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This reply seems snobbish and to ignore the huge value of the internet to ordinary people ("normies").

by dash2 2y ago

wasteduniverse 2y ago
But those people don't really care about how the internet works, they just use the big mainstream sites and go on with their lives. Everyone else only dislikes them because they're the ones being tailored to. Everything is going to become more generalized and bland because it appeals to the most amount of people, and that makes the most amount of money (and the most boring kind of Internet).
ghusto 2y ago
Reading it back I agree that it seems snobbish, and I'm sorry for that. I'm tired of bending over backwards to accommodate objectively poor behaviour though. Sometimes you just have to say "this is not for you". If we go into that with a kind heart (and not just to elevate ourselves above others), it can be a good thing. Admitting unfashionable truths lets us move on to situations where more people are happy. For my part, I'm more than happy to admit when something is not for me — be that due to a lack of intelligence, interest, or motivation — and I'm happier for it.
- fasa99 2y ago
  "Filthy normies" and such is always a hilarious bit of nerdspeak. But the crux of it, to some degree, I am normie and normie am I - i.e. it's human nature and in all of us. Facebook or reddit never set out to say "Hey, I want to be evil and polarize society". They simply wrote an algorithm, told the algorithm, "Hey algorithm, find out what people like to read, and give 'em more of it". And people answered "we love drama, we love juicy, we love gossip, we love the grey area" which it turns out, gets people worked up, polarized, and keeps eyes on the prize. Just as the original internet was a scholarly interaction method and turned out to be a porn delivery mechanism, so too with social media being intended to join people together and yet it splits us apart. Are we to blame the one who held up the mirror only for humanity to see its own ugly visage and become angered by it, hard to say. Probably we should blame them if they made 9999 gorillon dollars from it, which they did and are doing.

This reply seems snobbish and to ignore the huge value of the internet to ordinary people ("normies").

by dash2 2y ago

This reply seems snobbish and to ignore the huge value of the internet to ordinary people ("normies").

But those people don't really care about how the internet works, they just use the big mainstream sites and go on with their lives. Everyone else only dislikes them because they're the ones being tailored to. Everything is going to become more generalized and bland because it appeals to the most amount of people, and that makes the most amount of money (and the most boring kind of Internet).

ghusto 2y ago

Reading it back I agree that it seems snobbish, and I'm sorry for that. I'm tired of bending over backwards to accommodate objectively poor behaviour though. Sometimes you just have to say "this is not for you". If we go into that with a kind heart (and not just to elevate ourselves above others), it can be a good thing. Admitting unfashionable truths lets us move on to situations where more people are happy. For my part, I'm more than happy to admit when something is not for me — be that due to a lack of intelligence, interest, or motivation — and I'm happier for it.

fasa99 2y ago
"Filthy normies" and such is always a hilarious bit of nerdspeak. But the crux of it, to some degree, I am normie and normie am I - i.e. it's human nature and in all of us. Facebook or reddit never set out to say "Hey, I want to be evil and polarize society". They simply wrote an algorithm, told the algorithm, "Hey algorithm, find out what people like to read, and give 'em more of it". And people answered "we love drama, we love juicy, we love gossip, we love the grey area" which it turns out, gets people worked up, polarized, and keeps eyes on the prize. Just as the original internet was a scholarly interaction method and turned out to be a porn delivery mechanism, so too with social media being intended to join people together and yet it splits us apart. Are we to blame the one who held up the mirror only for humanity to see its own ugly visage and become angered by it, hard to say. Probably we should blame them if they made 9999 gorillon dollars from it, which they did and are doing.