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If you have a long standing, effective heuristic that “people with excellent, professional writing are more accurate and reliable than people with sloppy spelli
by taneq 1y ago
If you have a long standing, effective heuristic that “people with excellent, professional writing are more accurate and reliable than people with sloppy spelling and punctuation” then the appearance of a semi-infinite group of ‘people’ writing well presented, convincingly worded articles which nonetheless are riddled with misinformation, hidden logical flaws, and inconsistencies, you’re gonna end up trusting everyone a lot less.
It’s like if someone started bricking up tunnel entrances and painting ultra realistic versions of the classic Road Runner tunnel painting on them, all over the place. You’d have to stop and poke every underpass with a stick just to be sure.
- stavros 1y agoSure, your heuristic no longer works, and that's a bit inconvenient. We'll just find new ones.
- sebmellen 1y agoYeah, now you need to be able to demonstrate verbal fluency. The problem is, that inherently means a loss of “trusted anonymous” communication, which is particularly damaging to the fiber of the internet.
- acedTrex 1y agoAuthor here: Precisely, in the age where it is very difficult to ascertain the type or quality of skills you are interacting with say in a patch review or otherwise you frankly have to "judge" someone and fallback to suspicion and full verification.
- taneq 1y agoYeah I think "trust for a fluent, seemingly logically coherent anonymous responder" pretty much captures it.
- oasisaimlessly 1y ago"A bit inconvenient" might be the understatement of the year. If information requires say, 2x the time to validate, the utility of the internet is halved.
- jnxx 1y agoToo bad that the language we use is also a demonstration of social status. If I think about it, it could have a somewhat corrosive effect on that glue that keeps society in shape.