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I don't intend to refute anything you've written because I agree with pretty much all of it. But there is more to Twitter than that. Twitter is also a collectiv

by qq66 5y ago

I don't intend to refute anything you've written because I agree with pretty much all of it. But there is more to Twitter than that. Twitter is also a collective mind in a way that has only previously existed in science fiction. There are conversations about virtual reality where I regularly engage with people from Europe, Asia, the US, some people who don't really go out of their house but are very active on VR Twitter, displaced Ukrainian developers finding VR development work... and really thought-provoking interactions every week, like a "My Dinner with Andre" in the global hive-mind. I think of Twitter as something like "The Internet" or "nuclear fission" -- a tool so powerful that it can either destroy or save the world, and to just destroy it would be a catastrophic loss.

r3trohack3r 5y ago
The human hive mind existed long before Twitter. Very little of a human's knowledge is discovered by them, it's passed from generation to generation. First it was spoken, then written, then typed. But social media, when looked at through the lens of collective thought, is unwell IMH(umble)O. I remember participating in old phpBB forums in the mid/late 90s. You'd show up for an hour, read everything that happened over the last few days, go off an think about it, come back later and respond. The conversations were deep and thoughtful, even if the topics weren't. If I sat in a room with someone who thought/behaved like these forums, I'd be comfortable. It would be a good conversation, I'd feel safe, and I'd probably walk away learning something new. If a physical human thought the way the Twitter hive mind thinks - I'd avoid them. They would be terrifying. Jumping from thought to thought, rapidly transitioning emotional states, unable to focus on a topic for more than a social media cycle, constantly checking to see if people like what they said... The hive mind on many of the popular social media platforms is not healthy. I don't think this outcome is inevitable when large groups of people come together to communicate. It feels like a byproduct of engagement driven social media - where the flywheel of growth/profits is coupled to humans constantly indicating to the system that they are "engaged" by interacting in some way.
dsl 5y ago
> Twitter is also a collective mind in a way that has only previously existed in science fiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet You might not have been around for it, but we did this before. The same lesson was learned then too... this is why we can't have nice things.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Usenet wasn't near realtime.
- Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
  I often wonder if you could make something like a Reddit clone or image board use the Usenet network model. I imagine that it’s hard now that full service ISPs are so rare. Paying extra for access is probably not something many people would want to do, even though it would probably make for more healthy and diverse discourse than anything that always needs to be advertiser friendly. But the greatest obstacle is probably that many users and service providers would consider the inability to ban someone across the whole network to be a bug rather than a feature.
- qq66 5y ago
  I was a heavy Usenet user but the Usenet population was such a small fraction of the world's population (and the Usenet post mechanics were much less targeted) that I didn't have the same kinds of interactions on Usenet as I do on Twitter.
fleddr 5y ago
You're obviously right. Multiple things co-exist at Twitter. The general narrative is toxic woke, which is the dominant culture, followed by the counter force on the right, equally toxic but far less powerful. That's the head, and at the tails end there's lot of small things that in itself may be fine. You might find the best deepsea fishing community at Twitter.

by qq66 5y ago

r3trohack3r 5y ago

The human hive mind existed long before Twitter. Very little of a human's knowledge is discovered by them, it's passed from generation to generation. First it was spoken, then written, then typed. But social media, when looked at through the lens of collective thought, is unwell IMH(umble)O. I remember participating in old phpBB forums in the mid/late 90s. You'd show up for an hour, read everything that happened over the last few days, go off an think about it, come back later and respond. The conversations were deep and thoughtful, even if the topics weren't. If I sat in a room with someone who thought/behaved like these forums, I'd be comfortable. It would be a good conversation, I'd feel safe, and I'd probably walk away learning something new. If a physical human thought the way the Twitter hive mind thinks - I'd avoid them. They would be terrifying. Jumping from thought to thought, rapidly transitioning emotional states, unable to focus on a topic for more than a social media cycle, constantly checking to see if people like what they said... The hive mind on many of the popular social media platforms is not healthy. I don't think this outcome is inevitable when large groups of people come together to communicate. It feels like a byproduct of engagement driven social media - where the flywheel of growth/profits is coupled to humans constantly indicating to the system that they are "engaged" by interacting in some way.

dsl 5y ago

> Twitter is also a collective mind in a way that has only previously existed in science fiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet You might not have been around for it, but we did this before. The same lesson was learned then too... this is why we can't have nice things.

jacquesm 5y ago
Usenet wasn't near realtime.
Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
I often wonder if you could make something like a Reddit clone or image board use the Usenet network model. I imagine that it’s hard now that full service ISPs are so rare. Paying extra for access is probably not something many people would want to do, even though it would probably make for more healthy and diverse discourse than anything that always needs to be advertiser friendly. But the greatest obstacle is probably that many users and service providers would consider the inability to ban someone across the whole network to be a bug rather than a feature.
qq66 5y ago
I was a heavy Usenet user but the Usenet population was such a small fraction of the world's population (and the Usenet post mechanics were much less targeted) that I didn't have the same kinds of interactions on Usenet as I do on Twitter.

fleddr 5y ago

You're obviously right. Multiple things co-exist at Twitter. The general narrative is toxic woke, which is the dominant culture, followed by the counter force on the right, equally toxic but far less powerful. That's the head, and at the tails end there's lot of small things that in itself may be fine. You might find the best deepsea fishing community at Twitter.