7 ms·

The author sort of (but not really) acknowledges this midway through, but this is basically a summary of the most recent Technology Connections video, Algorithm

The author sort of (but not really) acknowledges this midway through, but this is basically a summary of the most recent Technology Connections video, Algorithms are breaking how we think: https://youtu.be/QEJpZjg8GuA https://youtu.be/QEJpZjg8GuA I'd rather they acknowledge Alec as the inspiration/source for this post at the beginning and explicitly, rather than just mentioning the video in passing midway through, but at least they do link to it!

tom_usher 2y ago
I was definitely influenced to write this by Alec's excellent video which I recommend everyone watch. I'd hoped it would be a way to share my own opinions on it, summarise my own personal concerns, as well as adding my own recommendations - but totally appreciate if you feel it is derivative, and I appreciate the call out. As a big Technology Connections fan I certainly don't intend to steal his work. It's also intended as something you can link to your friends and family that might be a little more digestible than a 30 minute video.
- scics 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - lolinder 2y ago
    Hey, that's not fair. We all engage with other people's ideas all the time, no one is really a unique thinker. The best model I have for intellectual activity is that it's a multiple-millennia-long conversation between people over generations. The main thing is that it's important to acknowledge who it is that you're replying to and to be very clear about to what degree you're synthesizing their thoughts versus contributing your own. But we're all derivative thinkers in the end, even those of us who get famous for original thinking.
    - scics 2y ago
      > We’re all derivative thinkers in the end Some more derivative than others. If someone is going to expound on unique thought, I’d hope they live in a cave in the woods making unique cave drawings with their feces or riding a pale green elephant wearing magnetic boots upside down within a large refrigerator. If you want to really be a unique thinker, sure you can listen, and aggregate, summarize, but don’t regurgitate.
- pseudosaid 2y ago
  sharing similar ideas is never stealing. Your vantage point is unique and everyone should be espousing their take on the lack of agency running our lives these days.
- jasode 2y ago
  >by Alec's excellent video which I recommend everyone watch. I get what your advice is about but to add some nuance which didn't cover... you should consider that I learned of Alec's Technology Connections channel 9 years ago because the Youtube algorithm suggested it to me. Why did Youtube do that? It was because I had watched Ben's Applied Science excellent video showing vinyl grooves under an electron microscope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuCdsyCWmt8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuCdsyCWmt8 So the first Alec video I got exposed to was his related topic on vinyl records (click "Oldest" to see them) : https://www.youtube.com/@TechnologyConnections/videos https://www.youtube.com/@TechnologyConnections/videos I'd argue that the Youtube algorithm is very good at finding adjacent videos of interest especially in educational topics and DIY repair tutorials. You're suggesting people go to Youtube subscriptions feeds but people have a list of favorites in their subscriptions often because of the algorithm. There's a bit of chicken-vs-egg situation going on there. What a good algorithm does is help users with the Explore-vs-Exploit tradeoff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration%E2%80%93exploitation_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration%E2%80%93exploitati... - Explore --> Youtube algorithm sidebar recommendations of related videos. - Exploit --> add a worthy creator to subscription feed and get alerted to new releases from that person The "explore" part is helped by algorithms because they can suggest videos you would have never thought of because you don't know the keywords or jargon to type into a Youtube search box to get to it directly. "You don't know what you don't know." But don't use the algorithm for politics or click on anything that has a thumbnail with the shocked Pikachu face. That just starts a feedback loop of crap. Arguably, the algorithms could put one into a non-productive engagement loop never to escape. Personally, I don't think it's a big risk for educational/DIY topics because your brain gets saturated with "too much information" and hits a stopping point where you don't want to learn any more. So... Algorithms can be bad ... but you can also make them work for you.
  - pests 2y ago
    I agree with you almost completely. I never used YT as a content source until a few years ago - I’d never open the app and only watch videos linked or embedded / looking up a specific how to video. Now it’s different though. I never go to my subscription feed - the front page algo keeps me up to date on any new content from people I want to see updates on. I’ve noticed too it almost has a “shadow subscription” where even though I am not subscribed to certain channels, it knows I watch every video by them so it gets on my front page too. The front page really has a “vibe” that follows my interests around. Watch a few too many Minecraft videos or car repair and soon you start seeing more and more of the front page being those topics. Get a new interest in pyramids? Devlogs? Nature? The front page slowly decays old interests and promotes new ones. Which is again why I don’t check my sub feed - it’s a graveyard of interests, many of which I don’t care about right now. The algo surfaces the ones I do.
- bryant 2y ago
  Can you just link the video at the very top and indicate in the first paragraph that you were directly inspired by the video? It's only fair.
- EasyMark 2y ago
  Don't feel bad about it. He wasn't the first person to point this out, it was pointed out much earlier than his video. It's enough that you cited him and gave credit.
zdw 2y ago
This video is overall better in terms of emphasis, and goes into how to use tools available to intentionally curate the media that you choose to consume as a primary method, rather than it being hidden in a list.
hooverd 2y ago
Technology connections is great. I've never been more excited to listen to a man talk about dishwashers for 20 minutes.
- Xiol32 2y ago
  Still can't find powder where I am. It's all tabs. I need that prewash, dammit!
  - gattilorenz 2y ago
    I just cut off a slice of tab (using one of the dirty knives) and throw it in the bottom of the dishwasher before starting it.
    - mulmen 2y ago
      You’re still paying the premium for tabs.
  - petepete 2y ago
    In the UK the only supermarket I can find that sells powder (after trying lots) is Sainsbury's. https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/sainsburys-concentrated-dishwasher-powder-1kg https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/sainsburys-conce... I asked in Tesco and the young lad who worked there (probably 18-19) had never heard of it. I still dispense it from a Finish powder bottle I've had for more than a decade.
- atonse 2y ago
  This is exactly why I describe HN as “my home on the internet” These are my fellow people that will happily watch a 20 or 40 min video about how dishwashers work, or his more recent video about replicating old style Christmas lights.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    I tried box detergent because of his dishwasher video, and that's probably saved me hundreds of dollars at this point, with the added benefit of my dishes actually get cleaner. I also dumped a crappy beverage cooler in my office for a cheap as hell box mini-fridge, which actually maintains temperature enough that I can store cream for coffee and ice down here, and it uses less energy then the unit before.
AndyKelley 2y ago
I'm sure Alec would celebrate that his ideology, which is also not original, is spreading.
cameldrv 2y ago
Great video, but this is something lots of people have been talking about for over a decade.
nerevarthelame 2y ago
Alec also cited this video as at least a partial motivator for his video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNOol5OTasw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNOol5OTasw It focuses on the harmful nature of infinitely scrolling content. Cutting out all infinite scrolling apps has had a hugely positive effect on my productivity and mental health.
- latexr 2y ago
  How does HN fit into that? I’m not trying to be cheeky, I’m genuinely interested, HN is technically an infinite website (though you do have to click “More”) yet you’re here. Do you use the noprocrast settings? Does HN just fit differently into your brain? Something else?
  - atrus 2y ago
    There's a bit of a mental difference between being able to (literally) endlessly swipe up to the next tiktok vs having to click the next button on hn though.
    - 4gotunameagain 2y ago
      Definitely, but as you said, it's only a bit. Things like hn or old.reddit still carry most if not all of the negative effects of infinite feeds. What I would give credit to hn for is that being text only, it forces you at least to think a bit and not blindly consume a video for example.
      - doubled112 2y ago
        On HN, at least, once I get a few pages in I usually realize I’m just seeing articles from a few hours/days ago. I know then it is time to take a break. It isn’t infinite the same way TikTok will or YouTube used to keep playing something you haven’t seen yet.
        4gotunameagain 2y ago
daniel_reetz 2y ago
Since they already reference Technology Connections in the article, and since this is a great essay but not new ideas, let's also call out other important voices - in particular Shoshana Zuboff's "Surveillance Capitalism", Cory Doctorow, and the many others who have put their backs into helping us understand how these sick systems work.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
gcanyon 2y ago
Thanks! I immediately thought of the TC video when I saw the title, and wondered if there was a point to the article beyond the video.
mnky9800n 2y ago
Steve jobs said computers are a bicycle for the mind. Falling off a bicycle without a helmet is a great way to become a donut. Maybe computer users need helmets too. Please join me in abusing this metaphor.
gonzobonzo 2y ago
I tried watching that video, but found it to be pretty bad. The beginning was good - demonstrating how much information we have at our fingertips, yet don't use. But then it veers off into what feels like a lot of personal frustrations he has - with the replies he's gotten at BlueSky, with politics, with the media, etc., and it feels like he's using algorithms as an excuse to vent against things he doesn't like. The worst part is, it feels like he's making the same mistakes he's warning others about yet doesn't even realize it. He claims the bad BlueSky users are the result of algorithms, but doesn't (from what I can tell) see that his problem is that he's paying attention to a feed that brings those people to him. He complains about social media turning everything into a monolithic good vs. evil outrage generator, but then he does the exact same thing when talking about the New York Time's Canada editorial. You can say he's justified in that, but isn't everyone going to believe that they're the exception and that their outrage is justified? I've seen this kind of criticism before, where it feels like someone is captured by something, can't escape it, gets annoyed by certain elements of it, and then creates a criticism of it that's more about venting their personal frustrations than actually escaping it (since they can't see how trapped they themselves are). I find this claim unlikely, since there have always been crazies on the internet, and main issue is that a single crazy person can be online 24/7 with an output that dwarfs a dozen normal people.
C-x_C-f 2y ago
In the spirit of the video (and the article), I'm watching this on Freetube [0] while hiding the comments, recommended videos tab, and pretty much everything else apart from the video description. [0] https://freetubeapp.io/ https://freetubeapp.io/
- ip26 2y ago
  … and you are watching it because the HackerNews algorithm put this link on the top of its feed.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
    No algo, but upvotes plus some curation from @dang.
Xen9 2y ago
Malgorhitms are. We could, if we didn't confuse use it with LoTR entities, have belgorhitms, which would not only be recommended by Kahneman & Tversky, but also recommend by intelligence analysts, the historical opposites of corporate analysts, minions Belegron. Algorhitms, "changing how one thinks" is real, and ultimately good. The social changes, when they start expecting you to Anki your work contract (which would, if the Anki was monitored, be highly legally effective against you); or requiring you know Kellyed Bayesian decision theory because that's a prequsite for getting reasonably priced insurance, or simply, surviving, that is unknown. I give 37.7% confidence Elon Musk was gaming in 2025 U.S. politics using construct akin to a Bayesian decision tree. It would be great if one didn't have to change how one thinks, whether they delve into CLRS or TikTok.

tom_usher 2y ago

I was definitely influenced to write this by Alec's excellent video which I recommend everyone watch. I'd hoped it would be a way to share my own opinions on it, summarise my own personal concerns, as well as adding my own recommendations - but totally appreciate if you feel it is derivative, and I appreciate the call out. As a big Technology Connections fan I certainly don't intend to steal his work. It's also intended as something you can link to your friends and family that might be a little more digestible than a 30 minute video.

scics 2y ago
[flagged]
- lolinder 2y ago
  Hey, that's not fair. We all engage with other people's ideas all the time, no one is really a unique thinker. The best model I have for intellectual activity is that it's a multiple-millennia-long conversation between people over generations. The main thing is that it's important to acknowledge who it is that you're replying to and to be very clear about to what degree you're synthesizing their thoughts versus contributing your own. But we're all derivative thinkers in the end, even those of us who get famous for original thinking.
  - scics 2y ago
    > We’re all derivative thinkers in the end Some more derivative than others. If someone is going to expound on unique thought, I’d hope they live in a cave in the woods making unique cave drawings with their feces or riding a pale green elephant wearing magnetic boots upside down within a large refrigerator. If you want to really be a unique thinker, sure you can listen, and aggregate, summarize, but don’t regurgitate.
pseudosaid 2y ago
sharing similar ideas is never stealing. Your vantage point is unique and everyone should be espousing their take on the lack of agency running our lives these days.
jasode 2y ago
>by Alec's excellent video which I recommend everyone watch. I get what your advice is about but to add some nuance which didn't cover... you should consider that I learned of Alec's Technology Connections channel 9 years ago because the Youtube algorithm suggested it to me. Why did Youtube do that? It was because I had watched Ben's Applied Science excellent video showing vinyl grooves under an electron microscope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuCdsyCWmt8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuCdsyCWmt8 So the first Alec video I got exposed to was his related topic on vinyl records (click "Oldest" to see them) : https://www.youtube.com/@TechnologyConnections/videos https://www.youtube.com/@TechnologyConnections/videos I'd argue that the Youtube algorithm is very good at finding adjacent videos of interest especially in educational topics and DIY repair tutorials. You're suggesting people go to Youtube subscriptions feeds but people have a list of favorites in their subscriptions often because of the algorithm. There's a bit of chicken-vs-egg situation going on there. What a good algorithm does is help users with the Explore-vs-Exploit tradeoff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration%E2%80%93exploitation_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration%E2%80%93exploitati... - Explore --> Youtube algorithm sidebar recommendations of related videos. - Exploit --> add a worthy creator to subscription feed and get alerted to new releases from that person The "explore" part is helped by algorithms because they can suggest videos you would have never thought of because you don't know the keywords or jargon to type into a Youtube search box to get to it directly. "You don't know what you don't know." But don't use the algorithm for politics or click on anything that has a thumbnail with the shocked Pikachu face. That just starts a feedback loop of crap. Arguably, the algorithms could put one into a non-productive engagement loop never to escape. Personally, I don't think it's a big risk for educational/DIY topics because your brain gets saturated with "too much information" and hits a stopping point where you don't want to learn any more. So... Algorithms can be bad ... but you can also make them work for you.
- pests 2y ago
  I agree with you almost completely. I never used YT as a content source until a few years ago - I’d never open the app and only watch videos linked or embedded / looking up a specific how to video. Now it’s different though. I never go to my subscription feed - the front page algo keeps me up to date on any new content from people I want to see updates on. I’ve noticed too it almost has a “shadow subscription” where even though I am not subscribed to certain channels, it knows I watch every video by them so it gets on my front page too. The front page really has a “vibe” that follows my interests around. Watch a few too many Minecraft videos or car repair and soon you start seeing more and more of the front page being those topics. Get a new interest in pyramids? Devlogs? Nature? The front page slowly decays old interests and promotes new ones. Which is again why I don’t check my sub feed - it’s a graveyard of interests, many of which I don’t care about right now. The algo surfaces the ones I do.
bryant 2y ago
Can you just link the video at the very top and indicate in the first paragraph that you were directly inspired by the video? It's only fair.
EasyMark 2y ago
Don't feel bad about it. He wasn't the first person to point this out, it was pointed out much earlier than his video. It's enough that you cited him and gave credit.

zdw 2y ago

This video is overall better in terms of emphasis, and goes into how to use tools available to intentionally curate the media that you choose to consume as a primary method, rather than it being hidden in a list.

hooverd 2y ago

Technology connections is great. I've never been more excited to listen to a man talk about dishwashers for 20 minutes.

Xiol32 2y ago
Still can't find powder where I am. It's all tabs. I need that prewash, dammit!
- gattilorenz 2y ago
  I just cut off a slice of tab (using one of the dirty knives) and throw it in the bottom of the dishwasher before starting it.
  - mulmen 2y ago
    You’re still paying the premium for tabs.
- petepete 2y ago
  In the UK the only supermarket I can find that sells powder (after trying lots) is Sainsbury's. https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/sainsburys-concentrated-dishwasher-powder-1kg https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/sainsburys-conce... I asked in Tesco and the young lad who worked there (probably 18-19) had never heard of it. I still dispense it from a Finish powder bottle I've had for more than a decade.
atonse 2y ago
This is exactly why I describe HN as “my home on the internet” These are my fellow people that will happily watch a 20 or 40 min video about how dishwashers work, or his more recent video about replicating old style Christmas lights.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  I tried box detergent because of his dishwasher video, and that's probably saved me hundreds of dollars at this point, with the added benefit of my dishes actually get cleaner. I also dumped a crappy beverage cooler in my office for a cheap as hell box mini-fridge, which actually maintains temperature enough that I can store cream for coffee and ice down here, and it uses less energy then the unit before.

AndyKelley 2y ago

I'm sure Alec would celebrate that his ideology, which is also not original, is spreading.

cameldrv 2y ago

Great video, but this is something lots of people have been talking about for over a decade.

nerevarthelame 2y ago

Alec also cited this video as at least a partial motivator for his video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNOol5OTasw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNOol5OTasw It focuses on the harmful nature of infinitely scrolling content. Cutting out all infinite scrolling apps has had a hugely positive effect on my productivity and mental health.

latexr 2y ago
How does HN fit into that? I’m not trying to be cheeky, I’m genuinely interested, HN is technically an infinite website (though you do have to click “More”) yet you’re here. Do you use the noprocrast settings? Does HN just fit differently into your brain? Something else?
- atrus 2y ago
  There's a bit of a mental difference between being able to (literally) endlessly swipe up to the next tiktok vs having to click the next button on hn though.
  - 4gotunameagain 2y ago
    Definitely, but as you said, it's only a bit. Things like hn or old.reddit still carry most if not all of the negative effects of infinite feeds. What I would give credit to hn for is that being text only, it forces you at least to think a bit and not blindly consume a video for example.
    - doubled112 2y ago
      On HN, at least, once I get a few pages in I usually realize I’m just seeing articles from a few hours/days ago. I know then it is time to take a break. It isn’t infinite the same way TikTok will or YouTube used to keep playing something you haven’t seen yet.
      - 4gotunameagain 2y ago

daniel_reetz 2y ago

Since they already reference Technology Connections in the article, and since this is a great essay but not new ideas, let's also call out other important voices - in particular Shoshana Zuboff's "Surveillance Capitalism", Cory Doctorow, and the many others who have put their backs into helping us understand how these sick systems work.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

gcanyon 2y ago

Thanks! I immediately thought of the TC video when I saw the title, and wondered if there was a point to the article beyond the video.

mnky9800n 2y ago

Steve jobs said computers are a bicycle for the mind. Falling off a bicycle without a helmet is a great way to become a donut. Maybe computer users need helmets too. Please join me in abusing this metaphor.

gonzobonzo 2y ago

I tried watching that video, but found it to be pretty bad. The beginning was good - demonstrating how much information we have at our fingertips, yet don't use. But then it veers off into what feels like a lot of personal frustrations he has - with the replies he's gotten at BlueSky, with politics, with the media, etc., and it feels like he's using algorithms as an excuse to vent against things he doesn't like. The worst part is, it feels like he's making the same mistakes he's warning others about yet doesn't even realize it. He claims the bad BlueSky users are the result of algorithms, but doesn't (from what I can tell) see that his problem is that he's paying attention to a feed that brings those people to him. He complains about social media turning everything into a monolithic good vs. evil outrage generator, but then he does the exact same thing when talking about the New York Time's Canada editorial. You can say he's justified in that, but isn't everyone going to believe that they're the exception and that their outrage is justified? I've seen this kind of criticism before, where it feels like someone is captured by something, can't escape it, gets annoyed by certain elements of it, and then creates a criticism of it that's more about venting their personal frustrations than actually escaping it (since they can't see how trapped they themselves are). I find this claim unlikely, since there have always been crazies on the internet, and main issue is that a single crazy person can be online 24/7 with an output that dwarfs a dozen normal people.

C-x_C-f 2y ago

In the spirit of the video (and the article), I'm watching this on Freetube [0] while hiding the comments, recommended videos tab, and pretty much everything else apart from the video description. [0] https://freetubeapp.io/ https://freetubeapp.io/

ip26 2y ago
… and you are watching it because the HackerNews algorithm put this link on the top of its feed.
- ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
  No algo, but upvotes plus some curation from @dang.

Xen9 2y ago

Malgorhitms are. We could, if we didn't confuse use it with LoTR entities, have belgorhitms, which would not only be recommended by Kahneman & Tversky, but also recommend by intelligence analysts, the historical opposites of corporate analysts, minions Belegron. Algorhitms, "changing how one thinks" is real, and ultimately good. The social changes, when they start expecting you to Anki your work contract (which would, if the Anki was monitored, be highly legally effective against you); or requiring you know Kellyed Bayesian decision theory because that's a prequsite for getting reasonably priced insurance, or simply, surviving, that is unknown. I give 37.7% confidence Elon Musk was gaming in 2025 U.S. politics using construct akin to a Bayesian decision tree. It would be great if one didn't have to change how one thinks, whether they delve into CLRS or TikTok.