[HN Gopher] How we lost communication to entertainment
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How we lost communication to entertainment
Author : 8organicbits
Score : 649 points
Date : 2025-12-27 20:15 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (ploum.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (ploum.net)
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >A few days ago, I did a controversial blog post
|
| and
|
| >When I originally wrote this post, nearly one year ago,
|
| I am confused.
| 8organicbits wrote:
| Bloggers don't always publish immediately after writing a post,
| the start of the prior post explains the time line and the
| delay: https://ploum.net/2025-12-04-pixelfed-against-
| fediverse.html
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| hmm ok, I thought it might be that, but then I would have
| expected "I did" to have been "I published"
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >Communication networks are not profitable.
|
| Ma Bell tells me they may not have considered all possible angles
| on this matter.
| pyvpx wrote:
| Ma Bell was never profitable without government cheese. And her
| offspring can't do much but complain about how every one else
| is making huge margins over "their" infrastructure.
|
| Telecom is very very broken.
| xpe wrote:
| > Communication networks are not profitable.
|
| This is strong and non-obvious claim; it warrants explanation,
| evidence, debate.
| scotty79 wrote:
| We lost communication to advertising.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It's kinda weird.
|
| Facebook started as a way to connect with family and friends
| and it is still really good at that. When I got back into
| Facebook to post my photos (e.g. in a "publish everywhere"
| strategy) I reconnected with distant family I hadn't been in
| contact with for a long time and I'm thankful for that.
|
| On the other hand _that 's_ not enough for a business so
| Facebook mashes that up with brands/businesses and community
| groups and "creators" and cleverly took the free publicity away
| from brands and started selling it back.
|
| I think the thing is friends and family don't generate enough
| content to be cover traffic for the ads and my feelings are
| kinda ambivalent for those people because there are people I
| care for who post vast amounts of content that I see as
| "cringe" (e.g. COVID-19 hyperchondria while I am seeing Gen X
| get their education and future friends, family and
| socialization stolen by school lockdowns) and thank God
| Facebook knows I don't click on that shit and shows me ads and
| stuff from "creators" instead!
| basisword wrote:
| >> On the other hand that's not enough for a business
|
| It could be. Once Facebook had everyone on board they could
| have pivoted to a model where people pay directly. It's easy
| to forget how incredibly useful it was in the early years.
| It's not enough for a business that needs to endlessly grow
| but businesses don't NEED to do that - especially tech
| companies where costs can be incredibly low once the initial
| website is built.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| 20 years ago I'd say that "free-to-play" would have been
| necessary because of the N2 value that social sites create,
| just getting the idea mainstream was difficult enough and
| you can very much see the phases we went through, how
| Facebook inspired Twitter and back, etc. Like, of my family
| and friends who are on Facebook I think very few of them
| would become subscribers.
|
| Today people believe in the value of social media and
| selling a subscription would be easier but the barriers I
| see are
|
| - from the viewpoint of incumbents, _the people who would
| pay to have an ad-free experience are the people you most
| want to show ads to!_ Or to the converse, the person who
| won 't spend $10 to block ads is cheap and won't spend
| money on anything else
|
| - incumbents will get in the way of any kind of
| "aggregator" service which adds value
|
| In a Fediversal system there would be a possible markets
| for a product that helps a consumer have a better consuming
| experience or a publisher have a better publishing
| experience (e.g. I post links and photos to 9 services) and
| would some pay, yes. But incumbents are threatened by
| openness and price API access at punitive, not profit-
| maximizing levels. Even in a more open world I'd have a lot
| of fear that the revenue and the costs won't line up and
| the profits in some part of the systems will be at the
| expense of unsustainable losses elsewhere and the mechanism
| design to make that work is tough.
|
| (e.g. I did some biz dev with a guy who had a track record
| in influencing freakin' _telecoms_ to do better with
| mechanism design who thought "freedom isn't free" is the
| problem with the internet who struggled to get calls with
| anyone)
| plagiarist wrote:
| We lost civilization to advertising IMO. It feels like the
| majority of all technology is built around monetizing clicks.
| Astrophysicists are working at Stitch Fix.
| towledev wrote:
| We need a Caesar who will ban all advertising. Lacking a
| Caesar, we could start with publicly funded NFL stadiums e.g.
| MetLife to get a foot in the door and go from there.
| Something must be done.
| cons0le wrote:
| Hear hear. Ban all advertising. We could do it slow.
|
| Start by banning all gambling and drug commercials. That's
| like 20% of all commercials right there. This is already
| normal in other countries.
|
| Then ban all billboards. People hate them already.
|
| Then the big one, ban targeted advertising. With personalized
| ads gone, all of the incentives that make data collection
| profitable are gone.
|
| Of course there will still be bad actors that want data
| mining to continue. But right now you can't even read 95% of
| websites because they have popups that make you agree to data
| mining just to get in. I'll be searching for like, a recipe
| and they want my name, device IP, browser fingerprint, and
| anything else they can pinch.
|
| I'm searching for a nice spinach salad recipe. I go to google
|
| First it fires up an LLM, which will run a GPU in an AI data
| center that they probably cleared a forest to build.
|
| I just made nvdia stronger. I just helped pump their AI
| "adoption" numbers. And I helped train an AI that will help
| layoff me and my friends.
|
| As always I run the search again with "-noai" at the end. Now
| I'm searching twice for no reason. The results were better,
| and faster 10 years ago.
|
| It gives me results and I click the first link. A video that
| I can't pause starts auto playing. This recipe isn't that
| good so I go back and find another. I need to click the back
| button 4 times.
|
| I try another link. And get another pop up. I opt into data
| mining this time because uBo is having trouble with the full
| page transparent overlays. Now they have my data to sell to
| 3rd party intermediaries that will sell them to companies
| like palantir and cambridge analytica. Every search builds a
| little more of my "shadow profile".
|
| Maybe I should have just gone to the library and taken a
| picture. All I wanted was a salad recipe and I've now helped
| train the system that made brexit possible. I've helped
| nvdia. I've helped the very AI datacenters that I hate. I've
| helped the data miners.
|
| The experience of using a computer in 2025 is exhausting.
| Particularly search engines. They used to work so good. They
| used to be so fast.
| plagiarist wrote:
| You probably recall when Google first came out, using that
| over Yahoo browse by category was a sea change in terms of
| finding things. That was the peak. People were still
| hesitant to put their credit card info so the majority of
| the internet was just labors of love. It was like a
| library. Now it is like a casino.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| It was. And yet... Sometimes I wish I still had a curated
| list of links by category to browse. Does anybody know of
| anybody who maintains something like that these days?
| contrast wrote:
| This is one of those articles that is too obsessed with amusing
| itself with its own pretentiousness to communicate anything
| interesting - which is ironic given the author seems thinks they
| prefer communications to entertainment.
| majormajor wrote:
| Text and chat (and the voice forms) are alive and well for
| communication.
|
| Broadcast forms, on the other hand, are ripe for co-option by
| profit-seeking through advertising.
|
| That's not communication being lost, it's media.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Broadcast forms, on the other hand, are ripe for co-option by
| profit-seeking through advertising.
|
| The problem is, running broadcast networks is insanely
| expensive. You need either _a lot_ of antennas (or other
| distribution points such as coax and fiber) around the country,
| or you need insanely large and power-hungry antennas (i.e. AM
| radio), or you need powerful data centers and legal teams.
|
| _Someone_ has to pay the bill, and so it 's either some sort
| of encrypted pay-tv which most people don't want to pay (see:
| the widespread piracy), or it's advertising, or (like with
| social media) venture capital being set alight.
| majormajor wrote:
| Social media doesn't have to be that expensive to run.
| Countless forums out there for decades.
|
| But _especially_ if you allow audio /video then your
| moderation costs can get very high if you're aiming for more
| "broadcast" and less "community."
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Social media doesn't have to be that expensive to run.
| Countless forums out there for decades.
|
| Said forums existed because of volunteers paying in the
| form of time. Moderation is expensive, so are legal
| liabilities and associated cost that have only increased
| over the last decades - DMCA, anti-CSAM legislation, anti-
| terrorism legislation come to my mind primarily - and
| especially, there is a _huge_ workload to deal with abusive
| behavior from unrelated third parties: skiddies, ddos
| extorters, dedicated hackers hired by "competition",
| spammers, you get the idea. Someone _always_ pays the bill.
|
| There is a reason so many forums and mailing lists
| collapsed once Reddit took off. It just isn't worth it any
| more.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It helps a lot for a community to have a specific focus.
|
| For instance if it is photography technique or sports
| talk or Arduino programming almost all problematic
| content is "off-topic" and easy to delete without
| splitting hairs or offending libertarian sentiments.
|
| Similarly "no explicit images" is an easy line to defend,
| but anything past that like "no CSAM" is excruciatingly
| difficult.
|
| For a general purpose platform where people can post what
| they want, particularly if there is a libertarian ethos
| where people cry about "censorship", moderation is a
| bitch.
|
| My personal pet peeve is that on any platform that has
| DMs I get a lot of messages, particularly when starting a
| new account, for things that are transparently scams and
| if I was starting one today my feeling of responsibility
| leads me to the conclusion that I would not support DMs.
| hamdingers wrote:
| What is lost is social networking. Texting or calling people
| you already know isn't networking.
|
| Every social network experiences convergent evolutionary
| pressure driving it to become social media instead.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Group chats are social networking. You'll meet people you
| didn't already know.
| blell wrote:
| Maybe we have different concepts of what a group chat is.
| To me, group chats have my friends, and we will never
| invite anybody who is not already a friend of everybody.
| They are supposed to be high-trust environments.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Somewhat different. Most of the group chats I'm in are
| related to house parties where the host knows everyone
| but I don't. Or they are interest / hobby related.
| singpolyma3 wrote:
| Once they hit a certain size or topiclessness they become
| social media again
| Groxx wrote:
| well-run Discord servers can be outstanding in the same way
| as any well-run community
| GolfPopper wrote:
| Everything is being lost. We're in the process of sacrificing
| our collective humanity for corporate profit.
| TheServitor wrote:
| I think the desire to not centralize identity has more to do with
| it than anything. We present different facets to different
| communities. The pseudo-indelible nature of internet commentary
| means saying something to anyone potentially means saying it to
| everyone, in any context.
|
| That's why people have multiple fediverse accounts, to limit
| context or purpose of communication channels. Not because they
| don't value genuine communication within those channels.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I used to get into arguments with people in the Fedi who
| couldn't seem to make up their minds whether they wanted to be
| visible or invisible. To me it seemed like it made no sense,
| like if you really want to be invisible _just don 't post it_
| because you can't really take things back.
|
| At some point I realized those people were just like that.
|
| I worked at a startup circa 2012 or so which was unusually
| unclear in its mission but the paychecks and the parties were
| good and the idea seemed to be helping people partition out
| different parts of the identities in terms of interests so you
| could get Paul-the-mild-mannered-applications-developer, Paul-
| as-a-marketer/huckster, and Paul-as-a-fox, and Paul-with-an-
| embarassing-interest, etc.
|
| We had the hardest time explaining to the press (TechCrunch
| would say they didn't get it!) and everyone else, I could
| probably pitch it as well as anybody and I didn't do very well.
| kruffalon wrote:
| Docker for humans!
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Right, like the pods in the Matrix! Cool.
| plagiarist wrote:
| I think I somewhat agree with the author but I find the idea of
| a single account completely unappealing. My view on the
| benefits of federation is that you don't have a single entity
| gating your access. Having multiple accounts is a benefit.
| bentcorner wrote:
| I love this paragrpah and I think it provides an interesting
| insight:
|
| > _They are entertainment platforms that delegate media creation
| to the users themselves the same way Uber replaced taxis by
| having people drive others in their own car._
|
| Taking this analogy further, is today's end goal of social media
| to provide AI generated content that users can endlessly consume?
| I think Facebook is heading this direction.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > is today's end goal of social media to provide AI generated
| content that users can endlessly consume? I think Facebook is
| heading this direction.
|
| Platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts have
| already gone a long way down that path. I don't think users
| like this content much though.
| hamdingers wrote:
| They don't have to like it they just need to engage with it.
| BoingBoomTschak wrote:
| As KMFDM once said: _We want to stop reading magazines,
| stop watching TV, stop caring about Hollywood but we 're
| addicted to the things we hate_
| amatecha wrote:
| In high school English class we had to present a "poem"
| of our choice, of any sort - which included music pieces
| (or whatever other format). The song you quoted (KMFDM -
| Dogma) was my choice. The assignment included handing out
| the poem and reading (or playing it) to the class... Uhh,
| needless to say this got a pretty interesting reaction,
| but to the credit of the teacher, she didn't stop the
| music (or confiscate the printed out lyrics I handed out
| to everyone) despite the various swear words and pretty
| interesting messages in the lyrics.
|
| FWIW the lyrics are written by (and spoken word performed
| by) guest artist Nicole Blackman (according to
| https://www.discogs.com/release/73597-KMFDM-Xtort )
| plagiarist wrote:
| Which users? I typically dislike TikTok and other shorts but
| the platforms seem to be wildly popular even despite my
| opinions.
| elemdos wrote:
| They only dislike it when they can tell it's AI, but that's
| becoming less and less of a possibility.
| lll-o-lll wrote:
| We are destroying ourselves; the very core of what it is to be
| human. I say this acknowledging the irony of writing this on my
| phone, on a Sunday morning, when I should be engaging with the
| real world and people in my life.
|
| Television was rightly criticised for being the opiate of the
| masses; a continuous stream of entertainment that allows you to
| 'stop thinking' to endure boredom. However it had some
| constraints. The box was in a fixed space, I could not bring it
| with me. The content was fixed, it could not always engage me.
|
| Social media, and every other 'content delivery' system is not
| like this. It is in my pocket, there is _so much_ content, it
| can keep me continually engaged. AI content generation
| _optimises_ this, perhaps, but we already live in this
| dystopia.
|
| Rise up and revolt! Put down our phones and refuse to engage!
| Our very lives, our _humanity_ depends on it!
| shadowgovt wrote:
| That sounds like work.
| kbrkbr wrote:
| The original opiate for the people criticism was leveled
| against religion by Karl Marx:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people
| andrepd wrote:
| ... This is relevant how?
| jama211 wrote:
| I found it interesting, etymology of the phrase
| lll-o-lll wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/calvinandhobbes/comments/6pontu/wh
| a...
|
| ;-)
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Very often misquoted as being a blunt attack on religion,
| but people often just cut out the second half of the quote
| --
|
| "opiate of the masses... _heart of the heartless world_ "
|
| Marx was despairing at the heartlessness of the condition
| of working class people in industrial slums, people one
| generation or less removed from the flight from rural
| landless dispossession and starvation into the polluted
| cities and factories and tiny apartments in slums in search
| of survival. He saw religion as one tool people used to
| salve the pain, to reduce the suffering.
|
| Far more complicated than "religion bad, we should ban it,
| mmkay"
|
| There's probably an analogy here around the "attention
| economy" and "social media."
|
| Look for root causes. If you turn everything and everyone
| into a commodity -- "market yourself!" -- don't be
| surprised when the consumptive model takes over all
| consciousness.
|
| The commodity form is the [post|hyper]modern religion.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I appreciate the sentiment, but I don't think that calls for
| generic revolt are likely to get us anywhere. It's gotta be
| targeted and meaningful and executed with a measure of a
| restraint. It needs to be clear we can be reasoned with.
|
| So what kind of revolt are you calling for? Are we dumping
| GPU's into the ocean like we did with tea in Boston that one
| time? Are we disconnecting datacenters from the internet? Are
| we all gonna change our profile picture? Specifics please.
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| I think it's easier than that. We can literally start the
| revolution from our beds:
|
| 1. For every social media account you have: post "I'm
| leaving. You should too"
|
| 2. For every social media account you have: close it.
|
| 3. Profit
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Is the problem really social media though? Without some
| kind of long-distance-capable social medium that we
| participate in directly, how are we going to know when
| the news is lying to us? Social media's alternatives
| _also_ can 't resist corruption, if we give up this
| fight, we'll lose that one too.
|
| I think we can handle communicating with each other at
| scale, we just have to be more proactive about not
| letting control over the medium be up for sale, and more
| inventive about the ways we can protect each other from
| those who would make us into addicts.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > 1. For every social media account you have: post "I'm
| leaving. You should too"
|
| Did you miss the trend in the 2010s of announcing you
| were quitting social media? This was already a thing. All
| it did was annoy people. Also 90% of the people I know
| who did it are back on social media.
|
| If you want to use social media less, just use social
| media less. Hang out with other people who socialize
| instead of burying their face in their phone. Getting on
| a high horse and lecturing other people on social media
| isn't going to do anything.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| << Getting on a high horse and lecturing other people on
| social media isn't going to do anything.
|
| I disagree. Ostracism and generic shaming may be
| necessary. My kid is barely 4 and his cousin's already
| were fielding cellphones during our family gathering.
| There are times high horse riding is absolutely
| necessary.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Necessary maybe, but insufficient. Shame other plebs all
| you like, the predatory tech isn't going away until we
| start ruining rich people over it.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Saying something in a social setting when someone is
| behaving inappropriately for that social setting is
| reasonable.
|
| Pulling out your cell phone to post your own angry rants
| about how your cousins were using social media is just
| pointless grandstanding.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| I honestly disagree. I would like to think I planted some
| seeds today.
| no-name-here wrote:
| Is Hacker News considered social media, or only sites
| like x/twitter/mastodon/bluesky?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Interesting point, because Hacker News doesn't serve ads,
| and doesn't have any personalized algorithms, yet it's
| quite compelling and I waste a lot of time here.
| nottorp wrote:
| Everything seems to be social media for a certain age
| group. Even stuff that I'd call messaging applications.
| lll-o-lll wrote:
| :-D I do love the image of hurling GPU's into the sea!
|
| My suggestion was much more modest. Put down the phone and
| delete your socials. Disengagement is the ultimate act of
| rebellion.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I don't think history is on your side there.
| Disengagement might be a small first step, but for no
| rebellion worth mentioning was disengagement in any way
| ultimate.
|
| Rebellion is about stripping people of power. The
| disengagement you're describing, if not followed up by a
| different sort of reengagement, would merely be getting
| out of the power's way.
| cons0le wrote:
| I'd love to lobby for "the right" to opt out of AI
| features.
|
| When I google search "why is the sky blue" , it spins up an
| LLM. This is incredibly wasteful for simple, known answers.
|
| When my friend googles the same thing, it spins up the LLM
| again. Google was a pioneer of search indexing, and now it
| seems like we don't attempt to index answers at all.
| They're spinning up an LLM every time because they're
| trying to run up the AI "adoption" metrics.
|
| I'd love to be able to ask for simple things, like the
| address of the local restaurant 3 blocks away, without
| firing up a GPU in an AI data center.
|
| I don't always want to "talk with" a computer. Sometimes I
| just want to "use" a computer. Maybe that makes me a fool.
| Or an old man yelling at clouds.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > When my friend googles the same thing, it spins up the
| LLM again
|
| I just tried this from two different devices, neither
| logged in, both on separate IPs from different states.
|
| Got the exact same answer.
|
| These are almost certainly cached. It would be naive to
| think Google is performing the same LLM requests over and
| over again for the same terms for no reason.
| cons0le wrote:
| For me, google searches are defaulting to "AI mode"
|
| I just asked it the same question on 2 different devices.
|
| The question I asked was harder than why is the sky blue.
| I asked it "who was Edmund Fitzgerald".
|
| One device, it gives me the ship. The other device, it
| gives me the person. I can copy/paste the answers here,
| if we want to compare.
|
| Again, this could happen because I used "too hard" of a
| question. But I'm definitely getting 2 different answers.
|
| You can of course, do this will almost every LLM. I can
| ask copilot 3 times and get conflicting answers each
| time.
|
| Maybe for some types of questions that's beneficial. But
| for simple "what is X" questions, it's not as useful.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Dump advertising into the ocean. The motivation for
| maximizing engagement on social media is to maximize ad
| impressions for revenue. Every algorithm, every dark
| pattern, every UX tweak, is aimed toward that sole end. The
| issue cannot be fixed by regulating social media itself; it
| is the enormous monetary incentive that is the root of the
| problem and until the flow of money is choked off,
| corporations will still doggedly pursue that revenue.
| no-name-here wrote:
| So what exactly are you proposing - that we encourage all
| users to only pay for ad-free versions of every service
| they use, instead of choosing an ad-supported version?
| Try to outlaw adverting globally? What is an ad - a sign
| for a company? A company's circular? A sign for company
| with a logo next to it? (To understand what should be
| forbidden.)
|
| > every algorithm ... every UX tweak
|
| Actually, is the whole comment sarcasm? Or is the
| proposal to ban algorithms/UX changes? Or just such
| things if they increase sales on a product page, etc?
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| A good start would be to make it a criminal offence to
| sell the right to execute code on somebody's device
| without their consent. And to tax into oblivion any
| service that can't function without such consent.
|
| We can work our way up to eliminating all targeted
| advertising later, lets start with the stuff that's
| indistinguishable from malware.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Hmm, how about taxing ad impressions per user, per social
| media site, per day on an increasing scale? It remains
| possible for a social media site to remain profitable but
| makes it rapidly unprofitable to show too many ads. It
| also incentivizes the social media site to push the user
| toward paid service with no ads that can be more
| profitable than the maximum number of ads they are
| allowed to spew at free users.
| rfrey wrote:
| Maybe the very core of what it is to be human _is_ to destroy
| ourselves.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Would be funny if the "great filter" is not nukes or some
| other weapon, but social media.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
| Nasrudith wrote:
| The Great Filter is just bullshit until we come across
| space ruins to prove that something has been filtering
| out civilizations. It is possible that we are just the
| "precursors" without any giants to stand upon the
| shoulders of.
|
| Catastrophazing new media hasn't gone out of fashion yet.
| Remember when it was Reality TV that was supposed to be
| the downfall of civilizations?
| walterbell wrote:
| Any real-world side effects of Reality TV?
| ben_w wrote:
| Arguably the election of Trump.
| ben_w wrote:
| The absence is the evidence.
|
| Being a precursor is not inconsistent with great filters,
| a great filter is why nobody else is there to be one.
|
| Great filter is anywhere at all in the progress of life
| from pre-life chemistry to stable interplanetary
| expansion; filters behind us, for example multicellular
| life or having dry land so we can invent fire, are still
| potential great filters and they would leave no space
| ruins to find.
|
| That said, my assumption is lots of little filters that
| add up. Eleven filters behind us each with 10% pass rates
| is enough to make us the peak of civilisation in this
| galaxy; eleven more between us and Kardashev III would
| make the universe seem empty.
| throwaway94275 wrote:
| One could argue modern social media like Tiktok and
| Snapchat is an evolution of reality TV, in app/smartphone
| form.
| tw04 wrote:
| > Remember when it was Reality TV that was supposed to be
| the downfall of civilizations?
|
| I'd say we've already got measurable statistics. When
| half of genz isn't dating or married, it's signaling
| trouble.
|
| https://aibm.org/commentary/gen-zs-romance-gap-why-
| nearly-ha...
|
| Now, we can discuss if that's good or bad for the planet,
| but it's not great for humanity.
| XorNot wrote:
| Yes I'm sure reality TV did it and not cost of living
| meaning they have little money for entertainment and
| definitely will never purchase their own home.
| tw04 wrote:
| Yes, college aged men who aren't in a relationship are
| avoiding pursuing one because they're thinking about
| whether or not they'll be able to afford a house some
| day. It definitely has nothing to do with social media
| and dating apps breaking human interaction.
| joquarky wrote:
| Please keep the sarcasm on Reddit.
| ben_w wrote:
| If "will never purchase their own home" was a reason to
| not have kids, many more people in previous generations
| would've been childless.
|
| What has changed is expectations. The room I rented in my
| final year of university, and that was only 20 years ago,
| would (I think) no longer be legal: too poorly insulated.
| Very cheap though, I think it was PS40 a week? Even after
| adjusting that for inflation since then, that was cheap.
| But it's (I think?) no longer possible.
|
| Expectations for things that can be bought have gone up
| faster than our ability to buy them. We didn't used to
| all _expect_ to be able to fly somewhere on holiday. We
| didn 't used to all _expect_ to have a phone -- and I don
| 't just mean a smartphone, or even a mobile phone, my
| first partner was a bit older than me, born in the 70s,
| their family _didn 't have a landline_. All the streaming
| services are expensive, I grew up with 4 free-to-air
| channels and no internet (not even a dialup modem) let
| alone broadband that you need to stream video. Smart
| bulbs for mood lighting are expensive, I grew up in an
| upper middle class house and yet it had _one_ , singular,
| dimming switch for the incandescent bulb it took. A
| microwave was a fancy accessory, not standard, when I was
| a kid. It all adds up.
|
| Also, our expectations for relationships have gone up
| faster than humans could ever change, as our expectations
| follow not reality but rather perception. Sure, the
| perception was already off when I was young, we had
| unrealistic body goals in high-gloss magazines and
| Hollywood glamour and unrealistic romances in stories and
| unrealistic sex in porn, but even with that the quantity
| one could consume was relatively limited... and now we
| have the highest-rated content from our always-on social
| media accounts, A/B tested to be more appealing than
| reality, and even when it isn't AI-enhanced or
| photoshopped, it's still the final cut to the cutting
| room floor of having to deal with flawed real people.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| Is there any evidence that the fall in birth rates is
| _caused by_ humans having produced reality TV shows?
|
| I'd say there is better evidence to suggest the fall in
| birth rates is predominantly caused by telling women they
| should prioritise education and career over children, and
| enabling the invention of the _single mother_ who
| survives on government largesse. Separating church and
| state appears to be contributing at least to some extent.
|
| Single mothers, and women having their first child in
| their late 20's or 30's, appear to be maladaptive.
| KPGv2 wrote:
| > I'd say there is better evidence to suggest the fall in
| birth rates is predominantly caused by telling women they
| should prioritise education and career over children
|
| I'd say the evidence is inconclusive and could just as
| easily be explained by not telling men they needed to
| take on their share of the burden at home now that their
| women were no longer trapped at home doing unpaid, manual
| labor all day.
|
| Instead, we're letting people say "gay sex includes
| giving a woman an orgasm instead of a pregnancy" (an
| actual thing I've heard a right-wing influencer say right
| here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH6uydPCX8Q ) and
| encouraging men to be more selfish and anti-woman.
|
| Also who cares about a fall in birth rates? We need a
| fall in birth rates. Above replacement rate is
| mathematically unstable in the long term.
|
| When people complain bout "a fall in birth rates,"
| they're a mix of capitalists who need their profits to
| ever increase, and white supremacists who mean WHITE
| people need to have more babies because society is too
| BROWN now.
|
| We're about to have _hella_ unemployment from too many
| people for too few jobs. We need fewer people.
| mlrtime wrote:
| Your post, youtube link and quote is quite ironic given
| the title of this thread.
|
| You link to a youtube podcast of kids stating things as
| if they are facts, its just a podcast. I've never heard
| these things actually said anywhere. It means nothing.
|
| Then your quote is taken out of context and a new culture
| war is created, well done.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| It's interesting how common the theme of "a man being
| into women is gay" is among the right-wing circles,
| though usually it's hidden in the subtext and not just
| spelled out in clear like this.
| tw04 wrote:
| > predominantly caused by telling women they should
| prioritise education and career over children
|
| Who is "telling them that"? Society by allowing them to
| open a checking account? Women's suffrage? The reality is
| that other than the most privileged, a modern family
| can't afford to function without both parents working. I
| assume you're for raising the minimum wage to allow a
| family to run on a single income with multiple children?
| Or your solution is to send us back to the dark ages and
| remove womens rights?
|
| > enabling the invention of the single mother who
| survives on government largesse.
|
| There's literally nobody who has kids as a single mother
| with the goal of raising them on welfare, that might be
| the single most ridiculous statement in this thread.
|
| > Separating church and state appears to be contributing
| at least to some extent.
|
| The Russian Orthodox Church is government sponsored.
| How's their birth rate going?
| singpolyma3 wrote:
| It's definitely not true that both parents need to work.
| I know many families where only one parent has an income,
| and it is a very low income (one works as a mover for
| example) and they manage to eat and live etc.
|
| Do they live upper middle class on this income? No. But
| they do live and have multiple children.
| tw04 wrote:
| And I can guarantee they're on government assistance
| because I know what a "mover" makes, and I know what
| diapers and formula cost, and they aren't paying for
| multiple children on that salary alone.
| singpolyma3 wrote:
| I can promise you they are not. One of the families in
| question doesn't even get their tax credits because they
| are too far behind on filing. It's just the mover income.
| They have to make it work and since they must, they do
|
| They don't buy formula obviously and they cloth diaper
| with used stuff from marketplace. To cover the two
| examples you gave
| joquarky wrote:
| What's your point? We should all aspire to this?
|
| I'm reminded of a 90s comedy series that had a regular
| segment that lampooned how some families worked 3 or more
| jobs. I never found it all that funny given that it was a
| reality for my family.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| > We should all aspire to this?
|
| Yes, we should all aspire to have our children's mother
| at home during the child's developmental years rather
| than letting it be a string of minimum-wage strangers. If
| you can't manage that, oh well, it happens... but that's
| the ideal that we should all want. And wouldn't it be a
| hell of a world, where the single income could support
| such a family?
|
| >I'm reminded of a 90s comedy series that had a regular
| segment that lampooned how some families worked 3 or more
| jobs.
|
| Someone above asked "who was telling them X". Well, in
| your case, it was 90s sitcoms. Not just your case,
| everyone's really. Sitcoms have been used to negatively
| portray what should be ideals since at least the 1970s.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Is there any evidence that the fall in birth rates is
| caused by humans having produced reality TV shows?_
|
| No, but there's is evidence that the fall in birth rates
| is affected by all the content slop people spend their
| times consuming instead of talking to one another and
| fucking one another... and the ideas that slop puts into
| their heads are even worse...
| Supermancho wrote:
| What evidence? The demographic timelines dont add up.
| coldtea wrote:
| Doesn't it? TV got mass adoption midpoint around 1955 -
| around which time when the fertility trends start sloping
| down (and incidentaly around the time Putnam puts the
| start of the decline in social capital in the US in the
| seminal "Bowling Alone").
|
| It then stabilizes around 1980 and starts a second
| downward slop around 2010 - the time of smartphones and
| social media.
|
| https://usafacts.org/articles/how-have-us-fertility-and-
| birt...
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Caused by allowing women the same choices that men have.
| Would you rather they not have the choice?
| toss1 wrote:
| Maybe think for a second from the perspective of a couple
| or woman who _WANT_ to have children. The problems they
| face in today 's economy where both people need to work
| full-time just to survive are huge, and it seems even
| crazier to _add_ the time and money costs of a child, let
| alone several.
|
| The way to change all of that has _nothing_ to do with
| religion and everything to do with economic and labor
| policy
|
| Society decided it was OK to have the top 1% control 27%
| or all wealth and the top 10% control 60%, and allow
| companies to pay wages so low that a person working full-
| time cannot even get out of poverty, so 25%+ of the
| workers at the largest employer qualify for food benefits
| (and the employer even gives employees seminars how to
| get benefits), while the leaders/owners of those
| companies rake in more billions every year.
|
| Society decided it was OK to make sure health care is
| expensive, incomplete, and bankrupting for any unexpected
| event.
|
| Society decided it was the mothers who are responsible
| for all childcare and provide only minimum assistance for
| critical needs like prenatal care, and day-care.
|
| You want more babies? Make just a few changes
|
| Change requirements so corporations are required to
| compensate their employees merely the way the original US
| minimum wage was specified (including in the 1956
| Republican Party Platform): So a single person working
| full-time will earn enough to support a household of four
| including housing (mortgage/rent), food, healthcare, and
| education. Recognize that _the companies_ trying to
| exploit their workers by paying less so their full-time
| employees need govt benefits to feed themselves are the
| ones exploiting welfare, and do not have a viable
| business model, they have an exploitation model.
|
| Add making healthcare sufficient and affordable for all,
| including children and support for daycare and the time
| and effort to raise children.
|
| Change those things, and instead of a couple looking at
| making an already hugely insecure future even more
| insecure by having children, they would see an
| opportunity to confidently embark on building a family
| without feeling like one misfortune or layoff could put
| them all in the street.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Do you have a citation that the US federal minimium wage
| ever had the objective that "a single person working
| full-time will earn enough to support a household of
| four" because I can't find it in the Wikipedia entry[1]
| or other top level search results. I also don't see this
| idea in the 1956 Republican Party platform[2]. At best
| from reading a few other sources it looks like at its
| peak in the late 1960s it would have been enough to keep
| a family of three above the poverty line (though that
| hardly implies they could afford a mortgage and higher
| education). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/
| wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States [2]
| https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-
| party-platform-1956
| Nursie wrote:
| > a single person working full-time will earn enough to
| support a household of four including housing
| (mortgage/rent), food, healthcare, and education.
|
| Here's the problem - some people will still make the
| choice to have 'get ahead' by having both partners work.
| They will then use their relatively greater economic
| power to get better housing and more stuff. So others
| will join them, and they will bid up housing (because
| it's the most important thing) until we're back to where
| we started and even those who don't want to do that now
| have to.
|
| It's a sorta tragedy of the commons situation.
|
| The only real solution there is for governments to look
| at social housing, and also to try to produce A glut of
| house building.
|
| Because until we have one or the other (or both) people
| will just keep bidding up accomodation to the edge of
| what's affordable on two incomes.
| toss1 wrote:
| Yes, there will likely be that phenomenon, but will it
| occur faster than the approx 2% level of optimum
| inflation?
|
| >>The only real solution there is for governments to look
| at social housing, and also to try to produce A glut of
| house building.
|
| Creating a universally-available baseline lodging
| situation for everyone is certainly a public good that
| would yield a LOT of benefits from eliminating
| homelessness (benefiting not only the homeless but also
| everyone who their problems affect) to promoting family
| stability.
|
| Whether the best way is to incentivize a glut, subsidize
| social housing, or just provide a housing stipend for
| anyone in need, another system, or some combination of
| all-of-the-above should be subject to study and
| experimentation.
| riskable wrote:
| Simpler "fixes": Prevent corporations from owning single
| family homes and don't allow anyone to own more than one
| single family home.
|
| It'd crash the housing market, making homes MUCH more
| affordable, immediately. As corporations--who currently
| own 25% of all single family homes in some markets--are
| forced to sell off their inventory.
|
| They could still own multi-family dwellings, just not
| single family homes.
|
| The wealthy would just build multi-family dwellings for
| themselves, owned by corporations (that they own), and
| rent them to themselves. So it wouldn't really interfere
| with their rich lives much.
| intended wrote:
| Why not choose GDP? Or meat consumption? You could choose
| any pair of correlated variables.
|
| Using "The invention of the single mother" is a poor way
| of explaining away Bad Marriages and relationships.
|
| Also, there was a UN report which came out that showed
| that a major factor behind people choosing not to have
| children, globally, is money.
| brabel wrote:
| Money has been shown convincingly to not be an important
| factor. Please read about it for a while and you will
| quickly see that it's a discredited argument, not least
| because poor people everywhere have always had more
| children. Also, fertility rates are falling everywhere,
| especially in countries that are becoming wealthier.
| toss1 wrote:
| Perhaps money alone is not a reliable factor, and there
| are certainly confounding variables, such as poor people
| having low access to healthcare including contraception
| and education about options and how to use it.
|
| More important than money is _economic security_ , the
| ability to _expect_ a reasonable long-term access to a
| sound source of income.
|
| Having to worry whether you'll be laid off next week and
| not be able to get new work, and have that worry be
| constant over a decade is a real discouragement to having
| children.
|
| Having a stable situation in life is vastly underrated,
| and not easily measured by current net worth or income.
| jjkaczor wrote:
| "Remember when it was Reality TV that was supposed to be
| the downfall of civilizations?"
|
| The jury is still out on that one... failed "business"
| person who was also a "reality TV star" - and now appears
| to be in some level of dementia - currently in charge of
| the single biggest military-industrial complex on the
| planet...
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Catastrophazing new media hasn 't gone out of fashion
| yet. Remember when it was Reality TV that was supposed to
| be the downfall of civilizations?_
|
| And it was. We're now even further down in that downfall,
| and most content is "reality TV" style now: influencers,
| parasocial relationships, IG, TikTok, OF, news vlogs and
| podcasts that are about the anchor an not the content,
| and so on...
| lqstuart wrote:
| The "Great Filter" is the fact that humans are nowhere
| near as remarkable nor "intelligence" as necessary as we
| want to think
| joquarky wrote:
| What do you mean?
|
| Jerry Springer theatrics has infiltrated politics, and I
| would judge our civilization as being in a downward trend
| as a result.
| ben_w wrote:
| I've read that short story, but can't remember enough
| details to search for it.
|
| Humans do find alien radio signals, but they keep going
| dark after a brief window; the narrator suspects why,
| because they witness fellow humans disappearing into
| simulations far more fun than reality could ever be.
| TheEaterOfSouls wrote:
| Not quite the same concept, but The Machine Stops by E.
| M. Forster (published in 1909, but still pretty relevant
| imo) is about where this all might lead, with humans
| living in almost total isolation and only communicating
| through "the machine", which mostly sounds like modern
| social media lol. It's terrifying. Also really
| demonstrates how static human nature actually is.
| agumonkey wrote:
| maybe there's no core just unchecked forces due to
| technology removing barriers
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| yeah evolutionarily we gained all this power to survive,
| now that we've got that figured out the drive to survive
| has been turned in its head
|
| now we need to figure out a way to survive our survival
| instincts in the world of abundance and safety we have
| created
|
| imo we have to conquer our own biology because we are too
| amped up as a species to choose temperance
| kingkawn wrote:
| Nothing has been conquered. Technology is providing a
| behavioral selection process that is effectively self-
| culling the populace and is going to make the mass
| adaptation to the next century of climate change much
| more bearable for all
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| You are being downvoted, but I am wondering if people,
| who are doing it are doing it reflexively just because
| they disagree and not because they thought it through.
| There is an argment to be made that there is a level of
| self-preservation that disappears when things become too
| sanitized. Case in point, during one of FL issues, people
| were panicking over gas and -- some -- were putting gas
| in unapproved containers without giving much thought over
| whether it is a good idea since gas can do a lot more
| than just power cars. Granted, some of the silly behavior
| is a direct result of social media egg ons/clout chase
| and weird level Tyler Durden accellerationist vibes, but
| some people simply don't know.. or care to know.
|
| I am not saying it is a good thing, but there is
| something to be said about current distracted humans
| operating internal combustion engine. Then again, my dad
| already told me it is all going to hell, because I can't
| change oil...
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| we have certainly conquered caloric density, reducing
| individual caloric expenditure, and eliminating
| environmental hazards (though it's not evenly
| distributed) to the point where pockets of the population
| are dangerously sedentary and overfed (and thus life
| expectancy is declining from a previous peak)
| agumonkey wrote:
| i don't know much but 90% of medical advice is basically,
| drop modern life on a regular basis (walk, stay outside,
| hug, lift, touch, eat raw, eat few)..
|
| it would be weird if the complex biosphere environment
| that made our ancestor struggle was also a key balancer
| that we can't replace
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| The "eat raw" part seems at least partially misguided,
| since our ancestors apparently started cooking the heck
| out of their environment pretty early, didn't consume
| much unprocessed dairy until very late, and the raw food
| they did consume tended to carry less pathogens than
| modern mass-produced food.
|
| The greatest part of the rest, however, appears to be
| true. I find I'm feeling much better overall, not worse,
| if I take the bike somewhere even in uncomfortable
| weather, and it turns out it's more fun as well, more
| often than not. Low-processed food makes my digestive
| system measurably happier, walking lots makes me
| unreasonably healthier, being among trees and mountains
| calms me to a crazy degree.
|
| But then we did spend like 98% of our evolutionary
| history since the last big speciation event as hunter-
| gatherers, and we gotta be as adapted to that as any
| critter is to their lifestyle.
|
| At this point I kind of expect to find perversions the
| social patterns and structures of hunter-gatherer groups
| embedded in the dark patterns that make social media so
| insidious, much like exploiting our built-in craving for
| scarce energy-dense nutrition made Coca Cola etc. the
| economic giants they are. I just don't know enough about
| the social structures of the deep past to spot these
| things yet. There doesn't seem to be a lot of literature
| on that either, so I'm not sure how I'll get there, but
| I'd like to.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Cooked food is easier to digest. The discovery of cooking
| is what allowed early hominids to grow larger brains
| (which have higher calorie demands) and become modern
| humans.
| fbarthez wrote:
| Totally agree regarding biking, walking, trees,
| mountains, and will add lakes. Though it does only
| lightly touch on social structures of traditional
| societies, you may enjoy reading "The Secret of Our
| Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution,
| Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter" by
| Joseph Henrich. I also found classic texts of social and
| political anthropology to be very worthwhile for
| understanding human societies. Ted Lewellen's "Political
| Anthropology: An Introduction" is a good starting point.
| agumonkey wrote:
| > I find I'm feeling much better overall, not worse, if I
| take the bike somewhere even in uncomfortable weather,
| and it turns out it's more fun as well, more often than
| not.
|
| I'm lacking words to describe how I feel reading the same
| comment from many people online. I too felt weird seeing
| how much more peaceful and healthier simple bike commute
| made me. I remember coming home sweaty and running across
| angry car drivers pissed to wait for 3 seconds more than
| necessary in the comfort of their seat, while me doing
| all these efforts .. all calm, even joyful.
|
| Same for food, it's hard to unplug from all sweet
| processed food, but after a month you realize your body
| doesn't need it. less but better food, helps sleep too..
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| right essentially drop everything that's short circuiting
| our pleasure centers and do it the old fashioned way
|
| we evolved to live in our environment and modernity has
| involved a lot of removing ourselves from it
| riskable wrote:
| Hey now... We have to evolve _somehow_. The folks that
| continue to reproduce in this technological dystopia are
| passing on their "just ignore social media" (or more
| likely, "get bored with social media") genes to the next
| generation.
|
| In a 1000 years, social media will recommend people stop
| spending time outdoors and warn against the dangers of
| non-ultraprocessed food.
|
| Power outages at places where young people are forced to
| gather will be engineered in order to facilitate breeding
| as their minds will be completely starved of anything
| else to do while their hormones rage due to the
| aphrodisiac aerosols pumped into the building where they
| remain captive.
| api wrote:
| No, our nature is to satiate our dopamine system. That
| system evolved to keep us fed, nourished, and to make us
| make friends and belong and have sex to make more humans.
| The problem is that we are now so smart and clever that we
| can start learning how the dopamine system works and
| hacking it.
|
| This isn't new. We've been doing it for a long time with
| booze, porn, drugs, sexual excess, gambling, pointless
| consumerism, certain kinds of religious fervor, endless
| things.
|
| But almost all of those things are self-limiting. They're
| either costly, dangerous, in limited supply, or physically
| harmful enough to our health that we shy away from them and
| taboos develop around them.
|
| Addictive digital media may actually be more dangerous than
| those things precisely because it is cheap, always
| available, endless, and physically harmless. As a result it
| has no built-in mechanism that limits it. We can scroll and
| scroll and chase social media feedback loops forever until
| we die.
|
| AI slop feeds are going to supercharge this even more.
| Instead of human creators we will have AI models that can
| work off immediate engagement feedback and fine tune
| themselves for each individual user in real time. I'm quite
| certain all the antisocial media companies are working on
| this right now. Won't be long before they start explicitly
| removing human creators from the loop and just generating
| endless customized chum with ad placement embedded into it.
|
| Some people have the discipline to push back, but many do
| not either for psychological/neurological reasons or
| because they are exhausted and stressed and unable to
| summon the energy. Humans do not have infinite willpower.
| So I've been predicting for a while that eventually we're
| going to heavily regulate or tax this space.
|
| This concerns me too due to the free speech implications
| and the general risk of overreacting and overcorrecting.
| It'll be tempting for politicians to regulate or tax only
| the platforms they don't like, or to use the regulatory
| mechanism to crack down on legitimate speech by grouping it
| in with addictive chum. We've seen similar things with
| attempts to regulate porn or hate speech. But it's coming.
| I have little doubt. I think we'll see this when GenZ and
| GenA start entering politics.
|
| It's really still shocking to me. If you went back in time
| and told me in, say, 2006, that our engagement-hacking
| would be _so successful_ that it became an X-risk to
| humanity, I 'm not sure I'd believe you. I never would have
| believed how effective this stuff could be. It's just a
| damn screen for god's sake! I think a lot of people are
| still in denial about this problem because it seems so
| absurd that a touch screen can addict people as well as
| fentanyl, but it's true. I see it around me all the time.
|
| Edit:
|
| My preferred way to go about reeling this back in would be
| to strike at the root and start taxing advertising the way
| we tax booze, drugs, gambling, and other vices. Advertising
| revenue is the trunk of this tree. The entire reason these
| systems are created is to keep people staring so ads can be
| pushed at them. Take that away and a lot of the motive to
| build and run these things goes away.
|
| Another, which we're already seeing, is to age-restrict
| antisocial media. Young minds are particularly vulnerable
| to these tactics, more so than adults, and all addiction
| pushers try to addict people early.
|
| Lastly, we could start campaigns to educate people. We need
| schools teaching classes explaining to kids how these
| systems addict and manipulate them and why, and public PSAs
| to the same effect. It needs to be treated like a health
| issue because it is.
|
| Taxes, education, and age restriction is how we almost
| killed cigarettes in the USA, so there is precedent for
| these three things together working.
|
| We also need to be a lot more precise in our language. The
| problem is not the Internet, phones, computers, "tech," AI,
| etc. The problem is _engineering systems for engagement,
| specifically._ If you are trying to design a system to keep
| people staring at a screen (or other interface) for as much
| time as possible, you are hurting people. What you 're
| doing is in the same category as what the Sackler family
| did with oxycontin. Engagement engineering is a predatory
| destructive practice and the people who do it are
| predators. I think it's taken a long time for people to
| realize this because, again, it's just a damn screen! It's
| shocking that this is so effective that we need to have
| this societal conversation.
| lll-o-lll wrote:
| I don't have anything to add, but just wanted to thank
| you for this insightful and deeply thought out response.
| The solutions you list do look like they would work and I
| hope we find the political will, sooner rather than
| later.
| pythux wrote:
| Thank you for explaining the issue with such clarity.
| This is one of the best comments I've read for a while.
| PKop wrote:
| There's no way to reel it back. You said it here though:
|
| > Some people have the discipline to push back, but many
| do not
|
| This is simply a genetic selective filter that will
| destroy some people while others make it through, and
| there will need to be an overall adaptation against
| finding fake slop debilitatingly addictive. Like drugs,
| alcohol, porn, food, opiates, etc and other things some
| can resist and are able to abstain while some can't. I
| used to worry so much about these things in aggregate but
| I realized it's too pervasive to eliminate and impossible
| to change people's nature when it comes to resisting it
| or even worrying about it as a problem to avoid, so
| simply resisting better than others and having children
| that hopefully are able to overcome and avoid by way of
| finding more value in real experiences is the only
| successful outcome.
|
| If one has to really really think hard about and try
| really really hard to overcome, then they're probably
| just not going to make it... and we all know for many
| people avoiding addictions comes easy. This chasm of
| reaction to stimulus means there will be divergent
| outcomes. It can't be any other way.
| foobarian wrote:
| It appears that the current content systems have some
| correlation in lowering the fertility rate; in that case
| they will be self-limiting after all, just not in the way
| OP mentioned about the other vices. It will be
| interesting indeed how things look after a generation or
| two.
| albumen wrote:
| This is provably wrong. Preventative public health
| measures against for instance cigarettes and nicotine
| reduce uptake, reduce consumption and increase quitting.
| [1] In the case of smoking, this also cut second-hand
| harm/death from smoking. Similarly, preventative measures
| have first order and second order benefits for alcohol
| and other drug consumption.
|
| Just giving up on those who show higher likelihood for
| addiction is a travesty. Failure to eliminate an
| addiction is no reason to give up reducing its harms,
| both to the person themselves, family and friends, and
| wider society.
|
| [1]: https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/21/2/172
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| << It can't be any other way.
|
| This seems ridiculously fatalistic and weirdly binary way
| of looking at things. Best I can start with is 'why?',
| because to a simple person like me it could be any number
| of ways..
| airstrike wrote:
| Truly one of the best comments I've read in a long time.
|
| We need to normalize calling it antisocial media.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I agree that advertising is the root of it, but some
| people might still pay for modern social media. They used
| to pay for porn, before it was available for "free" (ad
| supported). Some still do. I pay for YouTube to avoid the
| ads. I don't think I would pay for Facebook or Tiktok
| though. Possibly an uninformed opinion as I've never used
| those platforms.
| intended wrote:
| The $ from people paying for subscriptions and the $$$$$$
| from ad revenue, is too much of a bridge to cross.
| api wrote:
| Paid media is better. If you pay for a monthly
| subscription or for individual pieces of media, revenue
| is no longer tied to "engagement." If you pay for Netflix
| and watch three hours a month or thirty, it makes little
| difference.
|
| Ads tie revenue directly to time spent on the screen, and
| that is the root of all evil.
|
| As another poster mentioned, ad revenue is often higher
| than what you can reasonably get with subscriptions.
| That's where taxing advertising would help.
| derriz wrote:
| Patrick Boyle eventually comes to a similar conclusion in
| his video about global population decline -
| https://youtu.be/ispyUPqqL1c?si=7jUgVBkOvLHluPAR - but
| includes lots of graphs and other interesting factlets.
|
| * warning for Americans: not suitable for those offended
| by sarcasm
| mlrtime wrote:
| My hypothesis is: Humans are social and need social
| interaction to thrive. However we are not wired for the
| diversity of interacting with 7 Billion people and all the
| derivatives.
|
| We thrive in small groups where there is high trust social
| networks and generally being around people with the same
| culture and belief system.
| krapp wrote:
| But humans don't, in any meaningful sense, interact with
| 7 billion people when they use social media any more than
| they interact with the entire population of their city
| whenever they go out. And most people living in any
| reasonably sized city - to use that as a real world
| analogue for social media - aren't only interacting with
| small, high trust social networks of the same culture and
| beliefs, and they manage just fine.
|
| Your hypothesis (which seems more and more common) seems
| to me to be a "just so" story, but it doesn't correlate
| with what I've observed of real human behavior.
| poisonborz wrote:
| It is in the distant future still (if we ever get there
| without apocalypse first) but I think the goal was set out to
| be, from the very first bits of digital data, is to
| completely transition ourselves to a digital world. Living it
| in parallel will make less sense if Earth conditions get
| worse, and even less in space or on a hostile planet. In a
| digital world possibilities become limitless, disabilities,
| distances, shortcomings of the mind eliminated. Once you
| can't see a difference, will it matter if something is
| "real"? Sure, it can also become a hell and inhumane much
| easier, but this doesn't make it a less compelling dimension.
|
| Looking through this lens, fighting, limiting internet usage
| is akin to moving to the rainforest to avoid capitalism -
| lone rebelling acts in the wrong direction of history, a
| temporary, partial victory for the few who dare this hassle.
|
| Time is better spent to make this emerging space better, for
| everyone.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| Given to the direction we're going, I don't believe this
| digital world will be one in which we're free either.
| cess11 wrote:
| Perhaps one could frame it as "The Self under Siege".
|
| https://rickroderick.org/300-guide-the-self-under-
| siege-1993...
| rlmp_89 wrote:
| It has been well theorized by A. Dugin : Were now in the era
| of full realization / triumph of postmodernity. After having
| crushed all its 20th-century adversaries, western liberalism
| and its ideology of universal 'progress' will destroy
| everything that makes us truly human
| anthk wrote:
| Dugin? That anti-scientific maniac? He is no different to
| some Western liberals equally hating hormones' influences
| into different genders down to orientation methods. And,
| yes, that means there's a spectrum, but no one can't deny
| these differences.
| cons0le wrote:
| We need the Butlerian Jihad
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Brian Herbert reference detected, opinion ignored.
| rustystump wrote:
| > so much content, it can keep me continually engaged
|
| I find the total opposite to be true. I desperately want more
| engaging content to feed the gooey goblin in my brain but the
| overwhelming majority doesn't cut it and this was before AI.
|
| Almost every show I see on netflix, tiktok I glance at, or
| reddit post is absolute unflavored mash potatoes. Content for
| content's sake. Feed me more content like scavengers reign
| and less frankenstein remakes or super hero slop.
| KPGv2 wrote:
| There's way more good content available than an employed
| adult human has time to consume. I have watched five great
| seasons of TV this year (Frieren, Apothecary Diaries,
| Dandadan, Blue Box, Stranger Things, all on Netflix) and
| zero movies (no time with kids!), and have read twelve good
| books (ranging from prize-winning literature to incredible
| graphic novels). I have zero time for anything else besides
| two other hobbies, both of which involve the creative act:
| coding, and writing fanfiction.
|
| When I hear "there's nothing good available," I assume the
| person is a dullard. Like where are you looking that you
| can't throw a rock and hit something worth watching?!
| anigbrowl wrote:
| One reason I enjoy anime as much as I do is because most
| of these stories are written by a single person with
| maybe an assistant or two and an editor, they're not
| designed by committee.
|
| I somewhat enjoy Stranger Things but it's falling into
| the space where I can write the next line of dialog in my
| head for whole scenes. Whereas it started out poking fun
| at tropes like doing exposition or relationship
| development at moments of maximum danger it's turned into
| a long sequence of Obligatory Scenes that feel
| increasingly forced.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > a long sequence of Obligatory Scenes that feel
| increasingly forced
|
| You're describing mainstream entertainment in general. I
| started noticing this with the storyboard-as-film,
| action-by-numbers "Raider's of the Lost Ark". (I won't
| even waste my time on super hero films.)
| ml_giant wrote:
| Do you really believe the latest season of Stranger
| Things is << great tv >>?
|
| It tastes like bland mashed potatoes to me.
| rustystump wrote:
| This person gets it.
| safety1st wrote:
| I'm interested in the book recommendations!
| rustystump wrote:
| Hard disagree. All the examples you gave are anime with
| the exception of Stranger Things which suggests a rather
| narrow view of content.
|
| It isn't that good stuff doesn't exist only that a
| majority is derivative and uninspired. Anything that does
| catch a spark is milked dry.
| gessha wrote:
| > majority is derivative and uninspired
|
| A lot of good creations are derivations or remix of older
| ideas and they don't have to be uninspired: West Side
| Stiry, Ulysses, so much of jazz music...
| pharrington wrote:
| Maybe the problem is that you're looking for content to
| consume, instead of art to enjoy and participate with. The
| distinction is important because how you frame a problem
| changes how you solve it.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Also, we might have become spoiled by having found content
| that aligns with our interests at all. Like an Overton
| window, we have been slowly realigning our desires to
| expect better and even better content.
|
| We truly might be addicted and are slowly becoming
| unsatisfied with the simpler, more nuanced pleasures in
| life.
| asmor wrote:
| > When I should be engaging with the real world and people in
| my life.
|
| While I appreciate the sentiment, I don't think you need to
| couple "offline interaction" with this criticism. As a
| neurodivergent person in more than one way I appreciate being
| able to interact with people that face similar challenges to
| me and understand me. The problem is that social media is
| increasingly designed to not facilitate that, but content
| distribution.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| Yeah. Let's not fetishize "real world". Offline space is
| often boring and most people suck. There's a reason why we
| prefer to be looking at the screens. Having said that, I
| think that it makes sense to be more cautious about screen
| time and interact more with the offline space. Not because
| offline space is better, but because our brains are fried
| and they peceive online space to be better than it really
| is, we're literal addicts. I'm trying to teach myself that
| it's okay to be bored.
| joquarky wrote:
| I remember when "Internet addiction" was a thing.
|
| I guess when enough people get addicted to something,
| it's no longer considered to be an addiction.
|
| When I am people watching, sometimes I am reminded of the
| TNG episode of star trek where everyone gets addicted to
| a game. Non-players grow concerned until they all
| succumb.
| jama211 wrote:
| Social media is bad but this might be being slightly dramatic
| IMO
| spwa4 wrote:
| > Taking this analogy further, is today's end goal of social
| media to provide AI generated content that users can endlessly
| consume?
|
| The singular purpose of social media has always been
| advertising. That 100% depends on the ability of platforms to
| control the message, which Facebook achieved to an extent that
| politicians started paying them in order to game elections.
|
| Then "influencers" came, and largely control the message on
| essentially all platforms.
|
| By contrast, on Youtube and Twitter, advertisers are making
| deals directly with specific influencers so their advertising
| remains on-target. Only "old-style" generic geo-targeted
| advertising, what you used to see on TV, uses the platforms
| themselves.
|
| AI achieves many things for these platforms:
|
| 1) get rid of influencers by creating AI influencers (done both
| by influencers themselves, attempting to create fake/AI
| influencers that are cheaper, and by the platforms that want to
| control the process)
|
| 2) allow advertisers to control the message (think of a
| guarantee not to get shown on pro-Nazi channels)
|
| 3) force advertisers to come to the platforms instead of
| specific influencers
|
| 4) also get the ability to influence and later even control
| elections
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Well, I'd be careful about the "always", when Facebook and
| Twitter started out they understood virality but they did not
| understand monetization -- early on the likes of Zynga and
| King were making money off Facebook and it wasn't until
| Facebook was forced to go public and Sheryl Sandberg was
| running things that they figured out that they could capture
| the free publicity brands got on Facebook and sell it back to
| them.
| basisword wrote:
| >> The singular purpose of social media has always been
| advertising.
|
| This just isn't true. There was a time when we had a
| chronological feed, only containing content from friends and
| family, and no advertising. The business model end goal was
| always advertising but social media doesn't necessarily need
| to be for that purpose (e.g. the fediverse).
| emptybits wrote:
| Maybe what I need is an AI agent to consume AI generated
| content on my behalf.
|
| Then I can continue with my strong preference to direct my time
| and attention toward content generated, mostly, by my fellow
| humans.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| You jest, but I would it if my AI agent suggested, "How about
| a book to read? Stay off the internet for a week--I picked up
| a used book on eBay for you that I think you'll enjoy. Don't
| worry, I paid for it by doing a little trading on the side."
| tw04 wrote:
| We've started instituting a "no phones" policy when the kids
| have sleepovers to try to combat this at least a little bit,
| and have constant conversations about why things like Instagram
| are toxic and we should just try to spend our time enjoying
| life.
|
| Obviously I'm also posting here while I wait in the car waiting
| to pick someone up, but I actively make an effort to unplug on
| a regular basis.
| criticalfault wrote:
| isn't HN more like professional news/discussion place?
|
| is it considered social media?
| wccrawford wrote:
| This is _absolutely_ social media. And like all addicts,
| people here loudly proclaim that it 's less toxic.
|
| Whether or not is it indeed less toxic is up for debate.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| It's highly censored.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| And it has the little Righthink number in the corner that
| goes up when you make Righthink.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Maybe. But that Righthink number has also reminded me
| when I am being _too_ combative (trollish) online.
|
| It's also fun to throw caution to the wind with a "fuck
| it" and just let your comment fade away after having
| ranted at the clouds.
| BbzzbB wrote:
| What:s the difference between reddit and HN beyond the
| form?
|
| It seems to be obviously social media to me
| direwolf20 wrote:
| The content is also different. Reddit uses AI agents to
| populate feeds to generate user engagement.
| cons0le wrote:
| The main difference is no personalized algorithm ranking
| content to increase engagement.
|
| The algorithm has consumed reels/shorts/tiktok/insta.
| Being extremely inflammatory is rewarded there.
| BbzzbB wrote:
| Algorithms don't define social medias, it's just the
| latest iteration from the main ones.
|
| Is BeReal not a social media because there's no
| algorithmic feed?
| dooglius wrote:
| The lack of subreddits is a big difference because it
| inhibits users coagulating into subgroups. Reddit also
| allows people to be banned from subreddits by subreddit
| owners/mods which leads to groupthink more.
| BbzzbB wrote:
| HN is one large subreddit with it's own groupthink.
| KPGv2 wrote:
| > isn't HN more like professional news/discussion place?
|
| I see enough racist and misogynist comments here to know
| that isn't true. And that's not even considering the low-
| knowledge comments offered up as expertise.
|
| I long for the days of a Slashdot where you could filter
| out anyone with a UID greater than 200K or so, and it'd be
| nothing but 20yr experts in IT dropping rugged after rugged
| of tremendously insightful analysis. (Granted there was
| also plenty of GNAA frist psot stuff.)
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >I long for the days of a Slashdot where you could filter
| out anyone with a UID greater than 200K or so, and it'd
| be nothing but 20yr experts in IT dropping rugged after
| rugged of tremendously insightful analysis.
|
| If you had a similar filter here it'd likely have the the
| opposite effect.
| mrgoldenbrown wrote:
| HN is definitely social media, even if it isn't explicitly
| labeled as such. Ostensibly Instagram is just a photo
| sharing site, but we all know it is social media.
| gessha wrote:
| There's that old joke about how everything with an input
| form is a social media platform.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| HN is my guilty pleasure as well.
| basisword wrote:
| I think in 12 months we're not going to know the difference
| unless we put in some serious effort. I use AI quite a lot and
| it's great, but don't like it for 'media' in general.
| Personally, I don't want to support AI generated audio, video,
| or text content. This past week I came across an Instagram
| account, found it interesting and followed it. Admittedly it
| was some high-level cookie cutter self-help stuff. Easy to
| catch your attention. Eventually I dug into it a bit more and
| it was 100% AI generated. I'd missed it completely and there
| were no comments suggesting it was AI content either despite
| over 1m followers. If you want to be sure the media you are
| viewing is actually created by real people, algorithmic feeds
| are no longer an option. It will be interesting to see over the
| next year or two whether there is a large backlash and people
| start seeking out content they are positive is created by real
| people, or if that becomes a subculture and the masses are
| happy with their circus.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| Maybe. I am saying this not to be contrarian, but I am seeing
| a rather specific pattern in some areas. Chatgpt used to be
| pretty decent in cross thread musings, but those got capped
| hard to the point that even wide recall invocation does not
| always work as intended. And that change wasn't just about
| resources. Similar stuff seems to be happening with various
| lawsuits on the 'creative' side.
|
| All this makes me thing that while the capability may be
| there for those who want it, openly accessible stuff will be
| heavily nerfed. You know, just like now.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Yes.
| hawaiianbrah wrote:
| Meta has already introduced a dedicated app for exactly this:
| https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/25/meta-launches-vibes-a-shor...
| BrtByte wrote:
| Once you see social media as an attention-extraction machine
| rather than a communication system, outsourcing creation to
| users starts to look like a temporary optimization, not the end
| state
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| If the final step is then just AI watching their own AI-created
| content then I'm okay with it.
| mojuba wrote:
| > I apply a strong inbox 0 methodology
|
| Tangential to the main topic, but this is the only sensible way
| of running an email inbox, always has been to me, and it boggle
| my mind, why would anyone let clutter and a piling number of
| unreads in their one and only inbox, one of the most important
| things in our digital lives?
|
| Each email is an action item. If it's not or if it's been
| addressed, it's gone, period.
|
| Archive vs. Delete is another question but not as important. Over
| time I've found that I'm probably deleting too much (e.g. where
| did I buy that <nice thing> 5 years ago? want it again, can't
| find the order). Then business emails are all archived with the
| exception of business spam of course.
|
| So why would you have more emails in your inbox than items you're
| supposed to act on?
| hrunt wrote:
| > Archive vs. Delete is another question but not as important.
| Over time I've found that I'm probably deleting too much (e.g.
| where did I buy that <nice thing> 5 years ago? want it again,
| can't find the order). Then business email are all archived
| with the exception of business spam of course.
|
| An executive co-worker of mine used his Deleted Items folder as
| his Archive. Problem solved.
| baxtr wrote:
| But what about the joy of deleting 112 messages from the
| trash folder every day?
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Because my attention should be directed at what I want to do,
| when I want to, not a nagging number that sits there being more
| than zero.
|
| And when I do pay attention to it, I don't want to spend 20
| minutes going through the 180 emails that I've been cc'd on.
| It's literally not worth my time or dilution of my attention.
| When I have attempted to get on top of this by doing all the
| curation and rule-authoring that productivity mavens shout
| about, it works for a little while but entropy sets in.
|
| I'm just not into scripting my own life and maximizing my
| productivity, and my job does not pivot on prompt email
| responses. So my email is a garbage dump with tire fires in it,
| and I know that, and I get on with the things I know are
| actually important.
|
| I'm not recommending this! It's just the compromise that I have
| settled in to. But if you wonder "why would anyone," this is
| it.
| mojuba wrote:
| Thanks. So no fear of losing important stuff to the noise?
|
| Also mind you, this is not about productivity. If you don't
| want to act on something, you delete it.
| forbiddenvoid wrote:
| It's very presence in the list is already a drain on my
| attention that I didn't ask for and do not want. The fact
| that it requires any action on my part to remove it from
| the queue is an issue in and of itself.
| ghickPit wrote:
| For mojuba and myself, email is a way to organize TODO
| items. Things to take care of exist either way, and email
| is an awesome way to keep track of, and process, events /
| tasks asynchronously.
|
| shermantanktop and you, forbiddenvoid, seem to refuse
| organizing TODOs, or perhaps even the concept that
| external events be allowed to generate TODOs for you ("my
| attention should be directed at what I want to do, when I
| want to"). I closely know this -- i.e., "garbage dump
| with tire fires in it" -- because that's precisely what
| my SO's mailbox looks like. Whereas I've maintained a
| perfect inbox 0 for several decades, both at work and
| privately.
|
| This is an unbridgeable psychological divide between two
| attitudes toward, or even two _definitions of_ , tasks
| and obligations. People who can naturally implement inbox
| 0 never lose track of a task (not just in email, but in
| any other medium either), and get indignated when they
| receive reminders. They're excellent schedulers, and
| orderly, but also frequently obsessive-compulsive,
| neurotic. People who can't instinctively do inbox 0
| cannot be taught or forced to do it, they tend to need
| repeated reminders, and may still forget tasks. At the
| same time, they have different virtues; they tend to
| shine with ill-defined problems and unexpected events.
|
| Neither group is at fault; the difference has biological
| roots, in the nervous system. Our brains physically
| differ.
| mojuba wrote:
| Thanks, that's a great explanation!
| shermantanktop wrote:
| I kind of agree, but I explain it differently. Everyone's
| job is a mix of reactive and proactive work. For my
| particular job, reactive work is necessary but will
| expand to fill all my time and then some. Proactive work
| is ambiguous and uncertain, but usually ends up being the
| highest value work that I do.
|
| If I spend all my time on other people's demands, it will
| all be urgent, but not enough of it will be important.
| ghickPit wrote:
| That's a super interesting situation (and description).
|
| I always order reviewing the work of others ahead of
| working on my own code. This works wonders for the team.
| But admittedly, if the review workload is not distributed
| well, then my approach produces an annoying imbalance for
| me, and over the longer term, it leads to burnout.
|
| Put differently, if I enable / assist / mentor others,
| that produces value comparable to my own personal output,
| for the company (or that's at least how I understand
| things). However, the _emotional_ value of each, to _me_
| , is comparable only up to a certain extent -- namely, as
| long as I get to write enough code myself. The proportion
| must be right.
|
| I rely on management / the team to (self-)organize the
| review workload, and _then_ I prefer to help others
| first, and work on my own stuff second. I draw much more
| satisfaction from working on my own code, but I _feel_
| the importance of supporting others, so I prioritize the
| latter. This particular prioritization too rewards me
| emotionally, but only up to a certain point. I _can_ say
| "no", but, in my view, if I _have_ to say "no"
| frequently, to requests for assistance, then the workload
| is ill-distributed, and _that_ responsibility is not
| mine. (I explicitly don 't want to be promoted to a level
| where I become responsible for assigning tasks to
| people.)
| shermantanktop wrote:
| I'm in a senior position and just coming off a year where
| I intentionally focused on enabling others and making the
| collective group more effective. That meant more reactive
| (and less visible) work.
|
| I got feedback that my contributions weren't tangible and
| visible enough. I switched gears back to my previous mode
| (more proactive work) and all is well again.
|
| Different work cultures treat this differently. At
| another company my enabling activities would have been
| valued more. But I do think being the glue in a group is
| usually undervalued.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Not really. I check a couple of times a day, look for stuff
| from people who are likely important, delete noisy stuff
| once a week, and the rest lingers.
|
| The threaded nature of email both helps and hurts. If it's
| from a chatty sender with a chatty reply all conversation,
| I can delete it all, except if my boss replies, I should
| probably look at that.
|
| I should also say that I work at a large company where
| people are auto-included with varying levels of intention.
| If I never sent an email, I would still get hundreds per
| day. Coworkers do zero inbox, so it can be done. I just
| don't try anymore. Slack is where the actually urgent stuff
| is anymore.
| djeastm wrote:
| I'm with you. I've had a mostly empty email for at least a
| decade (< 10 items, with each of them representing an action
| I'll need to take) and can't imagine doing it differently. I'm
| one of those empty desk/empty mind people, I guess.
| c22 wrote:
| You have only one inbox?
| casey2 wrote:
| In a just world you would do 16 hours of manual rock breaking
| and tilling in a gulag for a decade then you can come back and
| tell is how essential email is to your life, sorry "digital
| life" whatever the FUCK that is.
| ofalkaed wrote:
| Communication was mostly lost before the rise of social media--
| assuming we ever had anything more than isolated pockets of
| actual communication, which I am not convinced we have.
| Literature has been exploring this for a good many decades, The
| Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a good example and even shows how our
| relation to it has changed in the 80 odd years since its release;
| these days when it comes up the interpretation/discussion about
| it is more often than not, about social causes, which is
| depressingly ironic, it is using the novel in the same way the
| characters of the novel use Singer.
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| > But what was created as "ride-sharing" was in fact a way to 1)
| destroy competition and 2) make a shittier service while people
| producing the work were paid less and lost labour rights. It was
| never about the social!
|
| Framed this way, sure. But for the most part, I like Uber. The
| competition it "killed" was monopolistic and stagnant, and the
| "shitty service" was the legacy taxi industry that Uber forced to
| modernize. Yellow taxis got phone apps and credit card processing
| devices because Uber forced them to keep up.
|
| I remember trying to order a taxi to the airport 15 years ago in
| one of the most populated cities in the world. I had to look up
| taxi companies on Google, call their dispatch, and ask for a
| ride. 40 minutes and several calls later, none arrived, so I had
| to call a different company's dispatcher as I scrambled to catch
| my flight.
|
| Now, I've called countless taxis with the push of a button in
| several countries. I get an estimate of pricing and arrival times
| up front.
|
| For me, Uber/Lyft is an incredible service. I'll leave the labor
| rights discussion for a different thread. (inb4 a HN contrarian
| jumps down my throat about this.)
|
| But that was a long winded way of saying: to me, the author's
| analogy seriously weakens his point. I could argue that highly
| personalized entertainment is way better than 800 cable channels
| of bleh. We still have plenty of non-enshittified communication
| (I text and call and Whatsapp and Telegram my friends).
| oblique wrote:
| > We dreamed of decentralised social networks as "email 2.0."
| They truly are "television 2.0."
|
| > They are entertainment platforms that delegate media creation
| to the users themselves the same way Uber replaced taxis by
| having people drive others in their own car.
|
| Either this is written poorly or way off. Social networks are
| already television 2.0. Decentralized social networks circumvents
| having the algorithm controlled by some central authority. Media
| creation has already been delegated to users over a decade ago,
| think content creators.
|
| Personally I'm a fediverse evangelist. Having decentralized
| entertainment platforms makes corporate/state influence much more
| difficult.
|
| The methods of influence in modern centralized social networks
| are much more sinister than television ever was.
| rileymat2 wrote:
| I don't think the article disagrees here? The issue is not
| control or decentralization, but consumption v. back and forth
| (communication).
| hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
| You seem to be agreeing with the article?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Having decentralized entertainment platforms
|
| How? I don't even think decentralized is the appropriate term.
| They're distributed entertainment platforms in that they're
| protocol based, but regarding the distribution of content
| there's nothing in it that decentralizes reach. The social
| graph of Twitter and Mastodon could in principle be identical.
|
| Malicious actors don't need to control algorithms. States
| running influence campaigns on say, Youtube or Facebook don't
| actually control any algorithm, they adapt their content to
| what does well on the platform. And they could equally do this,
| one could argue even more effectively, on the fediverse.
|
| Saying the Fediverse solves top down influence is like thinking
| that Bitcoin solves wealth inequality. The distribution of the
| network is completely agnostic to the centralization of the
| content.
| oblique wrote:
| Each server on a federated platform has control over how
| content retrieved through ActivityPub is delivered to its
| users. A healthy federated network allows competitions
| between "algorithms" for the same content. The social graph
| can be identical, but how it's traversed differs.
|
| Think about how platforms have algorithmic comment ranking
| now, where two users who open the same comment section can
| see different top comments. This is a corporation or state
| (think tiktok) directly influencing how someone sees what
| their community thinks.
|
| I don't see the bitcoin comparison.
| stavros wrote:
| Yeah, I think the article conflated a few points: I think the
| issue the author was having was that he thought that
| decentralized social networks were meant to be decentralized
| communication platforms, when they were meant to be
| decentralized content delivery platforms.
|
| The problem isn't the decentralization, it's the choice of a
| goal. However, email, IRC, Matrix, etc all already exist, and
| are what the author wants, so I do see tbe article as a bit
| misguided.
|
| I think what the author meant to say was "I thought ActivityPub
| was meant to be more like Matrix, but it's not, and I'm sad
| about that".
| Aurornis wrote:
| I think federation is interesting as a concept, but my time
| with Mastodon has revealed that even decentralized networks are
| just as full of outrage-centric entertainment and ragebait as
| the main networks.
|
| I think "the algorithm" gets a lot of blame for mirroring the
| choices that people are making for themselves. Even when you
| remove any semblance of an algorithm people have no problem
| creating their own little worlds of outrage entertainment and
| rage bait.
| fy20 wrote:
| I'm old enough to have been on the internet before social
| networks, back in the days of forums / bulletin boards. Even
| then there was always a new drama in the community. I feel
| it's human nature.
| ezst wrote:
| I agree with you, and with GP for that matter, I think this
| is both human nature AND we've been conditioned by
| algorithms to seek and produce this style of communication.
| I'm really hopeful we can eventually grow out of this.
|
| I feel terrible for the kids currently growing up with
| tiktok, Instagram & al., I only hope we will build the
| social and legal framework to safeguard the next
| generations from this, until they reach a certain age at
| least.
| dxdm wrote:
| Of course it is human nature. The question is what parts of
| human nature get catered to and amplified, and by how much.
| buildsjets wrote:
| Social media is yet another strange game where the only winning
| move is not to play.
| terminalbraid wrote:
| > They believe those platforms are "public spaces" while they
| truly are "private spaces trying to destroy all other public
| spaces in order to get a monopoly."
|
| There's nothing I can add to this.
| ghickPit wrote:
| You can: you can mention Slack and Discord. :( :( :(
|
| signed, another dinosaur (with a flawless "inbox 0" track
| record at both work and home, for decades now)
| nicbou wrote:
| LLMs are a new phase of this. This time, I think it will truly
| kill the open web and reroute all traffic to two or three
| websites.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| And kill many apps, maybe even OSes.
|
| When most of what a user can do can be done from one single
| UI, the low friction will win.
|
| And since all the data must be sent to the service, and that
| a super intelligent AI analysis all this data, the spying
| that is already considered outrageous today will reach
| unprecedented level.
|
| Now, associate that with the fact the last year people in
| charge of said systems kissed the ring of the power that be
| in the most disgusting way. Add what we learned about
| surveillance from 3 letters agency.
|
| You get your dystopia. It's not an if now. It's a when.
|
| We need to solve that problem now. Once we hit it, we will
| lose the ability to solve it.
|
| And I'm not sure where you could go on earth to escape it.
| joquarky wrote:
| I don't see how this will kill the web.
|
| If anything, it might make it easier to find more of the
| older nerdier web that wasn't made for profit.
|
| Also, there are so many people that are already so rabidly
| anti-AI that I'm certain they will form their own communities
| outside the mainstream.
| webdoodle wrote:
| Nor should you, digitally. Each ideation we have of how it can
| be further used to break our civil rights, is being used as a
| playbook to do exactly that. Warn your friends in person, but
| don't give the basilisk a free lunch.
| mrkeen wrote:
| This is so dramatic it's hard to recover the original complaint.
|
| Dansup has built a photo-sharing app on top of ActivityPub, and
| we humans are a lost cause because the app doesn't also do text-
| only messages?
|
| Is that the gist of it?
| hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
| Not really.
|
| The gist of it is if Google decides to build GMail but Gmail
| silently deleted emails that it did not find entertaining
| enough so you didn't even know they were ever sent to you.
|
| The article is saying some people see ActivityPub as a
| communication protocol like Gmail where you expect all messages
| to be delivered, while others see it as an entertainment
| protocol where the goal is to entertain the user.
| mrkeen wrote:
| What is the image sharing platform's criteria for
| "entertaining enough"? Is it whether or not the message is an
| image?
| stavros wrote:
| Yes but the author lumps all decentralized and/or social
| networks together when all he really means to talk about is
| ActivityPub specifically.
| amiga386 wrote:
| It's more like Usenet users complaining that NZB downloaders
| don't let their users read text posts. Nobody _using_ an NZB
| downloader gives a fuck about text posts. They 're not there
| to chat with their fellow humans, they're there to download
| files. Both the text posts and binary files are transmitted
| by the same substrate, NNTP, but the protocol clearly has
| multiple groups of people using it for very different
| purposes.
|
| Comparing it to email is inappropriate, because email is
| _addressed_ to you, and you get upset if email servers
| /clients _drop_ emails. But newsfeeds are _not_ addressed to
| you. Neither is RSS /Atom. ActivityPub, generally speaking,
| isn't either. How _you_ choose to experience messages coming
| your way is up to you. This whole article is making the
| assumption that if you want something more different, e.g.
| Pixelfed, PeerTube, Lemmy (Fediverse Instagram
| /YouTube/Reddit), it basically _must_ also be Mastodon
| /Pleroma (Fediverse Twitter). Why must it?
| andai wrote:
| In the article the author mentioned that it's possible to
| message him over several protocols, but that only one of
| them will actually deliver the message?
| amiga386 wrote:
| It's on the author to advertise _how_ they 'd like
| communicated with.
|
| A phone number != an email address != a
| WhatsApp/Signal/Telegram account != a
| Twitter/Facebook/Mastodon/etc. handle != a specific
| handle on a specific Discord/Slack/IRC service != "I go
| to the Lamb and Flag in Punterby on Wednesdays, maybe see
| me there"
|
| It's irrelevant whether a low level protocol or its
| clients deliver everything or not. What matters is human
| A reaching human B. If human B _wants_ to be reached,
| they will tell people _in advance_ what their
| communication preferences are. And they will recognise
| that not all communication methods are fungible nor want
| to be or can be made to be. You can 't expect ActivityPub
| to have the same behaviour as SMTP any more than you
| could IRC.
| cortesoft wrote:
| I mean, Gmail by default does silently hide spam from your
| inbox.
| xpe wrote:
| > This is so dramatic it's hard to recover the original
| complaint.
|
| I'm curious if this message is new to many here?
|
| What makes it feel "dramatic"? I get the impression people say
| something is "dramatic" when it doesn't really land or connect?
| Because when something punches me in the gut, I don't say "that
| was dramatic", I say "that was compelling".
|
| I'm over 40, and these kinds of concerns (technology serving
| people's deeper needs rather than serving them up fleeting
| entertainment) has been on my radar for 15+ years. Back then, I
| was expecting to go into public administration, policy
| analysis, or "technology for good" to use what might be a naive
| phrase.
| D-Machine wrote:
| The more typical / appropriate word here would be "over-
| dramatic" or "melodramatic", not "dramatic".
| karel-3d wrote:
| The app is not showing posts that don't contain a picture, but
| shows posts that do. So if you browse someone Mastodon account
| on Pixelfed, you will see just fraction of their posts.
|
| https://ploum.net/2025-12-04-pixelfed-against-fediverse.html
|
| I don't think it's important at all because nobody really uses
| Mastodon anyway; but it shows that doing decentralised software
| is hard, because each actor can just do whatever they want.
| Kye wrote:
| Meanwhile this is the normal, expected, and well-received
| behavior on ATproto. Every platform defines its own lexicon
| and can optionally support others. It wouldn't make sense for
| a blogging platform like (for example) Leaflet to show
| Bluesky posts the same way it shows blog posts. And apps can
| be selective too: Skylight only shows video posts. It's
| exactly how it should be for a video app.
|
| The "account" then is just the data on your PDS with as many
| views into it as someone wants to develop. If I'm browsing
| (viewing) an account (subset of data) through a platform or
| app devoted to one type of content (data), I only want to see
| that kind of content in the main timeline. I can always pull
| out something like ATExplore or PDSls if I want to see
| everything.
|
| The complaint only makes sense for a protocol that expects
| you to make a new account for a new platform and has limited
| portability. It doesn't make sense when an "account" is just
| a view into data, no more morally compromised than an SQL
| query. I'm skeptical the movement to revive the dead half of
| ActivityPub that could enable similar functionality will go
| anywhere, but I am rooting for the folks behind it.
| OrangeMusic wrote:
| > nobody really uses Mastodon anyway
|
| 760 000 active users [1] beg to differ
|
| [1]: https://mastodon-analytics.com/
| shayway wrote:
| I've noticed a funny tendency among some Fediverse passionates
| to have strong feelings about how others should be using it.
| Author says "We could not both be right," but that's rather
| antithetical to the value proposition of decentralized social
| media, IMO.
|
| A healthy user-empowered ecosystem naturally has some
| fragmentation; that's a sign it's working as it should to
| accommodate different tastes and visions. You can't use the
| same metrics for judging monolothic systems driven by a central
| authority as decentralized ones.
|
| I share many of the author's opinions on communication vs
| entertainment, but the framing around an intentionally open and
| flexible system like ActivityPub leaves a bad taste in my
| mouth.
| vanschelven wrote:
| I wonder if the author is aware of Neil Postman's work,
| especially "Amusing ourselves to death". It seems very relevant
| to this article.
| crims0n wrote:
| My thoughts definitely drifted there. I read it last year and
| IMO it's still as relevant as ever.
| lysace wrote:
| This only makes sense if you only read the headline.
| beej71 wrote:
| Resonates for me. I consume a bunch of content daily, but it's
| RSS mostly. Gemini, too. None of it is Facebook et al. I am in
| groups with friends and family on Signal and on Discord, and in
| email.
|
| It feels more boring, for sure, but it is vastly more
| satisfyingly "human", if I can describe it that way.
|
| Yes, I'm over 50.
| stevenhuang wrote:
| What Gemini are you and the author referring to? I presume not
| the LLM Gemini by Google?
|
| Ah the Gemini protocol
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol)
| cons0le wrote:
| My head was preparing to spin if he had said he gets all of
| his news from google Gemini.
|
| It's a depressing thought, but I bet we will see younger
| people in our lifetime that just get news exclusively from
| LLMs
| beej71 wrote:
| I'm going to have to be more explicit with "Gemini (the
| protocol)". :) Fing Google... :)
| Kye wrote:
| The protocol is older than productized transformers. It's
| like that scene from Office Space.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjZKVKxZcAo
| xorvoid wrote:
| Strong agree. I switched back to RSS after trying social media.
| Much more boring. And that has been a very good thing. It's
| also been much more substantive. It's like eating your veggies
| vs eating sugar candy.
|
| Why should we believe that "being entertained" is a valuable
| thing? I suppose it serves an evolutionary purpose as "steering
| focus", e.g. noticing the unusual/novel/scary/etc. But, it's
| not the end goal. And overloaded attention mechanisms sounds
| like an obvious misfeature.
| NiloCK wrote:
| Being born in 83, I experienced the shift from "serious local
| nightly news program" into the 24 hr cable news platforms as a
| loss of focused, serious journalism.
|
| Only much later did I read Understanding Media, Amusing Ourselves
| to Death, etc, and understand that the prior shift from print to
| the "serious local nightly new program" was itself a loss of
| focused, serious journalism.
|
| For today's youth, Tik Tok is "the air we breath" - the de-facto
| standard against which the future will be judged. It's
| _horrifying_ to imagine what will be worse.
| startupsfail wrote:
| I'm curious, is there some meaningful way for geriatric
| millennials to use Tik Tok?
|
| Without being sucked in into doomscrolling and content
| consumption? Produce content? I'd guess it should be possible
| to play with the thing somehow...
| wussboy wrote:
| Why? Just leave it be, and your life will be just as rich if
| not richer.
| aGHz wrote:
| I think one good reason is connecting with the youth. My
| kids are too young for Tik Tok but old enough to come home
| with 6-7 (btw, best antidote to that is the 7-8-9 joke ;) )
| and "chicken banana", and I'm told this comes from Tik Tok.
| I grew up in a house where every BSOD was caused by the
| fact that we installed video games, and I'd rather not be
| that kind of parent to my own kids. I'm also like GP
| though, I'd rather not go full scrollhead, so it's a bit of
| a dilemma.
| peruvian wrote:
| You can search TikTok memes on YouTube. People upload
| them.
|
| You using TikTok earnestly would result in a feed vastly
| different from your kids anyway.
| progval wrote:
| Would you even see the same videos they do, given how
| customized feeds are?
| nosianu wrote:
| As a former child, I'm not sure I would have wanted the
| adults mimicking my behavior. Back then I loved the
| occasions where the adults and us kids got together, such
| as festivities, and I got to hear _their_ stories. They
| were all interesting and serious people though, with
| interesting lives and jobs (I was born in the 1970s and
| many of the adults had experienced WWII, or, the parents,
| the hard years following it - I am [East] German). No
| strange opinions about science or politics.
|
| I think that's similar to when politicians try to "be
| like the people". I think "normal people", and children,
| prefer that their "betters" are actually examples of
| something better.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Agree. Your role as a parent is probably to serve as an
| example to them--even of old-fashioned, crufty ways.
| (Surprised/not-surprised to find my kids are curious
| about film cameras, vinyl, audio cassettes, MUDs,
| BBS'es...)
| startupsfail wrote:
| It's not a question of mimicking, it is interesting what
| is current within the teenage/student community. Adult
| population runs out of steam at some point.
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| To be honest, it's pretty easy to surface useful content on
| TT. Its algorithm is far more responsive to, say, immediate
| skips and likes/follows than Ig or FB.
|
| I have found it a lot easier to find a diversity of opinions
| from a more diverse group of folks there. Specifically, I
| have been really interested in what leftist/liberal bipoc
| folks think about current events, and it's very easy to get
| that content. And it's easy enough to flip quickly past
| hoteps and maga black men, who I don't usually care about
| hearing from. The disussions between say, black anarchists,
| pro-Harris DNC folks, and afropessimists have been very
| enlightening, personally.
|
| Those aren't conversations I have been able to find on, say,
| Ig.
|
| The main thing is that it pays a lot of attention to what you
| actually stop and watch, so if you let your attention wander
| you might end up watching folks rebuild industrial electric
| motors or paint warhammer minis.
|
| Honestly, I think it's a lot less mind numbing than the last
| bits of broadcast TV or feature films folks have inflicted on
| me, regardless of folks enjoying their ability to hate on it.
| mlrtime wrote:
| I've tried multiple times with a TikTok account to get me
| useful videos and its always kids playing some weird games.
| FB/YT are much better and instantly switching content when
| I skip past a video.
|
| TikTok is unusable for me.
| divan wrote:
| I get a lot of stuff I care about (some scientific papers
| overviews, blender/davinci editing tips and tricks, bits
| of high-quality podcasts) on tiktok, even if I just go
| for 5 minutes to entertain myself with some audio-visual
| crap. Mention of its algorithm being responsive matches
| my observations here.
| veqq wrote:
| There is no meaningful way to use it.
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| We don't have TikTok here (India), but I find YouTube shorts
| pretty useful. My feed is a mix of Action Labs shorts, Omar
| Agamy news, ZTT PC stuff, psychology, videos about animals
| (pet, domestic, wild), etc. I don't know what your standard
| for _meaningful_ is, but the shorts are at least as useful as
| long form videos to me, if not more.
|
| An important bit of context is that I prefer to get detailed
| information through text, research, sometimes podcasts, but
| rarely ever videos. The shorts serve as one low effort way
| (among others) for me to surface new potentially interesting
| things, to follow up on to the degree I find useful or
| interesting.
| amatecha wrote:
| My general view on TikTok is: why would I even remotely want
| to use something that's specifically designed to exploit me
| and manipulate me? The tiny shred of value I might experience
| (in the form of an occasional interesting video) is a side-
| effect of the service, and if they could get their value out
| of me and give me literally nothing at all, they would. This
| same perspective applies to all the centralized "social
| media" services out there today. None of them exist to make
| society better or improve the lives of anyone in any
| meaningful way (outside of enriching the executives and
| investors running them).
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, in fact I'm trying to wend myself away from the
| internet generally. (Sure don't need more of that shit.)
| glenngillen wrote:
| I hear a lot of people be incredibly critical of TikTok,
| while being active consumers of Facebook/Instagram/X/etc.
| I've found the content on TikTok to be much better curated to
| what I actually like, with just enough (i.e., very little!)
| other content sprinkled in occasionally.
|
| I asked someone a similar question to you a year ago and they
| told me something like "just spend 15 minutes with it.
| Aggressively swipe past things you aren't enjoying, like the
| the things you like. Search for something you are interested
| in too and like anything you like there". My feed is
| currently entirely basketball coaching tips for kids, cooking
| & recipes, stand up comedy, basic DIY, fitness/running tips,
| local restaurant recommendations, and sports highlights.
| einpoklum wrote:
| Closed-source, very-limited-API platforms like Tik Tok do not
| actually let you "play with the thing". What I imagine you
| would be interested in is a client which, say, gets the text
| version of a large number of short videos, filters those
| texts based on criteria you have defined and meta-data from
| TikTok (time, number of views, some proxies for a 'quality'
| measure) and serves you up with the results in a textual
| form, or perhaps a page with titles/summaries and links to
| the text and the video.
|
| I'm not sure that's worth it but I'm willing to be this is
| not possible to achieve.
| gamesbrainiac wrote:
| Amusing ourselves to death was such an eye opener for me when I
| was 19. After that I never took the news seriously.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| I'll always upvote a recommendation for Amusing Ourselves to
| Death. I haven't yet gone back to Understanding Media directly
| yet.
|
| I haven't watched the news in 5 years. I started watching it
| again since Bondi (I live nearby), and while I'm surprised at
| the variation in reporting styles (political bias?) between
| Australian channels, my overwhelming observation has been just
| how little key information is actually conveyed.
|
| I've found it very helpful to watch the live briefings, Q&As,
| etc with politicians, but the news cycle here is so short
| (hourly) that a few minutes later you get to hear a "recap" by
| the news reporter that glosses over most of the important and
| interesting points (at best) or actively removes key nuance and
| outright changes the message delivered by the original person
| (at worst).
|
| I feel there has to be something between "I heard about a thing
| 7th-hand" and "I actively watch political discourse / read
| scientific papers", but I'm no longer sure The News, as we
| currently know it, is it.
|
| Presumably this was what "journalism" was originally supposed
| to be.
| john01dav wrote:
| > I feel there has to be something between "I heard about a
| thing 7th-hand" and "I actively watch political discourse /
| read scientific papers", but I'm no longer sure The News, as
| we currently know it, is it.
|
| I have found that some Youtube channels and videos (non-
| comprehensive examples below (I have hundreds of subscribed
| channels), mostly not politics, but these things inform
| politics since politics is making decisions about other
| things) can fill this gap nicely. This is not a perfect
| choice, since journalism integrity and standards do not
| apply, but I find that this can be mitigated by watching a
| wide variety (for example, in the field of economics, I
| regularly watch creators who espouse everything from very
| free-market capitalism all the way to full on communism).
| There are likely other forms of new media that operate at
| this level of depth, but I haven't found htem.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@TechnologyConnections
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWUaS5a50DI
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@HowMoneyWorks
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@DiamondNestEgg
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@TLDRnews (and associated channels)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@BennJordan (recent good example
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-uiUlHTo)
| brabel wrote:
| I started watching the full press releases and politicians
| interviews which are normally available on YouTube. It just
| changed how I view geopolitics. The media is extremely
| biased and absolutely does not report what people are
| actually saying. You really should never accept at face
| value what the news are reporting.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| > I started watching the full press releases and
| politicians interviews which are normally available on
| YouTube.
|
| Is this true for Australian politics? This is exactly
| what I'm looking for. Currently all my searching for
| recent events just results in summarised/paraphrased news
| reports with some footage, or shorts and clickbait.
| ViscountPenguin wrote:
| Parliamentary question time is pretty good for that here
| in Australia, I'd recommend giving it a listen every now
| and again.
| brabel wrote:
| Yes and the Senate has a radio IIRC and you can listen to
| every discussion they have!
| DavidPiper wrote:
| Thank you for these sources! Happy to see Benn Jordan, How
| Money Works and Technology Connections as grey links :-)
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| I watch news (and everything else) on YouTube at 2x speed to
| keep the information density high enough to be worthwhile.
| Once you get used to it, regular media becomes less tolerable
| because everyone is talking too slow.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| I often watch YouTube at 1.5x speed and then during work
| meetings my brain starts looking for the speed button.
| mjevans wrote:
| Those are the wrong sort of work meetings.
|
| Where possible you want everyone to be well informed on
| the way in, at least about the current situation and the
| obvious proposals. This gives people time to digest the
| information and maybe even suggest their own proposals.
|
| Then there's two types of meetings.
|
| * Leadership communication meetings (quick review to make
| sure everyone understands how important the data they
| already knew about is / cement context).
|
| * Brainstorming meetings (figure out a plan /
| pathfinding)
| anal_reactor wrote:
| I feel like the goal of most meetings is to ensure
| everyone feels heard and included, and if by the way we
| push the work forward, that's a bonus.
| einpoklum wrote:
| The 2x speed will only keep your brain preoccupied enough
| not to notice the relevant information is missing or made
| very shallow... getting the same slop in half the time
| won't solve the problem.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| You just cut out the low information ramblers.
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| what the techno-industrial mindprison does to an mf
| 6510 wrote:
| My best personal joke is to generate a summary of the
| looooong video, have AI make a short video about the
| video then play at 2x
| riskable wrote:
| It's much more fun to have AI generate an image depicting
| the summary and try to guess what it was all about.
| Roark66 wrote:
| >my overwhelming observation has been just how little key
| information is actually conveyed.
|
| This is the key. I think they (entertainers cosplaying as
| journalists) do it on purpose. For example, from time to time
| I do attempt to watch some "news" on TV with my partner.
|
| A typical interaction may be: - TV - "..the president vetoed
| a bill to lower taxes...here is what this politician thinks:
| 'I think he only cares to gain support of the extremists he
| secretly supports', and here is what another politician
| thinks 'it was a bad bill'" - me to my partner - "did I miss
| it? have they said what the bill was about? What were the
| exact things that were questionable?" - her - "nope" - TV -
| "... The president says he will be submitting a similar bill
| minus the parts he disagreed with, and now a house burned
| down in..." - me - "WTF was that?"
|
| I sometimes wonder if they are playing a sort of game, how
| many minutes of "content" can be made while conveying the
| least amount of information possible.
| bsenftner wrote:
| > I sometimes wonder if they are playing a sort of game,
| how many minutes of "content" can be made while conveying
| the least amount of information possible.
|
| Exactly my impression. I tell people there is no real news
| in the United States, only gossip style reporting of
| information one can do nothing about and has nothing to do
| with them. If the reporting it political, it's in 4th grade
| language and a second grade mentality. News in the United
| States is talking to children.
| matwood wrote:
| It's not even a game. There just isn't that much news to
| report on 24/7. And even when an event does happen, the
| early reports are often wrong. People crave an update
| when there is no update to give.
| bsenftner wrote:
| > "isn't that much news"?!
|
| We are not given any factual and material information on
| business activities in the nation, which is what the
| nation is actually doing. Who (as in companies) are
| gaining, are losing, and how is this economic conflict
| manifesting for their consumers and employees? None of
| that reporting is performed, the population is too
| shallow minded to even understand the discussion. Where
| are the local economics news that graduates to county,
| state and region with actionable numbers and not
| pointless no-ground reporting like "the stock market has
| trading volume of x trillions" <- useless information.
|
| We get sports and entertainment news, which is not news,
| not really, not at all.
| aragilar wrote:
| Part of the challenge is unless you know what the "news
| reporter's" role is (are they just reporting what they
| see/have heard vs. analysis/opinion and what their relevant
| expertise is; I'd suggest good news providers have clear
| divides and provide this information (though with biases),
| those that don't likely have some agenda), you get a mix of
| voices/views without a clear understanding of the facts. A
| different challenge is constraints of the various content
| formats/audiences (which are really only obvious when the
| same journalist does the same story in different formats).
| nosianu wrote:
| IMO "just reporting what they see" is a solution at all. I
| tried looking at messages through that angle, and too often
| there is very important context that you need, or the
| message's content does not make sense, or becomes something
| different.
|
| For example, we have plenty of "journalism" that reports
| exactly what some entity says. That just makes them a PR
| channel. If they added context that politician's or
| company's message's content's meaning would turn on its
| head and would be exposed as a lie.
|
| Similarly, a lot of news would greatly benefit from larger
| context that just is not there, and that the vast majority
| of "consumers" of the news are simply not aware of, through
| no fault of their own.
|
| "Just report what you see" IMHO is part of the problem, not
| the solution. It's trying to "solve" the reporting problem
| by removing most of the role of journalists because they
| are seen as unreliable, for good reasons, but I don't think
| that works at all. It is similar to trying to solve all
| problems by adding ever more rules for everything, to
| remove the uncertainty and unreliability of individual
| decisions.
|
| This is just like at work, where the capital owners and
| bosses would love to replace all those pesky annoying
| opinionated humans with something more controllable and
| predictable. If the intelligence can be moved from the
| people into the process, the latter become replaceable and
| much cheaper, and the company gets much more control. But
| it is not just the owner class that does not like having to
| rely on and to deal with other humans.
|
| I think the direction of development of the role of
| journalists has actually gone way too far in exactly the
| direction of them using less and less of their own brains,
| and having less influence and ability, for most messages,
| the very few deeper pieces notwithstanding.
|
| Although, none of that will do anything as long as the news
| source owner structure is the way it is, with a few
| billionaires controlling most of the big news sources.
| aragilar wrote:
| Only doing "just reporting what they see" is a problem as
| well (and even AP (https://apnews.com/) does analysis,
| and their more on the "just reporting what they see" side
| than most news providers), but opinions being presented
| as facts is far more common (at least from the mainstream
| AU media, I don't know what the situation is elsewhere),
| hence trying to clearly demarcate the two is better than
| being unclear about what you are presenting. You need
| facts and analysis, and them labelled as such.
|
| Personally, I find a good example of this is the
| different election broadcasts: the commercial TV
| broadcasters tend to have their staff take both the role
| of election analyst (i.e. result prediction) and
| commentator, whereas the ABC (one of the public
| broadcasters) has tended to have clear separation of
| roles (enough such that the election analyst who just
| retired has a cult following), with an election analyst
| who is giving detailed predictions and calls the
| election, political journalists providing
| context/analysis, polling experts covering what the polls
| missed/got right, and politicians from the major parties
| giving their opinions as well.
| everdrive wrote:
| I'll also add that paradoxically, bias is not really the
| problem here, but rather the problem is bias-disguised as
| objectivity. There's truly nothing wrong with a commentator
| who states "I have a particular view on this issue. Here
| are some of the things which inform my view. Here are the
| strengths of my view, here are the weaknesses, and here are
| what some of my opponents argue."
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| What we didn't know back in the 1990s was how little this
| sort of presentation (that you describe) was engaging.
| Everyone could sort of tell, which is why producers shied
| away from it, but with the rise of algorithms and
| internet slop it can be measured very precisely. And the
| measurements show that it's damn near close to zero, on
| whatever scale it is that they use.
|
| Intelligent people are boring. They're worried about
| problem-solving. Problems like on the tests back in
| school that used to make my head hurt, problems I'd get
| the red X on and have to repeat 3rd grade over because
| of. Unintelligent people are exciting. They're _in
| conflict_. They 're fighting, or going to find a fight
| somewhere, and if you watch long enough they might even
| get into that fight right then and there (Bill O'Reilly
| used to do that on air, after all).
| andrepd wrote:
| Honestly, it boils down to capitalism / market pressure.
| Quality journalism is _expensive_ , compared to the return in
| the form of the price people are willing to pay for that
| quality journalism. Clickbait is so profitable, it's like a
| powerful magnet pulling all news institutions, be they TV
| channels, newspapers, or whatever, towards that model.
|
| LLMs can produce a literal terabyte of slop for cheaper than
| a month's wage for a journalist. I'm not hopeful.
| everdrive wrote:
| >my overwhelming observation has been just how little key
| information is actually conveye
|
| Much of it is merely factual statements conveyed by over-the-
| top body language and vocal intonation which paint a clear
| "this is bad" or "this is good" language. Often the language
| is biased as well, but the modern newscasters are "telling
| you how to feel" via the tone of voice in the same way that a
| friend is "telling you how to feel" when he recounts his
| horrible day that the office. Via body language and tone of
| voice he prompts you to respond sympathetically to him, and
| the newscaster does much the same.
| kryogen1c wrote:
| I think the greatest crime social media has committed is
| convincing everyone their opinion matters, the idea that
| research/journalism is hot-swappable with fact-checking.
|
| Sometimes in conversation Israel or tariffs or whatever
| comes and I'm always like... idk? What do I, have a PHD? I
| know enough to know they're complex issues and the worst
| thing i could do is have a strong opinion
| hallole wrote:
| And then they scoff, and say, "so you just 'trust the
| experts,' then?"
|
| I don't have the time to become expert in global affairs,
| history, climate science... all the fields implicated by
| the big hot-button issues. The next best thing is defer
| to someone knowledgeable and objective (given you can
| find such a person), IMO.
| underlipton wrote:
| Neither of those are topics that are particularly
| complex, though.
|
| And I realize that I'm taking the bait, but it's worth
| noting that the flip-side of the oversimplification of
| complex topics in modern news media is the affordance of
| notions of complexity to issues that are fairly cut-and-
| dry, when applying known and well-accepted standards to
| them. Solving housing issues in the US? Complex, though
| news media would have you believe that the answer is
| simply, "Build more." Is Israel committing genocide in
| Gaza? Simple, though biased experts spend enormous
| amounts of energy spinning extant circumstances that are
| readily accounted for in most definitions of genocide.
| Tariffs? Very well understood. Ending Russia's invasion
| of Ukraine? Apparently a bit more difficult than flooding
| the country with weapons and finger-wagging at Vladimir
| Putin until he stops being bad.
|
| Note also that this isn't predicated on the existence or
| non-existence of social media as an influential force.
| It's simply a matter of whether or not the corporate and
| political interests that steer public discourse find it
| useful to complicate or simplify a news story.
| dmoose wrote:
| > I think the greatest crime social media has committed
| is convincing everyone their opinion matters
|
| So much this! Social media has also allowed people to
| reinforce their own opinions and spread them by
| connecting with others who think the same way. Back when
| we mainly interacted in real social communities, fringe
| ideas couldn't get traction because there wasn't enough
| reinforcement.
| jfengel wrote:
| I have found that, often, there is only so much information
| to convey. They keep talking because that is their job, but
| you've already been told all there is to know. The rest is
| speculation, rumor, and prattle.
|
| That's especially true for evolving emergencies like Bondi.
| In my opinion, you might as well wait until tomorrow, or next
| week, and get all of the information at once. Unless, of
| course, you're involved, but that's extremely rare.
| viccis wrote:
| >I'll always upvote a recommendation for Amusing Ourselves to
| Death. I haven't yet gone back to Understanding Media
| directly yet.
|
| I love both books, but when you read Understanding Media you
| will see how blatantly Postman just restated McLuhan's basic
| thesis and pretended to tweak it to make it his own ("the
| medium is the metaphor" has the same meaning as "the medium
| is the message"). However, I found where Postman's book
| really excelled was in its presentation of the historical
| changes in literacy in the US. I knew we were a literate
| country once, but I didn't realize just how much we were.
| Loughla wrote:
| I used that book as a background example in a presentation I
| did you faculty on how to integrate new open resources into
| their classes. One guy in the back laughed really hard at
| that screen and everyone looked at him like he was a lunatic.
|
| And that's the story of how I made a work best friend.
|
| Seriously though, if you haven't read amusing ourselves to
| death you need to.
| wincy wrote:
| This is why I love listening to Joe Rogan, it's hard for
| someone to keep to their coached media narrative for three
| and a half hours. I'm generally suspicious of people who tell
| me I shouldn't listen directly to the words of people they
| dislike.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Though you are now buying into the Rogan worldview with his
| show, which is its own set of issues, namely he's routinely
| proven that he's unwilling to press people on real concrete
| issues or criticisms if it means he might be in even a
| small amount of hot water with whatever in group he's
| catering to
| BrenBarn wrote:
| Even when I was younger, I was baffled by how people could get
| their news just from TV, because the amount of information in a
| TV news report was so tiny compared to what you'd get in a
| newspaper. When I hear that people view TikTok as their main
| news source, it's like telling me people wear watermelons as
| socks. It's so nuts its hard for me to even bring the concept
| into my brain.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| The TV will have maybe 5 stories, each told in one way only.
|
| The Internet (including TikTok) will have nearly unlimited
| stories, told in unlimited ways.
|
| I remember very well when just a few powerful people were
| allowed to decide what the public would be allowed to know
| and not know. They could suppress huge stories and leave the
| public in the dark. For example Chernobyl. They still try
| that today in print media and television, but have become a
| pathetic laughing stock now that information is free.
|
| Somebody getting news from TikTok will probably be better
| informed than somebody relying only on print or TV.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > Somebody getting news from TikTok will probably be better
| informed than somebody relying only on print or TV.
|
| Possible, but also quite unlikely. From the people who post
| "news" on TikTok, I wonder how many spent at least 30-60
| minutes on verifying what they're about to post? There is
| an endless sea of "influencers" who want to be first with
| posting something, that "validate what you're about to
| report" doesn't even enter the arena before they've posted
| their snippet. And if it's retracted, count on the video
| just silently disappearing.
|
| Contrast that with TV and print that at least have some
| sort of validation, although imperfect, with editors and
| what not, that review things before they're published. Now
| of course, US media is a really shit example of proper
| journalism, as they've all fallen into basically doing
| "content creation", but if you look at other newspapers and
| news channels around the world, you'll see that proper
| journalism is still done, and the people pushing videos on
| TikTok usually do "content creation" very differently from
| TV and paper, with very different understanding of what
| they're actually contributing to.
| oytis wrote:
| An infinite stream of all possible information, true and
| false is exactly as useful as no information at all - and
| social media are getting pretty close to this ideal
| carlosjobim wrote:
| It demands more of the person seeking information. Just
| like any intelligence gathering.
|
| It's usually not very hard to verify information, and
| then you know which sources to trust better.
| oytis wrote:
| That's a classic trick of opinion manipulation. You start
| an account that posts factual content that caters to
| target audience. Then once the rapport is built, you
| throw your narratives in. The barrier to do this, on
| scale, all the time has never been lower
| carlosjobim wrote:
| All media is opinion manipulation. You could even stretch
| that to say that all communication is opinion
| manipulation.
|
| Highly respected and highly ranked mass media sometimes
| publish outright lies and made up stories, completely
| knowingly. Because they are in the business of
| manipulation. So you have to trust your gut, and verify
| if something smells strange. Many times it isn't even
| possible to verify, as for much of war reporting.
|
| There will never be a time when there will be an absolute
| guarantee of anything. Not as long as there are people.
| abustamam wrote:
| I think there's a difference between trying to stay
| informed and seeking information. I swipe to my newsfeed
| and see seven stories ranging from local to national,
| from local news station to fox to New York times. Fact
| checking each of these stories will take time that I do
| not care to spend, and I imagine most folks will not.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| That begs the question: If you don't care about these
| stories enough to do anything to verify, then why do you
| care to hear/see/read these stories?
|
| The only rational answer is that they are just
| entertainment to you. And to most other people.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| "If you don't care about false alarms, why do you listen
| to the fire alarm sounding and then evacuate the
| building? The only rational answer is that the fire alarm
| is just entertainment to you"
|
| The rational answer is that they look at the news to see
| if there are any stories important and relevant enough
| that they _would_ care to verify them.
| abustamam wrote:
| Yes, agreed. News has become entertainment, because the
| standard for news has fallen so much. Which makes actual
| news harder for most people to attain.
| abustamam wrote:
| "pretty close" is pretty generous! I'd say it's already
| there.
| abustamam wrote:
| > The Internet (including TikTok) will have nearly
| unlimited stories, told in unlimited ways.
|
| Mainstream TV channels have their biases but "unlimited"
| doesn't actually mean anything if the content you're
| getting served is whatever the algorithm thinks will engage
| you, which is usually something that already aligns with
| your world view, or something that doesn't but is designed
| to outrage. Most average folks who browse the internet
| aren't looking past the sensational headlines they see in
| their Apple or Google curated news feeds.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >Somebody getting news from TikTok will probably be better
| informed than somebody relying only on print or TV.
|
| Imagine talking about how the "internet has unlimited
| stories" and then following up with "people who use TikTok
| are better informed".
|
| If you're getting the information by listening to one of
| those jackasses in their sing-song presenter voices...
| you're not getting information at all. You're functionally
| illiterate and hyponotized by someone who learned to
| exploit Youtube-style algorithms.
| nvarsj wrote:
| > For today's youth, Tik Tok is "the air we breath" - the de-
| facto standard against which the future will be judged. It's
| horrifying to imagine what will be worse.
|
| So your argument is centrally controlled and edited
| distribution of news information is superior?
|
| I was born in 82, and news has been largely rubbish in almost
| all forms. Heavily biased by the editors/owners, things
| missing, weird focuses. The 1940s was filled with propaganda
| and newspapers were owned by a few moguls or by fascist
| governments.
|
| At least with the uncensored internet it's possible to educate
| yourself. There is plenty of amazing journalism if you look
| around. Including on Tik Tok!
| christophilus wrote:
| Yep. I remember my dad quoting some major news anchor as
| saying, "My job isn't to report the news; it's to shape
| perception." Or something like that. I started watching the
| news with that as my lens, and it seems to be an axiom of the
| entire industry. I never have managed to find a reliable way
| to filter the signal from the noise, other than watching /
| reading the direct sources (CSPAN or whatnot). No one has
| time for that.
| analyst74 wrote:
| News has never been about reporting absolute truth, there is
| just too much influence/power/money to be gained for
| manipulating public perception.
|
| The fact that people believe in journalistic integrity shows
| how successful they are at brainwashing the public.
| BrtByte wrote:
| Every generation experiences the current downgrade as
| catastrophic, only to later discover it was already a
| compromise layered on top of an earlier one
| embedding-shape wrote:
| So if we try to walk up all the ladders of abstractions and
| get to the core where we cannot go yet another layer above,
| what we end up? Word of mouth basically?
| hallole wrote:
| I think, at a minimum, a return to print or radio news is
| called for. They necessitate attentive consumption of
| information in a way that video just doesn't. I feel like
| they leave mental space open for critical thought. TikTok is
| the total opposite.
| ben_w wrote:
| I don't know how bad TikTok is because shorts just don't
| grab hold of me hard enough to even look at the app, at
| most I see someone else sharing a short of something silly
| on a meme channel.
|
| But... and I appreciate you did say "at a minimum"...
|
| Radio is absolutely something you can have on in the
| background, vibrating your eardrums without engaging your
| attention.
|
| Intentionality may be impossible in TikTok for all I know,
| but it isn't enough to just do radio, and I think also not
| print.
| Razengan wrote:
| Why do people rag on TikTok? What the hell did you grow up on
| and did your parents and older folks from the previous
| generation _not_ look down on _that_ with a sigh or disgust??
|
| Rock music? Rap? Video games??
|
| In East Asia I see TikTok as pretty healthy, encouraging kids
| and even older people to be more active in public spaces, doing
| harmless dances or imitating other trends. It's actually pretty
| refreshing. Why you hatin?
|
| Or is the West just salty that Facebook/YouTube/Instagram etc
| fell off as sterile in comparison?
| krapp wrote:
| I can actually remember when the consensus on HN was that
| TikTok was a novel, fresh experience that reminded them of
| the "old web" and its spark of creativity.
|
| Now the consensus seems to be that it's a Chinese mind-
| control tool and it represents everything the misanthropes
| here hate about modern culture, the web and the generations
| that participate in it.
|
| It seems to be exactly the same generational impulse as our
| parents railing against the "boob tube" and "devil music" or
| (to quote RMS) "(c)rap music." Although they weren't entirely
| wrong they weren't nearly as correct as they insisted they
| were. I suspect the same is true about the current moral
| panic around social media, and TikTok in general. Yes there
| are legitimate concerns, but it isn't the ontological evil
| people make it out to be either. It isn't actually
| controlling people's minds. It isn't actually more addictive
| than heroin.
|
| And to answer NiloCK without another comment, what's worse
| will be "TikTok but _everything_ is AI generated by the
| platform itself. " Say what you will about TikTok, at least a
| lot of it is still human expression.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > Now the consensus seems to be that it's a Chinese mind-
| control tool and it represents everything the misanthropes
| here hate about modern culture, the web and the generations
| that participate in it.
|
| If you drop the word "Chinese" and "misanthrope" I'm in
| board with your description.
| mm263 wrote:
| I recommend Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
| oytis wrote:
| For me the difference is exactly what the article is about.
| TikTok was the first to abandon even a pretense of being
| about communication and became all about content. Facebook
| and IG have went the same way and are barely better these
| days, but TikTok exemplifies the trend
| softwaredoug wrote:
| There is a flip side to this. Yes it was stabilizing to have
| "boring" news where every provider largely had the same
| stories. But there was a narrower Overton window of issues to
| be discussed. A single thread of attention at any one time.
|
| There are advantages to the disjointed, small, grassroots,
| often histrionic, news of today. We get a lot more perspectives
| in our news. We get so many it's overwhelming (and we sadly
| need to jump into our corners to feel safe).
|
| Anyone can start a Substack now and the market can decide if
| they're a journalist. In my town there are several more trusted
| and prominent than the local broadcast news. Some specialize in
| a topic like housing. Some focus on govt going's on. And of
| course there are local nutjobs (or I think they are, others
| disagree?
|
| It's messy and not nearly summarized, but in some ways it's
| better and more detailed than bland evening news.
| Tagbert wrote:
| Current news media is even more narrowly focused on the three
| hot news stories of the day with 24-hour repetitive
| commentary all funneled into the narrative of the day.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Yes though cable news is in a gradual decline
|
| https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/here-are-the-cable-news-
| rati...
|
| The real action in news media is in flagship newspapers
| (WSJ, NY Times), podcasts, substacks..
| jlengrand wrote:
| Ploum is one of the people getting me into blogging 12 or so
| years ago. I'm so glad to see it popup again here, it's like a
| big piece of nostalgia. And the piece is current. Thanks Ploum!
| 1121redblackgo wrote:
| This article makes me think of how defiant Discord has been
| against all of this, and how slowly I'm starting to succumb to
| many of the same forces, although much slowly than other
| platforms. It's a minor miracle they never got bought up/sold
| themselves.
|
| Also reminds me of the Dark Forrest Yancy Strickler stuff.
| jim201 wrote:
| The book Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman seems really
| relevant here. The thesis is that different modes of information
| are best suited to different tasks. Postman argues that
| television is best suited for entertainment. So the programs that
| do well on TV will naturally tend to be entertainment.
|
| That book was written in 1985, but the core observations are also
| applicable to modern cellphones (which have become, for the
| majority of users, entertainment devices).
|
| Postman then talks about how our communication systems have
| degraded as a result of entertainment being the strength of our
| current modes.
|
| Fantastic read.
| hollow-moe wrote:
| Soooo, when my email client is text-only and doesn't show me the
| attachments from the _multi-part_ , it's "actively destroying the
| Fediverse" ? Ploum doesn't make any sense here. A "platform" such
| as Mastodon, Pixelfed, Peertube etc. (Do not mistake with
| "client", there's multiple Peertube "clients" or "frontends" for
| instance) using ActivityPub shouldn't have to implement and
| provide the user with the whole spec, otherwise just make the
| "ActivityPub" platform, implement everything there why even
| bother making other platforms?
| tecoholic wrote:
| The email client might not show attachments, but will still let
| you know there is a message. Pixelfed is not letting the user
| know there is even a message.
|
| Also you seem to be responding to the original post or just the
| first paragraph of this post. He understands the differences
| and the way he sees the differences is the whole post.
| ofalkaed wrote:
| Reading through this thread, I can't help but think that Stanley
| Elkin got everything right when he wrote George Mills. The blurbs
| and _reviews_ of George Mills often reduce it to being about the
| failures of the 99%, but I think it is more about why the 1%
| succeeds and the answer is fairly simple, because the 99% wants
| the 1% to succeed, it absolves them of all culpability. This is
| modern (contemporary) life, absolution. George Mills seems to
| only increase in relevance as far as I can see, but it only
| recedes in relevance in the eyes of the public because it offers
| no scapegoats.
|
| This time it is different, right? The first George Mills was
| correct in believing that, but we don't live in his times.
| kaonwarb wrote:
| The author's ideological bent against Big Tech shows through most
| clearly in the passage on Uber:
|
| > Uber replaced taxis by having people drive others in their own
| car. But what was created as "ride-sharing" was in fact a way to
| 1) destroy competition and 2) make a shittier service while
| people producing the work were paid less and lost labour rights
|
| There are valid complaints about Uber, but most people consider
| it a materially better service than taxis most of the time. They
| vote that way with their wallets, long after VC subsidies ended,
| and often even when it costs _more_ than a taxi.
| asmor wrote:
| I don't get the hangup on having multiple accounts. The point of
| AP is that you can _read_ any kind post, not _create_ any kind of
| post.
|
| There is a truth to consumption over communication, but that is
| in the destruction of third spaces and the increasing difficulty
| in making friends. The fediverse is a force _against_ that in my
| view, even if it has some of the creature comforts of regular
| social media.
| BrenBarn wrote:
| I found this a bit odd as I don't recall ever thinking of social
| media as about "sending messages", and only loosely would I say
| they're for "communication". They're mostly for one-way
| communication, which is essentially what entertainment is too, so
| it's not surprising that social media would feel like
| entertainment. When you make a post on Facebook you're not really
| "sending a message" to anyone in particular, you're just
| broadcasting it out to the network.
|
| But this got me thinking about what I think a "message" really
| is. Maybe there's a Dunbar's number kind of thing here because I
| feel like there's some sort of limit on how many people I can
| send textual content to before it stops being a "message" and
| becomes more like an "announcement". Like I get emails, and some
| of those are messages because they come from individuals and are
| sent to me and perhaps a small set of other individuals. But some
| emails are more like announcements (or even "content"), and such
| quasi-messages have existed since before email went mainsteam
| (like holiday newsletters that people sent out with xmas cards).
|
| It's true that many social media platforms have a messaging
| system that exists in parallel ("direct messages"), but that
| always seemed kind of separate from the core essence of the
| platform.
|
| The closest you get to real "messages" in social networks is
| comments, but in my experience the degree to which those
| constitute "messages" or "communication" varies a lot from
| platform to platform and also from user to user. These days a
| large proportion of comments are just slightly more specific
| "reactions" like "That's so great!" or "Wow" or "Thanks for
| posting this". I don't often see genuine discussion happening in
| comments (although HN, if you consider it a social media site, is
| an exception to this).
|
| There has been an evolution in this regard, but even back in the
| day I think it wasn't what I'd call "messaging". The earliest
| platform I can remember using that (in retrospect) I could call a
| social network was LiveJournal. But LJ was a blogging platform.
| You didn't post "messages" to other people, you posted, well,
| posts, and maybe people would comment on them or maybe they
| wouldn't. I would never have said that I dreamed of LJ becoming
| "email 2.0". And I'd say modern microblogging-type platforms
| (like Twitter) seem even more removed from email or "messaging".
|
| I also don't see decentralization as really connected to this. To
| me the main advantage of decentralization is to eliminate single
| points of failure and guard against various sorts of rugpulls
| (like what eventually happened to LJ). But whether a platform
| fosters communication, messages, interaction, or whatever you
| want to call it, is pretty much independent of whether it's
| decentralized.
|
| This isn't to say that I disagree that something's been lost in
| internet communication over the years. But to me that missing
| thing seems mostly to be a combination of attention and
| authenticity.
|
| We've lost attention in the sense that now that people do
| everything with their phones, they consume and create content
| more diffusely, as opposed to having a division between "I'm
| sitting at my computer reading or writing" and "I'm doing
| something else". The small screens and balky input mechanisms of
| phones make this problem even worse for writing than it is for
| reading.
|
| And we've lost authenticity in the sense that so many platforms
| have become contaminated with stuff that is in no sense
| communication from any human, not even one-way communication.
| Instead it's junk generated by corporations to sell products
| (perhaps with some intermediate steps of harvesting data, etc.).
| This has become much, much worse in the last few years with the
| rise of AI slop. It's harder and harder to find stuff on the web
| that actually represents the work of a human being expressing
| themselves in a personal way.
|
| So yeah, we've lost something, but I wouldn't say we lost
| communication to entertainment. It's more like we lost the
| boundaries of the units of our communication so that we find
| ourselves in a constant blur of content, rather than a sequence
| of discrete units each of which we process and ponder
| independently.
| nephihaha wrote:
| "All our communication channels are morphed into content
| distribution networks. We are more and more entertained but less
| and less connected."
|
| This isn't true. You can still meet in person or make a phone
| call.
|
| As for news media... They tend to be at the beck and call of
| whoever owns them. Most of them use the same press agencies but
| promote political binaries to the exclusion of other viewpoints.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| IMHO communication is entertainment sometimes. Most of the
| "communication" we do day to day, like small talks to colleagues,
| or tweeting some posts, in my opinion, is just a way to relax and
| have fun, like patting each other electronically.
| cons0le wrote:
| Sure, but there's nothing worse than when you want to have a
| serious conversation with someone, and all they can make are
| jokes.
|
| There are a lot of serious conversations we need to have _as a
| society_ right now. And collectively, all we can do is make
| jokes.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Social media is probably not the best place to make such
| communications anyway. It is good for propaganda but not good
| for serious discussion. Serious, scientific discussion asks
| for a lot more than just communication itself.
| oersted wrote:
| Throughout history, real social conversations and movements
| have happened around thought leaders that dedicate their
| lives to painstakingly understanding and expressing a certain
| point of view on a set of issues. Be it in written form or
| through oratory, it then acts as an anchor to frame and
| facilitate conversations between people one-on-one.
|
| Real progress requires that hard work of crafting and
| spreading a vision, something to point at that helps people
| express what they struggle to express themselves. It also
| then needs that protected intimacy of long conversations
| between individuals to digest it.
|
| The architecture of social media centered around short-form
| public communication is not appropriate for this.
|
| This of course applies to both constructive and destructive
| movements, but it's the only way to get big real things done.
| I suppose that's why we have this emergent class of powerful
| independent (podcast) intellectuals after a long time of the
| concept not being a thing. Again, for better or worse, plenty
| of both.
| athrowaway3z wrote:
| > Big Monopolies have managed to convince people that they need
| one account on each platform. That brainwash/marketing is so
| deeply entrenched that most people cannot see an alternative
| anymore.
|
| I get what is being said, but i disagree with the framing. The
| "brainwashing" happened in two stages, and the first stage is
| perfectly logical.
|
| Most people don't want just 1 identity, and they want separate
| spaces for being different.
|
| If you're already OK with having two accounts on BBS, what is 1
| or 2 accounts more for thefacebook.com?
| gus_massa wrote:
| Facebook sometimes decides to block your account when the name
| is not 100% identical to your official ID.
|
| Google when you make a chargeback or your youtube channel has
| the song of a bird
|
| The other platform also have similar weird cases.
|
| I don't want to be instabanned from ALL the internet just
| because one site decides I did something wrong for real or
| imaginary reasons.
| BrtByte wrote:
| Where the framing still resonates for me is in who controls the
| boundaries
| cbsmith wrote:
| > Communication networks are not profitable.
|
| Lost me on that one. Communication networks provide significant
| value and can be quite profitable. That's a whole industry.
| peteforde wrote:
| The author makes some solid points, and I don't love Uber the
| company, but I can't accept the notion that ridesharing is a
| shittier experience than taking taxis.
|
| Only someone who willfully forgets how terrible taxis are could
| say that.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| I have the exact opposite opinion.
|
| Taxis were great, for both the consumer and Taxi driver.
| peteforde wrote:
| I'm floored!
|
| My experience pre-Uber was that cabs were never there when
| you need them, the cars were smelly and in bad shape, the
| rides were expensive, seatbelts were usually broken, and
| drivers were not particularly motivated to be civil, never
| mind kind.
|
| I personally don't drink bottled water on principle, but in
| theory it's nice to know it's there if I'm suffering.
|
| Are your local cabs just amazing? I'm open to it, but
| again... floored. This very well could be a regional
| difference.
|
| Edit: I cannot believe that I forgot to mention that the
| entire taxi medallion system found in most cities was not
| only deeply corrupt and usually intimately connected with
| organized crime... but the ownership structure was such that
| they enabled some of the worst legal wage slavery rackets in
| the western world. You've had these deeply shady owners with
| dozens of medallions and fleets of easily replaced, mostly
| immigrant drivers who all seemed to be prepared to drive for
| decades before someday hopefully being able to buy their own
| car and then drive it until they die.
|
| I dunno, man. Convince me I'm mistaken.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| From what I've read Uber drivers aren't any better off.
| It's still a race to nowhere.
|
| All the negatives you described about the old structure
| still exist, it's just Uber skimming of the top now.
| joquarky wrote:
| Obviously it depends on the quality of service where you
| live.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> They believe those platforms are "public spaces" while they
| truly are "private spaces trying to destroy all other public
| spaces in order to get a monopoly."_
|
| This has been my biggest beef with Facebook. I have an FB
| account, but never use it, anymore. By walking away from it,
| there are a number of folks with whom I can no longer
| communicate.
|
| In some cases, that's fine, but in a couple, I sincerely miss
| them.
|
| I like the idea behind the fediverse, but find it too "fiddly" to
| use. That's often an issue with things designed by engineers, for
| engineers.
|
| There's long been discussion of "One ID to Rule Them All," but
| that brings in the inevitable (and completely valid) point of who
| arbitrates/controls the infrastructure for that ID ("and in the
| Darkness, Binds Them").
|
| The thing is, folks really want convenience. If it's not provided
| as a benevolent resource, an opening is made available to less
| benevolent people. It's going to happen, and all the hand-
| wringing in the world can't stop human nature.
|
| I feel that public discourse is particularly vulnerable to the
| medium. Who controls the medium, controls the discourse, and, as
| we've already seen, that can have serious consequences in the
| real world.
|
| Not a new conundrum. Social Media has simply sprinkled Miracle
| Gro onto the problem.
|
| I'm not sure there's any real solution. I am thinking that
| today's newer generation ("Alpha"?) is developing a "thick skin,"
| and maybe, is becoming resistant to people that manipulate
| communication. I'm fairly despondent about my generation. We seem
| to have fallen hook, line, and sinker for the shysters.
| cons0le wrote:
| I had such high hopes for blue sky. The team seems highly un-
| problematic. Every time I go on there it's just happy stories
| and people communicating.
|
| But still almost nobody uses it. And now worst of all, people
| are saying it doesn't "count" as real federation.
|
| It seems like we're letting perfect be the enemy of good. But
| what do I know
| oytis wrote:
| Facebook started as people communicating too.
|
| I just don't understand why do you need to create a new
| incompatible protocol when ActivityPub exists - unless
| enshittification is in the roadmap. Even less I understand
| why prefer it over e.g. Mastodon from the user's perspective
| immibis wrote:
| Bluesky seems to be pre-Musk Twitter 2.0. Its content is
| basically the same (art + "look at the bad thing the
| Republicans are doing - the Democrats will solve this"). Its
| moderation policies are basically the same (post anything too
| different from what's there = ban. Centralised moderation).
| Its user base, although smaller, draws from roughly the same
| pool. And Jack Dorsey made it. And it even has a blue logo.
| It's clear he just wanted to create Twitter a second time and
| succeeded at that.
| BrtByte wrote:
| What resonated for me is the framing shift: not "centralized vs
| decentralized," but communication vs consumption
| pitched wrote:
| Social Media fills the same role that Alcohol used to. As far as
| debilitating addictions go, it does seem to be a small
| improvement though. Driving afterwards isn't a problem, for
| example.
| BrtByte wrote:
| That comparison feels uncomfortably accurate
| christophilus wrote:
| > Driving afterwards isn't a problem, for example.
|
| Many people drive-during which appears to have a similarly
| dangerous outcome.
| fullshark wrote:
| Economics. Entertainment and monetizing eyeballs is much more
| lucrative than charging for communication services.
| hypertexthero wrote:
| It took me a long time to notice that the word in the title is
| "massage", and not "message", in Marshall McLuhan's and Quentin
| Fiore's The Medium is the Massage (An inventory of effects):
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Medium_Is_the_Massage
|
| Links to various editions: https://www.biblio.com/the-medium-is-
| the-massage-by-marshall...
|
| Also of interest, notes about the observer being the observed in
| Jiddu Krishnamurti's Think on These Things --
| https://www.biblio.com/9780060916091 -- and The First and Last
| Freedom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_and_Last_Freedom
| teleforce wrote:
| >Big Monopolies have managed to convince people that they need
| one account on each platform. This was done, on purpose, for
| purely unethical reasons in order to keep users captive.
|
| >That brainwash/marketing is so deeply entrenched that most
| people cannot see an alternative anymore. It looks like a natural
| law: you need an account on a platform to communicate with
| someone on that platform.
|
| Easily the best post on HN so far this year 2025, thanks.
|
| Very messy situations that we're at the moment for our
| communications platform but sadly it's true.
| blfr wrote:
| Sure but wasn't this always the case? People told stories. joked,
| bantered, preached, and flirted both to communicate on different
| levels and to entertain themselves and each other.
|
| And so my Signal is solid 40% memes. Memes that someone carefully
| selected and sent me but still pure entertainment. No evil
| monopoly necessary to make it so.
| convolvatron wrote:
| I know it seems reductive, but in the early 90s there was a
| serious discussion about NAT. NAT bifurcates the internet into
| producers and consumers. naturally everyone looking to monetize
| the internet thought this was just fine, even desirable. and
| almost all the people who actually built the internet were
| aghast. ubiquitous reachability was the goal, not making a new
| form a television.
|
| the details wrt social media etc were unknown, but the path we
| were taking was quite clear.
| Mikhail_Edoshin wrote:
| William James wrote that one of characteristics of a religious
| state of mind is its seriousness. I'll quote:
|
| For common men "religion," whatever more special meanings it may
| have, signifies always a serious state of mind. If any one phrase
| could gather its universal message, that phrase would be, "All is
| not vanity in this Universe, whatever the appearances may
| suggest."
|
| I myself can compare this with the cultural state of Soviet
| Union. It was a very atheistic country on the surface; yet the
| art, the cultural scene, the newspapers, the cinema; the school
| education; the public forums (they existed in the form of letters
| to newspapers); everything was imbued with that idea that there
| are serious things, not everything is vanity. It wasn't dull or
| dark; it was very reviving, in fact, because it gave you the
| foundation, something firm to stand upon. There were
| fantastically funny comedies (I wish I could find modern comedies
| like that) but there was also seriousness. I still remember some
| journal pieces of that time that, I admit, formed me as a person.
| An essay about a relatively minor crime, for example: two women
| were bitten by guard dogs. Yet somehow it rose to your place in
| life; your approach to what life is; you and your responsibility
| for how you live. And these themes were everywhere. Until 1991.
| joquarky wrote:
| Alan Watts says something similar about how religions often
| harden into institutions that demand loyalty and "purity".
|
| When that happens, they slide into in-group/out-group thinking,
| defensiveness, and "spiritual one-upmanship" which makes
| everything more tense and brittle.
| AuthAuth wrote:
| No we didnt lose communication to entertainment. You still have
| communication protocols like email and xmpp. Fediverse is a
| communication protocol and some of that communication is
| entertainment. We need to seperate social media and fediverse
| because the philosophy is completely different. Fediverse has you
| make an account and you get posts from users you follow. The
| reason you need multiple accounts is because the sites are not
| complete enough to handle all of the different styles of posts.
| There is still a social and communication aspect to it.
|
| Big tech social media is pushing you a stream of entertainment
| and pushing away from social interactions.
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