Hacker News Reader

Comment by jamesandthewolf | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a fan of Facebook and starting to see linkedin heading the same way, I just don't get the look at my one it's bigger then yours I don't understand this so don't join in the game. I personally feel like Facebook and lots of social media is more a fashion statement or cheap thrill. I kind of am liking it here as it's more meaningful and feels like more of an education then a show off session. Facebook's ideas seam more on how do we make more money, then how can we leave the world in a better place. We should protect privacy not profit off and take advantage of the legal flaws around this area. I also feel that Facebook manipulate others when I did use it everyone was always happy always a nice story but reality is never this way life is ups and downs and sometimes it's nice to keep those ups and downs private and not share them for humanity to expose and profit off.

View on HN

You made me think, is it even possible to create a social media network geared towards education (sharing skills and ideas) for the masses?

I suppose YouTube is somewhat there. But it's blended with so much crap.

Maybe it's possible, however you would need like a law to allow freedoms but not hinder on others freedoms, maybe like a art platform where you can only discuss via symbols and signs, original artwork or images that are approved but then you enter a kind of dictatorship platform it's a fine line.

Yet YouTubers constantly make clickbait titles like "Tour of my 10 MILLLION DOLLAR house" or "I gave away $50,000"

Well yes, but 3Blue1Brown exists on the same site for example.

And they also have a page on facebook.

Have you met one of “the masses”? That’s simply what they want - not educational math videos.

Anything “for the masses” has to compete to win over the average and below average intellects. From what I can tell, that means that you have to get more and more sensationalistic to keep market share. You’re competing with a lot of addictive content out there, and educational content generally doesn’t fare well in that regard. Remember all of those educational video games in the past? Math blasters? They sucked. There’s no way they could compete with Mario and Zelda. This is the same phenomenon.

Is life and being alive not already the game that achieves this unless I'm mistaken it's the ultimate education platform, so maybe the answers are in finding a new way to address it.

People play games and consume media mostly to get away from life, because life has many aspects that suck.

Touché good human. Touché!

> You’re competing with a lot of addictive content out there, and educational content generally doesn’t fare well in that regard. Remember all of those educational video games in the past? Math blasters? They sucked. There’s no way they could compete with Mario and Zelda. This is the same phenomenon.

I think you took the wrong lesson here (seems appropriate given the subject).

Edutainment (Word Rescue and so on) wasn't unpopular because people are stupid. It was unpopular because it wasn't very good. They chased two rabbits and lost them both (education, entertainment).

Mario was more fun, better art, and probably better for your mind.

OfficeHours.global is working on it…

Social network, no. Social networks are for talking about yourself, and that's generally not very productive for educational purposes.

However, in the slightly earlier life of the internet BBSes and forums were all the rage, and those were actually useful, because the focus was on discussing common interests instead of everyone just showing themselves off (and forums are still around! Discourse is a modern open source implementation).

Which is probably also why people like HN, because it still follows the forum pattern rather than the social network pattern.

Some subreddits are also useful for this, when you get into somewhat less controversial corners like learning math or music theory.

Stack Overflow and its various spinoffs is probably another good real-world example.

Concerning social networks, it's even more than just talking about yourself. It's about creators' wants of acknowledgement/views and the greed and addiction associated with it.

Of course users in a hypothetical social education network would want views from their material too, but it would require the removal of sinking to the lowest common denominator from the equation. As you pointed out, that seems to already exist in specific forums/sites/etc.

Really, I guess it comes down to the users. People who want to learn will seek out education and discourse wherever they can. And those who don't seek it out, either don't want to or are unaware that they can. Is it possible to make education and sharing of ideas more attractive via a social network to that second group?

Yes however when you have allowed a "free" platform to be used be adolescents and made it normal part of life then you start exploiting that, the education part becomes unimportant and it's more about the creators then about helping. Just put an 18 plus limit on it maybe ban it from kids as they are the ones who are so easily manipulated they don't know fact from fiction and it makes the rumours worse. If kids are learning their truth from social media it's a problem as it becomes engraved in their thinking.

I don't think you can ban anything from kids. They'll always find a way.

Anyway I saw Facebook when it started out and it was kind of nice to be able to chat to my mates around the world, however for me it was always just a junk thing to be a clown on, little did others or myself know it would impact the very cores of society. Instead of it being monitored and controlled like most other major impacts it was left to just snow ball into a massive situation we have today. Lol FFS to allow them to employ people to focus on addiction techniques like what the hell how was that even legal, I mean come on where were the audits and protections it's crazy.

Yeah, I understand. Early Facebook was a nice "keep in touch" platform - before likes and sharing. I think the reality is for-profit social networks will always be detrimental to society long term. You can add paywalls, but then you're only working with an exclusive minority. That probably won't work long term.

I wonder if something run by the Wikimedia Foundation or an equivalent could work. Like a MyWiki.

Maybe like it could work where you get like here karma, but the Karma is more based on your content you submit which needs to be approved and audited, like a forum or peer review. The points allow you to connect with people but only connect with people that have the same value. IE a person with 100 points can connect with a person who has 100-150 but not someone with points above this. Below this you might also have an up and down cap to keep people in smaller community based circles and maybe limit this to like 400 people. It's an idea it's not perfect but maybe it could allow us to be better. Having a limit of 5000 lol how can you even have 5000 friends it's impossible. You can always follow these groups that part anyone can do you just can't interact with them with out being connected, or forming your own sub group which in doing this will spin up your own fan base and acceptance feeling. Again is not perfect

> Lol FFS to allow them to employ people to focus on addiction techniques like what the hell how was that even legal

Gambling industries all over the world have been doing this longer than Facebook, and nobody seemed to bat too much of an eyelid.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com