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Thanks, her whole thing on private/public is something I'd like to read next, as I have a hypothesis that there is a thread of continuity between the collapse o

Thanks, her whole thing on private/public is something I'd like to read next, as I have a hypothesis that there is a thread of continuity between the collapse of the Private and the scale of cruelty in the 20th century. These conflicts about chans and censorship and conspiracy theories are artifacts of categories I think we've all seen before. I'd agree that truth in public is as welcome as truth to power, perhaps because they are related. The point of a separate public is to keep the ball in the air so we can coexist under conventions and merciful pretenses, whereas when it becomes overpowering and breaches the private sphere, it's just Hobbes' war of all against all. Feminist critiques I read at school back in the day about the Private sphere as the origin of patriarchy bring the division into a modern context. If we imagine the current trend in global internet culture as an extension of that revolt against the private sphere, it yields some uncomfortable questions about what the endgame looks like if that animus swings out of balance. Hence, I see a lot of the crazy online stuff as people expressing their instincts for what's going on and what they fear is going to happen to them, but they don't have the critical tools or the privacy to develop and articulate them. HN provides the closest thing we have to an elevated semi-private discourse to raise this stuff.

MrMan 6y ago
there is nothing elevated about HN, that is your brain playing tricks on you. Privacy is an illusion, self is an illusion. smart people are manipulated just as easily as dumb people, by people who have been studying how to do it, and now with mass social media, have the tools to do it.
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  Well, I would say here on HN at least the general bar is higher. And sure, anybody can be manipulated, but also, with different amount of effort. Tricking my young family teenage members into buying something shiny they don't really need? Not too hard, show a cool ad or pay some influencer to feature the product in a way. Getting people of the HN crowd to buy somehing shiny they don't need? Lets say, the new KI assistance? I would say, that is a lot harder, as most people here understand how (political) marketing works. And once you understand, you don't fall for it so easily.
  - jeromenerf 6y ago
    > Getting people of the HN crowd to buy somehing shiny they don't need? Lets say, the new KI assistance? I would say, that is a lot harder, as most people here understand how (political) marketing works. Maybe easier actually, but different. Bigger flats, Apple products, travels, cloud services ... The arguments used may appeal to meaning, sense, evolution, progress ... instead of comfort, fear, luxury ... just as easily and probably more profitably.

MrMan 6y ago

there is nothing elevated about HN, that is your brain playing tricks on you. Privacy is an illusion, self is an illusion. smart people are manipulated just as easily as dumb people, by people who have been studying how to do it, and now with mass social media, have the tools to do it.

hutzlibu 6y ago
Well, I would say here on HN at least the general bar is higher. And sure, anybody can be manipulated, but also, with different amount of effort. Tricking my young family teenage members into buying something shiny they don't really need? Not too hard, show a cool ad or pay some influencer to feature the product in a way. Getting people of the HN crowd to buy somehing shiny they don't need? Lets say, the new KI assistance? I would say, that is a lot harder, as most people here understand how (political) marketing works. And once you understand, you don't fall for it so easily.
- jeromenerf 6y ago
  > Getting people of the HN crowd to buy somehing shiny they don't need? Lets say, the new KI assistance? I would say, that is a lot harder, as most people here understand how (political) marketing works. Maybe easier actually, but different. Bigger flats, Apple products, travels, cloud services ... The arguments used may appeal to meaning, sense, evolution, progress ... instead of comfort, fear, luxury ... just as easily and probably more profitably.