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You can't trust the internet anymore

nicole.express

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Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#171

Post by olyjohn »

archagon wrote: post #138
WD-42 wrote: post #16

This is why my friends and I are setting up a mesh network in our town. The open internet has been going downhill for a while, but LLMs are absolutely accelerating it's demise. I was in denial for the last few years but at this point I've accepted that the internet I grew up on as a kid in the late 90s to mid 2000s is dead. I am grateful for having experienced it but the time has come to move on. The future for peopl…

Reminds me of a project idea I had. You'd get a little Raspberry Pi style board with BTLE and battery power (ideally lasting for weeks at a time) and covertly stick it in some communal location, e.g. a cafe or library. Then you'd have it run some local-only forum software and disseminate instructions for connecting to it. The point would be to have a digital community accessible only by direct connection and bound to…

I had hoped that by now, people would be educated and tech savvy enough on computers that something like this could be a reality. But these fucking phones and tablets have made people so computer illiterate, there is no hope for something like this working.

Computers run every part of our lives, and it's fucking preposterous that learning the basics of how to operate a computer aren't part of elementary school education. Now it's just "tap app" and look how it's trapped everybody into a world of ignorance.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#172

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

fragmede wrote: post #153
krapp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that's literally meaningless. also ahistorical, both in that this is not what happened hours after it was first posted to HN (which was months after it was originated) Maybe it wasn't literally hours, but it was really fast. I remember noting how quickly people began to complain about it being used "improperly." The earliest instance I could find was this thread[0] from 2023 where user Gunax complained about it. I c…

Fun fact: I got called out by Cory for calling other people out on using the term wrong, and he pointed me at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pearl-clutching/#this-toi... in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44776712

Thanks for that.

> As I said in that Berlin speech:

>> Enshittification names the problem and proposes a solution. It's not just a way to say 'things are getting worse' (though of course, it's fine with me if you want to use it that way. It's an English word. We don't have der Rat für englische Rechtschreibung. English is a free for all. Go nuts, meine Kerle).

Unfortunately, I just think that Cory is wrong in the sense that ... while it's true the English is a free for all (most languages are, really) ... there's an actual cost to the sloppy usage which diminishes the utility of ever even coming up with the word. It's obviously fine for Cory to be fine with it (along with anyone else being fine with it), but at a point in time where it actually is the theory that matters, I think the cost ought to be considered more seriously.

Somewhere in the not too distant future, the theory/concept that enshittification identifies will be of less importance for a variety of reasons, and loose use of the word won't matter, because the theory/concept will be either irrelevant or widely known or both. But right now, when someone wants to talk about Cory's idea about how internet services are deliberately degraded over time, it's incredibly helpful to have a "unique" term for that.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#173

Post by joseda-hg »

archagon wrote: post #141
lazystar wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been miserable over the last few weeks after coming to that same conclusion. Its so bad that i doubt the people that were pulling the strings can even tell whats going on anymore.

If the web is burned, something new will arise in its place (with new constraints) as long as there's a need. It's not like we only get one shot at this.

The constraints being different already make the replacement tangibly different

Maybe it will kill the veil of (perceived) anonimity which tangibly changes how people behave, or maybe the filter will be monetary and the filter will just affect the underclass shifting whatever discourse will be had

We can't act like whatever replaces the current web won't be different, because then there's no reason to change at all

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#174

Post by fragmede »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #172
fragmede wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: I got called out by Cory for calling other people out on using the term wrong, and he pointed me at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pearl-clutching/#this-toi... in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44776712

Thanks for that. > As I said in that Berlin speech: >> Enshittification names the problem and proposes a solution. It's not just a way to say 'things are getting worse' (though of course, it's fine with me if you want to use it that way. It's an English word. We don't have der Rat für englische Rechtschreibung. English is a free for all. Go nuts, meine Kerle). Unfortunately, I just think that Cory is wrong in the sen…

I agree with you. Words still mean things. "Open source" wrt AI model files being available is another term I fight the losing battle of policing, as is the word "Nazi", and even "scam". People are way to quick to use words that don't actually apply because they're in the right direction of good/bad. On the flip side I got accused of using the phrase Stockholm syndrome just to sound edgy and not because it was an appropriate description of the situation. I was also trying to define the phrase "serious program" wrt vibe coding, in order to have a conversation, and got made fun of for trying to do so. People sometimes are just trying to get one over on you and prove they're smarter than you, or that I'm an idiot. Which like, okay, not super cool, but I'm just trying to find common ground, or how you came to your beliefs.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#175

Post by plagiarist »

afpx wrote: post #113
cortesoft wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like solving the problem at the wrong layer? The issue isn’t the actual network connection between people, it is the content. You could easily create your own forum or something and only include people you trust. You don’t need an entirely separate internet.

I'd like a semi-anonymous private network. Something like: I go to local post office and purchase a sealed token. I use the token to generate a reusable “verified human credential” with limited reuses. The credential allows me to connect to the private network.

I learned about a cryptographic interaction that can support that recently (and have spent a lot of time focusing on the idea as a means of procrastination).

I don't use Kagi but the context was their Privacy Pass thingie https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-privacy-pass

It works similarly to what you'd like: they sign sealed tokens you provide. Later, you can unseal a token and use it without invalidating the signature. It is mathematically too difficult for a classical computer to link the sealed and unsealed token.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#176

Post by cortesoft »

Bender wrote: post #159
cortesoft wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like solving the problem at the wrong layer? The issue isn’t the actual network connection between people, it is the content. You could easily create your own forum or something and only include people you trust. You don’t need an entirely separate internet.

This is technically correct but there is no harm in them setting up a mesh in the event that the internet goes down assuming they have their own backup power. The USA and EU are both extremely vulnerable to power grid overload, cyber-attack, physical attack choke-points leading to black-starts, EMP, GRB and much more. I think it's good on them for the learning exercise and hopefully they add to existing documentation…

If the power grid overloads, I am not sure that your mesh network will survive either?

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#177

Post by digiown »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #117
forgetfreeman wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a perfect oracle to win on prediction markets. All it takes is enough influence to tip % in your favor. Card counting is very effective.

Yeah, as long as it's reasonably reliable, compound interest also adds up to turn even small ROIs into big wins across multiple investments.

I don't think it would be reliable enough. Small odds in favor of you and large variations (due to small market cap) require you to invest only small amounts based on the Kelly criterion, and I feel like the resources needed to carry out these influence campaigns are much more effectively used for other goals like political maneuvers.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#178

Post by jackvalentine »

afpx wrote: post #113
cortesoft wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like solving the problem at the wrong layer? The issue isn’t the actual network connection between people, it is the content. You could easily create your own forum or something and only include people you trust. You don’t need an entirely separate internet.

I'd like a semi-anonymous private network. Something like: I go to local post office and purchase a sealed token. I use the token to generate a reusable “verified human credential” with limited reuses. The credential allows me to connect to the private network.

You’re going to end up running down the same merry path that DRM companies do - and you can’t patch the wetware layer. Inevitably thousands of ‘human tokens’ will end up in the hands of actual humans working in call centres with 300 phones in front of them.

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/trending-china/arti...

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#179

Post by krapp »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #172
fragmede wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: I got called out by Cory for calling other people out on using the term wrong, and he pointed me at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pearl-clutching/#this-toi... in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44776712

Thanks for that. > As I said in that Berlin speech: >> Enshittification names the problem and proposes a solution. It's not just a way to say 'things are getting worse' (though of course, it's fine with me if you want to use it that way. It's an English word. We don't have der Rat für englische Rechtschreibung. English is a free for all. Go nuts, meine Kerle). Unfortunately, I just think that Cory is wrong in the sen…

The thing is, "enshittification" doesn't name the problem. No part of the word "enshittification" describes " how internet services are deliberately degraded over time". Nor does it propose a solution. It is just a way to say "things are getting worse."

You act as if it was impossible to talk about "how internet services are deliberately being degraded over time" before the word was coined, but it wasn't, we already had a more precise term for that, platform decay.

But my brother in Christ "enshittification" isn't a unique term. It's a common prefix, a common suffix and the word "shit." It was never that great a term of art to begin with, it was just an excuse to say "shit" in polite company. It's a word invented by a blogger for clicks. This isn't a hill worth dying on.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#180

Post by alainx277 »

mnau wrote: post #9

Signal to noise ratio is getting *lower (EDIT: was higher) than ever. I don't see a way out of this other than "human certified" digitally signed authorship (e.g. by using eIDAS in EU). There could be a proxy to at least retain pseudo-anonymity, but trackable to a human. Tragedy of commons strikes again.

It could be interesting to have a search engine that only shows results that have human attestation via digital passports. Of course I'd prefer that to work without necessarily revealing the identity of the poster, similarly to how anonymous "sign-up tokens" for accounts would work, to prevent sybil attacks.
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