Comment by cerealbad | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cerealbad | Hacker News Reader

there's content creation - which seems to be reducing in length of time. (tiktok is just a vine reboot).

and content curation - which is about maximizing viewer-curator interaction (websites like twitch where an intimate experience can be created between one streamer and an audience numbering in the tens of thousands) through chat-streamer and chat-chat feedback loops and the democratic curation of of content on other platforms being re-broadcast and experienced in that shared environment. the most successful streamers are on for 6 to 12 hours a day, every day, and they essentially play the role of friend-babysitter-curator-community leader. often the 'content' being curated is pseudo-creator content, broadcasting walking through a city, videogames being played or scripted podcast/talent shows, but the niche of shared watching is growing. both re-watching of other short content created on the same platform, and long-form shared watching of sponsored documentaries, viewer donated video clips and even loops of watching others watching others. a type of 'best of the internet today' interactive and in real time.

this tracks the emergence of reality internet, where it becomes impossible to distinguish between an online and offline person, as online time increases. very similar to what andy kaufman was doing, tangentially related to the society of the spectacle and neil postman's critique of modern technology becoming a prison; fatalistic soliloquy on the doomed nature of mankind, trapped in self-reflection about nothing.

the outside becomes another experience on the inside of a screen. the internet is an extremely potent example of an old type of addiction, the 'information drug'. i often find myself listening to things online between 3x and 4x speed, the spread of information has greatly reduced the depth and quality, i might spend 20 minutes researching an the editorial board and journalist of a news piece after a brief 10-20 second glance over the actual piece. heavy users might be the first to see the fraying edges of the future to come. confusion, apathy, opportunistic tyranny to fill the void.

> heavy users might be the first to see the fraying edges of the future to come. confusion, apathy, opportunistic tyranny to fill the void.

This sounds like we're missing the "trusted editor" role. In a vaccuum of trusted editors, I'd like to see lineage information of all kinds of information saved, whether it be assertions, opinions, data, etc. This would be lineage metadata showing the evolution of a piece of information. All the way back to reproducible code or first source material. By "reproducible code", I mean a kind of code that does not exist yet today, but I hope to see, a Terraform/Pulumi-like <science/engineering/endeavor>-as-Code, expressing in automated code a way to reproduce or at best record in granular detail a scientific (chemistry, astronomy, climate, etc.), engineering (mechanical, pipefitting, construction, etc.), or human endeavor (legislation, law, regulatory compliance, etc.) conclusion or outcome. Then we'd have a path forward to automatically test the reproducibility of information, and at least have the automated start of the evaluation of "truth".

We're in the infancy of the Internet's potential, and already the energetic and cognitive load is significantly, notably expensive to ascertain even the reproducibility of facts, not to speak of the veracity of information. I've toyed around with creating my own private information repository in the form of my own Internet Archive, tagging and adding metadata/metacommentary with my own private evaluations, as I've found myself increasingly taking notes of information I consume to avoid duplicating work I did earlier to find source material while establishing the veracity of what I'm consuming (which ranges from "damifino" to "I reproduced this first-hand"), but the notes are becoming too cumbersome to maintain in Emacs Org.

My word, but it must be awfully sad to have such an outlook.

Let's take the other side of what you just said. More information today is available than at any other time in human history. Their are those who choose to spend time in a futile fashion, and there are those who choose to learn. Perceptions of which is which vary person-to-person. For instance, I read HN because there are a lot of very smart, technically-savvy people. Others might believe it a waste of time. Maybe someone spends time on pinterest, but wishes to be an interior decorator and does further homework on the pictures found. I think most of us would agree tick tock is an abject waste of time, but so what? Adults have been watching tv long before "kids these days".

Now let's consider the benefits that the information age brings. A life expectancy double what we might achieve in the wild, plentiful food, a good job, and so much more. Though some people waste their time, all this information has opened greater orders of learning to those with the inclination.

On the whole, I believe "modern technology" to be a marvelous innovation, rather than a prison. While it certainly ought to remain open to critique, this sort of nihilistic opinion has never made sense.

But the internet accelerates drug-innovation and drug-delivery to the speed of … well, of the internet. Easy to throw out 'kids these days' but its actually a different thing (at least in quantity if not quality), and kids are actually responding to it poorly.

Outdoor time has dropped precipitously. Coordination and physical agility are reputed to have dropped. Social interaction has been reduced to worse than sound bytes.

Despite its good intentions, the internet is fabulously addictive. This should not be brushed aside Pollyanna style.

Hey at least we have faster thumbs.

I can see how both of the above views are valid, but I also tend to agree with the optimistic one, that it's better to have a lot of information and let the users choose/get manipulated, than not have the option at all.

Yes of course. We just have to survive it. And the human animal is not prepared for unlimited heroin delivered to your phone.

Right, this is what I fear somewhat as well, especially more on the mental than physical side. I'm very cognizant of the fact that people have complained about the latest tech ruining society since the time of Socrates (who apparently railed against how the written language was ruining everything vs the oral memorization style of teaching and learning that came before), and yet we're all still here and doing ok.

But that being said, my personal observations of the communications and social interactions of kids and very young adults these days scares me a bit because it seriously lacks depth. People are growing up optimizing their behavior and brains (including socially) for the internet of memes, soundbites, and impermanence, and not for the "real" human world of meaningful and fruitful long-term human connections.

I'm not a believer in an artificial future singularity point, but this stuff sure looks a lot like what a singularity-believer would expect: the early stages of a trend away from humans as individual thinkers with higher-bandwidth/quality interpersonal interactions, and towards interactions that are very light and content-free because they're just the unthinking synapse firings of some larger emergent consciousness in the form of overlapping memetic mobs of humans. Perhaps this has a role in explaining political polarization/isolation as well?

Wow that's hugely optimistic to imaging anything like 'an emergent consciousness...overlapping memetic mobs'. More like, ignorant masses all reacting emotionally with no emergent anything.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com