171–180 of 232 posts
There are roughly two kinds of responses to this article: openly disdainful and partisan, and not openly disdainful and partisan. I find this interesting against the backdrop of the article itself, a microcosmic image of the effect in the HN-sphere. To complete the meta-circle I guess that puts this comment in group 2.
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Really? You genuinely think it's plausible that roughly half of the readers of this blogpost are Trump supporters? I'm really not taking an outlandish stance here... this post will have most of its traffic driven by HackerNews and Reddit, where California is an outsized plurality of the American audience, which went overwhelmingly to Clinton in 2016 (and even more overwhelmingly so in the densest parts of California…
Ask yourself this: how do you know what the average Trump supporter's media diet consists of?
The status quo on healthcare is not an option. Deporting every "illegal" is not an option. Banning Muslims is not an option.
I don't think Trump supporters are un-American, but I think they've forgotten some American values if they continue to support Trump the man. His leadership is the antithesis of America. If you're conservative, that's one thing. To be a Trumpian is to have missed civics class.
As some others have said, a well-thought-out article on the larger scale impacts of the Internet as a new medium of communication - just get past the intro. In the end, it's interesting because it puts together a number of intuitions you may already have about the upcoming western social-democratic crisis stemming from the loss of authoritative sources of information. What is missing is actually ideas about what syst…
I think the core issue here is the elephant in the room in tech that noone wants to talk about. The tech industry has put most of it's money making eggs in the ads basket. This means companies selling ads are promoting the kind of mass information spread that is sensationalist because it gets their ads the most views, and the tech community makes money off of this. How well do ads actually work? I really don't know.…
For anyone just skimming comments - this is a very well written, well researched, thoughtful, and objective piece. That's pretty rare in today's climate. Definitely worth the read. It's the first time I can remember signing up for a newsletter voluntarily, despite my general distaste for those types of popovers.
And hey, it's kept me from commenting for several hours, as I've read it in breaks from work.
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I think the core issue here is the elephant in the room in tech that noone wants to talk about. The tech industry has put most of it's money making eggs in the ads basket. This means companies selling ads are promoting the kind of mass information spread that is sensationalist because it gets their ads the most views, and the tech community makes money off of this. How well do ads actually work? I really don't know.…
I agree with you that the ad models which are all about maximizing engagement are a problem, but I think that the article is trying to say that those sorts of models are inevitable given how the internet works. Like suppose no websites did ads at all and they all worked on a subscription model or something similar. Then you'd still have websites trying to get more eyeballs, because more attention means more subscribe…
For anyone just skimming comments - this is a very well written, well researched, thoughtful, and objective piece. That's pretty rare in today's climate. Definitely worth the read. It's the first time I can remember signing up for a newsletter voluntarily, despite my general distaste for those types of popovers.
The introduction's tacky and condescending tone lost me. Does it get better?
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Same here, I ducked out. The title as well.
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For anyone just skimming comments - this is a very well written, well researched, thoughtful, and objective piece. That's pretty rare in today's climate. Definitely worth the read. It's the first time I can remember signing up for a newsletter voluntarily, despite my general distaste for those types of popovers.
Indeed, very insightful. I myself is of similar opinion. The West is undeniably having a societal crisis now, regardless of what digits say about its economic wellbeing. The West these days reminds me of USSR in the eighties.
On the one hand, some very good points. I think a survey of 20th century history strongly supports the idea that Big Media helped determine what kinds of leadership we got, and so it must be the case that 21st century internet media are doing the same. The comparisons of similar trends in education and commerce are worth reading (if over-long). On the other hand, the underlying assumption is that the revolt against e…
> On the other hand, the underlying assumption is that the revolt against elite policy preferences, not only in the U.S. but in Europe and elsewhere, is entirely devoid of rational motivation. It discounts without comment the possibility that the pre-internet style of governance had substantive problems which the working class didn't like (e.g. globalization leading to a race to the bottom in manufacturing wages). I…