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The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

stephendiehl.com

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Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#321

Post by 6510 »

This is nothing new and we can start paddling the boat in the other direction whenever you are ready. Expect it to take quite a bit of work and the earnings to be disappointing or worse.

The worse setbacks/shortcommings are probably:

1) removing promotional signatures from comments. This made it not worth your professional time writing a comment. It should also be a mechanism for raising the bar for quality comments. If there is a product or service behind your sig and it is bullshit or overpriced you need to deliver high quality well researched content. In contrast if you are a full time FOSS communist (joking) you get to misbehave all you like.

2) failure to make RSS mainstream. There are some services but few really know how to use RSS: The user needs to start with tens of thousands of subs then delete everything they don't like (dozens of items in a single click) and do keyword filtering. Some LLM to combine similar topics. I quickly slap this together many years ago.

https://salamisushi.go-here.nl

It's a pretty dumb script. All it does is gather the RSS/Atom feed from all websites you visit. I imagined that would produce a pile of rubbish but it turns out the websites one visits are surprisingly interesting. It shouldn't be a surprise but it is very.

RSS should be a constantly moving inbox with new stuff arriving non stop.

3) torrents should be expanded. Applications should really talk with a central torrent client to download all kinds of interesting things. Lets make an offline internet with online characteristics.

4) what I call "force the pattern", at least some people know how to do a things from step A to Z. With software you don't need to know, just follow the steps. The thing here shouldn't be to exploit the user. People should be made to do useful things for themselves. They think they want endorphin but what they really want is to find a partner, a community, a school, a job, a house, a car and perhaps a country. To learn how to sail the seven seas and how to use all parts of the buffalo.

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#322

Post by chrisyeh »

aureate wrote: post #90

This reads to as pure AI slop to me, and Pangram agrees (100% AI). To use one of the idioms that give this impression, this is not just knee-jerk whining. It's material to what the article is about. If you're going to raise this topic, be a human and say something constructive. An AI generated ragebait whinge about ragebait is ragebait squared with a heaped serving of hypocrisy on top. This exemplifies everything it…

I ran the same check, and was saddened, because I agree with his point of view, and generally enjoyed the article. But partway through, the "this sounds like AI" alarm went off in my head. Using AI to write an article criticizing the use of AI, and worse, not disclosing it, is distasteful. Especially since Stephen Diehl was writing long before ChatGPT emerged (with blog posts dating back to 2013). That someone could write but chooses not to somehow makes it worse.

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#323

Post by chrisyeh »

chrisyeh wrote: post #322
aureate wrote: post #90

This reads to as pure AI slop to me, and Pangram agrees (100% AI). To use one of the idioms that give this impression, this is not just knee-jerk whining. It's material to what the article is about. If you're going to raise this topic, be a human and say something constructive. An AI generated ragebait whinge about ragebait is ragebait squared with a heaped serving of hypocrisy on top. This exemplifies everything it…

I ran the same check, and was saddened, because I agree with his point of view, and generally enjoyed the article. But partway through, the "this sounds like AI" alarm went off in my head. Using AI to write an article criticizing the use of AI, and worse, not disclosing it, is distasteful. Especially since Stephen Diehl was writing long before ChatGPT emerged (with blog posts dating back to 2013). That someone could…

Oh yeah, I also ran a Pangram check of his Gamestop post from 2021 (similar topic and theme) and it came up as 100% human-written, so it is less likely that this is a case of Pangram penalizing a human being for having a specific writing style. Here is the URL: https://www.stephendiehl.com/posts/gamestop/

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#324

Post by pojzon »

noir_lord wrote: post #63
stillpointlab wrote: post #31

One thing people go through as they age is an elevation of cynicism and general misanthropy. After decades of being disappointed when naive idealism and speculative optimism fail, one can just get down on it all. It is really hard not to succumb to this. It requires active effort and sometimes even a willful ignorance. "turn a blind eye" is the idiom here. Monty Python's "Always look on the bright side of life" kind…

I think that's why historical education is so important (or just liking history as in my case), looked through the lens of history all of the current shit as bad as it is, is really nothing all that new either, the only constant is change after all. As the aphorism goes: History may not repeat but it sure does rhyme.

Funny analogy. “The only constant is change”. Thats why humans constantly repeat the same mistakes we covered and wrote about in last 3000 years.

The pace of learning for our spieces is devastatingly slow. We rather regress faster than learn.

We are closer to idiocracy, due to knowledge and skills atrophy (not only due to AI).

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#325

Post by suttontom »

card_zero wrote: post #300
suttontom wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"B-b-but this really is new!" The USA did have a Civil War. It was so violent that it killed more Americans than all other wars combined.

Message unclear. You're saying the USA is an old hand at civil wars now and could do another one any time, no problem? Or perhaps I shouldn't look for a message.

I misconstrued "new" with "this is the worst it's ever been."

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#326

Post by wseqyrku »

seydor wrote: post #146

In a previous generation, people would detect those technological snake oil sellers , call them out , even chase them. Because they could tell scammers from non-scammers. Now we have already 2-3 generations raised to consider scam practices to be the norm , and even to celebrate behavioral tricks and audience maximizing optimization at any cost (clickbait!). I cannot be convinced this is a normal thing. Over time, th…

I have developed this clickbait allergy that I just won't read an article if the title doesn't adequately describe the post even if I'm interested. If it ends with ellipsis you don't even need to read the title (yes, it's almost always intentional).

There is probably a catalog of dark-patterns for the titles somewhere, but you can usually tell.

If you (try to) read the news you can get good at it very fast. It's amazing how they twist and bend words together to leave an effect on you even if you are just scrolling.

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#327

Post by wseqyrku »

inigyou wrote: post #163
dweekly wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last thing my father said to me before he passed was to keep people looking forward to the future. It's easy to romanticize the past and it can seem intellectually sophisticated to despair about the future, when in fact the overwhelming evidence is that things have gotten much much better for nearly everyone on just about any objective axis you can pick.

Except they haven't.

Tech has gotten better, but people yeah, downward spiral to the bottom of hell, sadly. Hard to be not a cynic these days.

Re: The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now

#329

Post by varispeed »

inigyou wrote: post #183
varispeed wrote: post #148

I think part of it is due to corrupt government regulating internet as if only Facebooks and Reddits were on the market. It destroyed niche forums and made the place less democratised. Today you cannot just rent a server and start a forum without massive financial backing and therapist on speed dial.

Did you know that if you just run a forum you don't go to jail for that? First the police have to notice you in a negative light for any reason, and second they have to bother to do something about it, and thirdly their first interaction with you is more likely to be "oi! stop doing that!" than anything else. What killed them isn't the law, it was firstly centralisation pressure, and secondly our own paranoia about t…

Cool story bro
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