5 ms·

> that it would be open and really big. I think that was the aspiration, but nobody realized there were so many people who thought 5G caused corona (and simila

by avh02 2y ago

> that it would be open and really big. I think that was the aspiration, but nobody realized there were so many people who thought 5G caused corona (and similar lack of thought process) until it was too late.

ruszki 2y ago
To rephrase it differently: it was not anticipated that the great majority of people cannot handle the amount of information, which is required for thoughtful decisions, that they happy to accept obvious contradictions to avoid self-reflection, and that they lack even basic suspicion of information's validity. We were naive to think that they can choose, or even want to choose between options, that they want to be free from central agencies to tell them what to think. We really thought that The Long Tail would happen in everything. But hey, those people won greatly, who can and want.
leovingi 2y ago
>so many people who thought 5G caused corona literally nobody thought this, perhaps except a handful of oddballs. If you want to make your case for describing the state of the internet, please avoid nonsense exaggerations like this.
- avh02 2y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/technology/coronavirus-5g-uk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/technology/coronavirus-5g... oddballs, i agree. but a dangerous group of oddballs. > Across Britain, more than 30 acts of arson and vandalism have taken place against wireless towers and other telecom gear this month, according to police reports and a telecom trade group. In roughly 80 other incidents in the country, telecom technicians have been harassed on the job. that is not a small number, we discuss smaller things on HN. And these are only the cases that have manifested in to arson or harassment, so includes zero couch conspiracy theorists.
- Ylpertnodi 2y ago
  >literally nobody thought this, perhaps except a handful of oddballs. So not literally nobody?
  - leovingi 2y ago
    Given that the original comment implied that the reason we could not have an "open and really big" internet is because of the handful of oddballs that thought 5G towers caused Corona, yes, it might as well be literally nobody.
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      The number shouldn't matter though. We can have an open and big internet regardless of how many people believe in ideas that seem to be batshit crazy to the average person. Who cares what someone else chooses to think or believe?
    - avh02 2y ago
      you can still have an open and really big internet with these people, the question is if it remains anything like the bastion of great thought the "open and really big" part implies (along with the example provided in the original post I was replying to)
- _heimdall 2y ago
  A coworker of mine tried to convince me of this during the pandemic. I guess she realized I was a bit more antic establishment than normal and thought I'd like that hypothesis. It was a small minority, but there were (and are) absolutely people who believed this. They also usually explain it poorly, I think their idea really is that 5G radio signals caused disease but it gets morphed into a claim that 5G somehow created the virus that caused the disease.
  - account42 2y ago
    Ok but then how is this relevant? Crazy uncles have existed long before the Internet.
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      > literally nobody thought this Well it seems relevant because the comment I replied to was minimizing the number of people who thought 5G may have caused covid to a miniscule number of people. I raised my experience because I only know a small number of people and did in fact know someone in real life who believed this and sent me plenty of links and whitepapers making the same claims. Is my anecdotal experience statistically significant? Absolutely not. But I also hesitate to believe that the number of people who bought into the idea was so small as to effectively not exist.
    - smackeyacky 2y ago
      Crazy uncles were unable to find other crazy uncles and coagulate into the fatbergs of information flow before the internet. Now the algorithms push them together.
      - _heimdall 2y ago
        But again, who cares if someone else or a group of people think something you find to be crazy? If they act on it that's totally different, but we have laws for that already.
        2y ago
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
_heimdall 2y ago
Oh people have known for a long time that the average person has crazy ideas. There's a reason the US election system isn't by popular vote, our founders believed that "the mob" couldn't be trusted and there needed to be a electoral escape hatch to make sure reasonable people were elected. With that said, what's the problem with people having ideas that seem crazy and baseless? Does it really harm you at all if someone else believes 5G causes covid? And does it harm you enough to say that their speech should be limited rather than free?
- lapphi 2y ago
  “The mob” being the voting citizens of a free and open democratic society, of course. Interesting point of view/source of internal tension there.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    Yeah for sure. Revolutions are messy and its easy to lose sight of that when you're on the winning side. I'm personally very glad to not live under a imperial monarchy, but I do wish the founders could have kept their concerns over voters out of the way. There are historical examples of why trusting the mob goes poorly, but keeping that on the table fundamentally ruins the point of a democratic society. Its all well and good to say we need an educated populace, but the system should offer the public a chance to live up to the ideal rather than guard against their failure.
    - kjkjadksj 2y ago
      I don’t think the founding fathers much less the ancient greek democrats anticipated the level of idiocy in the public discourse we are dealing with today. A huge swath of the country has been manipulated by propaganda to the point of not believing in reality at all. It’s a dangerous position we find ourselves in today.
      - _heimdall 2y ago
        I think the founding fathers actually had a more educates populace than we do today. For all the modern education and fields of study we have today, is the level of idiocy an anomaly or is it a symptom of of modern education?

by avh02 2y ago

ruszki 2y ago

To rephrase it differently: it was not anticipated that the great majority of people cannot handle the amount of information, which is required for thoughtful decisions, that they happy to accept obvious contradictions to avoid self-reflection, and that they lack even basic suspicion of information's validity. We were naive to think that they can choose, or even want to choose between options, that they want to be free from central agencies to tell them what to think. We really thought that The Long Tail would happen in everything. But hey, those people won greatly, who can and want.

leovingi 2y ago

>so many people who thought 5G caused corona literally nobody thought this, perhaps except a handful of oddballs. If you want to make your case for describing the state of the internet, please avoid nonsense exaggerations like this.

avh02 2y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/technology/coronavirus-5g-uk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/technology/coronavirus-5g... oddballs, i agree. but a dangerous group of oddballs. > Across Britain, more than 30 acts of arson and vandalism have taken place against wireless towers and other telecom gear this month, according to police reports and a telecom trade group. In roughly 80 other incidents in the country, telecom technicians have been harassed on the job. that is not a small number, we discuss smaller things on HN. And these are only the cases that have manifested in to arson or harassment, so includes zero couch conspiracy theorists.
Ylpertnodi 2y ago
>literally nobody thought this, perhaps except a handful of oddballs. So not literally nobody?
- leovingi 2y ago
  Given that the original comment implied that the reason we could not have an "open and really big" internet is because of the handful of oddballs that thought 5G towers caused Corona, yes, it might as well be literally nobody.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    The number shouldn't matter though. We can have an open and big internet regardless of how many people believe in ideas that seem to be batshit crazy to the average person. Who cares what someone else chooses to think or believe?
  - avh02 2y ago
    you can still have an open and really big internet with these people, the question is if it remains anything like the bastion of great thought the "open and really big" part implies (along with the example provided in the original post I was replying to)
_heimdall 2y ago
A coworker of mine tried to convince me of this during the pandemic. I guess she realized I was a bit more antic establishment than normal and thought I'd like that hypothesis. It was a small minority, but there were (and are) absolutely people who believed this. They also usually explain it poorly, I think their idea really is that 5G radio signals caused disease but it gets morphed into a claim that 5G somehow created the virus that caused the disease.
- account42 2y ago
  Ok but then how is this relevant? Crazy uncles have existed long before the Internet.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    > literally nobody thought this Well it seems relevant because the comment I replied to was minimizing the number of people who thought 5G may have caused covid to a miniscule number of people. I raised my experience because I only know a small number of people and did in fact know someone in real life who believed this and sent me plenty of links and whitepapers making the same claims. Is my anecdotal experience statistically significant? Absolutely not. But I also hesitate to believe that the number of people who bought into the idea was so small as to effectively not exist.
  - smackeyacky 2y ago
    Crazy uncles were unable to find other crazy uncles and coagulate into the fatbergs of information flow before the internet. Now the algorithms push them together.
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      But again, who cares if someone else or a group of people think something you find to be crazy? If they act on it that's totally different, but we have laws for that already.
      - 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

_heimdall 2y ago

Oh people have known for a long time that the average person has crazy ideas. There's a reason the US election system isn't by popular vote, our founders believed that "the mob" couldn't be trusted and there needed to be a electoral escape hatch to make sure reasonable people were elected. With that said, what's the problem with people having ideas that seem crazy and baseless? Does it really harm you at all if someone else believes 5G causes covid? And does it harm you enough to say that their speech should be limited rather than free?

lapphi 2y ago
“The mob” being the voting citizens of a free and open democratic society, of course. Interesting point of view/source of internal tension there.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  Yeah for sure. Revolutions are messy and its easy to lose sight of that when you're on the winning side. I'm personally very glad to not live under a imperial monarchy, but I do wish the founders could have kept their concerns over voters out of the way. There are historical examples of why trusting the mob goes poorly, but keeping that on the table fundamentally ruins the point of a democratic society. Its all well and good to say we need an educated populace, but the system should offer the public a chance to live up to the ideal rather than guard against their failure.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    I don’t think the founding fathers much less the ancient greek democrats anticipated the level of idiocy in the public discourse we are dealing with today. A huge swath of the country has been manipulated by propaganda to the point of not believing in reality at all. It’s a dangerous position we find ourselves in today.
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      I think the founding fathers actually had a more educates populace than we do today. For all the modern education and fields of study we have today, is the level of idiocy an anomaly or is it a symptom of of modern education?