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Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

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Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#461

Post by InSteady »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #235
Geisterde wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have become immunized to algorithmic content curation, I dont know exactly why that happened, but understanding how it works at a surface level I think helped. Im curious if thats a widespread phenomena or not, I suspect it is.

I’m pretty skeptical that it’s possible to be immune to algorithmic content curation. It seems more than a little bit like the people who say “hey, mainstream media is all biased, but that’s not a problem for me because I’ve found the sources that are actually true”. How do you choose which content to watch and how does that process exclude algorithmic curation?

It's the social media era equivalent to "advertising doesn't work on me, I can see right through these stupid commercials."

When I used to be on reddit there was this idea that algorithmic content curation didn't apply to us because of the upvote system. There often seems to be a similar implication (by way of omission) when these discussions come up on HN. I'm not familiar with the workings of the HN feed, I only migrated here last summer, but the reddit feed is absolutely subject to gaming and algorithmic shenanigans.

The comparison would be thinking our government is completely free from corruption and undue influence because we all have the right to vote.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#462

Post by randomdata »

Arrath wrote: post #457
randomdata wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> she and her friends are very reluctant to post their opinions online I'm old, but feel the same reluctance (it slips sometimes; I am only human). Not because I fear any particular reprisal, but because I cannot comprehend that that someone else gives a rat's ass about whatever random firing of neurons happens to be going on in my mind. I certainly couldn't care less about theirs.

As a child of the older internet, I have an inbuilt aversion to openly posting under my own name. Screen names all the way, baby.

I am okay with using my name when the post is for other people (i.e. work or occasional charity – otherwise I'm not working for you for free!). If the post is for me, then most definitely a screen name. It saves the confusion of someone who might come back to me thinking that I gave them free labour.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#463

Post by cafard »

SCM-Enthusiast wrote: post #449
toss1 wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrast that with the account I read about the 1930s-40s: The major media was radio, and on summer afternoons when President Franklin Roosevelt was speaking, you could apparently walk down the street and not miss a word of the speech, because every radio in every house was tuned to the same broadcast. Unimaginable today.

Imagine a nation that had a direct dialogue with their president like that? Nowadays, it's too polarizing.

Dialogue?

I suppose the FDR had better writers, and was better at sticking to his scripts.

But there were a lot of people who referred to FDR as "that man in the White House" rather than use his name. And Edmund Wilson quoted somebody at a dinner party in the 1930s, where someone denouncing Hitler was answered with "That's going too far. You're talking about him as if he was Roosevelt."

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#464

Post by dragonwriter »

SCM-Enthusiast wrote: post #449
toss1 wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrast that with the account I read about the 1930s-40s: The major media was radio, and on summer afternoons when President Franklin Roosevelt was speaking, you could apparently walk down the street and not miss a word of the speech, because every radio in every house was tuned to the same broadcast. Unimaginable today.

Imagine a nation that had a direct dialogue with their president like that? Nowadays, it's too polarizing.

A one-way radio broadcast is not a dialogue; in fact, we have much closer to realtime dualogue with leaders today, despite greater scale (yes, its still moderated by intermediaries, but its much more rapid and much less wrapped up in the ability to tell different stories to different audiences without information rapidly flowing between them—politicians still try this, sometimes, but it tends to fail, and increasingly to fail very quickly.)

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#465

Post by Gud »

Engineering-MD wrote: post #458
Gud wrote: post #455

Similar thoughts were shared by Alving Toffler in his excellent book, "Future Shock". What happens to the human monkey-brain when the rate of technological achievements happen faster and faster? I am at the airport writing this, on my way home. Everyone who's here alone is on their phone(except me - I'm on my laptop). A question to you, who is a bit older than me. What did you do when you were alone but in a social s…

Well how old is older than you? People read books, magazines, did crosswords, got drunk and socialised. Probably more sociable than now, but lots of solo activities existed before technology.

I am 37. I am encouraged by your words, it makes sense the phone just replaced behaviour that was already there.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#466

Post by Eisenstein »

woooooo wrote: post #454
Eisenstein wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you conflate 'profit maximizing business' with 'industrialization'?

Because I'm generally aware of western economic and political history from 1600-1800. I'm not conflating them, they were in fact conflated. Soviet russian and chinese industrialization was different, but later and not relevant to the Atlantic slave trade that parent poster was talking about.

> Soviet russian and chinese industrialization was different

Of course. "Industrialization requires profit, except when it doesn't". Got it.

> but later and not relevant to the Atlantic slave trade that parent poster was talking about.

I didn't realize they used steam ships to transport slaves from Africa to Americas, where they made them work in factories to produce industrial goods.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#467

Post by WalterBright »

Tainnor wrote: post #410
WalterBright wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of like my dad, a professor of finance, who had a student remark to him "I didn't know there even was a case for free markets!" I get similar responses. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person on HN who understands how free markets work. For example, most people would say that hard work leads to success. This is incorrect. It's creating value that leads to success. I very rarely hear the latter, in fact, prett…

I can guarantee you that you're neither the only person, on HN or elsewhere, that "understands how free markets work" (if anyone can every truly fully understand a complex emergent system), nor are most people incapable of realising that hard work only pays off when you create value - it's just that for many people, hard work is the safest, and sometimes the only, way to get there.

So why am I the only one on HN pointing these things out, and legions of HNers telling me I'm wrong?

> t's just that for many people, hard work is the safest, and sometimes the only, way to get there

A lot of people are disappointed because hard work got them nowhere. It's because they weren't working on things that other people valued.

For example, the hardest job I ever had was working for the city maintaining the sidewalks. I was utterly exhausted at the end of each day. The job paid minimum wage, because the work had little value to it.

The jobs I've had since paid a lot more, and the work wasn't hard. It was just that the work was much more valuable.

> most people incapable of realising

I never said they were "incapable". I said they think differently.

> you're neither the only person

Of course there are other people that understand them. It's just that they are rare.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#468

Post by WalterBright »

superb_dev wrote: post #408
WalterBright wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of like my dad, a professor of finance, who had a student remark to him "I didn't know there even was a case for free markets!" I get similar responses. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person on HN who understands how free markets work. For example, most people would say that hard work leads to success. This is incorrect. It's creating value that leads to success. I very rarely hear the latter, in fact, prett…

> …most people would say that hard work leads to success. I don’t think most people would agree with that these days. I know most of the people around me wouldn’t

Indeed, a lot of people in America believe that there is no path to success. It's a very popular notion on HN. Another thing I'm in a small minority of is pointing out that adults of sound mind and body in America are capable of success.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#469

Post by WalterBright »

rightbyte wrote: post #421
WalterBright wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of like my dad, a professor of finance, who had a student remark to him "I didn't know there even was a case for free markets!" I get similar responses. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person on HN who understands how free markets work. For example, most people would say that hard work leads to success. This is incorrect. It's creating value that leads to success. I very rarely hear the latter, in fact, prett…

> It's creating value that leads to success. No. You need to also be in a position to capitalize on it. There also has to be no value add involved. You can profit from destroying value ...

You see, you think very differently from me, and your opinion on this is mainstream.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#470

Post by HumanOstrich »

woooooo wrote: post #430
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unregulated profit maximising business has killed how many people through the trans atlantic slave trade? Without regulation, this is what happens - the bank would collect your organs for payment if they could. Buinesses have no ethical standards. Profit maximing business did not invent antibiotics, did not invent sanitation, did not create public sewers, running water, soap, GPS, and clorination of water.

Without industrialization, you never end slavery anywhere.

You think industrialization ended slavery? I have news for you...
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