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Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

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Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#201

Post by epoxia »

lawn wrote: post #54
svara wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Books can be terrible, but they can be good to a level that (most popular) social media can't, due to the limitations of the medium. Without long text, to a good approximation, you just can't convey long, multi-step reasoning chains at the limit of human intellectual capacity. Personally I've started reading again much more recently, and it's done wonders for what's going on inside my head. I was feeling so dull! I c…

It's also common to think that you should only read non-fiction and that fiction is a waste of time, but I absolutely don't agree. Fiction is amazing and it'll help your reasoning, creativity, helps give perspective on things, and improves your outlook on life in a way that non-fiction has a very hard time to do. Non-fiction is very good for other reasons and it's good to aim for a healthy mix of the too I think.

I agree, but struggle to find fiction books to read. Most of my reading just consists of a historical period / event that I find interesting and read more about. From that I sometimes come across an "alternate history" type fiction book, but not much else. What do you do for discovery?

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#202

Post by miohtama »

williamtrask wrote: post #18
svara wrote: post #13

Social media has really proven that phrase that "the medium is the message", which I remember long ago thinking was a little odd and not obviously true. With all the new stuff coming out in the LLM field, I've taken a cynically mechanistic view to this: We're basically being conditioned by (the currently popular crop of) social media to work in very short context windows, which aren't sufficient for advanced reasonin…

> So yes, totally. Turn it off and go read a book. For what its worth, 500 years ago people were just as worried about books as we are today about newsfeeds. But it took a long time for books to ultimately decentralize enough to become a more egalitarian, community knowledge. But even that's not entirely the case now. Books can be propaganda just like everything else.

> The Licensing of the Press Act 1662 (14 Cha. 2. c. 33) was an act of the Parliament of England with the long title An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Books and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licensing_of_the_Press_Act_1...

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#203

Post by tac19 »

whoitwas wrote: post #200
tac19 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> neo nazis I have heard this a few times now, what is going on? The news hasn't mentioned anything about Neo Nazis, and there is no large organized effort to round up the Jews, let alone exterminate them. This seems like hyperbolic language that is in really poor taste, which undermines the seriousness of what the second world war was fought over.

[flagged]

Nazis also wore sharp looking outfits, and organized a military, and had youth-movements. WE do not categorize everyone who does those things as Nazis. Because Nazis were an actual thing, that exists in history, and were actually responsible for the extermination of millions of people.

Rounded to a whole number, America has a Neo Nazi population of 0%. Trying to imply otherwise is a cheap emotional manipulation that is shameful.

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#204

Post by [deleted] »

lolinder wrote: post #19

The author sort of (but not really) acknowledges this midway through, but this is basically a summary of the most recent Technology Connections video, Algorithms are breaking how we think : https://youtu.be/QEJpZjg8GuA I'd rather they acknowledge Alec as the inspiration/source for this post at the beginning and explicitly, rather than just mentioning the video in passing midway through, but at least they do link to i…

[deleted]

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#205

Post by DavidPiper »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #146
Terr_ wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, pro/anti "algorithms" is too reductive, especially since the old status-quo was also an algorithm of people and processes. I'd rather use a lens more like all the open-source/free-software concerns about controlling your own computer: 1. Can I see how the recommendation algorithm is intended to work? The site-owner says it works for my benefit, but what if they're mistaken, or lying? 2. What has it recorded abo…

Kind of comes down to one of Neil Postman's questions "Whose problem is it that it solves?" It's possible to get some benefit from an algorithm/process, just as a side effect, that was never designed to work in your interest and is an opaque cloud service. Maybe the service is solving the network owner's problem of selling you to advertisers. If you want to maximise for "interest and relevance to my life goals" there…

This seems like the perfect place to once again recommend "Amusing Ourselves To Death" :-)

I also read "Technopoly" recently, and while it didn't have quite the same impact on me, I can't deny that it accurately describes the techno-political moment we're currently living in. Well worth the time.

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#206

Post by doubled112 »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #199
atrus wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a bit of a mental difference between being able to (literally) endlessly swipe up to the next tiktok vs having to click the next button on hn though.

Definitely, but as you said, it's only a bit. Things like hn or old.reddit still carry most if not all of the negative effects of infinite feeds. What I would give credit to hn for is that being text only, it forces you at least to think a bit and not blindly consume a video for example.

On HN, at least, once I get a few pages in I usually realize I’m just seeing articles from a few hours/days ago. I know then it is time to take a break.

It isn’t infinite the same way TikTok will or YouTube used to keep playing something you haven’t seen yet.

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#207

Post by gcanyon »

lolinder wrote: post #19

The author sort of (but not really) acknowledges this midway through, but this is basically a summary of the most recent Technology Connections video, Algorithms are breaking how we think : https://youtu.be/QEJpZjg8GuA I'd rather they acknowledge Alec as the inspiration/source for this post at the beginning and explicitly, rather than just mentioning the video in passing midway through, but at least they do link to i…

Thanks! I immediately thought of the TC video when I saw the title, and wondered if there was a point to the article beyond the video.

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#208

Post by yosito »

Based on the title, I expected some advice about how to actually eliminate some feeds. Instead, the article is basically some advice to focus less on the feeds. Regardless, I was inspired to check out Instagram's somewhat hidden "Following" tab, only to find that even when I explicitly ask to see posts from people that I'm following, literally every second post is "recommended for you" bullshit.

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#209

Post by gavmor »

grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #173
gavmor wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Social stability is far more valuable than any social media business In an ever-changing universe, how can we have social stability without innovation?

Stable systems are not static, they are just sufficiently damped that they don't oscillate uncontrollably [1]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damping

I've a rudimentary familiarity with control systems, yes. Glad we're on the way same page!

I'm not satisfied with your response, but I'm losing my grasp on the analogy.

What are we dampening? Inertia, no? Imparted by the environment, and/or our own (fundamentally, inevitably) inaccurate thrust vectors?

It's a metaphor, so I guess we can only argue about the level of abstraction at which to apply it. I'm certainly glad I don't need to mutate and grow new internal organs just to cross the street, but I can be grateful for the mutation and growth of an ability to synthesize Vitamin D which allowed my ancestors to cross glaciers—two activities which are, arguably, helpful in maintaining homeostasis.

Re: Kill your Feeds – Stop letting algorithms dictate what you think

#210

Post by whoitwas »

tac19 wrote: post #203
whoitwas wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Nazis also wore sharp looking outfits, and organized a military, and had youth-movements. WE do not categorize everyone who does those things as Nazis. Because Nazis were an actual thing, that exists in history, and were actually responsible for the extermination of millions of people. Rounded to a whole number, America has a Neo Nazi population of 0%. Trying to imply otherwise is a cheap emotional manipulation that…

[flagged]
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