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I definitely wasn't cynically throwing up my hands and smugly concluding all sides are lying. All I intended to do was demonstrate how cheap it is to call someo

I definitely wasn't cynically throwing up my hands and smugly concluding all sides are lying. All I intended to do was demonstrate how cheap it is to call someone a liar on the internet. It costs nothing to the reputations of you or your "lying friend" to call one another a liar and thats why it doesn't mean anything. The sooner people realize this the better off we'll be.

shadowgovt 7y ago
My prediction is that this is what will, in the end, change; technology will advance far enough to severely de-anonymize online interaction, at which point one's reputation again comes into play and people will find there are consequences for thoughtless shitposting. It has begun to happen, with phenomena such as people being fired for Facebook or Twitter posts. It doesn't seem impossible to tie a sufficiently-advanced pattern-recognition network to the firehoses of data on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, et. al to automatically tie together the scraps of personal info people accidentally leave behind and severely compromise online anonymity. Be interesting if it happens.
- tengbretson 7y ago
  Economically I think this will be huge. Reputation based economies are incredibly more efficient than regulatory ones. Theres no amount of regulatory compliance that can tell consumers the information they want in the way a 2 star average uber driver review does. On the social side I can't even imagine how destructive it could be. People (especially on HN) love to lament how restrictive and oppressing the "everyone knows everyone" small town life can be. So now that we have the anonymity online we can escape to, we've all turned around and started building the biggest "small town" imaginable! One with no escape.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    Exactly. Mostly because we've discovered that the small town is oppressive, but the Wild West is full of gangsters. ;)
- sagichmal 7y ago
  > technology will advance far enough to severely de-anonymize online interaction, at which point one's reputation again comes into play and people will find there are consequences for thoughtless shitposting. This is naive. Facebook has just as many extremist bigots as any other anonymous platform.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    [citation needed]
gbrown 7y ago
> I definitely wasn't cynically throwing up my hands and smugly concluding all sides are lying. Apologies, I didn't mean to insinuate that you were. My point was that this is the usual (and often intended) consequence of your argument, as I understood it and have seen it in the world. Calling someone a liar doesn't help by itself, but if we can bring clear and irrefutable evidence to a discussion, I think we can reasonably reject outright incorrect views.

shadowgovt 7y ago

My prediction is that this is what will, in the end, change; technology will advance far enough to severely de-anonymize online interaction, at which point one's reputation again comes into play and people will find there are consequences for thoughtless shitposting. It has begun to happen, with phenomena such as people being fired for Facebook or Twitter posts. It doesn't seem impossible to tie a sufficiently-advanced pattern-recognition network to the firehoses of data on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, et. al to automatically tie together the scraps of personal info people accidentally leave behind and severely compromise online anonymity. Be interesting if it happens.

tengbretson 7y ago
Economically I think this will be huge. Reputation based economies are incredibly more efficient than regulatory ones. Theres no amount of regulatory compliance that can tell consumers the information they want in the way a 2 star average uber driver review does. On the social side I can't even imagine how destructive it could be. People (especially on HN) love to lament how restrictive and oppressing the "everyone knows everyone" small town life can be. So now that we have the anonymity online we can escape to, we've all turned around and started building the biggest "small town" imaginable! One with no escape.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  Exactly. Mostly because we've discovered that the small town is oppressive, but the Wild West is full of gangsters. ;)
sagichmal 7y ago
> technology will advance far enough to severely de-anonymize online interaction, at which point one's reputation again comes into play and people will find there are consequences for thoughtless shitposting. This is naive. Facebook has just as many extremist bigots as any other anonymous platform.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  [citation needed]

gbrown 7y ago

> I definitely wasn't cynically throwing up my hands and smugly concluding all sides are lying. Apologies, I didn't mean to insinuate that you were. My point was that this is the usual (and often intended) consequence of your argument, as I understood it and have seen it in the world. Calling someone a liar doesn't help by itself, but if we can bring clear and irrefutable evidence to a discussion, I think we can reasonably reject outright incorrect views.