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Totally agreed. My take on it is that all this work on optimising for business metrics is optimising away humanity, and diversity. It almost sounds like human
by ljm 7y ago
Totally agreed. My take on it is that all this work on optimising for business metrics is optimising away humanity, and diversity.
It almost sounds like human nature gets in the way of revenue, so it has to be manipulated into something more business friendly.
We won’t consciously make that choice but it often seems to be the consequence.
- dTal 7y agoI think this is exactly right, though it sounds pithy. The same process produces food that is unsubtle, fatty, and highly sugared. It sells really well! But in the long run, it's terrible for us, and also boring - all fast food tastes more or less the same, because the more adventurous it is, the worse it sells. The term frequently used in discourse is "lowest common denominator". It's a question of capitalism optimizing for local optima versus global optima. What were seeing with the internet is, what happens when we apply this process not just to food, but culture itself?