6 ms·

>First, there are the countless instances where something is trivial for a single person to suss out that doesn't scale. This is an interesting argument to me.

by jmcqk6 9y ago

>First, there are the countless instances where something is trivial for a single person to suss out that doesn't scale. This is an interesting argument to me. It's basically conceding a shittier solution, because we "can't scale" the effective one. As we talk more and more about automation, I think this is similar to what we've seen in meat space with things like tools. I've heard so many people complain about chinese hammers or socket wrenches (though I also know there are quality chinese tools out there) or many other examples. Things mass produced cheaply are lesser quality, but we're willing to make the trade off as a society because we get things for cheaper. And now we see this in the information economy. Even though we know a human doing this work would be much more effective, we're not going to do it because the cost is too high.

mikestew 9y ago
Things mass produced cheaply are lesser quality, but we're willing to make the trade off as a society because we get things for cheaper. Problem is, from what I'm seeing, is that the market bifurcates into "shitty, but cheap" and "OMG, the price, but quality". I want the middle way: "reasonably priced, 'good enough' quality, and won't break the bank". Tools are a prime example. You had Snap-On/Matco/etc., Sears Craftsman, and "stamped steel sockets from China". Snap-On for the pros (and worth every dime if you're a pro), Craftsman for the guy with the '57 Chevy he works on regularly, and then the cheap shit for the person that needs to turn a 13mm nut once a year. Now we "get things for cheaper", but those things (in the case of tools) are not something I'm going to let anywhere near a fastener I care to ever reuse. Craftsman is gone, so my option is to chase a Snap-On truck around town [0]. I don't need Snap-On quality, it's like buying a $100K CNC machine to turn a table leg when a lathe will do. I just need a decent socket that won't round the fastener. Seems like the middle fell out of appliances, too. Only in this case, it looks to me like the high-end is shit, too. Every single person I've known that's had a Viking stove or SubZero fridge has had it worked on at least once. I think our Kenmore stove/fridge and LG washer/dryer are disappointingly not built for longevity, but at least nothing has broken after five years. But that washer isn't going to be washing clothes twenty years from now like old Kenmores. About the only thing I can think of where the quality goes up and the prices down are cars. Man, it is amazing how long a car can go while doing practically nothing for maintenance. And they are much more complex systems, and live in much harsher conditions, than a washer. To tie this back to the topic at hand, "we can't be bothered to take the time to make it nice" is a fine excuse if only they'd use that as the actual excuse. "Doesn't scale" just means "too much trouble to make it nice, so you'll have to settle with half-assed". If "that's just the way it is", then I don't want "it". [0] When I bought Snap-On, it was from a truck that drove from auto shop to auto shop, selling tools out of the truck. They had no retail presence; IOW, you couldn't go down to the Snap-On store, it all came off the truck. Not a practical option for the home mechanic, though I've heard they sell online now.
- twothamendment 9y ago
  Wandering far from Facebook (the farther the better IMHO) - Craftsman has been dead to me for years so I tried a Dewalt socket/wrench set. The name should be around a while, they have a good warranty and they feel like I shouldn't need it. It was god to see someone was trying to fill in that middle of the road "good enough" and affordable.
  - mikestew 9y ago
    I’ll take a look next time I see Dewalt, thanks. Harbor Freight is almost good enough, but not quite there, so I’m eager to try some Dewalt.
nerfhammer 9y ago
1) ANY single prominent example of a false positive or false negative will enrage some community. People's brains can only think of examples, not rates. 2) With billions of accounts zero examples of error is an absurdity. 3) different communities drastically disagree on which things false positives and false negatives should be defined as. 4) More perceived effort to work on (1) increases the outrage, i.e. the perceived sense of moral betrayal from (1) and (3), despite (2). 5) human editors won't solve (1) + (2), and definitely not (3), and contribute to some degree to (4).
- ksk 9y ago
  I would think its worth trying out something even if the result is less than perfect.
  - dymk 9y ago
    So you're falling into (3) and ignoring how important (1) is
    - ksk 9y ago
      Um, the person simply defined a problem into existence. There is no agreed upon basis of thinking like this.
      - sanderjd 9y ago
        But you haven't attempted to refute the well-described basis of that problem statement. Which parts do you think are wrong?
        ksk 9y ago
        I personally don't find it well described, or useful. I chose to engage the commentator in a way that brought us both to a common ground position.
        9y ago
ksk 9y ago
Well said. Also one other thing to consider is what companies do and don't consider to be an extension of themselves. Facebook would sooner fire an employee who said women are dumb, than even consider putting hard cash towards policing people/groups/pages who espouse identical viewpoints. The later is always easily rationalized away.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rjtavares 9y ago
The way developed countries handle that is through regulation (specifically, fines). That changes the cost equation. Eg. Germany passed a law that fines Facebook if they don't comply with German hate speech laws.
- menacingly 9y ago
  It sounds as if these developed countries might be quick to throw out the baby with the bathwater
  - saghm 9y ago
    I'm not sure that analogy fits here; I'm not sure of the size of the fines, but they'd have to be pretty hefty for Facebook to decide to just leave Germany over them
wpietri 9y ago
Yes. And the way it's often argued, it treats the status quo as some sort of natural given, like the weather. The line of argument seems to be that if Facebook and Twitter can't run safe platforms while maintaining their current revenue models and profit margins, well, we'll just have to live with that lack of safety. I find this line of argument odd when it's about actual natural givens, like dangerous weather. I'm in a house right now, so it's not like technology to limit the effects of dangerous weather is unheard of. And a bit odder when it's about human inventions that have been around for generations, like guns and cars. But when it's used for something basically new in the world? I find it baffling.
- philipwhiuk 9y ago
  Yes, I've always found the 'YouTube gets too much video to moderate it' a particularly shit argument. Maybe they not be allowed to have as much content then.
  - abakker 9y ago
    That doesn’t seem to be a useful solution, either. I mean, eat tool would you use to manage that? Limit total videos per website? How do you determine who gets to stay? Money? Clicks? Moderating all the videos is hard, but if the videos go to a different platform, they still need that same moderation, right?
    - wpietri 9y ago
      There are plenty of ways you could do that. Off the top of my head: Every video-posting account must be validated with, e.g., a credit card. New accounts have clear posting limits. Accounts behaving badly get charged for cleanup. If you want to get paid by YouTube you have to go through an extensive validation process, including background check. If you are found to be abusing the platform, money will be clawed back, and if you can't prove sufficient resources to handle a clawback, you instead have to post a bond or find an insurer who will guarantee you. Sure, some videos may go to another platform. And for most things, that'd be fine. A lot of videos people post on YouTube are just accidentally hosted there, and would be just as good posted on, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, or another personal account provider. But there's a whole class of garbage that YouTube has because one way or another it allows people to get paid. That garbage is a negative externality on the rest of us, and there's no particular reason for us to allow YouTube to profit from it.
menacingly 9y ago
This is less like a nut that needs turned and more like getting the courts to consistently put "bad people" in jail or define "obscene". Just because it has to do with software does not mean it is a problem software can solve. Even if it is a human doing it, it still has to scale to many humans, and there are plenty of examples of things we have never manged to get right due to scale well outside of technological limitations. Even if you could, my example from the article was one human, with one example case, and as another human I didn't see it as a cut-and-dry bot. Try doing that with 20,000. It's not that it would be "costly", it's that it would be an unavoidable train wreck

by jmcqk6 9y ago

mikestew 9y ago

Things mass produced cheaply are lesser quality, but we're willing to make the trade off as a society because we get things for cheaper. Problem is, from what I'm seeing, is that the market bifurcates into "shitty, but cheap" and "OMG, the price, but quality". I want the middle way: "reasonably priced, 'good enough' quality, and won't break the bank". Tools are a prime example. You had Snap-On/Matco/etc., Sears Craftsman, and "stamped steel sockets from China". Snap-On for the pros (and worth every dime if you're a pro), Craftsman for the guy with the '57 Chevy he works on regularly, and then the cheap shit for the person that needs to turn a 13mm nut once a year. Now we "get things for cheaper", but those things (in the case of tools) are not something I'm going to let anywhere near a fastener I care to ever reuse. Craftsman is gone, so my option is to chase a Snap-On truck around town [0]. I don't need Snap-On quality, it's like buying a $100K CNC machine to turn a table leg when a lathe will do. I just need a decent socket that won't round the fastener. Seems like the middle fell out of appliances, too. Only in this case, it looks to me like the high-end is shit, too. Every single person I've known that's had a Viking stove or SubZero fridge has had it worked on at least once. I think our Kenmore stove/fridge and LG washer/dryer are disappointingly not built for longevity, but at least nothing has broken after five years. But that washer isn't going to be washing clothes twenty years from now like old Kenmores. About the only thing I can think of where the quality goes up and the prices down are cars. Man, it is amazing how long a car can go while doing practically nothing for maintenance. And they are much more complex systems, and live in much harsher conditions, than a washer. To tie this back to the topic at hand, "we can't be bothered to take the time to make it nice" is a fine excuse if only they'd use that as the actual excuse. "Doesn't scale" just means "too much trouble to make it nice, so you'll have to settle with half-assed". If "that's just the way it is", then I don't want "it". [0] When I bought Snap-On, it was from a truck that drove from auto shop to auto shop, selling tools out of the truck. They had no retail presence; IOW, you couldn't go down to the Snap-On store, it all came off the truck. Not a practical option for the home mechanic, though I've heard they sell online now.

twothamendment 9y ago
Wandering far from Facebook (the farther the better IMHO) - Craftsman has been dead to me for years so I tried a Dewalt socket/wrench set. The name should be around a while, they have a good warranty and they feel like I shouldn't need it. It was god to see someone was trying to fill in that middle of the road "good enough" and affordable.
- mikestew 9y ago
  I’ll take a look next time I see Dewalt, thanks. Harbor Freight is almost good enough, but not quite there, so I’m eager to try some Dewalt.

nerfhammer 9y ago

1) ANY single prominent example of a false positive or false negative will enrage some community. People's brains can only think of examples, not rates. 2) With billions of accounts zero examples of error is an absurdity. 3) different communities drastically disagree on which things false positives and false negatives should be defined as. 4) More perceived effort to work on (1) increases the outrage, i.e. the perceived sense of moral betrayal from (1) and (3), despite (2). 5) human editors won't solve (1) + (2), and definitely not (3), and contribute to some degree to (4).

ksk 9y ago
I would think its worth trying out something even if the result is less than perfect.
- dymk 9y ago
  So you're falling into (3) and ignoring how important (1) is
  - ksk 9y ago
    Um, the person simply defined a problem into existence. There is no agreed upon basis of thinking like this.
    - sanderjd 9y ago
      But you haven't attempted to refute the well-described basis of that problem statement. Which parts do you think are wrong?
      - ksk 9y ago
        I personally don't find it well described, or useful. I chose to engage the commentator in a way that brought us both to a common ground position.
        9y ago

ksk 9y ago

Well said. Also one other thing to consider is what companies do and don't consider to be an extension of themselves. Facebook would sooner fire an employee who said women are dumb, than even consider putting hard cash towards policing people/groups/pages who espouse identical viewpoints. The later is always easily rationalized away.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

rjtavares 9y ago

The way developed countries handle that is through regulation (specifically, fines). That changes the cost equation. Eg. Germany passed a law that fines Facebook if they don't comply with German hate speech laws.

menacingly 9y ago
It sounds as if these developed countries might be quick to throw out the baby with the bathwater
- saghm 9y ago
  I'm not sure that analogy fits here; I'm not sure of the size of the fines, but they'd have to be pretty hefty for Facebook to decide to just leave Germany over them

wpietri 9y ago

Yes. And the way it's often argued, it treats the status quo as some sort of natural given, like the weather. The line of argument seems to be that if Facebook and Twitter can't run safe platforms while maintaining their current revenue models and profit margins, well, we'll just have to live with that lack of safety. I find this line of argument odd when it's about actual natural givens, like dangerous weather. I'm in a house right now, so it's not like technology to limit the effects of dangerous weather is unheard of. And a bit odder when it's about human inventions that have been around for generations, like guns and cars. But when it's used for something basically new in the world? I find it baffling.

philipwhiuk 9y ago
Yes, I've always found the 'YouTube gets too much video to moderate it' a particularly shit argument. Maybe they not be allowed to have as much content then.
- abakker 9y ago
  That doesn’t seem to be a useful solution, either. I mean, eat tool would you use to manage that? Limit total videos per website? How do you determine who gets to stay? Money? Clicks? Moderating all the videos is hard, but if the videos go to a different platform, they still need that same moderation, right?
  - wpietri 9y ago
    There are plenty of ways you could do that. Off the top of my head: Every video-posting account must be validated with, e.g., a credit card. New accounts have clear posting limits. Accounts behaving badly get charged for cleanup. If you want to get paid by YouTube you have to go through an extensive validation process, including background check. If you are found to be abusing the platform, money will be clawed back, and if you can't prove sufficient resources to handle a clawback, you instead have to post a bond or find an insurer who will guarantee you. Sure, some videos may go to another platform. And for most things, that'd be fine. A lot of videos people post on YouTube are just accidentally hosted there, and would be just as good posted on, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, or another personal account provider. But there's a whole class of garbage that YouTube has because one way or another it allows people to get paid. That garbage is a negative externality on the rest of us, and there's no particular reason for us to allow YouTube to profit from it.

menacingly 9y ago

This is less like a nut that needs turned and more like getting the courts to consistently put "bad people" in jail or define "obscene". Just because it has to do with software does not mean it is a problem software can solve. Even if it is a human doing it, it still has to scale to many humans, and there are plenty of examples of things we have never manged to get right due to scale well outside of technological limitations. Even if you could, my example from the article was one human, with one example case, and as another human I didn't see it as a cut-and-dry bot. Try doing that with 20,000. It's not that it would be "costly", it's that it would be an unavoidable train wreck