I am more and more convinced that the Internet is a net negative for discourse and human socialisation, and no one is really exploring this possibility. We are all trying to make the social media experiment work and I am horrified by its result. The more we tweak and add to it (upvotes, user moderators, likes, retweets, the Algorithm), the worse it gets.
We're so used to the fast pace of modern science that we forget cultural evolution sometimes takes hundreds of years. What if we are 500 years before enough Internet philosophers have taught us how to behave online?
> I am more and more convinced that the Internet is a net negative for discourse and human socialisation, and no one is really exploring this possibility.
A huge amount has been written and spoken about this.
Apparently, not enough, or not forceful enough for a contingent of people to decide to quit the Internet for good. Where are the modern day anti-Internet luddites? Talking about it on a blog or, worse, posting about it on Twitter doesn't count, sorry.
So that's the rub, the people who realize it is horrible actually quit on it. Lots of people talk about getting of social media, but very few actually delete all of their accounts. I've removed every social account I have around four years ago. I still have a HN account, but that's about it. I talk to my family and friends about how dangerous I think social media is to our society if the topic comes up, but frankly not many people want to hear it. If I really pressed, I'd end up being "that guy" who talks too much about any topic.
I really don't think the majority of folks are going to quit social media even if every day the NYTimes, CNN, Fox News, whoever put out news stories on how horrendous it is.
My compromise is I have Facebook and Twitter accounts, but not the apps, so I have to use a browser on my phone to look at them. This means I can still see content, but no notifications and the friction is high. I'd rather go on Youtube and see what people I subscribe to are making videos about.
The Internet as a infrastructure, I think it's probably a huge net positive. Social networks on the other hand, particularly Twitter and Facebook, I would agree we would be better off without them right now.
The problem Twitter and Facebook have is size. Call it an unproven conjecture, but any network that reaches quasi-global sizes becomes a cesspool of scum and villainy, and it scales exponentially with number of users. Newer generations are discovering that niche, small communities are better, in the face of the idea of an Inter-Net.
While I enjoy HN immensely and have been participating without major issues for a decade, it would be hard for me to say even this place is the gold standard of communication. The upvote system, for example, is the major contributor to echo chamber hive mind mob thinking.
Well it's not just scale. It's also a series of business decisions that hurt civility in various ways:
1. Focus on engagement means a focus on rage inducing, soundbite esque content that provokes anger rather than a reasonable conversation.
2. Algorithmic timelines mean content is often personalised to the user, potentially either leading to an echo chamber or a fight (by showing content from people the user fundamentally disagrees with)
3. Moderation is virtually nonexistent, outsourced to third world support teams or applied unevenly/unfairly, both encouraging bad behaviour and making those affected think the system is against them.
4. Short character limits and mobile focused designs encourage snarky responses and short putdowns over more thoughtful responses.
5. The focus on reply times and posting speed in how comments are shown encourages responding based on the title alone (on sites like Reddit especially)
6. Upvote/downvote system encourages people to see content as good or bad and nothing else, with the definitions of such being heavily based on whether the content agrees with their personal biases.
And many, many other factors. Most social media sites and services are designed to make people act as unreasonably as possible.
Social networks as a concept are also a huge net positive, in my view. Corporate leeches trying to monetize everything about human interaction, we're better off without. Which does include Facebook and increasingly includes Xitter.
I disagree. While corporate interests make social networks worse, regular people are tend to be major asshats on any social network, a concept that was already known in the late 90s and today it is widespread, and crosses any cultural, economical and contextual reason. It is safe to say humans on the internet eventually behave like asshats.
The real difference between social media and real life is that you can get punched in the face for being an asshat, and in general we have a lot of brain power dedicated to making sure we fit into our tribal group and physical context.
Mind you, I did not say the Internet is an absolute negative, but in my view, the enormous benefit of instantaneous communication is negated by the impossibility of measured discourse with more than two dozen strangers.
>you can get punched in the face for being an asshat
So you believe this is right, then? I think that's literally the biggest problem with our species; it all comes down to violence, in the end.
Doesn't matter how much we've progressed society, women's rights, gay right's etc - apparently the rule of law is still "yeah, well, I can punch you in the face!" and so long as the puncher fits into societal norms, everyone will clap and cheer!
Damn we really do just form layers upon layers of tribes, and boy do we still have a lust for tribal warfare.
Ugh.. this is exactly the problem. There are nuances to my argument that your knee jerk reaction just conveniently ignores, and claims that I want violence for any degree of disagreement. "And everybody will clap and cheer!" Seriously?
This is why people cannot have intelligent discourse on the Internet. Instead of giving me the benefit of the doubt and space to elaborate my case, you point to me and say "look at this troglodyte, everybody," and find a way to use the causes and ideologies you believe in (women and gay rights, which have nothing to do with my argument) as a weapon to demonize me and my words.
If you do not see that as terrifying and anti-intellectual, you have been spending too much time on the Internet, because I truly believe that if we were sat in front of each other we would find we are of the same general opinion and would enjoy a pleasant conversation.
Honestly, this is quite tiring, so I have no interest in engaging further. You won. Have a good day.
With the length of your response, you could have actually elaborated your point further, perhaps without the drama (or with it, both is still good. Real emotion is the spicy magic that separates us from LLMs).
Capitol cops might disagree... This country has had a recent armed insurrection and people convicted of seditious conspiracy. Meanwhile the people who organized it see themselves as the victims of weaponized law enforcement and call for violence against law enforcement institutions such as judges, attorney generals, etc. It's not the entire real world, but you've got to admit it isn't just a Twitter bubble that's crazy polarized.
Yeah, a bunch of poor ignorant rednecks invading the capitol was almost an armed insurrection that almost took the power in the most powerful police state of the world.
Have people that believe this stupid bullshit ever thought more than a couple of seconds about it? What are those folks going to do later? Invade the pentagon?
Yes, the USA has become a laughable banana republic with almost Soviet amounts of propaganda. But insurrections don’t work like that. Can’t you fucking see the propaganda?
Had they destroyed the ballots, had they killed Pence, we would have been in uncharted legal and constitutional territory.
It wasn’t the insurgents who would have taken control of the government. It was the man driving them to destruction who would have taken advantage of the chaos to stay in power.
The capitol riot thing was a stalling tactic. The ones trying to take over the government were NOT the people pooping on Nancy Pelosi's desk. We have their notes, talking about how they we submitting false electors. We know Pence called up a friend to ask whether he could come up with a legal theory to justify the process. He only didn't go through with it because he thought the plotters would kill him. A significant portion of the Republican party STILL voted to not confirm Biden as president after it happened.
The real world might be tragic, violent, or worse. But, inhumane conduct on the "metaverse" is much more normalized and common than in the relative considerate society I live in.
I understand the bias here. It might be reason behind this comment. Nevertheless, it's real.
