Comment by captainmuon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by captainmuon | Hacker News Reader

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I think we are trying to solve a social problem with a technical solution. Can we make an unbeatable spoof detector? I think we probably could, but we shouldn't. Locking down things takes the fun out of them.

Ideally, you could get rid of every captcha and just have an open API for everything. Somebody wants to create lots of email addresses to send spam? Remove the incentive to send spam.

Somebody posts thousands of manipulative tweets? Maybe the "feed" model of social media is wrong. Don't assume every random account is equally important. Better just have a simple social network where you can connect with your friends. Or even better, design your society such that it's decisionmaking is more resilient and can't be gamed.

The really hard but worthwile problem is not in tech, it is how we evolve our society along with the tech.

This was the original attitude of the Old School Internet.

Unfortunately a new generation has come along that believes advertising-supported business models are their birthright.

I’d honestly rather pay a (higher) fee to a service I like and is transparent. A service where my money is paying for the uptime and development and I give consent, and not where some “evil” AI is tracking my every step and then has the audacity to recommend me ads of things totally irrelevant to me.

I respect that services have running costs and I’m happy to cover my usage, but I have to understand that the average consumer doesn’t give a crap, or is simply ignorant and doesn’t know.

> Remove the incentive to send spam.

Good luck. Literally nobody has figured out a viable way to do that. At this point, we need to consider spam a fact of nature, like viruses.

> Locking down things takes the fun out of them.

Locking down things so we create a space that actually functions and doesn't succumb to abuse. What you call fun, others would call trolling they'd like to get rid of.

People hurt each other? Just remove their reasons. Not enough food? Just stop being hungry.

But how?

lol

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