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Meh. There's a long history (especially here on HN) of hyperfocusing on unfortunate edge cases of technology and ignoring the vast good they do. Someone posts s

Meh. There's a long history (especially here on HN) of hyperfocusing on unfortunate edge cases of technology and ignoring the vast good they do. Someone posts some BS on twitterface and it leads to a lynching - yes, bad, but this is the exception not the rule. The rule is that billions of people can now communicate directly with each other in nearly real time, which is incredible. So call me skeptical. Maybe the tech isn't perfect, but it will never be perfect. Does it do more harm than good? I don't know enough about this product, but I am not going to draw a conclusion from one lawsuit.

llamaimperative 2y ago
There's a long history of taking the dulled down, de-risked, mitigated, and ultimately successful technologies that we've allowed to proliferate our society and say "see, no need to do dulling down, de-risking, mitigation!" Bioweapons haven't proliferated through dedicated effort to prevent it. Nuclear weapons aren't used through dedicated effort to prevent it. Gangs don't rule our civilization through dedicated effort to prevent it. Chattel slavery doesn't exist in the western world through dedicated effort to eliminate and prevent it. Bad outcomes aren't impossible by default, and they're probably not even less likely than good outcomes. Bad outcomes are avoided through effort to avoid them!
- stickfigure 2y ago
  You just compared twitter to slavery and nuclear weapons. Clearly Godwin's law is overdue for an update.
- Eisenstein 2y ago
  Yet we also had 'comic books are making kids amoral and violent', 'TV is making kids amoral and violent', 'video games are making kids amoral and violent', 'dungeons and dragons is making kids amoral and violent'...
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    Sure! Some technologies are fine. Some of them are not. The existence of one set does not negate the existence of the other.
  - p_j_w 2y ago
    The existence of those movements doesnt say much except that we need to carefully consider things to avoid overreach. Unless you think we should rethink our approaches to Chattel Slavery and proliferation of biological weapons because we want to avoid people complaining about and trying unsuccessfully to ban violent video games.
    - Eisenstein 2y ago
      > The existence of those movements doesnt say much except that we need to carefully consider things to avoid overreach. It says that people react to new media technologies that target children the same way pretty consistently.
      - llamaimperative 2y ago
        No, it says that you can decide what reaction you're looking for across a global population of billions of people and succeed in finding it. True of any reaction to any object or idea.
        Eisenstein 2y ago
        I'm sure you could, but the things I mentioned are culturally American, as is the lawsuit.
        llamaimperative 2y ago
        What makes this more culturally American than the people who kick and holler over even the mention of regulatory scrutiny? Confirmation bias amigo

llamaimperative 2y ago

There's a long history of taking the dulled down, de-risked, mitigated, and ultimately successful technologies that we've allowed to proliferate our society and say "see, no need to do dulling down, de-risking, mitigation!" Bioweapons haven't proliferated through dedicated effort to prevent it. Nuclear weapons aren't used through dedicated effort to prevent it. Gangs don't rule our civilization through dedicated effort to prevent it. Chattel slavery doesn't exist in the western world through dedicated effort to eliminate and prevent it. Bad outcomes aren't impossible by default, and they're probably not even less likely than good outcomes. Bad outcomes are avoided through effort to avoid them!

stickfigure 2y ago
You just compared twitter to slavery and nuclear weapons. Clearly Godwin's law is overdue for an update.
Eisenstein 2y ago
Yet we also had 'comic books are making kids amoral and violent', 'TV is making kids amoral and violent', 'video games are making kids amoral and violent', 'dungeons and dragons is making kids amoral and violent'...
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Sure! Some technologies are fine. Some of them are not. The existence of one set does not negate the existence of the other.
- p_j_w 2y ago
  The existence of those movements doesnt say much except that we need to carefully consider things to avoid overreach. Unless you think we should rethink our approaches to Chattel Slavery and proliferation of biological weapons because we want to avoid people complaining about and trying unsuccessfully to ban violent video games.
  - Eisenstein 2y ago
    > The existence of those movements doesnt say much except that we need to carefully consider things to avoid overreach. It says that people react to new media technologies that target children the same way pretty consistently.
    - llamaimperative 2y ago
      No, it says that you can decide what reaction you're looking for across a global population of billions of people and succeed in finding it. True of any reaction to any object or idea.
      - Eisenstein 2y ago
        I'm sure you could, but the things I mentioned are culturally American, as is the lawsuit.
        llamaimperative 2y ago
        What makes this more culturally American than the people who kick and holler over even the mention of regulatory scrutiny? Confirmation bias amigo