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The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

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Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#101

Post by DoreenMichele »

eksemplar wrote: post #97
watwut wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, this is also how elite enables those who abuse power as long as those mistreated are not part of elite. This how and why bullies and abusers keep and gain powerful positions. This is how sexual assault becomes sex scandal and this is why Jerry Sandusky could abuse so many boys. This is how outright self-serving lies become part of consensus. This works the way you described because those people have li…

I think it’s the last bit. That people don’t participate. I can’t remeber how many hearings we’ve done on changes that got nothing but crackpot replies because no regular folks want to spend time participating in the society they live in anymore. Only in one area do people actually take action, schools. If we close down a school, for various reasons but typically efficiency (money), parents will open a new private sc…

A few thoughts:

The elites are in the best position to come up with time and energy to participate in things. They are also the most likely to have the knowledge needed to participate effectively.

I participated in some online forums while openly homeless. Classism is a thing and it's quite hard to combat that. When the non-elites try to participate in such processes and don't know how and won't be given the same respect they are expected to give to their "betters" etc, it can easily wind up being a waste of time for them.

Similar to the idea of "never attribute to malice that which is best explained by stupidity," a lot of people simply don't have solutions. Period. Regardless of their social class, background, etc. If no one knows a better answer, more people participating doesn't necessarily improve the outcome.

I'm off the street. I'm tired of being poor. I'm working on improving my life. While homeless, I kind of had the luxury of being outside the system and relatively free to piss on it at will and criticize it liberally.

I'm currently wrestling with the question of whether or not my supposed high morals can actually survive intact if I get connected and get money and power and influence.

I don't know the answer to that. I have been badly used and mistreated by needy people while my life was in the toilet because I was apparently the only hope they had of getting their needs met. I'm quite angry about that.

Maybe the answer is my supposed high morals really just make me a chump and that's it. Maybe choosing to not be a chump and choosing to line my own damn pockets at long last means me and my bleeding heart tendencies have to part company.

Which is some attempt at saying "Maybe participating in The System is what makes you a bad person." Possibly not a very effective means of voicing what I'm trying to get at.

Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#102

Post by notacoward »

freshwaters wrote: post #38

The most alarming part of the article for me was the reference to climate change and its impending consequences. I I may say I've been living under quite a rock for I hadn't thought of it as mentioned here in this paragraph: " The book’s most fascinating and disturbing chapter is about how the Internet, the primary vector of information about climate change, is increasingly a vector of the problem itself. The world’s…

> The world’s data centers already have roughly the same carbon footprint as the global aviation industry

While this is true, it does need to be put into perspective. People's appetite for computing isn't likely to go away. A thousand people sharing a compute resource in the cloud might be more efficient than those same thousand people each having to do those same computations on bigger beefier machines in their homes. One of the reasons laptops can be so small nowadays is that they're doing less locally; that's explicitly part of the strategy e.g. for Chromebooks, or for Adobe's Creative Cloud. Also, our connectedness through those data centers sometimes saves energy by allowing people to work from home instead of commuting.

So yes, there is a problem with the energy cost of computing, but using data-center consumption as a proxy for that is a bit like using increased wind/solar energy production as a proxy for excess overall energy use. The problem is on the demand side. The suppliers are often doing the best they can, and an increase in a particular supply segment might sometimes be a good sign.

Of course, I'm biased, because my day job involves making the storage part of data centers work more efficiently.

Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#103

Post by matklnz »

krapp wrote: post #89
matklnz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the job of a journalist... to create controversies where there are none. To divide society to get you hooked on news.

> But that's the job of a journalist... to create controversies where there are none. To divide society to get you hooked on news. Is it, though? Does every journalist really "create controversies where there are none?" Is every news story really an attempt to "divide society to get you hooked on news?" Do you also believe meteorologists gin up their weather forecasts with storms for better ratings? Don't confuse cyn…

>Does every journalist really "create controversies where there are none?"

Yes.

>Is every news story really an attempt to "divide society to get you hooked on news?"

Maybe not every, but yes. Not only to get you hooked on news, also to advance certain political ideas which depend on the journalist/medium.

>Do you also believe meteorologists gin up their weather forecasts with storms for better ratings?

I do. I'm not saying they make up storms, but they could very well make things look more grave than they are so people listen to them.

Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#104

Post by eksemplar »

saiya-jin wrote: post #61
eksemplar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people I know with twitter accounts are journalists. One friend in particular has a hard time understanding how you can function without twitter. I tried using it, like most people, but when you work a job that doesn’t involve trolling the internet for news, it’s really hard to use twitter in any meaningful manner. You’ll post something and a few days later you’ll have time to post a reply. Or you’ll follow…

Same here, never jumped the wagon and for a rather introvert person like me, it seems a bit absurd concept to begin with. Extroverts must be having a blast, but who cares about them. I don't know a single person around me who is active there. As an IT guy. Maybe its more of an US thing? I understand it in context of professionals using it as their free sales/promotion channel (Trump, Cardashians or whoever is in vogu…

I’m an extrovert, I’ll never pick digital communication above face-face.

If we’re talking personality types I think it has more to do with people who are motivated by acceptance. I get that part of it, and I understand why the social media gurus and journalists are there, it’s basically their linked-in. (Which is basically management porn).

What I don’t get is why regular people join. I mean, I’m a manager, I play the “look-at-me” game on linked-in, in fact it’s part of my damn job to sell our stories to other managers - but I wouldn’t expect my neighbor to want to read about our approach to behavioral design and I’ve frankly never used it in any manner that wasn’t job-related either.

Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#105

Post by notacoward »

intended wrote: post #13

in the 90s, I read about how religious extremists in certain countries were targeting moderates. This seemed very odd at the time, because the moderate position just seemed the normal sensible person position. Over time though, moderate preachers were singled out, and in some cases killed, because they didn’t take a stand. This created a chilling effect. Coupled with incendiary and emotional images (“look at these pi…

To eliminate, first isolate. Dropping off social media only helps to isolate the groups being targeted there, much like walking away IRL. Using social media to challenge or balance out the misinformation is much more supportive of marginalized groups.

Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#106

Post by Sharper »

eksemplar wrote: post #99
pjc50 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't use twitter for general news. Mute the news sources if you have to. If it's big enough it will bleed over into your feed anyway. Often I can work out what the news is by reverse-engineering the jokes about it. It's much more interesting for highly specific news. I've got some accounts I follow for local news, some for gamedev news, people doing interesting tech, art, jokes, and a few "commentators" who are exce…

HN is my only form of digital news, so I’m a little old school. In fact the only news I read regularly is a national paper that only comes out once a week, that way all the journalists have had time to digest the weeks events and I get a compiled list of what was actually important. I tried following HN styled things on twitter but it just never worked out for me.

What's the name of that weekly paper, if you don't mind sharing?

Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#107

Post by orhmeh09 »

krapp wrote: post #89
matklnz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the job of a journalist... to create controversies where there are none. To divide society to get you hooked on news.

> But that's the job of a journalist... to create controversies where there are none. To divide society to get you hooked on news. Is it, though? Does every journalist really "create controversies where there are none?" Is every news story really an attempt to "divide society to get you hooked on news?" Do you also believe meteorologists gin up their weather forecasts with storms for better ratings? Don't confuse cyn…

Regarding meteorologists “ginning it up”: maybe not to the degree of making storms up, but here’s a recent, widely covered example of sensational reporting: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/09/...

Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#108

Post by eksemplar »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #101
eksemplar wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s the last bit. That people don’t participate. I can’t remeber how many hearings we’ve done on changes that got nothing but crackpot replies because no regular folks want to spend time participating in the society they live in anymore. Only in one area do people actually take action, schools. If we close down a school, for various reasons but typically efficiency (money), parents will open a new private sc…

A few thoughts: The elites are in the best position to come up with time and energy to participate in things. They are also the most likely to have the knowledge needed to participate effectively. I participated in some online forums while openly homeless. Classism is a thing and it's quite hard to combat that. When the non-elites try to participate in such processes and don't know how and won't be given the same res…

Classism is certainly a thing, and that’s unfortunate, but it’s also really hard to deal with people who see in black-and-whites without appearing condescending, because almost everything is extremely complicated.

Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#109

Post by DoreenMichele »

eksemplar wrote: post #108
DoreenMichele wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few thoughts: The elites are in the best position to come up with time and energy to participate in things. They are also the most likely to have the knowledge needed to participate effectively. I participated in some online forums while openly homeless. Classism is a thing and it's quite hard to combat that. When the non-elites try to participate in such processes and don't know how and won't be given the same res…

Classism is certainly a thing, and that’s unfortunate, but it’s also really hard to deal with people who see in black-and-whites without appearing condescending, because almost everything is extremely complicated.

If you are suggesting I see in black and white, you are in error.

Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media

#110

Post by eksemplar »

eksemplar wrote: post #108
DoreenMichele wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few thoughts: The elites are in the best position to come up with time and energy to participate in things. They are also the most likely to have the knowledge needed to participate effectively. I participated in some online forums while openly homeless. Classism is a thing and it's quite hard to combat that. When the non-elites try to participate in such processes and don't know how and won't be given the same res…

Classism is certainly a thing, and that’s unfortunate, but it’s also really hard to deal with people who see in black-and-whites without appearing condescending, because almost everything is extremely complicated.

Am I though? You seem to outline a very black-and-white choice ahead of you, to be good/evil.
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