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Protect me from what I want

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Re: Protect me from what I want

#61

Post by Ieghaehia9 »

gfaster wrote: post #19

> And anyhow, those algorithms are just showing you what you want. Don’t try to deny it, if it wasn’t what you wanted you wouldn’t be doomscrolling so much, would you? I believe this to be based on a faulty assumption: people do what they want. While it may be true that at the reptile-brain level we do want what the Algorithm feeds us, that statement is equivalent to saying that someone who is addicted to opiates wan…

Even on a reptile-brain level, the article's use of wanting is sort of an equivocation. The brain has different systems for "wanting" and "liking". Cocaine affects the former, opioids the latter.

Capital A Algorithms maximizing engagement are very much on the "wanting" side. Firing off an angry response to a political opponent's belittling post is rarely ever really /enjoyable/.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#62

Post by ska »

wallfacer120 wrote: post #33
ska wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most Twitter users, as best I can tell, aren't actually complaining about what they see. They are complaining about what others see. FWIW this doesn't match my experience at all, but I've hardly made a study of it. What I mean by that is that the limited complaints I have heard are mostly about a) bad quality advertisement targeting and b) political targeting, also mostly bad quality. "quality" here meaning accurac…

If you haven't noticed the chorus of coastal media types asking for people they disagree with to be prevented from speaking in any public forum, then you are truly oblivious.

> "chorus of coastal media types"

KIIS-FM has a choir?

Re: Protect me from what I want

#63

Post by viraptor »

stickfigure wrote: post #48
ska wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most Twitter users, as best I can tell, aren't actually complaining about what they see. They are complaining about what others see. FWIW this doesn't match my experience at all, but I've hardly made a study of it. What I mean by that is that the limited complaints I have heard are mostly about a) bad quality advertisement targeting and b) political targeting, also mostly bad quality. "quality" here meaning accurac…

Oh come now. I constantly hear this concern from my friends (almost exclusively left-of-center). And they aren't totally wrong? I have a qanon-er in my family; she's carefully curated her media sources to guarantee a pure, steady stream of nutjob garbage. The thing is, censoring twitter/facebook/youtube makes no difference - these people will find their fringe no matter how hard they have to look. At least on youtube…

I think there's some nuance here though, where people do make a distinction between opposing views and harmful content. (likely not everyone, but still)

What I mean is, I don't care if someone reads a politician I hate. I care if they read a politician who enables the next pizzagate or worse. Or if they read state sponsored misinformation while thinking it's genuine opinions. And yeah, I do acknowledge there's some overlapping grey area.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#64

Post by shadowgovt »

stickfigure wrote: post #48
ska wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most Twitter users, as best I can tell, aren't actually complaining about what they see. They are complaining about what others see. FWIW this doesn't match my experience at all, but I've hardly made a study of it. What I mean by that is that the limited complaints I have heard are mostly about a) bad quality advertisement targeting and b) political targeting, also mostly bad quality. "quality" here meaning accurac…

Oh come now. I constantly hear this concern from my friends (almost exclusively left-of-center). And they aren't totally wrong? I have a qanon-er in my family; she's carefully curated her media sources to guarantee a pure, steady stream of nutjob garbage. The thing is, censoring twitter/facebook/youtube makes no difference - these people will find their fringe no matter how hard they have to look. At least on youtube…

> these people will find their fringe no matter how hard they have to look

This is likely true. Most of the discussion around "the algorithm" is mainly centered around whether there's something about the way the major online sharing channels are selecting what to present that acts as a funnel towards QAnon and other radical theories, not whether people already dedicated to finding such information can find it.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#65

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #47
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"paradox of tolerance" is a hypocrisy. If you are intolerant only to the intolerant you are not tolerant, it is as simple as that.

There's absolutely nothing hypocritical about e.g. "defending peace". It's realistic. between Karl Popper's well-known writings on the subject, and one accusatory sentence from someone on the internet, I'll take Karl Popper.

It's still a hypocrisy, but so what.

People say it like it's a damnation of the idea. Things in life are fuzzy, that's why it's literally called a paradox.

The most tolerant people in the world are not going to be ok with a 20 year-old having a sexual relationship with their 12 year old daughter because of the danger involved. That's the paradox of intolerance, that everyone has a limit, and if you have no limit, someone else will pick it for you and cause damage on their terms.

We don't generally tolerate violence in the west. Yes, it's an intolerance, but it's for the greater stability of society.

but I have absolutely seen people use the paradox of tolerance to argue for some shitty opinions, so it must still be dealt with care. You can imagine a KKK member using it to defend their choice of not allowing blacks to be free of lynching.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#66

Post by californiadreem »

wallfacer120 wrote: post #53
californiadreem wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commenting on the naïveté of Mastodon users endlessly repeating the history of modernity is a strange way to affirm any position regarding corporations, but your unsolicited reply is pretty clear that you like them.

Quoted post unavailable.

I think you might enjoy these (if you haven't already read them recently):

https://courses.aynrand.org/works/apollo-11/ https://courses.aynrand.org/works/apollo-and-dionysus/

Re: Protect me from what I want

#67

Post by PaulHoule »

It bugs me that people call these "algorithms" when they really are "heuristics".

An algorithm for sorting an array sorts it correctly 100% of the time, at least it is supposed to

http://envisage-project.eu/proving-android-java-and-python-s...

Something that ranks your feed is a heuristic, a rule of thumb that works right frequently.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#68

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

stickfigure wrote: post #48
ska wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most Twitter users, as best I can tell, aren't actually complaining about what they see. They are complaining about what others see. FWIW this doesn't match my experience at all, but I've hardly made a study of it. What I mean by that is that the limited complaints I have heard are mostly about a) bad quality advertisement targeting and b) political targeting, also mostly bad quality. "quality" here meaning accurac…

Oh come now. I constantly hear this concern from my friends (almost exclusively left-of-center). And they aren't totally wrong? I have a qanon-er in my family; she's carefully curated her media sources to guarantee a pure, steady stream of nutjob garbage. The thing is, censoring twitter/facebook/youtube makes no difference - these people will find their fringe no matter how hard they have to look. At least on youtube…

> Also: If your social media feeds are showing you crappy content, you are to blame.

Yes and no. Youtube radicalisation / algorithmic extremism is a thing, because the engagement-maximising algorithm has a strong bias for rabbit-holes, kooks, con-artists and incendiary nonsense. The "funnel towards QAnon" that the sibling comment mentioned.

Unless you lean hard against it - which first requires awareness of the problem and the skills or knowledge to spot it - it will be in your feed. "you are to blame" is to an extent blaming the victims.

Re: Protect me from what I want

#69

Post by PaulHoule »

jasonlotito wrote: post #54

> Don’t try to deny it, if it wasn’t what you wanted you wouldn’t be doomscrolling so much, would you? This is the most ignorant and idiotic[1] take I've seen on something like this. Don’t try to deny it, if it wasn’t what you wanted you wouldn’t be smoking so much, would you? Don’t try to deny it, if it wasn’t what you wanted you wouldn’t be drinking alcohol so much, would you? Don’t try to deny it, if it wasn’t wha…

People aren't sure what they want. In particular, you 20 years from now might not agree with what you think you want right now. See https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/03/22/why-love-hurts-eva...

Re: Protect me from what I want

#70

Post by cfraenkel »

petermcneeley wrote: post #24
bitwize wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read Marcuse's "Repressive Tolerance" to see why this is the case: https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/publications/1960s/1965-repr... The tl;dr is that if you actually want to move toward a society of free and equal human beings and eliminate oppression, "free speech for all" is not how you go about it. One side of the political spectrum supports equality and emancipation, the other is opposed to it. Therefore the speec…

> Therefore the speech of one side must be tolerated and supported; the speech of the other must be squelched and restricted. This sounds like a distinction between say a friend and an enemy. Sounds like a political concept I have heard before.

Too true. "Do as I say, not as I do." also comes to mind.
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