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> Political polarization is older than social media Yes, it was widely reported in debates in ancient Athens and the Roman empire. But I wrote "Social media d
by ex_amazon_sde 5y ago
> Political polarization is older than social media
Yes, it was widely reported in debates in ancient Athens and the Roman empire.
But I wrote "Social media did a lot to foster outrage and destroy nuanced thinking.", which is different.
Humanity has never seen before a billion-dollar industry generating user engagement by fueling online altercation.
Instant gratification, dopamine cycle addiction and all of that.
- scruple 5y agoMaybe there should be IRB-style oversight for Twitter, etc..., to tweak their algorithms. They are, after all, experimenting on humans here.
- Nasrudith 5y agoLiterally any change would count as "an experiment". Not just for algorithims but for "do people like to buy this new product". Saying there should be limited changes of algorithms is a popular "hot take" but it fundamentally doesn't make any goddamned sense. Human experiments being activities defined by the subject instead of the object make more sense. Can you have the human-involved experiment with just the objects occur naturally? You cannot just leave the props lying around a college campus and get a Milgram's experiment replication attempt. You cannot just have a freezing chamber or scalpels to repeat the horrors of nazi Germany and Unit 731.