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Trolls existed back in the days of Aristotle as well, so "the existence of trolls" is not quite sufficient. The part that is new is the ability for trolling to

Trolls existed back in the days of Aristotle as well, so "the existence of trolls" is not quite sufficient. The part that is new is the ability for trolling to have hugely asymmetric impact. Before it was a voice in the town square everyone knew to ignore, now it's troll farms from the other side of the world. But I'm starting to think even that doesn't really get to the heart of the issue. I think there's something about the network effects that leads to a dumbing down even if everyone thinks they are arguing in good faith. I feel like I've noticed a negative difference in discussion quality even over the past year. I can read a reddit headline now and feel more confident I can predict the content of the top two or three comments, the lazy popular thoughtless replies. And I've seen emergence of widely upvoted opinions that you know people adopt not because they've thought through it themselves, but because they've seen it two or three other places and thought it sounded good, irrespective of truth or accuracy. So I think we're seeing behavior that appears trollish even though it may not have come from actual trolls. Call it structural trollism, maybe.

trompetenaccoun 5y ago
Reddit becoming horrible is a function of how it's set up, with "community" moderators being able to ban anyone for any reason and the admins putting pressure on the mods or outright removing/replacing them where they see fit in order to only allow correct speech. If HN can be described as an autocracy with benevolent dictators at the top, reddit is a crazed totalitarian system with Red Guards on the loose all around the communities looking for wrong opinions to report. The voting and some other mechanisms they've set up makes the echo chambers complete. It progressively gets worse and worse, the main subs are already unusable and while there are niche communities that might still be worth visiting, their number keeps shrinking. Not that they literally disappear in most cases, they just get infected with reddit thought.
- samhw 5y ago
  OK, if you're wondering why you get downvoted, my advice is thus. When any normal, healthy human being reads a sentence like this: > reddit is a crazed totalitarian system with Red Guards on the loose all around the communities looking for wrong opinions to report ..they immediately think to themselves "right, there's another loon", and move on. At worst they get annoyed at their once-mature community getting infested with loons, and they downvote it. If you want to have an interesting conversation, I would start with not moaning about 'totalitarianism' because you got downvoted on a social media site. You can just say that you're frustrated that the site is moderated by people who don't share your political views. That's all.
tehwebguy 5y ago
Yes but it’s never been so profitable to be a professional troll. There is no need for basically anyone to ever subject themself to a critical media who might ask, “You tweeted this horrible thing, what did you mean by that!” so they simply don’t. Their twitter / youtube / facebook become largely insulated to the extend that they want so there’s really no debating anything anyway.

trompetenaccoun 5y ago

Reddit becoming horrible is a function of how it's set up, with "community" moderators being able to ban anyone for any reason and the admins putting pressure on the mods or outright removing/replacing them where they see fit in order to only allow correct speech. If HN can be described as an autocracy with benevolent dictators at the top, reddit is a crazed totalitarian system with Red Guards on the loose all around the communities looking for wrong opinions to report. The voting and some other mechanisms they've set up makes the echo chambers complete. It progressively gets worse and worse, the main subs are already unusable and while there are niche communities that might still be worth visiting, their number keeps shrinking. Not that they literally disappear in most cases, they just get infected with reddit thought.

samhw 5y ago
OK, if you're wondering why you get downvoted, my advice is thus. When any normal, healthy human being reads a sentence like this: > reddit is a crazed totalitarian system with Red Guards on the loose all around the communities looking for wrong opinions to report ..they immediately think to themselves "right, there's another loon", and move on. At worst they get annoyed at their once-mature community getting infested with loons, and they downvote it. If you want to have an interesting conversation, I would start with not moaning about 'totalitarianism' because you got downvoted on a social media site. You can just say that you're frustrated that the site is moderated by people who don't share your political views. That's all.

tehwebguy 5y ago

Yes but it’s never been so profitable to be a professional troll. There is no need for basically anyone to ever subject themself to a critical media who might ask, “You tweeted this horrible thing, what did you mean by that!” so they simply don’t. Their twitter / youtube / facebook become largely insulated to the extend that they want so there’s really no debating anything anyway.