4 ms·

What you see here is the effect of opening the floodgates and letting the masses in without any barriers of entry. Be it a social media or a trading platform. Y

by papito 5y ago

What you see here is the effect of opening the floodgates and letting the masses in without any barriers of entry. Be it a social media or a trading platform. You know who they are. I think we underestimate greatly the rock bottom levels of average attention spans and intellectual curiosity. In the past, you had to be a somebody to voice your opinion - you had to publish an article, a book, be on TV. Not an easy feat. Then came the web and democratized this a bit, but it was still not trivial. You had to find a hosting provider, learn HTML, spend one hour on the phone with Network Solutions, etc. If you wanted to say something - you could, but it wasn't free and easy. And that's why the early web was so high quality. I was an early customer of WebTV, and I got a glimpse into the future by browsing their fenced-off usenet. It was a tornado of flame wars and just pure stupid. And why? WebTV made it super easy to access the web. 2007 changed everything. The iPhone came out, Facebook, Twitter, big data. Now, every idiot could whip out their phone and type in "owning the libz 24/7! MAGA! Lolz!" [SEND]. And we all have to process that shit. A barrier of entry is good. It ups the quality of whatever it's applied to. Social media fundamentally destroys the hardship of voicing an opinion, which, as we can see, most should probably not voice. If you are not willing to work for it, then it's probably not worth hearing.

marcus_holmes 5y ago
I see posts by intelligent, knowledgeable, people that are pure poison. I have worked with journalists and half those people shouldn't be allowed near a keyboard. I don't think the "barrier theory" adequately explains why everyone is so involved these days. Looking forward to hearing how TFA explains it.
- papito 5y ago
  They are involved because it's easy.
MrGilbert 5y ago
> Social media fundamentally destroys the hardship of voicing an opinion, which, as we can see, most should probably not voice. Well, you can put the blame on the sender. But I think that everyone is allowed to have an opinion and voice it. Maybe the receiving end needs to learn and distinguish between "important feedback" and "just ignore it". We should stop treating everyone's little issue as top-notch priority.
- papito 5y ago
  Anyone can still voice their opinion. In most parts of the world, either to a neighbor or go out on the street, write a sign, have at it. The world is not better off by letting everyone broadcast their opinion to BILLIONS of people.
- rdiddly 5y ago
  That would help. Although there's some cognitive load involved, and the question for me is "What's the upside?" I suppose I've done exactly what you're suggesting, but I've drawn the line at social media itself. Because "everyone's little issue" is 100% what it contains and transmits, whether it's something personal or a shared news story. I have deprioritized all of it. Even Hacker News, where my participation is much less lately.
DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
imo the blame needs to be placed on platforms that enslave people's attention and dopamine cycles. Even it's just micro-profits that get skimmed from the individual (which compound thanks to numbers of users), the actual costs and damage done to people's mental health, their increased isolation and lonlieness etc is unprecedented. My prediction is that the future belongs to terrorism simply because there is no other escape for that energy to go, and our response to it will be more surveillance/control of the individual. This sounds much more realistic than a movement that will turn people away from their devices to spend time outside or with real-life friends. I agree that the barrier of entry yields a low signal to noise ratio and there is no "realistic" solution to it that wouldn't be considered either ultra-capitalist or fascist depending which camp you ask. There is a hypothetical solution which could reduce this which is to regulate the shit out of targeted advertising and create a watchdog that places limits on dark patterns and companies that hi-jack cognitive faculty of their users. It would immediately outlaw these business models. Secondly I'd make individuals (not companies) accountable so it's impossible for a CEO to hide behind their corporate facade.
- papito 5y ago
  The solution is simple but impossible. Regulations will not work. Here is the thing - you can create a Meetup and charge a nominal fee, and that weeds out almost everyone who is not serious about going. If Twitter charged even a small fee, like $5 a year, it would knock off tons of people off of it who are cheap enough to not care about it, unless it's free. But that won't happen (even though I DID hear rumors this was discussed in 2020, at the very top).

by papito 5y ago

marcus_holmes 5y ago

I see posts by intelligent, knowledgeable, people that are pure poison. I have worked with journalists and half those people shouldn't be allowed near a keyboard. I don't think the "barrier theory" adequately explains why everyone is so involved these days. Looking forward to hearing how TFA explains it.

papito 5y ago
They are involved because it's easy.

MrGilbert 5y ago

> Social media fundamentally destroys the hardship of voicing an opinion, which, as we can see, most should probably not voice. Well, you can put the blame on the sender. But I think that everyone is allowed to have an opinion and voice it. Maybe the receiving end needs to learn and distinguish between "important feedback" and "just ignore it". We should stop treating everyone's little issue as top-notch priority.

papito 5y ago
Anyone can still voice their opinion. In most parts of the world, either to a neighbor or go out on the street, write a sign, have at it. The world is not better off by letting everyone broadcast their opinion to BILLIONS of people.
rdiddly 5y ago
That would help. Although there's some cognitive load involved, and the question for me is "What's the upside?" I suppose I've done exactly what you're suggesting, but I've drawn the line at social media itself. Because "everyone's little issue" is 100% what it contains and transmits, whether it's something personal or a shared news story. I have deprioritized all of it. Even Hacker News, where my participation is much less lately.

DyslexicAtheist 5y ago

imo the blame needs to be placed on platforms that enslave people's attention and dopamine cycles. Even it's just micro-profits that get skimmed from the individual (which compound thanks to numbers of users), the actual costs and damage done to people's mental health, their increased isolation and lonlieness etc is unprecedented. My prediction is that the future belongs to terrorism simply because there is no other escape for that energy to go, and our response to it will be more surveillance/control of the individual. This sounds much more realistic than a movement that will turn people away from their devices to spend time outside or with real-life friends. I agree that the barrier of entry yields a low signal to noise ratio and there is no "realistic" solution to it that wouldn't be considered either ultra-capitalist or fascist depending which camp you ask. There is a hypothetical solution which could reduce this which is to regulate the shit out of targeted advertising and create a watchdog that places limits on dark patterns and companies that hi-jack cognitive faculty of their users. It would immediately outlaw these business models. Secondly I'd make individuals (not companies) accountable so it's impossible for a CEO to hide behind their corporate facade.

papito 5y ago
The solution is simple but impossible. Regulations will not work. Here is the thing - you can create a Meetup and charge a nominal fee, and that weeds out almost everyone who is not serious about going. If Twitter charged even a small fee, like $5 a year, it would knock off tons of people off of it who are cheap enough to not care about it, unless it's free. But that won't happen (even though I DID hear rumors this was discussed in 2020, at the very top).