3 ms·

I think you might be interpreting my point about SNR narrowly and literally, when I meant it in the broadest sense. Obviously social networks are not solely abo

by npunt 3y ago

I think you might be interpreting my point about SNR narrowly and literally, when I meant it in the broadest sense. Obviously social networks are not solely about exchanging information (which I never said...), they serve all sorts of other purposes, connecting and forming bonds being a major one. I think you're also not being particularly charitable in your interpretations of what I'm saying, or opening yourself up to the possibility for other ways things can operate. If you were to be, you'd find we have quite a bit of agreement about this. Total signal also matters, good point I can see how you read it that way. I'd put that in the umbrella of SNR, as my intent is to advocate for better signal - both in quantity and quality. Where I think we may disagree is that existing filtering capabilities are sufficient and broadly used. I mean, if you can imagine a world where it takes users less effort in setting up their twitter account to get the same quality output, then we're in agreement that there's work to be done on signal and noise. Currently it's a hell of a lot of effort, and you still run into a lot of unnecessary strife and bullshit. I'd push you to consider that twitter's current feature set around discourse is also not the end all be all of online communication, and there is room for improvement. If you can accept that there is room for improvement in these domains, then we're on the same page here. In fact I think this very conversation is a decent example of how the design of a medium can cause some unnecessary strife and result in the rather silly situation of being in violent agreement. Food for thought.

rglullis 3y ago
> if you can imagine a world where it takes users less effort in setting up their twitter account to get the same quality output What I am failing to understand is idea that "quality output" is a measurable metric in any meaningful way. The dimensionality of this metric would be almost as big as the number of people you have in your network, so in the end you are just trying to solve an infinite customization problem. > can cause some unnecessary strife and result in the rather silly situation of being in violent agreement. Or perhaps it is a good way to illustrate that the strife is actually necessary and should be embraced and seen as a natural consequence of any group of people who are trying to make sense of their internal worldview and how it fits with the real world? There is no place in the real world where people "connect and form bonds" by following a strict protocol and have all their interaction methods designed. Every attempt at crating those end up with a system that feels forced and boring, like speed dating, town hall meetings or those ridiculous college assemblies where they need to have a mediator to constantly remind everyone what they should and should not do. Conflict and strife is not a problem to be removed away. If you succeed at doing that, you'll end up removing an important part of what makes us human. What we need is to have better mechanisms to deal with conflict and strife, and I really don't believe that the way to go is by throwing tech designs around.
- npunt 3y ago
  > Or perhaps it is a good way to illustrate that the strife is actually necessary and should be embraced and seen as a natural consequence of any group of people who are trying to make sense of their internal worldview and how it fits with the real world? ... Conflict and strife is not a problem to be removed away. I specifically said 'unnecessary conflict' to mean the part of conflict that is induced by the limitations of the medium, the topic of this thread. I too believe that some conflict is absolutely necessary and our communication mediums must be able to hold space for that conflict. We agree! Again, I encourage you to interpret more charitably and to make fewer assumptions. This is the second time you've put words in my mouth and defended a position I'm not attacking and I'm trying to be polite but it's kinda tedious (can you see this?). The time could have been better spent in exploration; I still don't know if you see any room for improvement anywhere, you don't seem to be engaging on that. A good design discussion doesn't consist of 'no no no'.
  - rglullis 3y ago
    > 'unnecessary conflict' to mean the part of conflict that is induced by the limitations of the medium. How would you expect to do this without changing the medium itself? > I still don't know if you see any room for improvement anywhere I don't see it, no. At least not by adding "features" or by tweaking on the software implementation of the system. In regards of "social media", I am more and more convinced that the only winning move is not to play, but unfortunately we will never do it. The only option that I see left is to work on "damage reduction", which is why I've spent so much time, energy and money to see if we can get "corporate-free social media" as a viable alternative for the masses.

by npunt 3y ago

rglullis 3y ago

> if you can imagine a world where it takes users less effort in setting up their twitter account to get the same quality output What I am failing to understand is idea that "quality output" is a measurable metric in any meaningful way. The dimensionality of this metric would be almost as big as the number of people you have in your network, so in the end you are just trying to solve an infinite customization problem. > can cause some unnecessary strife and result in the rather silly situation of being in violent agreement. Or perhaps it is a good way to illustrate that the strife is actually necessary and should be embraced and seen as a natural consequence of any group of people who are trying to make sense of their internal worldview and how it fits with the real world? There is no place in the real world where people "connect and form bonds" by following a strict protocol and have all their interaction methods designed. Every attempt at crating those end up with a system that feels forced and boring, like speed dating, town hall meetings or those ridiculous college assemblies where they need to have a mediator to constantly remind everyone what they should and should not do. Conflict and strife is not a problem to be removed away. If you succeed at doing that, you'll end up removing an important part of what makes us human. What we need is to have better mechanisms to deal with conflict and strife, and I really don't believe that the way to go is by throwing tech designs around.

npunt 3y ago
> Or perhaps it is a good way to illustrate that the strife is actually necessary and should be embraced and seen as a natural consequence of any group of people who are trying to make sense of their internal worldview and how it fits with the real world? ... Conflict and strife is not a problem to be removed away. I specifically said 'unnecessary conflict' to mean the part of conflict that is induced by the limitations of the medium, the topic of this thread. I too believe that some conflict is absolutely necessary and our communication mediums must be able to hold space for that conflict. We agree! Again, I encourage you to interpret more charitably and to make fewer assumptions. This is the second time you've put words in my mouth and defended a position I'm not attacking and I'm trying to be polite but it's kinda tedious (can you see this?). The time could have been better spent in exploration; I still don't know if you see any room for improvement anywhere, you don't seem to be engaging on that. A good design discussion doesn't consist of 'no no no'.
- rglullis 3y ago
  > 'unnecessary conflict' to mean the part of conflict that is induced by the limitations of the medium. How would you expect to do this without changing the medium itself? > I still don't know if you see any room for improvement anywhere I don't see it, no. At least not by adding "features" or by tweaking on the software implementation of the system. In regards of "social media", I am more and more convinced that the only winning move is not to play, but unfortunately we will never do it. The only option that I see left is to work on "damage reduction", which is why I've spent so much time, energy and money to see if we can get "corporate-free social media" as a viable alternative for the masses.