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What Happens Next Will Amaze You

idlewords.com

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Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#231

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

radlad wrote: post #221
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehhh I think HN already directs too much of the discourse. I understand the intent of minimum karma downvoting, for example, but I think that encourages elitism, because if you have to be validated with 500 karma before you can downvote, then the implication is that you're in a class of people that's better than others and you don't feel you have to explain yourself. EDIT: like how this comment is being silently down…

Downvoting of this comment only makes sense to me if someone disagrees with you. And on that note, is that what downvoting on HN is for? Other link aggregators typically say downvoting isn't for disagreements; that's what commenting is for.

I've only downvoted someone once, and that was for a snarky, 5-word top-level comment that did nothing to expand the conversation - the kind of downvote that is exempt from explanation.

But then there are people who silently disagree via downvote. To that I ask what the purpose must be. "I think you're wrong" - How? Why? Is it my tone? Lack of evidence? To me, downvoting without explaining is just a smug way to feel less insecure about one's own opinions without having to stand up for anything.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#232

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

nine_k wrote: post #207
krapp wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punishing people for gaming the system as it's intended to be gamed would be counterproductive, because the karma system itself is based on flawed assumptions. The expectation here is that high karma indicates high intellectual quality, but that's demonstrably false. It doesn't do what it's intended to do and even detracts from the value of discussion in some places. A better way to improve content quality would be t…

Karma is the worst known proxy to expectations of reasonable behavior, except for all other proxies that have been tried. It's basically a linear prediction model: someone who behaved reasonably in the past is expected to continue doing so. This is not always true, of course, but I beg anyone suggest a more precise model that can be realistically implemented. Another purpose of karma is preventing a bot from register…

When I was new to HN I thought downvoting just didn't exist here, and I actually preferred that. Arguments that are liked get bubbled up, while inflammatory comments get ignored or slapped down by reasonable people.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#233

Post by smacktoward »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #131

"San Francisco is filthy and has a homeless problem it refuses to take care of and does its best to either ignore or address indirectly. It is full of tech elite who are completely disconnected from the world around them. ... I live in San Francisco." I thought this was a little hilarious. For so many people who live in the Bay Area, a favorite way to pass the time is to complain about how terrible it is. I too thoug…

Complaining about something doesn't mean that you're not disconnected from it, at least in the sense of feeling like you have any personal responsibility about it or agency to change it. People complain about the weather too.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#234

Post by TeMPOraL »

buffoon wrote: post #34
hliyan wrote: post #29

This seemed a bit uncalled for: "Here's Elon Musk. In a television interview this week, Musk said: "I'm trying to do useful things." Then he outlined his plan to detonate nuclear weapons on Mars . These people are the face of our industry." Italics mine.

I agree with him. Billionaires are prescriptive. "I will solve this problem". It doesn't hurt to ask what problems need solving. Ultimately this just isn't altruism but it is promoted as whilst people are in deep shit all around him. I'm not really sure what my point is but I suspect it is a new form of hypocrisy.

> Billionaires are prescriptive. "I will solve this problem".

That's good, and that's sort of the point of getting money, is it not? We should encourage those who are rich to pursue goals beneficial to everyone. They have the ability to achieve things no "democratic" groups (and countries) can, because the latter are plagued with coordination problems.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#235

Post by kasey_junk »

tptacek wrote: post #228
idlewords wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some ways I can think of that help non-nerds: - lets you make backups you physically control - prevents vendor lock-in - lets you spot and correct mistakes in things like your user profile - lets you verify that things you deleted were actually deleted - promotes competition by making it easier to take your data and go elsewhere - protects your privacy by forcing vendors to keep better track internally of what user d…

You don't think these are things that mostly just nerds care about?

I think the argument is that while the basic features are nerd only, they enable a better overall ecosystem.

Much like rules around financial disclosures are largely only cared about by finance nerds, but the halo allows everyone to have a better finance ecosystem.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#236

Post by dragonwriter »

nine_k wrote: post #207
krapp wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punishing people for gaming the system as it's intended to be gamed would be counterproductive, because the karma system itself is based on flawed assumptions. The expectation here is that high karma indicates high intellectual quality, but that's demonstrably false. It doesn't do what it's intended to do and even detracts from the value of discussion in some places. A better way to improve content quality would be t…

Karma is the worst known proxy to expectations of reasonable behavior, except for all other proxies that have been tried. It's basically a linear prediction model: someone who behaved reasonably in the past is expected to continue doing so. This is not always true, of course, but I beg anyone suggest a more precise model that can be realistically implemented. Another purpose of karma is preventing a bot from register…

> Of course, one can build rings of bot accounts that upvote each other to gain karma before operation, but this takes much more determination and skill than an internet hooligan usually possesses.

Also, ISTR mentions that HN employs voting ring detectors, and punishes detected voting rings to avoid exactly this phenomenon. So, its not just the passive difficulty that is an issue with this approach, there is active opposition.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#237

Post by dragonwriter »

mtbcoder wrote: post #66
Fiahil wrote: post #63

The company I work for is going to pivot towards re-targeting (we're making recommendation engines, now). So, I've come to explore a bit this new industry, and I am under the impression that it's completely rotten to the core. The reason? I have been in meetings where no one would blinked an eye (even, sometimes, applaud the idea) when people would ask if we could turn on a laptop's webcam, and read if a visitor have…

Just out of curiosity, how would turning on a web cam determine if a visitor saw an ad or not? I'm missing the logic.

> Just out of curiosity, how would turning on a web cam determine if a visitor saw an ad or not? I'm missing the logic.

Well, at a rough cut, it could verify that there was a client system with a person in front of it.

With more work you could maybe use eye-tracking, reflections, etc., to get a more reliable indication of whether the ad was visible to the user.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#238

Post by unimpressive »

hoprocker wrote: post #226

This will probably get me hellbanned here, but here's a bit of gold: "The companies that come out of [venture capital funding] are no longer pursuing profit, or even revenue. Instead, the measure of their success is valuation—how much money they've convinced people to tell them they're worth." I yearn now for a modern day Ambrose Bierce to write up something clever and cutting, with entries like: _valuation_: how muc…

>This will probably get me hellbanned here, but here's a bit of gold:

Oh can we please not start adding this bit of meta to our posts? It's in the same category as "I know I'm going to be downvoted..."

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#239

Post by Kalium »

> The tech industry is not responsible for any of these problems. But it's revealing that through forty years of unimaginable growth, and eleven years of the greatest boom times we've ever seen, we've done nothing to fix them.

This bothers me. This bothers me a lot. There are two problems with this.

First, it's not tech's problem to fix. It's a city-wide problem. Faulting tech for not solving problems that are not tech's to solve is at best dishonest.

Second, this ignores the way that these problems have been codified as unsolvable by the city. For instance, you'll find a lot of support for housing first approaches among the tech community. You'll find virtually zero real support in the city, because that approach requires building housing. We all know how well that goes over. Pretty much any change encounters similar entrenched resistance.

So we wind up with a tech community that finds itself incapable of solving problems for everyone. We cannot contribute to our neighborhoods because our neighbors blow their tops when we try. We do the next best thing - we solve problems for ourselves. It's very far from ideal, but at least we can make ourselves a bit less miserable. We're going to get yelled at either way, so we might as well do so in comfort.

Want to see this change? Start by looking at why we stop caring about the communities we're in. I know I can't be bothered to care about people who have done their best to make me feel unwelcome from day one. "We don't want your kind here" does not move me to empathy - or funding local artists.

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