Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

socialcooling.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 204 posts

Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#101

Post by voidhorse »

socialcooling wrote: post #72
Mikushi wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All this being stated, ya'll should check out Horkheimer's essay "The Concept of Man." He wrote it in ~1952(might've been 53 or 57, I'm forgetting the exact date)--and it's crazy how prophetic that essay turned out to be. It shows how all our innovation really just led to an amplification of social structures and patterns that were already emerging during the dawn of automation and mechanization. I think it's relev…

I had the same problem.

Sorry--might not be out there as an individual piece--should have mentioned that.

I read it in the Verso edition of Critique of Instrumental Reason

https://www.versobooks.com/books/1138-critique-of-instrument...

Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#102

Post by e9 »

jcadam wrote: post #79
bicubic wrote: post #3

I was going to write at length about my concerns on this topic, and then I decided not to. Because it's entirely possible that one day many years from now, a prospective employer/insurer/whatever finds such a comment and flags me for it. That's the cooling effect in a nutshell.

Definitely. I pretty much keep silent on political/social issues online these days. It's just not worth the risk of being targeted for personal/professional destruction by the internet social outrage machine (Fortunately, we still have secret ballots here in the US, so at least some form of political speech can be engaged in safely).

Sort of, political parties have profiles for most voters based on their public profiles etc, they compile all info and predict your stand on various issues and when those databases leak..... and they do: https://www.upguard.com/breaches/the-rnc-files you are no longer protected, your best bet is to not have public facing anything at this point in time

Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#103

Post by imron »

bottled_poe wrote: post #23
bicubic wrote: post #3

I was going to write at length about my concerns on this topic, and then I decided not to. Because it's entirely possible that one day many years from now, a prospective employer/insurer/whatever finds such a comment and flags me for it. That's the cooling effect in a nutshell.

Future employer can blow me.

Best of luck with your future endeavours James.

Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#104

Post by syphilis2 »

It seems to me we need to write 'privacy in public' into our laws. We've reached a time where government possesses the power to track most citizens simultaneously. Businesses can do the same with everyone they come in contact with, and technology is cheap enough I believe an individual could do a decent job tracking people in his community. We all have to exist in public to some extent, I believe it's reasonable to demand more privacy be extended into public space.

Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#106

Post by barfbuttface »

zebrafish wrote: post #92
bicubic wrote: post #3

I was going to write at length about my concerns on this topic, and then I decided not to. Because it's entirely possible that one day many years from now, a prospective employer/insurer/whatever finds such a comment and flags me for it. That's the cooling effect in a nutshell.

The uniqueness and diversity of individuals will soon be lost as everyone is forced to adopt the socially acceptable opinion or risk being exiled. Think about how many revolutionary ideas started on the fringes of society. Astronomy, America, Civil Rights. The techno-utopia is always portrayed as some society where open mindedness and diversity are embraced. This is the paradox of modern political correctness. If the…

This is likely not going to get through to you because the hivemind blocked my account, but:

It's financially inexpensive to change the minds of people in the techno-utopia. Couple upvotes here, couple shadowbans there.

Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#107

Post by fivestar »

api wrote: post #36
zeteo wrote: post #28

> People are starting to realize that this 'digital reputation' could limit their opportunities. (And that these algorithms are often biased, and built on poor data.) That's interesting of itself, but the bigger underlying issue is that opportunities are becoming more concentrated. When only a few companies dominate hiring in many fields, their mistakes get seriously amplified. Back in the day you were fine if Google…

Worse still-- past employment at the majors is seen as a strong "social proof" indicator by many including other employers and investors. I saw an angel.co drinking game once. I think you had to chug two drinks for "worked at X" (where X is any major) being put forward as the sole qualification of a founder or key early employee. This is starting to edge out "went to X" where X is a top-tier school. China is supposed…

One reason why I think management in the US is so bad is because the entire corpus of managers went to the same few groupthink institutions and that is why they are so bad--no real risk takers, no real anything. It's like that in politics, too. We aren't promoting the right ideals, but merely conformity, risk-aversion, and foregone conclusions accepted as fact.

Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#108

Post by fivestar »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #60
bem94 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's like any other thing in capitalism. You'll have a contingent of folk that won't do the work, based on ethical reasons, and you have folk that will, for financial reasons. That is true, but going on my peers (especially the ones fresh from university), I think a dangerous proportion of people simply aren't aware on any level of the ethical implications of what they do. It's that which worries me.

I don't think I've ever seen as much apathy in a classroom as my fellow CS majors displayed in our society and ethics course.

I can tell just from the postings on HN that SV people need better ethics training.

Re: Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

#110

Post by captainmuon »

This sounds like a self-fulfulling prophecy. Tell people that having data of them out there will change their behavior, and then they'll become aware of that idea, and will change their behavior. If they don't know about the concept, they might not.

You could even say that this page, and people trying to raise awareness for this issue, are harmful!

Imagine a few important people stepping up and saying, no, we will not disadvantage applicants because of their "unprofessional" facebook profiles. In fact, we value authentic, unintimidated people. The act of saying so will make it a little bit so!

We need to shift the blame from people expressing themselves, to those people punishing them for it, or even to people giving well-meaning advice like this.

(Just a crazy thought I just had. Didn't want to be to harsh with the creator, who raises an important discussion.)

Post reply on HN