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Some of us did expect that. The initial techno optimism about global connectivity that I think really picked up during the 90s (all of this was before my time,

Some of us did expect that. The initial techno optimism about global connectivity that I think really picked up during the 90s (all of this was before my time, correct me if I'm wrong about timing) always seemed doomed to this particular end given the lack of segmentation. You can't have a village with 8 billion people. I distinctly remember a period when the iPhone came out and the high score leaderboards for certain apps went from like a couple thousand to tens of thousands to like a million. I realized this kind of connectivity is going to select for a tiny percentage of hyper competitive winners. Those people are mixed in with billions of people not used to operating in that kind of a space. More and more people are being forced into a competition they don't really want to be a part of. The rooms are way too big and way too flat to allow for proper self selection and sorting into like minded peer groups at similar levels. They make 99% of people miserable, including many of those at the top who need to work ungodly hard to maintain positions that used to be more secure due to less global exposure. What you can do is create a village of about 200 people and their networks with a much more interesting and larger set of like minded people than what your geography limits you to, and self select and bypass gatekeepers to create new and emergent communities beyond anything people might have dreamed or expected. But that requires a kind of community maintenance and segmentation that we haven't figured out how to do yet.

asdff 4y ago
I think what makes technology so hard to be optimistic about is that there are two sides of the coin. There is the side that this is a utility for our species, that tech should exist to serve us better, that things should get more efficient and take less time. That side exists entirely in opposition to the other side of the coin, that is most likely to win out as its the more profitable side. That is the side that tech is merely a product to be marketed like any other, that it should further a profitable status quo versus introduce something new that might not be as profitable, that taking up more users time is more profitable because you can monetize more of it, etc. All the incentives of our society, are aligned to give us a lot more of the latter sort of products, and not much of the former. Imagine if the wheel were invented today; how many times will a dozen companies have reinvented it in ten years time trying to get around the patent, each with their own patentable twists to the idea? I don't believe this sort of thinking can be sustainable for long.
AnimalMuppet 4y ago
Well, take HN. HN was that - not a couple hundred, but maybe a few thousand. And it was a high quality community, and therefore worth being a part of. And therefore it grew. And as it grew, it became a more attractive target for zealots, propagandists, and trolls. And as it became a larger community, it became - to some degree - a diluted one. Metcalf's Law says that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users. V = k N^2. AnimalMuppet's Law, which takes into account the greater attractiveness of larger networks to those whose activities destroy value, says that you must subtract a term proportional to the fourth power of the number of users: V = k N^2 - K N^4. Depending on the values of k and K, there will be some optimal number N of users, beyond which the value stops growing - or, beyond which the value to each user stops growing.
- mcbishop 4y ago
  I've only been on HN for a few years, so I get to think it's an awesome community.
ryandrake 4y ago
Highly recommend High Noon on the Electronic Frontier for a glimpse of the cautious optimism of the late-80s, early-90s Internet. Book was way ahead of its time in many ways. It kind of missed mobile computing (phones) but most of the social and ethical issues in computing it covered are still relevant and debated today.

asdff 4y ago

I think what makes technology so hard to be optimistic about is that there are two sides of the coin. There is the side that this is a utility for our species, that tech should exist to serve us better, that things should get more efficient and take less time. That side exists entirely in opposition to the other side of the coin, that is most likely to win out as its the more profitable side. That is the side that tech is merely a product to be marketed like any other, that it should further a profitable status quo versus introduce something new that might not be as profitable, that taking up more users time is more profitable because you can monetize more of it, etc. All the incentives of our society, are aligned to give us a lot more of the latter sort of products, and not much of the former. Imagine if the wheel were invented today; how many times will a dozen companies have reinvented it in ten years time trying to get around the patent, each with their own patentable twists to the idea? I don't believe this sort of thinking can be sustainable for long.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago

Well, take HN. HN was that - not a couple hundred, but maybe a few thousand. And it was a high quality community, and therefore worth being a part of. And therefore it grew. And as it grew, it became a more attractive target for zealots, propagandists, and trolls. And as it became a larger community, it became - to some degree - a diluted one. Metcalf's Law says that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users. V = k N^2. AnimalMuppet's Law, which takes into account the greater attractiveness of larger networks to those whose activities destroy value, says that you must subtract a term proportional to the fourth power of the number of users: V = k N^2 - K N^4. Depending on the values of k and K, there will be some optimal number N of users, beyond which the value stops growing - or, beyond which the value to each user stops growing.

mcbishop 4y ago
I've only been on HN for a few years, so I get to think it's an awesome community.

ryandrake 4y ago

Highly recommend High Noon on the Electronic Frontier for a glimpse of the cautious optimism of the late-80s, early-90s Internet. Book was way ahead of its time in many ways. It kind of missed mobile computing (phones) but most of the social and ethical issues in computing it covered are still relevant and debated today.