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The sum of all knowledge and the sorry state of the web

christianheilmann.com

111–120 of 187 posts

Re: The sum of all knowledge and the sorry state of the web

#111
post #9
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nowadays, you can just ask about astrology. It's both obviously wrong and socially acceptable to believe in. It filters a solid 30% of the population, at least in my country.

Quoted post unavailable.

The timing of birth does at least slightly influence a child's development through the relative age effect - the oldest kids in each academic year get a few benefits over their peers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_age_effect

Re: The sum of all knowledge and the sorry state of the web

#112
>Ever tried to look up some news from 12 years ago?

I have a better one for you. Ever wondered why it's so hard? Why web protocols have nothing related to archiving? Why web browsers are a hellscape for aggregating information over time in a meaningful way? Why this continues to be true, despite countless Microsoft and Google engineers writing all these heartfelt posts about knowledge?

If your answer is "because it's hard to implement" than you understand nothing.

Re: The sum of all knowledge and the sorry state of the web

#113

IMO the worst side effect of current web of knowledge is what I'd call the illusion of knowledge. When it was more difficult to access and publish information, that imposed a much higher bar on what was being consumed. These days, people watch a 10-minute YouTube video or read a reddit comment or twitter thread and believe (perhaps unconsciously) that makes them knowledgeable in said topic. They will then, in an abso…

What is the most bizarre thing to me about the online zeitgeist is how so many people will allow comments of anonymous or pseudonymous strangers on places like Reddit or Twitter to shape their world view. Including journalists. An extreme or inaccurate view may start on social media and be normalised through repetition on social media and subsequent validation by main stream journalist. In the case of Reddit in parti…

> what is it that gets people to trust anonymous strangers? It is bizarre and seems like a mind virus. If an anonymous stranger tells you what you want to hear then you are apt to ingest it uncritically.

I guess it has something to do with lack of trust in Established Sources of Information—TV, newspapers, experts and other various figures of authority. The biases of the Established Sources has become more apparent over the years, to the point where scepticism, doubt, and even defensive cynicism are fairly common default attitudes when dealing with the information they provide.

The trust in anonymous strangers is, at least in part, the result of them not being Established Sources. It's not a lying politician, or a deceitful news anchor or journalist, it's just another well-meaning regular person like you. That alone makes you more receptive to their message. If their message happens to align with your existing beliefs, even better. Of course, it can get into cultish/conspiracy territory if any of those beliefs are directly opposed to the mainstream narrative.

Re: The sum of all knowledge and the sorry state of the web

#114

>Ever tried to look up some news from 12 years ago? I have a better one for you. Ever wondered why it's so hard? Why web protocols have nothing related to archiving? Why web browsers are a hellscape for aggregating information over time in a meaningful way? Why this continues to be true, despite countless Microsoft and Google engineers writing all these heartfelt posts about knowledge? If your answer is "because it's…

From my admittedly limited understanding, the failure of the semantic web is one of mankind's biggest missed opportunities. Now the knowledge graph is just locked behind Google's neural network layers and only being used for ads.

Re: The sum of all knowledge and the sorry state of the web

#115

Interesting article until: "Use snopes.com to check if the shocking thing you just read is real." Mind baffling that this article could end with this.

Well, if you read something surprising, then you should probably check it somewhere, unless it's trivial. Snopes might be a reasonable first check.

Who fact checks the fact checkers ?

Once you read something totally unreasonable in a fact check, why should you go there as a source of truth anymore?

Wikipedia is probably a better bet - at least you have history of edits and sources.

Re: The sum of all knowledge and the sorry state of the web

#116

>Ever tried to look up some news from 12 years ago? I have a better one for you. Ever wondered why it's so hard? Why web protocols have nothing related to archiving? Why web browsers are a hellscape for aggregating information over time in a meaningful way? Why this continues to be true, despite countless Microsoft and Google engineers writing all these heartfelt posts about knowledge? If your answer is "because it's…

From my admittedly limited understanding, the failure of the semantic web is one of mankind's biggest missed opportunities. Now the knowledge graph is just locked behind Google's neural network layers and only being used for ads.

The idea behind semantic web was inspiring and great, however it required considerable work on the part of people creating stuff for the web and that was never going to happen. Maybe it could have happened in some things like academia based or knowledge based websites, but on the larger scale it was doomed.

Re: The sum of all knowledge and the sorry state of the web

#117
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure you and the author are talking about the same thing. He mentions the fact you can’t even read the news from 10 years ago, the content has simply disappeared. No amount of YouTube videos can replace that. The problem is not “everything, everywhere” or a lack of filters but the extreme commercialization of all content available, closed networks, the short life of URLs…

> No amount of YouTube videos can replace that. The irony here is that Youtube videos from ten years ago are still alive and well. As Youtube makes a much better places for publishing and archiving content than the rest of the Web. With Youtube you don't have to worry about URLs changing or domain names expiring or anything like that. You just publish your video once, get a unique video-id and don't have to worry abo…

> The irony here is that Youtube videos from ten years ago are still alive and well.

Do videos survive account deletion ?

In particular, GDPR has provisions about deleting account info after years of inactivity, and Youtube is apparently not an exception (https://qr.ae/pv9o9j)

So except the chunk of accounts that will stay active for the years to come, a big part of youtube videos should be disappearing progressively.

Re: The sum of all knowledge and the sorry state of the web

#118
post #5

It has never been easier to share knowledge, and thus there has never been a greater time to be curious. Encyclopaedia Britannica is still there, and it's great . But there's also an army of content creators are there to teach you just about anything. If one source doesn't do it, you have more to choose from. Yesterday, I read an article about North Africa that mentioned in passing Qaddafi's underground river. A few…

I’m not sure you and the author are talking about the same thing. He mentions the fact you can’t even read the news from 10 years ago, the content has simply disappeared. No amount of YouTube videos can replace that. The problem is not “everything, everywhere” or a lack of filters but the extreme commercialization of all content available, closed networks, the short life of URLs…

> you can’t even read the news from 10 years ago, the content has simply disappeared

Isn't most of it on the wayback machine?

Re: The sum of all knowledge and the sorry state of the web

#119
post #101

IMO the worst side effect of current web of knowledge is what I'd call the illusion of knowledge. When it was more difficult to access and publish information, that imposed a much higher bar on what was being consumed. These days, people watch a 10-minute YouTube video or read a reddit comment or twitter thread and believe (perhaps unconsciously) that makes them knowledgeable in said topic. They will then, in an abso…

At the same time you see people (mainly young people) learning at a faster pace watching videos.

Not to be snarky, but I 100% need some kind of source for that claim. My experience in higher ed is the literal opposite of that.

Re: The sum of all knowledge and the sorry state of the web

#120
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure you and the author are talking about the same thing. He mentions the fact you can’t even read the news from 10 years ago, the content has simply disappeared. No amount of YouTube videos can replace that. The problem is not “everything, everywhere” or a lack of filters but the extreme commercialization of all content available, closed networks, the short life of URLs…

> No amount of YouTube videos can replace that. The irony here is that Youtube videos from ten years ago are still alive and well. As Youtube makes a much better places for publishing and archiving content than the rest of the Web. With Youtube you don't have to worry about URLs changing or domain names expiring or anything like that. You just publish your video once, get a unique video-id and don't have to worry abo…

>The irony here is that Youtube videos from ten years ago are still alive and well.

Roughly 1/3 of my YouTube bookmarks are dead and most of them are much more recent than 10 years. They purge videos at an alarming rate.

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