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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 i

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.

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.