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Somewhat related to this, I recently watched a video essay on VR Chat and one of the takeaways was how VR Chat is much more like the earlier internet (think aro

Somewhat related to this, I recently watched a video essay on VR Chat and one of the takeaways was how VR Chat is much more like the earlier internet (think around the dawn of Web 2.0 and before). There's no recommendation systems or an algorithm partitioning people into isolated spaces. It's just a bunch of random strangers browsing through uncurated rooms. And, as the author argues, that lends itself to a much healthier environment where people are exposed to and more understanding of those outside of what would otherwise be their bubble. I definitely feel some nostalgia for those days. To be clear, it's not like VR Chat or even the early internet were completely bubbleless. But without an algorithm dividing people, it was just the path of least resistance to ... explore. Click on links and see where they go. Would you end up on some neo-nazi forum sometimes? Sure. But you were just as likely to end up on a Pokemon fan page. It was far more random and diverse. As you point out, that's different today with these algorithms driving people directly towards radical content.

rspeele 5y ago
I know what you mean. Tangentially, I also liked the experience of gaming (FPS) more when you would choose a server from a list, which was hosted by some person or group other than the game company, and you played with whoever else happened to join, from outright beginner to expert. Often on community-created and self published maps that wouldn't meet the quality standards of a game company, but could be much more varied and novel. The players would be a mix of one-time visitors and some regulars who you could expect would be on every night or a few nights a week. One such server in TF2 was like the bar from Cheers to me for a couple years in my late teens. The modern experience of matchmaking is simpler to jump into, less intimidating, but it's empty and lifeless. Like candy vs. a meal. Anyway, back on the social media thing, I fear there is no reason for it to change. Success, for a recommendation algorithm, will always be defined as what keeps you on the site, scrolling and clicking. Success for a person, we can be fairly sure, is not that. So we will always be fighting the algorithms to try to keep our own "engagement" at the level that is good for us, not good for them.
JohnBooty 5y ago
The bubble-ization I see today is less "I am intolerant of your alternative subjective views! The Beatles are totally better than the Rolling Stones!" and are more often a struggle of information vs. willful disinformation. So many of today's "bubbles" don't even involve subjective ideas; they involve willful distortions of facts such as anti-vaccine propaganda, flat Earth theories, and the like. how VR Chat is much more like the earlier internet [...] a much healthier environment where people are exposed to and more understanding of those outside of what would otherwise be their bubble I miss those early days, but I think the notion of the internet as a more tolerant place back then is mostly an illusion. The internet population itself was kind of... a single bubble back then. It was way less diverse than the general population. Early internet discourse was dominated by tech-savvy folks at universities, and folks working in the tech/engineering sectors. Therefore users tended to be male, white, college educated, young, technologically savvy, and economically upper/middle class. We were less likely to see the walls between bubbles because we were in a single bubble.
SomewhatLikely 5y ago
I was going to speculate this could be a phenomenon of audio chatting as I've seen clubhouse described in a similar way. But then I remembered the toxicity of many multiplayer video games with voice chat.

rspeele 5y ago

I know what you mean. Tangentially, I also liked the experience of gaming (FPS) more when you would choose a server from a list, which was hosted by some person or group other than the game company, and you played with whoever else happened to join, from outright beginner to expert. Often on community-created and self published maps that wouldn't meet the quality standards of a game company, but could be much more varied and novel. The players would be a mix of one-time visitors and some regulars who you could expect would be on every night or a few nights a week. One such server in TF2 was like the bar from Cheers to me for a couple years in my late teens. The modern experience of matchmaking is simpler to jump into, less intimidating, but it's empty and lifeless. Like candy vs. a meal. Anyway, back on the social media thing, I fear there is no reason for it to change. Success, for a recommendation algorithm, will always be defined as what keeps you on the site, scrolling and clicking. Success for a person, we can be fairly sure, is not that. So we will always be fighting the algorithms to try to keep our own "engagement" at the level that is good for us, not good for them.

JohnBooty 5y ago

The bubble-ization I see today is less "I am intolerant of your alternative subjective views! The Beatles are totally better than the Rolling Stones!" and are more often a struggle of information vs. willful disinformation. So many of today's "bubbles" don't even involve subjective ideas; they involve willful distortions of facts such as anti-vaccine propaganda, flat Earth theories, and the like. how VR Chat is much more like the earlier internet [...] a much healthier environment where people are exposed to and more understanding of those outside of what would otherwise be their bubble I miss those early days, but I think the notion of the internet as a more tolerant place back then is mostly an illusion. The internet population itself was kind of... a single bubble back then. It was way less diverse than the general population. Early internet discourse was dominated by tech-savvy folks at universities, and folks working in the tech/engineering sectors. Therefore users tended to be male, white, college educated, young, technologically savvy, and economically upper/middle class. We were less likely to see the walls between bubbles because we were in a single bubble.

SomewhatLikely 5y ago

I was going to speculate this could be a phenomenon of audio chatting as I've seen clubhouse described in a similar way. But then I remembered the toxicity of many multiplayer video games with voice chat.