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Is there a law akin to Godwin's or Sturgeon's about all social media trending toward some failure state? Several years ago I deleted all my FB content and then

Is there a law akin to Godwin's or Sturgeon's about all social media trending toward some failure state? Several years ago I deleted all my FB content and then disabled my account. Looks like it's time to do that with my Twitter account now.

TechBro8615 5y ago
Yes, it’s called Eternal September. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
- LudwigNagasena 5y ago
  That’s about culture in small tight communities, it’s not about monstrous billion people wide networks without any coherent identity of community.
  - smolder 5y ago
    I think while the effect was first noted in a relatively small community, the idea applies broadly to all sizes of open public forum, especially where things are organized chronologically. There's difficulty in developing and establishing cultural norms when there are constant new arrivals who can't have learned from past developments. That's what the term represents to me.
    - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
      But there is no single public forum on Facebook and no single culture.
    - TechBro8615 5y ago
      Yeah, I also don’t see why such patterns should apply differently to any community past a sufficiently large Dunbar number, modulo some tribal factor. Humans simply haven’t evolved to differentiate between a tribe of three thousand, or three million. Want proof? Tell me how many people might read this comment and agree with it. Humans are bad at large scale pattern recognition and suffer from extreme proximity bias. It’s why filter bubbles exist. For the same reason, it seems dangerous to promote the idea that it’s even possible to “have a conversation as a society.” If any such conversation is taking place, surely its level of inherent selection bias would render any of its conclusions irrelevant. Only a participant or biased observer could claim otherwise. Society has a filter-bubble deficiency. For a global population nearing ten billion humans, the number of distinct information channels is alarmingly low in comparison. It’s not possible to have an honest “conversation as a society” in such an asymmetrical information environment.
f0e4c2f7 5y ago
I didn't come up with it and I don't know if there is a name for it but here's a comment I wrote a while ago about how I model the decline of social media and other systems. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29977822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29977822
fsflover 5y ago
It's not about all social media but about for-profit walled gardens. Consider switching to Mastodon to avoid it.
BurningFrog 5y ago
Maybe it's just a special case of "Nothing is forever"?
imgabe 5y ago
All communication media are eventually subsumed by chain letters and spam.
kirubakaran 5y ago
The second law of thermodynamics

TechBro8615 5y ago

Yes, it’s called Eternal September. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

LudwigNagasena 5y ago
That’s about culture in small tight communities, it’s not about monstrous billion people wide networks without any coherent identity of community.
- smolder 5y ago
  I think while the effect was first noted in a relatively small community, the idea applies broadly to all sizes of open public forum, especially where things are organized chronologically. There's difficulty in developing and establishing cultural norms when there are constant new arrivals who can't have learned from past developments. That's what the term represents to me.
  - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
    But there is no single public forum on Facebook and no single culture.
  - TechBro8615 5y ago
    Yeah, I also don’t see why such patterns should apply differently to any community past a sufficiently large Dunbar number, modulo some tribal factor. Humans simply haven’t evolved to differentiate between a tribe of three thousand, or three million. Want proof? Tell me how many people might read this comment and agree with it. Humans are bad at large scale pattern recognition and suffer from extreme proximity bias. It’s why filter bubbles exist. For the same reason, it seems dangerous to promote the idea that it’s even possible to “have a conversation as a society.” If any such conversation is taking place, surely its level of inherent selection bias would render any of its conclusions irrelevant. Only a participant or biased observer could claim otherwise. Society has a filter-bubble deficiency. For a global population nearing ten billion humans, the number of distinct information channels is alarmingly low in comparison. It’s not possible to have an honest “conversation as a society” in such an asymmetrical information environment.

f0e4c2f7 5y ago

I didn't come up with it and I don't know if there is a name for it but here's a comment I wrote a while ago about how I model the decline of social media and other systems. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29977822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29977822

fsflover 5y ago

It's not about all social media but about for-profit walled gardens. Consider switching to Mastodon to avoid it.

BurningFrog 5y ago

Maybe it's just a special case of "Nothing is forever"?

imgabe 5y ago

All communication media are eventually subsumed by chain letters and spam.

kirubakaran 5y ago

The second law of thermodynamics