Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#11

Post by SonOfLilit » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 11:38 AM UTC

feral wrote: post #7

Tech design choices can have profound social impact. This is just a personal theory, but I suspect Twitter's choices have done huge damage to Western Civilization, by forcing, as a medium, a very short 'soundbite' structure onto debate. (Even more so than the media which gave us the term 'soundbite' ever did!) So that sounds like a very overblown assertion, right? But think about Trump. Twitter is his platform, and a…

Is it Twitter's choices, or society's choice to use Twitter?

i.e. do you think Twitter would have reached the status of presidential communication platform had it not made this choice?

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#12

Post by feral » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 11:46 AM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #10

feral wrote: post #7

Tech design choices can have profound social impact. This is just a personal theory, but I suspect Twitter's choices have done huge damage to Western Civilization, by forcing, as a medium, a very short 'soundbite' structure onto debate. (Even more so than the media which gave us the term 'soundbite' ever did!) So that sounds like a very overblown assertion, right? But think about Trump. Twitter is his platform, and a…

I'm not sure if you're trying to make a point with a misspelling, but the term the media gave us was 'soundbite'.

Fixed, thanks. Someone should comment about how autocorrect is destroying our civilization :)

(I love autocorrect which I think enables us to concentrate more on meaning of communication than mechanics - occasional errors aside!)

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#13

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 11:46 AM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #10

feral wrote: post #7

Tech design choices can have profound social impact. This is just a personal theory, but I suspect Twitter's choices have done huge damage to Western Civilization, by forcing, as a medium, a very short 'soundbite' structure onto debate. (Even more so than the media which gave us the term 'soundbite' ever did!) So that sounds like a very overblown assertion, right? But think about Trump. Twitter is his platform, and a…

I'm not sure if you're trying to make a point with a misspelling, but the term the media gave us was 'soundbite'.

[deleted]

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#14

Post by dudul » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 11:48 AM UTC

feral wrote: post #7

Tech design choices can have profound social impact. This is just a personal theory, but I suspect Twitter's choices have done huge damage to Western Civilization, by forcing, as a medium, a very short 'soundbite' structure onto debate. (Even more so than the media which gave us the term 'soundbite' ever did!) So that sounds like a very overblown assertion, right? But think about Trump. Twitter is his platform, and a…

No needs to play the Trump card IMO. The minute politicians started using Twitter to describe their policy you could tell it was over. And it happened way before Trump.

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#15

Post by Radim » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 11:51 AM UTC

moxious wrote: post #3

Well the fundamental chosen limitations of the service seem to make it a bad choice for detailed technical arguments. But ultimately social networks are just about who is there. We talk about technical topics on twitter not because it's the right forum, but because the people we want to talk to are there.

I think you hit the nail on the head there.

This is also what makes "social networks" so frustrating to technical people: it's not about your idea or even its execution. Rather, it's about how many other apes you've groomed in the past, to the point they'll back you up ("retweet") no matter how stupid your argument or insipid your tweet. The politics of it, tribalism.

A 140 character limit doesn't help of course :-) but the need for soundbites, a shared communication channel for quickly correcting/reinforcing our perception of reality, goes much deeper than that. Twitter is just a medium.

Where it gets interesting is when you consider why human group-think and "shared" perception of reality has been so successful, in evolutionary terms. Why are apes not simply rational animals, instead of spending so much energy forever climbing social ladders and adoring celebrities? Why these complex super-human social hierarchies (religions included), what makes them so efficient?

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#16

Post by feral » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 11:53 AM UTC

SonOfLilit wrote: post #11

feral wrote: post #7

Tech design choices can have profound social impact. This is just a personal theory, but I suspect Twitter's choices have done huge damage to Western Civilization, by forcing, as a medium, a very short 'soundbite' structure onto debate. (Even more so than the media which gave us the term 'soundbite' ever did!) So that sounds like a very overblown assertion, right? But think about Trump. Twitter is his platform, and a…

Is it Twitter's choices, or society's choice to use Twitter? i.e. do you think Twitter would have reached the status of presidential communication platform had it not made this choice?

It's a fair question. I don't know.

But the causal ordering here shouldn't change how we feel about Twitter.

As an analogy, it's a bit like if you have a candidate running on a racist platform in an election.

Maybe you can validly ask whether they are causing racism or whether the racism is causing them; but either way you shouldn't vote for them.

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#17

Post by agentgt » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 11:56 AM UTC

For service consistency we have been experimenting with the CV which is the standard deviation over the mean (with of course 99% as well being looked at).

I told someone we were looking at it and I too got a similar response.

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#18

Post by nindalf » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 11:57 AM UTC

SonOfLilit wrote: post #11

feral wrote: post #7

Tech design choices can have profound social impact. This is just a personal theory, but I suspect Twitter's choices have done huge damage to Western Civilization, by forcing, as a medium, a very short 'soundbite' structure onto debate. (Even more so than the media which gave us the term 'soundbite' ever did!) So that sounds like a very overblown assertion, right? But think about Trump. Twitter is his platform, and a…

Is it Twitter's choices, or society's choice to use Twitter? i.e. do you think Twitter would have reached the status of presidential communication platform had it not made this choice?

Twitter did what was good for Twitter - becoming fun, addictive and compelling to use. People made a choice to use that compelling product. These choices worked out well for Twitter, but according to the GP, not well for the users, who unknowingly hurt their society.

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#19

Post by kakarot » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 12:03 PM UTC

feral wrote: post #7

Tech design choices can have profound social impact. This is just a personal theory, but I suspect Twitter's choices have done huge damage to Western Civilization, by forcing, as a medium, a very short 'soundbite' structure onto debate. (Even more so than the media which gave us the term 'soundbite' ever did!) So that sounds like a very overblown assertion, right? But think about Trump. Twitter is his platform, and a…

Consider an alternate perspective:

There were other platforms that opted for a longer format. Yet Twitter became popular.

Perhaps the reality is that, had Twitter opted for a longer format, another platform would have taken its place.

Twitter may not be the cause of societal aversion to meaningful, dense discourse, but a symptom.

Re: Why I can’t have conversations using Twitter (2014)

#20

Post by tnone » Sat, Jul 15, 2017, 12:08 PM UTC

kakarot wrote: post #19

feral wrote: post #7

Tech design choices can have profound social impact. This is just a personal theory, but I suspect Twitter's choices have done huge damage to Western Civilization, by forcing, as a medium, a very short 'soundbite' structure onto debate. (Even more so than the media which gave us the term 'soundbite' ever did!) So that sounds like a very overblown assertion, right? But think about Trump. Twitter is his platform, and a…

Consider an alternate perspective: There were other platforms that opted for a longer format. Yet Twitter became popular. Perhaps the reality is that, had Twitter opted for a longer format, another platform would have taken its place. Twitter may not be the cause of societal aversion to meaningful, dense discourse, but a symptom.

If Twitter had been preceded by a platform like it, but with longer character length, do you think people would switch to Twitter? I don't think so.

We actually have a case to compare to due to the curiosity of language: Japanese twitter. They can fit much longer ideas in 140 characters. It is a much saner place, and there is no shorter service leeching users.

It's far more likely that what keeps Twitter going is the social network of the existing user base and the vendor lock in of its APIs.