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Former Google CEO Calls Social Networks ‘Amplifiers for Idiots’

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Re: Former Google CEO Calls Social Networks ‘Amplifiers for Idiots’

#31

Post by Nasrudith »

grawprog wrote: post #20
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #7

I disagree with Schmidt. Misinformation is spreading because trust in institutions is eroding. This eroding trust is because of transparency and improved information dissemination. Most people don't trust the news anymore because it can easily be seen how biased they are. They don't trust institutions because they see how partisan most are. You can't just ban or regulate social media and expect the toothpaste to just…

>Address the issue of trust, and you can fix the real issues here. How can the issue of trust be fixed when most of these institution's goals are not really aligned with the general public? A company with the goal of profitting as much as possible from consumers and a government with the goal of helping those companies line their pockets as much as possible isn't really inline with what the average person wants. Beca…

The answer is seen in the corrupt Freudian slip seen in institutions after scandals when they state as a goal "restoring a sense of trust" - not restoring trustworthiness, or "addressing ".

If you actually want to improve trustworthiness you need reforms and a purge all management who would resist or interfere.

Re: Former Google CEO Calls Social Networks ‘Amplifiers for Idiots’

#32

Post by Tainnor »

thu2111 wrote: post #24
Tainnor wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy to me means giving the people participation in government. It doesn't mean that everyone's opinion is equally valid, that's why we have representative government and not (except in Switzerland) a system that works purely by plebiscites. Switzerland is a special case because the country is small and wealthy with a mostly well educated population and their democratic tradition is a very old one, but in many o…

The Swiss tradition of having lots of referendums isn't very old. Actually up until the 1970s it was hardly done, partly because the government had a habit of ignoring them and not implementing them properly. Around 50 years ago the press put pressure on politicians to get more serious about it, and the number of referendums has gone up a lot over time as a consequence. The Brexit vote is an excellent example of givi…

The problem with Brexit is not necessarily just whether or not Brexit had happened, but the fact that after the referendum, there was a supposed "popular mandate" of implementing Brexit, but nobody could say what exactly that mandate was since the people didn't vote on a particular proposal, but only on a vague idea. This led to the downfall of not one, but two governments, and it would have nearly triggered a constitutional crisis.

By contrast, if there hadn't been a referendum, either the MPs would have agreed on a specific Brexit proposal, with everyone exactly knowing what they were getting into, or they wouldn't have been able to reach any consensus and would have remained in the EU (similar to how the Trump administration couldn't repeal Obamacare because nobody could agree on the alternative), both of which to me seem preferable than the mess which Brain had to endure for years after the referendum.

Also, it's not necessarily just the fact that MPs are intellectually superior than the rest of the population (although I do think that, generally, the dumbest of the dumbest make it into parliaments somewhat more rarely), but the fact that parliamentarism and the associated procedures, laws and standards has some checks and balances built-in that pure mob rule (in the most extreme of versions) doesn't.

(and as a final remark: I'm not generally opposed to any sort of plebiscite. I'm just saying that there are definitive drawbacks to direct democracy - you can see that even in Switzerland, where the system is generally much better thought out and established than in the case of the rushed Brexit referendum - that you need to prepare for, and you shouldn't just say "the will of the people counts" because there are huge pitfalls in trying to figure out what "the will of the people" even is (see: basically every populist government, and/or politician in world history, there are even examples of this dating as far back as the Roman Republic)).

Re: Former Google CEO Calls Social Networks ‘Amplifiers for Idiots’

#33

Post by exolymph »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #7

I disagree with Schmidt. Misinformation is spreading because trust in institutions is eroding. This eroding trust is because of transparency and improved information dissemination. Most people don't trust the news anymore because it can easily be seen how biased they are. They don't trust institutions because they see how partisan most are. You can't just ban or regulate social media and expect the toothpaste to just…

I agree with you and Schmidt. Our institutions are corrupt and have been caught with their pants down many times now, but also people in general are morons and will gleefully amplify other people being morons.

Re: Former Google CEO Calls Social Networks ‘Amplifiers for Idiots’

#34

Post by Tainnor »

PrinceKropotkin wrote: post #15
Tainnor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, institutions are biased and partisan. The problem is that some random YouTube channel, Facebook page or a lone idiot screaming on social media is not going to be less biased and partisan. Trust is not an all-or-nothing proposition. I know that institutions and established media have systematic blind spots and an agenda, and I think everyone with some critical thinking skills should know that, too. But that…

Regardless of whether or not "amplifying vox populi" is your preferred answer, it's the future of media. Why would I ever trust Wolf Blitzer over my favorite professor, or my favorite historian? Why would I look to the NyTimes when they don't cover the stories I consider important? Why would I trust the editorial staff at all given what I find in the opinion section? This is not to say that popular media outlets are…

If the purpose of the media is just to reflect the world-view you already have, then there is no point to the media.

Also, nobody says that you have to read the NY Times. There's, both in the US and internationally, a huge range of media of all sorts of political convictions, which you can read instead, although as said: the best possible option is to read from multiple sources with hopefully different takes on a particular topic (e.g. it's also sometimes good to read foreign media because they will inevitably have a different perspective). The point is more that there is value in editorialised content as opposed to random people screaming on social media. Plus, your favourite professor or historian is likely to have written columns for newspapers, too.

Re: Former Google CEO Calls Social Networks ‘Amplifiers for Idiots’

#35

Post by Tainnor »

thu2111 wrote: post #23
Tainnor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, institutions are biased and partisan. The problem is that some random YouTube channel, Facebook page or a lone idiot screaming on social media is not going to be less biased and partisan. Trust is not an all-or-nothing proposition. I know that institutions and established media have systematic blind spots and an agenda, and I think everyone with some critical thinking skills should know that, too. But that…

The problem is that some random YouTube channel, Facebook page or a lone idiot screaming on social media is not going to be less biased and partisan. Are you sure? Joe Rogan seems to get a pretty good mix of people from across the political spectrum and explore their views in far more intellectual and nuanced ways than any TV channels I know.

I don't know Joe Rogan. And of course, there's always going to be exceptional bloggers, YT content producers, etc., same as there have always been independent journalists. This doesn't change the fact that, on average, John Doe on Facebook is not going to have very good insights into a topic.

Re: Former Google CEO Calls Social Networks ‘Amplifiers for Idiots’

#36

Post by Nasrudith »

president wrote: post #21
notmyname9173 wrote: post #10

Hypocrisy and PR spin aside, he’s not wrong. I think, on the balance, that social networks are a net negative development for humanity and should be destroyed.

The internet is always hailed as empowering the people but in reality what it did was make the powerful even more powerful and give a voice to people who should not have a voice.

You certainly will always be disappointed if you have such vague notions of who "should be" and "shouldn't be". You will at some point be shocked that leopards ate your face after advocating for unleashing face eating leopards upon people.

Re: Former Google CEO Calls Social Networks ‘Amplifiers for Idiots’

#37

Post by PrinceKropotkin »

Tainnor wrote: post #34
PrinceKropotkin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of whether or not "amplifying vox populi" is your preferred answer, it's the future of media. Why would I ever trust Wolf Blitzer over my favorite professor, or my favorite historian? Why would I look to the NyTimes when they don't cover the stories I consider important? Why would I trust the editorial staff at all given what I find in the opinion section? This is not to say that popular media outlets are…

If the purpose of the media is just to reflect the world-view you already have, then there is no point to the media. Also, nobody says that you have to read the NY Times. There's, both in the US and internationally, a huge range of media of all sorts of political convictions, which you can read instead, although as said: the best possible option is to read from multiple sources with hopefully different takes on a par…

> If the purpose of the media is just to reflect the world-view you already have, then there is no point to the media

If the media says it's raining outside when it's sunny, then I should just abandon media?

If the news source doesn't cohere with your view of the world it's very difficult to distinguish truth from non-truth and outright propaganda. This is very basic Coherence Theory of Truth. If you have an alternative theory of truth, please elucidate!

Re: Former Google CEO Calls Social Networks ‘Amplifiers for Idiots’

#39

Post by Nasrudith »

Tainnor wrote: post #32
thu2111 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Swiss tradition of having lots of referendums isn't very old. Actually up until the 1970s it was hardly done, partly because the government had a habit of ignoring them and not implementing them properly. Around 50 years ago the press put pressure on politicians to get more serious about it, and the number of referendums has gone up a lot over time as a consequence. The Brexit vote is an excellent example of givi…

The problem with Brexit is not necessarily just whether or not Brexit had happened, but the fact that after the referendum, there was a supposed "popular mandate" of implementing Brexit, but nobody could say what exactly that mandate was since the people didn't vote on a particular proposal, but only on a vague idea. This led to the downfall of not one, but two governments, and it would have nearly triggered a consti…

Really the main issue with the referendum is that it was treated as the worst possible set of constraints - going on a fixed conclusion with no implementation details.

The only thing it produces reliably is dogma and absurdities because it is insensitive to all input conditions. A proper "referendum" would produce a stack of plans to be voted upon. Instead the result is an incoherent demand is to spin straw into gold because mining for gold is too dirty. Even ignoring how they expect the rest of the world to give them better deals by being more selfish and with less leverage they expect an impossible border which neither divides Ireland nor limits freedom of movement within the UK nor ceding any territory. So they just have a buck passing contest instead.

Re: Former Google CEO Calls Social Networks ‘Amplifiers for Idiots’

#40

Post by grawprog »

thu2111 wrote: post #22
grawprog wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Address the issue of trust, and you can fix the real issues here. How can the issue of trust be fixed when most of these institution's goals are not really aligned with the general public? A company with the goal of profitting as much as possible from consumers and a government with the goal of helping those companies line their pockets as much as possible isn't really inline with what the average person wants. Beca…

Most people don't have a naive trust companies, and that's good. Consumer's trust in companies is far more nuanced and complex: we may for example trust that if we buy an Apple device it will be well built, but we don't trust that we're getting good value for money because we know Apple has a reputation for being expensive. This is an excellent feature of capitalism. Incentives are front and centre, people don't (usu…

The problem it seems to me is that the line between corporation and those other types of groups have gotten blurred to the point of non-existence. How many of those corporations have board members who have interests in those NGOs, charities, governments and universities? How many corporations themselves are funding them or supporting them in some way?

In a lot of ways I feel like there needs to be some kind of separation of corporation and state, much like was done with religion and state.

I mean state as in generally, governments and other publicly funded things. Treating corporations as people with the same rights to donate and influence those organizations is inevitably going to lead to them becoming the dominant influence over those things.

Despite what the law says, there is no way and individual person can ever match up to what a corporate person can do. Corporations will always dominate those other groups as long as they are given the same ability to as an individual person.

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