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Social Cooling – How big data is increasing pressure to conform

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

#171

Post by cirgue »

imhelpingu wrote: post #151
captainmuon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying this for a while: We as a society have to stop taking everything that is said on the internet so fucking seriously. You shouldn't have to think everything perfectly though that you write. It's OK to say something dumb, or even offensive. It's not great, but no big deal either. I don't want to live in a world where we have to polish and double-check every thought that leaves our minds. It used to be t…

People these days act like the internet didn't go just fine for decades without a bunch of wannabe hallway monitors and other officious bullshit.

It was also a widely held belief for decades that the internet was nothing more or less than history's most efficient porn-and-bullshit-machine. Anyone who took seriously what they read online (without verification) in 2005 was rightly regarded as an idiot. I think these two things are connected: people now take the internet seriously as a media delivery platform, and no one has yet figured out how to solve the problem of legitimacy.

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

#174

Post by erikpukinskis »

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.

I think the antidote to this is to be willing to go down with the ship of Truth. If you are saying something that you believe is true, that you believe is as kind as possible, then when you are pilloried, you will be forced to retreat back into the arms of other people who recognize truth and kindness when they see it.

If you neglect the truth, and instead traffic in half truths and innuendos... in the off chance you are pilloried anyway, where will you retreat to?

The world is full of second chances. You may lose your chance at becoming a senator, or a university professor, or somesuch. But there's mostly always another opportunity somewhere. In the internet age, you can eke out a living off of a motley crew of diffuse patrons more easily than ever. You don't need to please everyone the way Walter Kronkite did. You just need to please your core following.

If you accept that you have no entitlement to any particular space or industry or position then it becomes much easier to accept that things might go sideways. It's not the end of the world. Just the end of your story in one slice of it.

... says someone who just wrote a post this morning on HN about the notion that whiteness and masculinity could be associated with brain damage. I may come to regret it. But I think it's worth it, to put up my sail and allow it to be pushed closer to truth.

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

#175

Post by mLuby »

pitt1980 wrote: post #74
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.

Seems like there's an interesting analogy between keeping a startup in stealth mode and keeping your ideas in stealth mode I see it pretty often here, the start up idea in stealth mode mocked (reasonably I think) the advantage of getting feedback on you idea far out weighs the potential disadvantage getting your idea stolen seems like something similar might be going on here, lots of people worry about something they…

The difference is you can dissolve your stealth startup if the feedback is negative enough and form another startup around a different idea.

You can't easily "dissolve" your personal identity if things go south. You'll forever be "that stupid person who say X online" to search engines forever. Unless someone's working on a stealth startup to fix this…

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

#176

Post by elefanten »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #19
f_allwein wrote: post #4

of course, "social credit systems" to rate citizens are already being tested in China: http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21711902-worrying-imp...

>It is planning what it calls a “social-credit system”. This aims to score not only the financial creditworthiness of citizens, as happens everywhere, but also their social and possibly political behaviour. This already exists across the world in the form of credit rating agencies and social media. It's merely an issue of data integration

Except its:

1. Centrally regulated and collected 2. Mandatory 3. Explicitly includes matters of ideology and opinion

So, it's hardly comparable to what is extant under the surface in other countries.

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

#177

Post by vladf »

elefanten wrote: post #170
vladf wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wholeheartedly agree with the linked page (we should encourage this kind of scrutiny in algorithmic judgements). However, where there seems to be disagreement is that an algorithmic judgement is a step forward compared to offline, human judgement. An algorithm has fixed code, and fixed code is traceable and auditable. Yes, it might be hard. Yes, legislation may not be there, but it's possible . Compare this to huma…

Broadly, I agree with you. For discussion's sake, I think the counterargument would be to focus on the scale and culture points. Specifically, 1. The scale means we're applying many more judgments in many more places that would've slid by the human judgment radar. This is arguably dangerous in itself because if we hold judgments to generally be unreliable, we're just adding many more points of unreliability. 2. The c…

To be honest, I don't see how an increase in algorithmic judgments will necessarily lead to a culture where we are more blindly trusting of them. I think it's up in the air, and there are forces working both ways: the more present it is, the more that engineers and policymakers have to think about it, though perhaps end-users will start noticing it less (?). In any case, it seems like those latent forces are to blame, not "big data" in it of itself.

The scale point makes some sense, I'll admit. We're raising volatility in applying potentially-discriminating judgements in the first place. Perhaps indeed it's a tradeoff between the expected boons of algorithmic decision making and their increased risk of discrimination. That said, the scale argument would then not hold for replacing what are currently situations with opaque human judges with robots.

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

#178

Post by jxramos »

wow, this is a huge question and a huge distinction "If they say they don't sell your data, ask if they are selling theirs." I've never even contemplated the ramifications of derived data. Can anyone enlighten the gang about what risks reside along this derived data surface?

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

#179

Post by jxramos »

dalbasal wrote: post #15

Hmmm... There's one side of this which is straightforward. Companies and governments are compiling data for their own purposes, which range from modeling user behaviour to profiling you so that they can sell you stuff or arrest you for dissidence. The lines we previously defended for privacy, freedoms of conscience, affiliation and speech have been disturbed, to say the least. This has generaly been done under the su…

We should start compiling data on the government and turn the tables.

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

#180

Post by snowcrshd »

voidhorse wrote: post #11

I think the creator may be better off conducting a through philosophical investigation in efforts of pinning down the concept. You would be much better off giving full citations to Foucault and Deleuze, and full analysis into the Snowden incident and the fallout rather than a sort of half nod to, what I think, are the foundation beams of this concept. This page kind of assumes the audience is already willing to admit…

That essay sounds really interesting.

How much background knowledge would I need to take advantage of it? I'm utterly ignorant of such matters, but I'm trying figure out how to go about learning this.

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