4 ms·

To me, this question is easier to model as a function of some scalar impact metric. Suppose we could quantify influence somehow. What people are arguing over is

by wilde 6y ago

To me, this question is easier to model as a function of some scalar impact metric. Suppose we could quantify influence somehow. What people are arguing over is whether TikTok crosses some line of “too much influence” not “existence of influence” for which there are plenty of sources.

mistermann 6y ago
Approaching this from an unemotional, abstract, systems analysis perspective seems like a good way to go about this. If we were debating something like "where shall we go for lunch, Restaurant A or B", most people here likely wouldn't have trouble identifying (or wouldn't deny the existence of) attributes that one might take into consideration (price, location, quality, cleanliness, decor, types and variety of dishes, friendliness of wait staff, etc), and differences in the values of those attributes. If we slightly change the context to one where rather than comparing restaurants, we are instead comparing software applications (excluding code editors and operating systems, let's say: alarm clocks), most people could likely still competently exercise their systems analysis skills. But if we make one more slight context change, from comparing alarm clocks, to comparing TikTok to Twitter/Facebook/etc, some very curious things start to happen. Suddenly, people seems to no longer have the ability to reliably identify attributes of each application, or that the value of those attributes differ. What is the nature of this small context change, such that it seems to have such a remarkably negative effect on the systems analysis capabilities of human beings? On its face, the conversational behavior seems clearly illogical - and yet, based on my 10+ years on HN, I have a rich intuition that the average intelligence level around here is very high. Something seems very paradoxical about this situation.
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  My guess is there are two different factors at play. - Marketing and propaganda cloud everything they touch, and that one market is full of both. We can't even be certain of the public features of those platforms, because there are a bunch of incoherent messages controlling the communication channels. - Most of the features of those products are not public. They impact your life, but you have no chance of even knowing they exist. Both platforms apply editorial governance on their contents, what kind and how much is anybody's guess. Both platforms profile their users, who has that profile and what they do with it is anybody's guess. It is hard to discuss some unknowable thing over a noisy channel.
  - mistermann 6y ago
    Agreed, there's a lot of hidden complexity, but I'm talking about this phenomenon where people seem to lose access to the ability to properly identify things that are clearly visible. For example, higher in the thread someone seems unable to see a distinction between TikTok and Twitter, and even http://english.www.gov.cn http://english.www.gov.cn. They indeed have many similar attributes, but this similarity seems to then be presumed to extend to all other attributes. There are blatantly obvious differences in both distinct attributes, and values of those attributes (otherwise, they wouldn't be different applications), yet people seem to be in some sort of a state where they cannot see them. This is just one example, this thread is full of all sorts of other counter-intuitive (compared to historical norms on HN) behavior, or at least the surface level appearance of it. The way people describe observable reality is just....weird. How can there be such massive variance in observations between (presumably) intelligent people, but only under certain scenarios? And this isn't a one-off anomalous thread either, I strongly believe that this phenomenon has been present and clearly observable for quite some time now. Am I maybe imagining things?
    - marcosdumay 6y ago
      I read that post as asking exactly what distinction creates a problem, not a denial that there are many of them. Clearly establishing the problem is key on determining how it can be solved. e.g. The solution for foreign editorial influence will only make discourse control more concentrated, and the other way around.
      - mistermann 6y ago
        > I read that post as asking exactly what distinction creates a problem, not a denial that there are many of them. That question was being asked in a roundabout way, but if you're not so generous, do you not pick up a bit of a whiff of incredulity? >> http://english.www.gov.cn/ http://english.www.gov.cn/ is another platform that's controlled exclusively by the Chinese government. But no one's proposing a book-burning, that the US firewall all information controlled by the CCP or those with ideological differences. Twitter is a popular information-sharing social platform, and there are Chinese actors on it, but this argument isn't extended to suggest that it be banned, either. But somehow, a platform that does both must not be allowed to exist? I don't get it. "But somehow, a platform that does both must not be allowed to exist?" seems either disingenuous, or that the person is unable to realize that an application that has ~100M users (and significant usage/day), most in a young impressionable demographic, that consists of ~60 second viral videos, just might have distinct and noteworthy differences from a national security point than Twitter, or http://english.www.gov.cn http://english.www.gov.cn. To be clear: the onus is not on this person to disprove their counterpart's assertion, far from it. I am referring to the apparent inability to notice that a valid difference might exist, and all of this in a world where we've been constantly told by the media that Russian hackers have been undermining our democracy, and occurring on HN, a site frequented by some of the brightest minds on the planet when it comes to software. And this is just one example. Reading through the rest of the discussions in this thread, is there not something that seems "a little off" in the way people describe reality? Are so many people simultaneously faking that they are literally unable to see any valid concerns here, or in the arguments put forth in their counterpart in each discussion (and this goes both ways), or are they literally unable to see? If this was to happen in every thread on HN, one might just write it off to "people being people", but it doesn't happen in every thread, it only seems to happen in certain types of threads. Is this a coincidence? Am I seeing things? Or might something interesting actually be going on here? Is this odd behavior restricted only to HN, or do we see similar behavior elsewhere?

by wilde 6y ago

mistermann 6y ago

Approaching this from an unemotional, abstract, systems analysis perspective seems like a good way to go about this. If we were debating something like "where shall we go for lunch, Restaurant A or B", most people here likely wouldn't have trouble identifying (or wouldn't deny the existence of) attributes that one might take into consideration (price, location, quality, cleanliness, decor, types and variety of dishes, friendliness of wait staff, etc), and differences in the values of those attributes. If we slightly change the context to one where rather than comparing restaurants, we are instead comparing software applications (excluding code editors and operating systems, let's say: alarm clocks), most people could likely still competently exercise their systems analysis skills. But if we make one more slight context change, from comparing alarm clocks, to comparing TikTok to Twitter/Facebook/etc, some very curious things start to happen. Suddenly, people seems to no longer have the ability to reliably identify attributes of each application, or that the value of those attributes differ. What is the nature of this small context change, such that it seems to have such a remarkably negative effect on the systems analysis capabilities of human beings? On its face, the conversational behavior seems clearly illogical - and yet, based on my 10+ years on HN, I have a rich intuition that the average intelligence level around here is very high. Something seems very paradoxical about this situation.

marcosdumay 6y ago
My guess is there are two different factors at play. - Marketing and propaganda cloud everything they touch, and that one market is full of both. We can't even be certain of the public features of those platforms, because there are a bunch of incoherent messages controlling the communication channels. - Most of the features of those products are not public. They impact your life, but you have no chance of even knowing they exist. Both platforms apply editorial governance on their contents, what kind and how much is anybody's guess. Both platforms profile their users, who has that profile and what they do with it is anybody's guess. It is hard to discuss some unknowable thing over a noisy channel.
- mistermann 6y ago
  Agreed, there's a lot of hidden complexity, but I'm talking about this phenomenon where people seem to lose access to the ability to properly identify things that are clearly visible. For example, higher in the thread someone seems unable to see a distinction between TikTok and Twitter, and even http://english.www.gov.cn http://english.www.gov.cn. They indeed have many similar attributes, but this similarity seems to then be presumed to extend to all other attributes. There are blatantly obvious differences in both distinct attributes, and values of those attributes (otherwise, they wouldn't be different applications), yet people seem to be in some sort of a state where they cannot see them. This is just one example, this thread is full of all sorts of other counter-intuitive (compared to historical norms on HN) behavior, or at least the surface level appearance of it. The way people describe observable reality is just....weird. How can there be such massive variance in observations between (presumably) intelligent people, but only under certain scenarios? And this isn't a one-off anomalous thread either, I strongly believe that this phenomenon has been present and clearly observable for quite some time now. Am I maybe imagining things?
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    I read that post as asking exactly what distinction creates a problem, not a denial that there are many of them. Clearly establishing the problem is key on determining how it can be solved. e.g. The solution for foreign editorial influence will only make discourse control more concentrated, and the other way around.
    - mistermann 6y ago
      > I read that post as asking exactly what distinction creates a problem, not a denial that there are many of them. That question was being asked in a roundabout way, but if you're not so generous, do you not pick up a bit of a whiff of incredulity? >> http://english.www.gov.cn/ http://english.www.gov.cn/ is another platform that's controlled exclusively by the Chinese government. But no one's proposing a book-burning, that the US firewall all information controlled by the CCP or those with ideological differences. Twitter is a popular information-sharing social platform, and there are Chinese actors on it, but this argument isn't extended to suggest that it be banned, either. But somehow, a platform that does both must not be allowed to exist? I don't get it. "But somehow, a platform that does both must not be allowed to exist?" seems either disingenuous, or that the person is unable to realize that an application that has ~100M users (and significant usage/day), most in a young impressionable demographic, that consists of ~60 second viral videos, just might have distinct and noteworthy differences from a national security point than Twitter, or http://english.www.gov.cn http://english.www.gov.cn. To be clear: the onus is not on this person to disprove their counterpart's assertion, far from it. I am referring to the apparent inability to notice that a valid difference might exist, and all of this in a world where we've been constantly told by the media that Russian hackers have been undermining our democracy, and occurring on HN, a site frequented by some of the brightest minds on the planet when it comes to software. And this is just one example. Reading through the rest of the discussions in this thread, is there not something that seems "a little off" in the way people describe reality? Are so many people simultaneously faking that they are literally unable to see any valid concerns here, or in the arguments put forth in their counterpart in each discussion (and this goes both ways), or are they literally unable to see? If this was to happen in every thread on HN, one might just write it off to "people being people", but it doesn't happen in every thread, it only seems to happen in certain types of threads. Is this a coincidence? Am I seeing things? Or might something interesting actually be going on here? Is this odd behavior restricted only to HN, or do we see similar behavior elsewhere?