Let's add one actor to this. Google. Are you free not to use Google?
What does that 'choice' mean? I don't mean 'I use duck duck go'. I mean, you don't use or touch anything that Google provides.
How much of the internet just disappeared for you? Are you 'free' not to use Google in this context?
Your comment also dismisses the very real reality that you have very smart people, tricking you into playing with these services all day. Do you not accept this? Do you also believe that advertising doesn't work on you?
Like most modern problems, the issue isn't simple and the solution isn't simple.
Before you reply, I predict your response will include some form of 'I don't use these, never have and never will'. Great! I applaud this.
How many people in your life do? Is it a majority? Are the majority of people in your life participating in something that you are now 'blacked' out from? Is removing yourself from the experience the best way to engage in the solution?
No because I don’t have to take ownership for choices I have no control over.
I don’t have to block them because some site will still funnel it to them as a middle man. All blocking indirect access to my data will achieve is me wasting time thinking I can.
I can directly avoid their services and personally generate no emotional buy in, staying indifferent to their literal existence, and politically flexible then on Sanders or whoever taxing them billions.
The only framework that has social merit/weight, IMO is the legislative one. Not a corporations interest in gaming our agency for their feudal trade schemes.
I don’t believe in any of this or whatever obligations others say I have. I’ll politically support ones that seem sensible: m4a, education, engineering at scale to support those initiatives.
Outside that the reasons for providing institutional support of trade seem contrived. The ideology of long dead men exported into the limbic systems of the living.
> I don’t have to block them because some site will still funnel it to them as a middle man. All blocking indirect access to my data will achieve is me wasting time thinking I can.
These tools and services are everywhere. It's simply not true that you can live outside of them in a modern internet.
If you do somehow escape entirely, the people in your life still haven't.
In what sense have you made a choice here? Or are you living outside of the zeitgeist entirely? The conversations and politics of the day are happening on Twitter with or without you. Very real policy is happening in 240 characters.
> I don’t believe in any of this or whatever obligations others say I have.
Ok... But the culture is shifting. POTUS has Tweeted every single day since announcing that he'll be running for office. Twitter has an effect on your life.
Not having a twitter account doesn't change that. Not using Facebook directly doesn't change the fact that their tracking pixels are all over the internet. Not using gmail doesn't mean your email isn't being mined on the back end.
Putting your head in the sand and saying "it doesn't effect me" isn't true.
>The only framework that has social merit/weight, IMO is the legislative one. Not a corporations interest in gaming our agency for their feudal trade schemes.
Ok?
>I don’t believe in any of this or whatever obligations others say I have. I’ll politically support ones that seem sensible: m4a, education, engineering at scale to support those initiatives.
Ok.. But you are still playing in the same sandbox as the rest of us. And this sandbox is very influenced by FAANG companies and the policies they offer.
> Outside that the reasons for providing institutional support of trade seem contrived. The ideology of long dead men exported into the limbic systems of the living.
A cathartic article, but it might be worth examining this as a gradual process that has ramped up with social media. The newspaper, the radio, and the television all brought us further down the line to where we are now.
I think the big question is how do we move on and adapt from here. Do we add social media controls, like you might see in China? Perhaps do we try and pass constitutional amendments that fundamentally change our democracy in a way that jives better with the modern flow of information?
edit: of course, it's also possible the next generation will simply learn to live better with the barrage of information than we handled it, and our current highly volatile state of politics will reach some kind of status quo once again (for better or for worse)
This is a great point. We've been building to this for a long time. Social media and the modern internet is just the tip (a big tip though!) of this problem.
I imagine navigating this problem space will be very difficult. Small changes are likely to have major impacts down the line.
> The problem may not be connectivity itself but rather the way social media turns so much communication into a public performance.
This is a key insight. The performance aspect is what is killing social media and getting us addicted to Like and karma points. And of course these metrics are directly related to engagement and ad-based revenue models. It will be interesting to see how far these companies dare to go undoing the damage by hiding Like counts etc.
I'm still on the fence about how much correlation is causation here.
There was another key development in the early 1990s, with the development first of the 24-hour news cycle, then the partisan divisiveness of it. At the same time, political consultants began to focus on divisive language and coded name-calling, continuing a notion that dated back to the late 1960s -- a notable divisive time in American history.
So I can't tell whether this is just the natural growth of partisanship as reflected in new media, or whether there is an actual inflection point. There is a feedback causing an exponential growth, and it can be hard to tell the difference between an apparent sharp, sudden increase in an exponential curve, and a real external effect.
The article does say there are other causes. But social media took the previously invented 24-hour news cycle and all its ills, and put it on steroids.
Absolutely. It's just that one of my main concerns is that we've been partially blaming foreign agitators on social media for that amplification, and I believe we need to recognize that we've done it to ourselves. Rather than look outside, I want us to start looking inwards... and I've believed that since before social media.
I'm trying to remain neutral here, though I suspect you can guess that I blame some specific individuals and groups for that. To my knowledge, they have shown no signs of letting up. They should be the easiest point of failure to fix, and if they won't, I don't know if any amount of analysis and understanding will help.
Social media seems to drag everything down to the lowest common denominator. The only barrier of entry to express your opinion is to register on Twitter, which is not a barrier of entry.
In the past, one had to be published in a magazine, a paper, or show up on TV - not an easy task, just to say something.
Then we had blogs, which was a vast improvement in giving people voice, but at the same time a very good center ground. Setting up a blog, and then writing an entry is not that enjoyable. You need to really have something to say to go cross that bridge.
Now, however, you just open up your app and go "LOLZ LOLZ STUPID LIBS R SO TRIGGERED MAGA". Done.
Social media is where social conscience goes to die, so yes, I believe it.
There is a very good reason why the tornado of lies we hear from the VERY top of our government, and in fact, governments, is because social media brought down the attention span to zero. It's not that they became better liars - people just no longer critically process information, and move on to the next thing.
> social media brought down the attention span to zero
> people just no longer critically process information, and move on to the next thing
Sadly I don't even think this is true. I think "people" in general have always been like this, and social media hasn't really changed that. You mentioned the barrier to entry dropping to zero. I think most of these issues are almost solely a result of that. The intellectual bias that used to be present in "the discourse" has been erased. The politicians/CEOs no longer have doubts, there's no reason to hedge. They know exactly how easy it is to manipulate the populace.
While I see your point, I also believe the sheer shameless lies were not possible before 2007, pre-mobile and pre-twitter. People would consume the info, slowly, and have time to process it. Now, the you know who says something like, "you know, that seems shady, someone should look into it", and leave it there. And then just burry that under another never-ending stream of lies.
I think both are really interlocked. Low barrier of entry = a flood of info = low attention spans as a defense mechanism to deal with it.
This is a really good point. The pace of shameless lying is so fast it's impossible to keep up.
Even if you're paying attention you can't keep it all straight in your head. You have to be a real time BS processing machine these days. And that simply isn't possible.
19 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 49.5 ms ] threadLet's add one actor to this. Google. Are you free not to use Google?
What does that 'choice' mean? I don't mean 'I use duck duck go'. I mean, you don't use or touch anything that Google provides.
How much of the internet just disappeared for you? Are you 'free' not to use Google in this context?
Your comment also dismisses the very real reality that you have very smart people, tricking you into playing with these services all day. Do you not accept this? Do you also believe that advertising doesn't work on you?
Like most modern problems, the issue isn't simple and the solution isn't simple.
Before you reply, I predict your response will include some form of 'I don't use these, never have and never will'. Great! I applaud this.
How many people in your life do? Is it a majority? Are the majority of people in your life participating in something that you are now 'blacked' out from? Is removing yourself from the experience the best way to engage in the solution?
Every one I know is being bombarded by their paid speech though.
So even non-users have a legit argument to regulation.
I can politically assert my right to a world that isn’t bent towards paid speech.
The most important bias we don’t discuss in our algorithms: they’re all designed by paid workers. They’re designing to improve their pay.
I don’t owe Facebook, Zuckerberg, or anyone on this forum my deference to the economic ideas of dead men next November :shrug:
It's pretty hard to dodge Amazon and Google on today's internet. Are you prepared to shut yourself off entirely from those services?
Would you be willing to block the Amazon and Google blocks of IPs? You're free to do this. Is it really a choice though?
I don’t have to block them because some site will still funnel it to them as a middle man. All blocking indirect access to my data will achieve is me wasting time thinking I can.
I can directly avoid their services and personally generate no emotional buy in, staying indifferent to their literal existence, and politically flexible then on Sanders or whoever taxing them billions.
The only framework that has social merit/weight, IMO is the legislative one. Not a corporations interest in gaming our agency for their feudal trade schemes.
I don’t believe in any of this or whatever obligations others say I have. I’ll politically support ones that seem sensible: m4a, education, engineering at scale to support those initiatives.
Outside that the reasons for providing institutional support of trade seem contrived. The ideology of long dead men exported into the limbic systems of the living.
> I don’t have to block them because some site will still funnel it to them as a middle man. All blocking indirect access to my data will achieve is me wasting time thinking I can.
These tools and services are everywhere. It's simply not true that you can live outside of them in a modern internet.
If you do somehow escape entirely, the people in your life still haven't.
In what sense have you made a choice here? Or are you living outside of the zeitgeist entirely? The conversations and politics of the day are happening on Twitter with or without you. Very real policy is happening in 240 characters.
> I don’t believe in any of this or whatever obligations others say I have.
Ok... But the culture is shifting. POTUS has Tweeted every single day since announcing that he'll be running for office. Twitter has an effect on your life.
Not having a twitter account doesn't change that. Not using Facebook directly doesn't change the fact that their tracking pixels are all over the internet. Not using gmail doesn't mean your email isn't being mined on the back end.
Putting your head in the sand and saying "it doesn't effect me" isn't true.
>The only framework that has social merit/weight, IMO is the legislative one. Not a corporations interest in gaming our agency for their feudal trade schemes.
Ok?
>I don’t believe in any of this or whatever obligations others say I have. I’ll politically support ones that seem sensible: m4a, education, engineering at scale to support those initiatives.
Ok.. But you are still playing in the same sandbox as the rest of us. And this sandbox is very influenced by FAANG companies and the policies they offer.
> Outside that the reasons for providing institutional support of trade seem contrived. The ideology of long dead men exported into the limbic systems of the living.
Ok?
Are you _free_ not to use javascript in your browser? Of course you are free to do it. What do you lose by turning off javascript?
Now, go back to FB/Twitter/Google/Amazon/Microsoft/Apple/etc... are you free to not use them? Yes. What do you lose?
Is it practical to throw the baby out with the bath water in this context?
I think the big question is how do we move on and adapt from here. Do we add social media controls, like you might see in China? Perhaps do we try and pass constitutional amendments that fundamentally change our democracy in a way that jives better with the modern flow of information?
edit: of course, it's also possible the next generation will simply learn to live better with the barrage of information than we handled it, and our current highly volatile state of politics will reach some kind of status quo once again (for better or for worse)
I imagine navigating this problem space will be very difficult. Small changes are likely to have major impacts down the line.
The re-tweet button is a great example.
This is a key insight. The performance aspect is what is killing social media and getting us addicted to Like and karma points. And of course these metrics are directly related to engagement and ad-based revenue models. It will be interesting to see how far these companies dare to go undoing the damage by hiding Like counts etc.
There was another key development in the early 1990s, with the development first of the 24-hour news cycle, then the partisan divisiveness of it. At the same time, political consultants began to focus on divisive language and coded name-calling, continuing a notion that dated back to the late 1960s -- a notable divisive time in American history.
So I can't tell whether this is just the natural growth of partisanship as reflected in new media, or whether there is an actual inflection point. There is a feedback causing an exponential growth, and it can be hard to tell the difference between an apparent sharp, sudden increase in an exponential curve, and a real external effect.
I'm trying to remain neutral here, though I suspect you can guess that I blame some specific individuals and groups for that. To my knowledge, they have shown no signs of letting up. They should be the easiest point of failure to fix, and if they won't, I don't know if any amount of analysis and understanding will help.
In the past, one had to be published in a magazine, a paper, or show up on TV - not an easy task, just to say something.
Then we had blogs, which was a vast improvement in giving people voice, but at the same time a very good center ground. Setting up a blog, and then writing an entry is not that enjoyable. You need to really have something to say to go cross that bridge.
Now, however, you just open up your app and go "LOLZ LOLZ STUPID LIBS R SO TRIGGERED MAGA". Done.
Social media is where social conscience goes to die, so yes, I believe it.
There is a very good reason why the tornado of lies we hear from the VERY top of our government, and in fact, governments, is because social media brought down the attention span to zero. It's not that they became better liars - people just no longer critically process information, and move on to the next thing.
> people just no longer critically process information, and move on to the next thing
Sadly I don't even think this is true. I think "people" in general have always been like this, and social media hasn't really changed that. You mentioned the barrier to entry dropping to zero. I think most of these issues are almost solely a result of that. The intellectual bias that used to be present in "the discourse" has been erased. The politicians/CEOs no longer have doubts, there's no reason to hedge. They know exactly how easy it is to manipulate the populace.
I think both are really interlocked. Low barrier of entry = a flood of info = low attention spans as a defense mechanism to deal with it.
Even if you're paying attention you can't keep it all straight in your head. You have to be a real time BS processing machine these days. And that simply isn't possible.