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I think the general incentive we've been seeing is the incentive towards faster and thoughtless opinion-sharing. Reactive (in the bad way) behavior is incentivi

I think the general incentive we've been seeing is the incentive towards faster and thoughtless opinion-sharing. Reactive (in the bad way) behavior is incentivized, and thoughtful behavior is discouraged, because by then people have moved on to the next thing. So I'd generally like to see more effort put into making it easier for people to engage in more thoughtful ways. This can also be applied to advertising. I'm trying to avoid chips, but if they're in front of me I'll eat a handful. So then the internet thinks, "This guy wants more chips!" So if advertising were more about my long-term values rather than my short-term behavior, then it'd be more valuable. Anyway, it's pretty hard on social media to share deeper analysis and arguments and thoughts. I get that medium was sort of an effort in this direction, counter to twitter, but that's really just blogging with some extra algorithms thrown in. Need something else.

intended 9y ago
No it cant. You miss the critical purpose served by more emotional hind brain thinking - its easier to repeat and get predictable responses to. Think of this as much older hackers using new tools to do better at their subject - their subject being the hacking of human brains. --- A simple way to test the effectiveness of your proposal is to see how forums perform. The more complex a topic, the fewer participants and the fewer posts. People don't want to engage in complex topics, unless they fulfill certain selection criteria. You can't make people consume more complex information - unless you remove all other mental food options from the table in the first place. It is very much like making children eat broccoli. Except the children are grown adults, and are being bombarded by companies selling them thought sugar because it generates click revenue. There is no market solution to this - there may not even be a regulatory solution to this. The best I can expect is a legal challenge, but who would the injured parties be, and what would be the injury?
- tunesmith 9y ago
  Your point about forums assumes that forums encompass the full gamut of how people can communicate. "There is decreasing participation for complex topics in forums, therefore people don't want to engage in complex topics." But that doesn't account for the possibility that the form of forums themselves are the problem. With a new kind of forum, perhaps people would engage more in deeper arguments. At the least, lack of participation in other forms of forums wouldn't disprove that.
  - intended 9y ago
    There's no new kind of forum. Because there's no new kind of human. Communication only for complex ideas requires time and energy to be expended. People would rather have cheap and easy consumable info and move on. The drive is to be able to respond faster, not respond better. Unless it's an area where people have a specific need to understand the subject, they will rarely read complex topics. And people regularly fail that too - take a look at success rates on MOOCs, a small percentage of self driven applicants actually finish the course. It's a human brain problem, not a tech problem. The problem is people and those who know how to manipulate them. Remember that any new form of forum which manages to make people learn complex topics could just as easil make them learn falsehoods or propaganda.

intended 9y ago

No it cant. You miss the critical purpose served by more emotional hind brain thinking - its easier to repeat and get predictable responses to. Think of this as much older hackers using new tools to do better at their subject - their subject being the hacking of human brains. --- A simple way to test the effectiveness of your proposal is to see how forums perform. The more complex a topic, the fewer participants and the fewer posts. People don't want to engage in complex topics, unless they fulfill certain selection criteria. You can't make people consume more complex information - unless you remove all other mental food options from the table in the first place. It is very much like making children eat broccoli. Except the children are grown adults, and are being bombarded by companies selling them thought sugar because it generates click revenue. There is no market solution to this - there may not even be a regulatory solution to this. The best I can expect is a legal challenge, but who would the injured parties be, and what would be the injury?

tunesmith 9y ago
Your point about forums assumes that forums encompass the full gamut of how people can communicate. "There is decreasing participation for complex topics in forums, therefore people don't want to engage in complex topics." But that doesn't account for the possibility that the form of forums themselves are the problem. With a new kind of forum, perhaps people would engage more in deeper arguments. At the least, lack of participation in other forms of forums wouldn't disprove that.
- intended 9y ago
  There's no new kind of forum. Because there's no new kind of human. Communication only for complex ideas requires time and energy to be expended. People would rather have cheap and easy consumable info and move on. The drive is to be able to respond faster, not respond better. Unless it's an area where people have a specific need to understand the subject, they will rarely read complex topics. And people regularly fail that too - take a look at success rates on MOOCs, a small percentage of self driven applicants actually finish the course. It's a human brain problem, not a tech problem. The problem is people and those who know how to manipulate them. Remember that any new form of forum which manages to make people learn complex topics could just as easil make them learn falsehoods or propaganda.