I that might be…

What about "Germanic" society are you saying is incompatible with this? (English is a Germanic language, by the way.)

Re: Agnes Callard’s theory of the uni-context

#84

Post by inigyou »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #72
resters wrote: post #29

There are some of us (late generation-X / early millennial) who saw this coming and still maintain a variety of separate identities across many domains. I don't know why someone would want to have the same identity in the workplace as on internet forums, for example. Social media appears to have given many people the idea that they ought to cultivate their public identity from an early age as preparation for internet…

Orson Scott Card saw this coming last century and wrote of a character who maintained 2 online personas who became the thought leaders of opposing groups. Some of the late gen-x/millennials who saw this coming may have been inspired to read Endor's Game after seeing the movie

His name was Ender - deliberately, as in Finisher, Destroyer, Finaliser - not Endor

Re: Agnes Callard’s theory of the uni-context

#86

Post by inigyou »

astrobe_ wrote: post #66
thomastjeffery wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately that isn't a solution. When you keep separate identities, the only thing that can exist across platforms is your own participation. Everything you say and do is isolated to whichever identity and platform you are using in that moment. You still don't have the opportunity to exist completely, because your self has been fragmented. Even if you did manage to create a cross-platform identity, the product of…

> your self has been fragmented Unless you are more after acknowledgement than sharing/helping others (and be on the receiving end sometimes), this is non-problem .

it's a huge mental/emotional burden actually. It's really not good for your soul.

Re: Agnes Callard’s theory of the uni-context

#87

Post by inigyou »

xnorswap wrote: post #65
inigyou wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is often because things fall off the internet. Back in the early days, things were added more frequently than they were removed, because there wasn't much to remove. Now, it's reached equilibrium - things are also frequently removed.

That's true of some things, but sometimes there are things that exist, but google no longer reliably surfaces in a way that it once did. Search anything and you are bombarded with unoriginal sites, optimised for SEO, filled with generated rubbish and adverts. There used to be an arms-race between google and SEO spam that Google could keep up with, if not ahead. But it feels like at some point in the past decade, goog…

I feel more like Google combatted SEO spam by using a domain whitelist, which your website will never be on

Re: Agnes Callard’s theory of the uni-context

#88

Post by inigyou »

extr0pian wrote: post #54
tedggh wrote: post #32

I’m in month 5 of not having access to any social network, and although the first weeks I felt tempted to reinstall X and Reddit, I’m at a point where I don’t think I’m ever coming back. There are still great spaces like HN where you can consume content and participate in debates. I do miss some of the fun stuff, but it wasn’t worth being exposed to all the other crap for a few laughs a day.

Is HN not a social network?

HN is social media. Social networks connect you with your friends.

Re: Agnes Callard’s theory of the uni-context

#89

Post by inigyou »

dredmorbius wrote: post #73
DaveZale wrote: post #18

I've been watching both the corporate media, and social media, rot completely over the past 30 years. A large part of that was that early adopters tended to be more educated, played nicely, and were not involved in attention-seeking, sychophancy, and often, escapism. Another factor is the bright colors, moving videos and other eye candy, and psychological hacks like the emojis for "liking" and gaining "followers" whi…

Agree strongly with your first factor. Early adopters often (though not always) self-select for higher-level interaction. This has been true of media dating back to cuneiform. A third factor addressing 21st century media rot is the absolute dependence on advertising, and the demonitisation of earlier ad-supported formats (print newspapers, print magazines, radio, television, and increasingly non-social-media online p…

Metaverse is immune to ad capture because it never got popular enough to have ad interest?

Re: Agnes Callard’s theory of the uni-context

#90

Post by inigyou »

DaveZale wrote: post #81
dredmorbius wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree strongly with your first factor. Early adopters often (though not always) self-select for higher-level interaction. This has been true of media dating back to cuneiform. A third factor addressing 21st century media rot is the absolute dependence on advertising, and the demonitisation of earlier ad-supported formats (print newspapers, print magazines, radio, television, and increasingly non-social-media online p…

Sure, Germany has excellent journalism. I visit dw.com often. derspiegel has very in-depth quality journalism too. And many others surely exist, I just don't know about them. 100% agree about the personalization of news topics and stories. When I look at my spouse's newsfeed in the evening (she uses yahoo) I remark to her "that's clickbait" and get a relatively violent reaction. "Relatively" because normally she is v…

One time I accidentally flicked onto German TV - I am not sure which channel - and they were talking about Berlin getting overrun by antisemitic mobs. I looked out my hotel window. No antisemitic mob.

I really don't think they're more reliable than UK or US media.

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