5 ms·

> It's almost as if every click digs me further and further into a specific bucket that shapes what I see and that I can't really climb out of. As in life, it'

by Swizec 10y ago

> It's almost as if every click digs me further and further into a specific bucket that shapes what I see and that I can't really climb out of. As in life, it's important to actively seek out information you disagree with. That's how you learn and broaden your horizons. It's the only way.

HalcyonicStorm 10y ago
How can you click on links for opposing viewpoints if they don't even display them?
- Spellman 10y ago
  Something annealing and other local maxima algorithms do is always inject some noise. Annealing calls this the temperature. So Facebook could ensure that 5-10% of your feed comes from a "region" around where it thinks you stand, then see what you click on. If you only Like Left, then you keep drifting. But (I assume) they will always include some stuff to the Right of where they think you are as an option. It won't be Far Right, but it will be in that direction. Obviously, this is a lot of speculation of how Facebook is doing it's feed optimizations, but I expect they provide opportunities to get out of your localized maxima.
davidivadavid 10y ago
That keeps being repeated along with the "filter bubble" trope now and then. I'm not sure I buy it. Most of the stuff out of my "filter bubble" is just incredibly low quality garbage, whether it agrees or disagrees with what I think. I can't see how actively going out of my way to read articles about how Kim Kardashian is an interesting intellectual adds much to my horizons. There's only so much information we can consume. There seems to be this myth that looking now and then at the opposite viewpoint from what you believe frees you from the constraints of bounded rationality. It doesn't, and I haven't seen very conclusive evidence that it helps in any meaningful way.
- vertex-four 10y ago
  > Most of the stuff out of my "filter bubble" is just incredibly low quality garbage, whether it agrees or disagrees with what I think. The thing is... it's entirely probable that most of the people who agree with you do so because of low quality garbage. So you're very much comparing yourself to a large group of other people and coming out that you read things above their level - not very hard. You need to find people on your level on "the other side" and figure out what they're paying attention to.
  - davidivadavid 10y ago
    > The thing is... it's entirely probable that most of the people who agree with you do so because of low quality garbage. So? > So you're very much comparing yourself to a large group of other people and coming out that you read things above their level - not very hard. Not sure I understand. I'm not comparing myself to anybody. I'm simply stating that I can't find a reason to go out of my way to read garbage. Your last point is absolutely correct, and it probably summarizes why I believe the whole "filter bubble" thing is irrelevant or at least vastly overstated: the criteria that I use when deciding whether to read or not read something are entirely orthogonal to what "side" it comes from.
    - vertex-four 10y ago
      The criteria that you use is that you come across the material in the first place. Most likely, that is subject to a filter bubble. I really doubt your bubble consists of all good information available. Your fallacy is assuming that there is nothing outside your bubble that isn't garbage.
      - davidivadavid 10y ago
        I don't think that's a very fair reading of what I'm saying. First, whether something enters my filter bubble or not is not the same thing as the criteria I choose to look for new things, or to decide whether something stays within my filter bubble (say, a website I would add/remove from my RSS feeds). There's a passive/active dichotomy here. Second, I don't think I've claimed there was nothing outside my bubble that wasn't garbage. Now, I do assume that 99% of the stuff out of it is, because that's the nature of the SNR on the internet. Note that all of that is of course entirely subjective, and I'm only talking about the value I derive from it personally. Certainly, there are things that would be interesting that at a given time live outside of my filter bubble. But actively looking for them is not necessarily the best way to find them, as I might have to expend a lot of effort going through lots of junk before I get there, and other sources within my bubble might percolate that information faster, with less effort from me (say a link post on SlateStarCodex will give me a bunch of links to stuff I would have never found by myself). Finally, I never said my bubble consists of all good information available, precisely because as I stated, all that information could not fit in anybody's bubble due to the limited nature of our attention or available time. So that's just a straw man. The fact is that there's a game being played between what's inside my filter bubble and what's outside, and that game is not zero sum: most likely, actively trying to add more information from other sources will decrease the utility I get from it. It could be a temporary/local minimum (going through a bunch of garbage to find some hidden gem), but it could also be a more stable, lower utility state.

by Swizec 10y ago

HalcyonicStorm 10y ago

How can you click on links for opposing viewpoints if they don't even display them?

Spellman 10y ago
Something annealing and other local maxima algorithms do is always inject some noise. Annealing calls this the temperature. So Facebook could ensure that 5-10% of your feed comes from a "region" around where it thinks you stand, then see what you click on. If you only Like Left, then you keep drifting. But (I assume) they will always include some stuff to the Right of where they think you are as an option. It won't be Far Right, but it will be in that direction. Obviously, this is a lot of speculation of how Facebook is doing it's feed optimizations, but I expect they provide opportunities to get out of your localized maxima.

davidivadavid 10y ago

That keeps being repeated along with the "filter bubble" trope now and then. I'm not sure I buy it. Most of the stuff out of my "filter bubble" is just incredibly low quality garbage, whether it agrees or disagrees with what I think. I can't see how actively going out of my way to read articles about how Kim Kardashian is an interesting intellectual adds much to my horizons. There's only so much information we can consume. There seems to be this myth that looking now and then at the opposite viewpoint from what you believe frees you from the constraints of bounded rationality. It doesn't, and I haven't seen very conclusive evidence that it helps in any meaningful way.

vertex-four 10y ago
> Most of the stuff out of my "filter bubble" is just incredibly low quality garbage, whether it agrees or disagrees with what I think. The thing is... it's entirely probable that most of the people who agree with you do so because of low quality garbage. So you're very much comparing yourself to a large group of other people and coming out that you read things above their level - not very hard. You need to find people on your level on "the other side" and figure out what they're paying attention to.
- davidivadavid 10y ago
  > The thing is... it's entirely probable that most of the people who agree with you do so because of low quality garbage. So? > So you're very much comparing yourself to a large group of other people and coming out that you read things above their level - not very hard. Not sure I understand. I'm not comparing myself to anybody. I'm simply stating that I can't find a reason to go out of my way to read garbage. Your last point is absolutely correct, and it probably summarizes why I believe the whole "filter bubble" thing is irrelevant or at least vastly overstated: the criteria that I use when deciding whether to read or not read something are entirely orthogonal to what "side" it comes from.
  - vertex-four 10y ago
    The criteria that you use is that you come across the material in the first place. Most likely, that is subject to a filter bubble. I really doubt your bubble consists of all good information available. Your fallacy is assuming that there is nothing outside your bubble that isn't garbage.
    - davidivadavid 10y ago
      I don't think that's a very fair reading of what I'm saying. First, whether something enters my filter bubble or not is not the same thing as the criteria I choose to look for new things, or to decide whether something stays within my filter bubble (say, a website I would add/remove from my RSS feeds). There's a passive/active dichotomy here. Second, I don't think I've claimed there was nothing outside my bubble that wasn't garbage. Now, I do assume that 99% of the stuff out of it is, because that's the nature of the SNR on the internet. Note that all of that is of course entirely subjective, and I'm only talking about the value I derive from it personally. Certainly, there are things that would be interesting that at a given time live outside of my filter bubble. But actively looking for them is not necessarily the best way to find them, as I might have to expend a lot of effort going through lots of junk before I get there, and other sources within my bubble might percolate that information faster, with less effort from me (say a link post on SlateStarCodex will give me a bunch of links to stuff I would have never found by myself). Finally, I never said my bubble consists of all good information available, precisely because as I stated, all that information could not fit in anybody's bubble due to the limited nature of our attention or available time. So that's just a straw man. The fact is that there's a game being played between what's inside my filter bubble and what's outside, and that game is not zero sum: most likely, actively trying to add more information from other sources will decrease the utility I get from it. It could be a temporary/local minimum (going through a bunch of garbage to find some hidden gem), but it could also be a more stable, lower utility state.