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What people want isn't necessarily what they need. When people's needs are satisfied, they want more of that. So let's satisfy their needs instead. Echo chamb
by inetknght 9y ago
What people want isn't necessarily what they need.
When people's needs are satisfied, they want more of that.
So let's satisfy their needs instead. Echo chambers are ultimately self-defeating as they bring on more divisiveness and intolerance.
- laretluval 9y agoDo internet comment sections satisfy any need?
- 52-6F-62 9y agoIf they provide an avenue for topical and reasonable discourse, then yes. People (at least some people) tend toward the need for discourse to temper and test their ideas. I mean, you're commenting on HN.
- brad0 9y agoWhat makes HN comments great that other comments systems don't have? It's the guidelines. By writing guidelines that promote useful discourse you allow everyone involved to learn more about their own biases and shortcomings. Every person that writes their opinion grows when reading the varied responses (as long as they're open to other people's perspectives).
- hacking_again 9y agoThe text-only interface with no 3rd-party ads plus the smart person cult of YC / PG contribute a lot.
- memeCrasher 9y agoSmarter and more insightful commentators. That's pretty much it. Once the population gets too big and the level of discourse too low, the intelligent people will move to greener pastures with better signal:noise ratios. Slashdot's moderation system didn't save them, and HN's moderation system won't either. I've yet to see a comment system that promotes signal:noise ratio over groupthink.
- rocqua 9y agoExactly, HN works because of it's audience. This leads to weird incentives though, promoting HN to widely might worsen it by diluting the 'good' audience. Not to forget the discussion about who is part of the 'good' audience, that discussion is bound to be toxic.
- eevilspock 9y agoSo you don't think HN has groupthink? Doesn't every groupthink community describe themselves as "Smarter and more insightful commentators"? I'm pretty sure Trump or Clinton voter websites consider their signal-to-noise high and everyone else's low.
- ouid 9y agoIf the article is written in a way that isn't honest, I expect the top comment to describe how, and I expect the top comment to that to be a rebuttal. The best comment doesn't always reach the top, but it often does, and it's usually somewhere to be found. The exceptions are usually found in heavily moderated or highly specialized forums.
- enraged_camel 9y agoIf they didn't, HN wouldn't exist. ;)
- ant6n 9y agoHN is for the news of course.
- _jal 9y agoNow there's a contextually amusing question.
- magic_beans 9y agoWhat are you doing right now?
- laretluval 9y agoSomething I want to do, not something I need to do.
- fragmede 9y agoInternet commenting, wherein people use modern technology for group communication, facilitates the top two, possibly the top three levels on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The base layer accounts for physiological needs like food and water, but past that base layer of physiological necessity, human beings need interaction with other human beings in order not to be a robot. Things like friendship and familial connections, which are are facilitated by social media such as Facebook. And, really, what is Facebook but Internet commenting on baby and cat photos of people you are related to in some form (by choice or by birth). If we accept that humans are social creatures, and social media is able to connect people, then it is possible to say Internet comment sections are able to fulfill some needs that people have. Displaced football fans working far from home may not be able to find a local group that also supports their home team in a far away place, but there's a digital clubhouse for the displaced fan's home team somewhere on the Internet. This may not satisfy a need like food or water, but people organized into geographically-based, sometimes tightly-knit communities before the Internet. That modern technology allows us to organize into loose-knit communities through the use of "Internet comment sections" is to realize J.C.R. Licklider's dream of an inter-networked computer system.
- s73ver_ 9y agoNeeds aren't as profitable.
- inetknght 9y ago"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."; whether Henry Ford truly said that or not is immaterial as the quote itself is the point I was trying to make. And your comment really rather touches on it. Peoples' needs aren't as profitable -- not until what they need also becomes what they want.
- 52-6F-62 9y agoI've never heard that quote used in that context before. That's interesting. I've always ascribed it to something closer to Kuhn's paradigm shifts.
- interstitial 9y agoNeeds + Rent-seeking + monopoly = risk-free profits
- ameister14 9y agoTell that to an oil or pharmaceutical company.
- aiyodev 9y agoThen why waste time and effort pretending to be democratic? Why have votes at all?
- TeMPOraL 9y ago> Echo chambers are ultimately self-defeating as they bring on more divisiveness and intolerance. But they are excellent at driving activity => pageviews. Which is where the money for newspapers comes from. Nothing to be said beyond that - the induction of outrage and divisiveness is a desired feature, not a bug, from the POV of media companies.