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The class of problem and its origins are constant in the interaction between human nature and an open market. The specific problems of today are utterly unlike

The class of problem and its origins are constant in the interaction between human nature and an open market. The specific problems of today are utterly unlike anything older. The medium is overwhelmingly determinate of impact. The simplistic version of this is: there are profound non-linearities introduced by lack of friction. "Superficial" differences in the role of feedback and tailored results which are noise in the case of print and broadcast media, are everything in contemporary social media. Most particularly, the so-called "algorithm" problem is specific to contemporary social media; and it is imbedded in our society in ways that are unlike anything which has challenged it previously: as the citizen-facing sharp edge of surveillance capital, in which the origin and flow of "value" (i.e. consumer data) is all but entirely removed from public view and individual agency; and acts as a meta-filter, which is the sharp edge of social media serving increasingly as the sole mechanism whereby people receive media. We live in a world in which what we read is ever more carefully targeted, deluded in the belief that we have agency in what we see and some defense about what it does not just to us, but to society as a whole. Contemporary social media is stochastic mind control. And as said, it is currently performed almost entirely in service of ends very much at odds with the common good, in almost any dimension you choose to inspect. Oh well. We had an OK run.

dragontamer 5y ago
> The specific problems of today are utterly unlike anything older. The medium is overwhelmingly determinate of impact. The USA literally started a war on false pretenses and took over the Philippines as a result of Yellow Journalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(1889) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(1889) This included at least 15 years of harsh occupation, as the Philippine Katipunan (in the north) and Moros (the Muslims of the south) fought a guerilla war against their US occupiers, with roughly 200,000 dead from famines and war. I mean, USA occupied the Philippines until the 1940s (the seeds for Philippine independence were planted by the 20s, but WW2 severely delayed plans). But just because US Citizens have forgotten the story doesn't mean that this stuff didn't happen. The Yellow Press has been a bane upon US society for over a century. There's letters from Ben Franklin about how he manipulated the press (ie: leaking false "scalping" stories about native Americans / British) to aid in the US Revolution. (See Henry Hamilton, a British Administrator who was widely believed to be a scalper, but proof never was offered on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hamilton_(colonial_administrator) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hamilton_(colonial_admin...) ------- This is literally who we are as a people. Easily manipulated, outraged filled citizens who individually seem to have difficulty doing any form of critical thinking. Then a few elites get a good idea about how to manipulate the masses: be they Benjamin Franklin, William Hearst, his rival Pulitzer, or today Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey. Its been like this for centuries, and it will continue to be like this long after you or I die.
- spion 5y ago
  Or, this might actually be another important problem that humanity should find worthy of recognizing and finally solving.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    Both Pulitzer and Ben Franklin are national heroes for their ability to levy the masses and gain popular support. Problem #1 is explaining to people that the outrage-filled Yellow press is a problem in the first place. Too many people yell "free speech" and "freedom", and point out these heroes of the past. People don't even think this is a problem. So it won't get solved. If you can convince enough people that maybe we should do something about this, feel free to do so.
    - spion 5y ago
      Lots of things will need to happen, I agree. One thing that is happening is that social media is escalating the problem so much that its becoming visible to everyone, which in turn will increase the demand to do something about information quality (including defining what it is or is not). This seems to be already in progress. Another thing I'm hoping for is that we can get NLU that is advanced enough to detect and elevate great quality material (both from research but also from educational perspective) that can successfully counteract "yellow journalism" and misinformation. We could combine this with NLU that can detect common techniques that take advantage of flaws in our reasoning abilities. I'm actually optimistic this may be possible now. I also suspect it won't be necessary to go against free speach to achieve this.
      - dragontamer 5y ago
        > I also suspect it won't be necessary to go against free speach to achieve this. We only need to look at the misinformation from 10 years ago to see how quickly "free speech" comes into play as a counter-argument. "Obama is a Muslim" and "Obama was born in Kenya" are two pieces of misinformation. Explain what methodologies you'd do to stop these pieces of misinformation from spreading on Facebook, Twitter... or hell... Fox News / traditional media. Any such restriction you think up with will immediately bring out the free-speech advocates. People want the "freedom" to spread these lies around for political gain. -------- Its easier to use 10-year-old conspiracies because they're no longer "hot". I'm sure there are still people who believe in this misinformation today, but they're more riled up about current misinformation rather than past misinformation.

dragontamer 5y ago

> The specific problems of today are utterly unlike anything older. The medium is overwhelmingly determinate of impact. The USA literally started a war on false pretenses and took over the Philippines as a result of Yellow Journalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(1889) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(1889) This included at least 15 years of harsh occupation, as the Philippine Katipunan (in the north) and Moros (the Muslims of the south) fought a guerilla war against their US occupiers, with roughly 200,000 dead from famines and war. I mean, USA occupied the Philippines until the 1940s (the seeds for Philippine independence were planted by the 20s, but WW2 severely delayed plans). But just because US Citizens have forgotten the story doesn't mean that this stuff didn't happen. The Yellow Press has been a bane upon US society for over a century. There's letters from Ben Franklin about how he manipulated the press (ie: leaking false "scalping" stories about native Americans / British) to aid in the US Revolution. (See Henry Hamilton, a British Administrator who was widely believed to be a scalper, but proof never was offered on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hamilton_(colonial_administrator) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hamilton_(colonial_admin...) ------- This is literally who we are as a people. Easily manipulated, outraged filled citizens who individually seem to have difficulty doing any form of critical thinking. Then a few elites get a good idea about how to manipulate the masses: be they Benjamin Franklin, William Hearst, his rival Pulitzer, or today Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey. Its been like this for centuries, and it will continue to be like this long after you or I die.

spion 5y ago
Or, this might actually be another important problem that humanity should find worthy of recognizing and finally solving.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  Both Pulitzer and Ben Franklin are national heroes for their ability to levy the masses and gain popular support. Problem #1 is explaining to people that the outrage-filled Yellow press is a problem in the first place. Too many people yell "free speech" and "freedom", and point out these heroes of the past. People don't even think this is a problem. So it won't get solved. If you can convince enough people that maybe we should do something about this, feel free to do so.
  - spion 5y ago
    Lots of things will need to happen, I agree. One thing that is happening is that social media is escalating the problem so much that its becoming visible to everyone, which in turn will increase the demand to do something about information quality (including defining what it is or is not). This seems to be already in progress. Another thing I'm hoping for is that we can get NLU that is advanced enough to detect and elevate great quality material (both from research but also from educational perspective) that can successfully counteract "yellow journalism" and misinformation. We could combine this with NLU that can detect common techniques that take advantage of flaws in our reasoning abilities. I'm actually optimistic this may be possible now. I also suspect it won't be necessary to go against free speach to achieve this.
    - dragontamer 5y ago
      > I also suspect it won't be necessary to go against free speach to achieve this. We only need to look at the misinformation from 10 years ago to see how quickly "free speech" comes into play as a counter-argument. "Obama is a Muslim" and "Obama was born in Kenya" are two pieces of misinformation. Explain what methodologies you'd do to stop these pieces of misinformation from spreading on Facebook, Twitter... or hell... Fox News / traditional media. Any such restriction you think up with will immediately bring out the free-speech advocates. People want the "freedom" to spread these lies around for political gain. -------- Its easier to use 10-year-old conspiracies because they're no longer "hot". I'm sure there are still people who believe in this misinformation today, but they're more riled up about current misinformation rather than past misinformation.