5 ms·

Yes, and no one can withstand the barrage of internet dopamine bullets. I agree, we weren't designed for it. But I disagree that no one can withstand the barr

Yes, and no one can withstand the barrage of internet dopamine bullets. I agree, we weren't designed for it. But I disagree that no one can withstand the barrage. People can teach themselves to fend these things off, in fact I think its the only thing that works.

oblio 5y ago
We can't really teach that at scale. And even if we could, sometimes you just can't avoid some situations, they just happen. Most jurisdictions around the world have laws against verbal assault (threatening others with actual harm) or verbal harassment, for this very reason. Verbal interactions can lead to very real effects (people have been driven to suicide, for example). Some people we interact with are just cuckoo and if we can't get out of there quickly there needs to be a way to keep the situation under control.
drusepth 5y ago
Curious: what makes you think people can teach themselves to manage endless deluges of toxicity, but not teach themselves to manage internet dopamine bullets?
- RedBeetDeadpool 5y ago
  Sorry, my words didn't carry the intent I had. I meant that they can teach themselves how to withstand toxicity as well as how to withstand dopamine bullets.
emn13 5y ago
That optimism, particularly in this crowd that likely skews towards techies, may be a significant cause of a solid slice of the world's problems today. We sometimes like to see ourselves as little Sherlock Holmes' - humans on a trajectory of ever more self-improvement and breathtaking intellect. All data is good data, all speech is good speech, because it feeds the ever improving intellect. Misinformation is at worst a temporary blip that more communication will correct. We're little Googles that slurp up data and spit out ever improving judgements. But we're not that rational, and not that great at filtering information. We have biases that are trivially exploitable at scale, and we're rather good at building machines or even merely memes to exploit those. We need to start accepting human cognitive weaknesses, and that includes doing a bit of informational gardening - pruning out the weeds before they choke everything we value. You don't feed ML algorithms maliciously distorted training data and hope for them to nevertheless magically converge to something useful, do you? (And no, GAN ML doesn't do that either yet - but please correct me if I'm behind the times - because the detectors aren't really adversarial but rather specific training targets and thus a detector from one GAN can't detect another's fakes - and in any case, it's all still based on trusted training data - which is exactly what humans don't have). I don't believe this problem is fixable until we recognize that freedom of speech in an era of mass manipulation via social media is intrinsically dangerous. We all understand the upsides and have been well indoctrinated against risks of government ministries for truth, but the reality is that we're all agents in an immensely complex system where we want certain convergence properties, yet are kind of assuming that specific hyper simplistic policies will achieve those goals - and assuming that almost as gospel. I don't buy that that's going work. I don't think it actually _ever_ worked, which is why we have stuff like fraud statutes, and _do_ penalize lying in all kinds of other scenarios. Even more critically, social _norms_ imposed heavy extra-legal punishment on frauds and other informational polluters. We just turned extreme freedom of expression into an article of patriotism to show we were team america; and to distinguish ourselves from team soviet or team monarchy - but that was (fortunately!) merely skin deep because various legal restrictions actually remained and in any case social punishments matter more than legal ones - and being seen as a fraud or liar _used_ to be a quick way to becoming a pariah. But without speech-restricting social norms against deception, and with a public attitude that sometimes even _embraces_ falsehood as a symbol of pride for ones rights - well, then truth is optional; and quixotically the _whole point_ of freedom of expression disappears, being that it's a tool to discover and disseminate new insights and burn away corruption via transparency. Speech is irrelevant when the only people listening are those that share your opinion anyhow. And where social norms remain, we've pulled their teeth by accepting that employees have no responsibility for a corporation's actions unless they're very directly linked (e.g. I wouldn't blame a facebook employee personally for facebook-spread misinformation, yet I would if they spread it themselves), yet corporations are increasingly everpresent as tools to mediate daily interactions. Until we face up to the reality that core founding principles we hang some of our identities on are _actively harmful_ in some scenarios, we're not going to be able to consider how to improve ourselves. Instead, we'll tell ourselves comforting bedtime tales of how people can teach themselves to fend these things off, and how team free speech always wins in the end. Until, one day, it doesn't.
- RedBeetDeadpool 5y ago
  You think that solving your problems requires better machines with more sophistication, which I disagree strongly on. If you're intent is to convince me, save yourself the effort. I'll state what I said one more time, with a little emphasis this time: > teach themselves to fend these things off, in fact I think its the only thing that works.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    """ “But you are telling me, Susan, that the ‘Society for Humanity’ is right; and that Mankind has lost its own say in its future.” “It never had any, really. It was always at the mercy of economic and sociological forces it did not understand — at the whims of climate, and the fortunes of war. Now the Machines understand them; and no one can stop them, since the Machines will deal with them as they are dealing with the Society, — having, as they do, the greatest of weapons at their disposal, the absolute control of our economy.” “How horrible!” “Perhaps how wonderful! Think, that for all time, all conflicts are finally evitable. Only the Machines, from now on, are inevitable!” And the fire behind the quartz went out and only a curl of smoke was left to indicate its place. """ Asimov, Isaac. "I, Robot". pp. 147-148. Available online: http://ekladata.com/-Byix64G_NtE0xI4A6PA1--o1Hc/Asimov-Isaac-I-Robot.pdf http://ekladata.com/-Byix64G_NtE0xI4A6PA1--o1Hc/Asimov-Isaac...
  - emn13 5y ago
    Honest question for the purposes of being able to express myself more clearly next time: what makes you believe I think better machines with more sophistication are the answer? I get the feeling (and that's fine!) you're uninterested in detailed argumentation whether in support of your position or analysis of mine; I won't try to drag you into a flame war - but I simply don't understand your response. I must have said something that triggered this belief; if you're willing to point out what I said that could be read that way, I'd appreciate it. After all, being misunderstood is a waste everyone's time.

oblio 5y ago

We can't really teach that at scale. And even if we could, sometimes you just can't avoid some situations, they just happen. Most jurisdictions around the world have laws against verbal assault (threatening others with actual harm) or verbal harassment, for this very reason. Verbal interactions can lead to very real effects (people have been driven to suicide, for example). Some people we interact with are just cuckoo and if we can't get out of there quickly there needs to be a way to keep the situation under control.

drusepth 5y ago

Curious: what makes you think people can teach themselves to manage endless deluges of toxicity, but not teach themselves to manage internet dopamine bullets?

RedBeetDeadpool 5y ago
Sorry, my words didn't carry the intent I had. I meant that they can teach themselves how to withstand toxicity as well as how to withstand dopamine bullets.

emn13 5y ago

That optimism, particularly in this crowd that likely skews towards techies, may be a significant cause of a solid slice of the world's problems today. We sometimes like to see ourselves as little Sherlock Holmes' - humans on a trajectory of ever more self-improvement and breathtaking intellect. All data is good data, all speech is good speech, because it feeds the ever improving intellect. Misinformation is at worst a temporary blip that more communication will correct. We're little Googles that slurp up data and spit out ever improving judgements. But we're not that rational, and not that great at filtering information. We have biases that are trivially exploitable at scale, and we're rather good at building machines or even merely memes to exploit those. We need to start accepting human cognitive weaknesses, and that includes doing a bit of informational gardening - pruning out the weeds before they choke everything we value. You don't feed ML algorithms maliciously distorted training data and hope for them to nevertheless magically converge to something useful, do you? (And no, GAN ML doesn't do that either yet - but please correct me if I'm behind the times - because the detectors aren't really adversarial but rather specific training targets and thus a detector from one GAN can't detect another's fakes - and in any case, it's all still based on trusted training data - which is exactly what humans don't have). I don't believe this problem is fixable until we recognize that freedom of speech in an era of mass manipulation via social media is intrinsically dangerous. We all understand the upsides and have been well indoctrinated against risks of government ministries for truth, but the reality is that we're all agents in an immensely complex system where we want certain convergence properties, yet are kind of assuming that specific hyper simplistic policies will achieve those goals - and assuming that almost as gospel. I don't buy that that's going work. I don't think it actually _ever_ worked, which is why we have stuff like fraud statutes, and _do_ penalize lying in all kinds of other scenarios. Even more critically, social _norms_ imposed heavy extra-legal punishment on frauds and other informational polluters. We just turned extreme freedom of expression into an article of patriotism to show we were team america; and to distinguish ourselves from team soviet or team monarchy - but that was (fortunately!) merely skin deep because various legal restrictions actually remained and in any case social punishments matter more than legal ones - and being seen as a fraud or liar _used_ to be a quick way to becoming a pariah. But without speech-restricting social norms against deception, and with a public attitude that sometimes even _embraces_ falsehood as a symbol of pride for ones rights - well, then truth is optional; and quixotically the _whole point_ of freedom of expression disappears, being that it's a tool to discover and disseminate new insights and burn away corruption via transparency. Speech is irrelevant when the only people listening are those that share your opinion anyhow. And where social norms remain, we've pulled their teeth by accepting that employees have no responsibility for a corporation's actions unless they're very directly linked (e.g. I wouldn't blame a facebook employee personally for facebook-spread misinformation, yet I would if they spread it themselves), yet corporations are increasingly everpresent as tools to mediate daily interactions. Until we face up to the reality that core founding principles we hang some of our identities on are _actively harmful_ in some scenarios, we're not going to be able to consider how to improve ourselves. Instead, we'll tell ourselves comforting bedtime tales of how people can teach themselves to fend these things off, and how team free speech always wins in the end. Until, one day, it doesn't.

RedBeetDeadpool 5y ago
You think that solving your problems requires better machines with more sophistication, which I disagree strongly on. If you're intent is to convince me, save yourself the effort. I'll state what I said one more time, with a little emphasis this time: > teach themselves to fend these things off, in fact I think its the only thing that works.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  """ “But you are telling me, Susan, that the ‘Society for Humanity’ is right; and that Mankind has lost its own say in its future.” “It never had any, really. It was always at the mercy of economic and sociological forces it did not understand — at the whims of climate, and the fortunes of war. Now the Machines understand them; and no one can stop them, since the Machines will deal with them as they are dealing with the Society, — having, as they do, the greatest of weapons at their disposal, the absolute control of our economy.” “How horrible!” “Perhaps how wonderful! Think, that for all time, all conflicts are finally evitable. Only the Machines, from now on, are inevitable!” And the fire behind the quartz went out and only a curl of smoke was left to indicate its place. """ Asimov, Isaac. "I, Robot". pp. 147-148. Available online: http://ekladata.com/-Byix64G_NtE0xI4A6PA1--o1Hc/Asimov-Isaac-I-Robot.pdf http://ekladata.com/-Byix64G_NtE0xI4A6PA1--o1Hc/Asimov-Isaac...
- emn13 5y ago
  Honest question for the purposes of being able to express myself more clearly next time: what makes you believe I think better machines with more sophistication are the answer? I get the feeling (and that's fine!) you're uninterested in detailed argumentation whether in support of your position or analysis of mine; I won't try to drag you into a flame war - but I simply don't understand your response. I must have said something that triggered this belief; if you're willing to point out what I said that could be read that way, I'd appreciate it. After all, being misunderstood is a waste everyone's time.