Comment by cs137 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cs137 | Hacker News Reader

I don't disagree with the general sentiment, but as someone who has faced literal attempts on his life for revealing unpleasant truths about powerful people and has PTSD, I find myself cautious in fully accepting the optimism. And I'm someone who had a pretty big platform in the 2010s.

The problem with "speaking truth to power" is that the shitbags in power already know the truth (that they're shitbags, and that in a just world they would be torn down and humiliated, if not destroyed). What you do by "speaking truth" is reveal to them that you also know this. By doing so, you make yourself dangerous to them. Sometimes, this is what you want. Sometimes, it is not. It is not an easy, one-size-fits-all decision. Your enemies, but also your friends, start to see you as an instrument of war.

Also, with regard to "algorithmic demons"... it's not "algorithms" that are the problem. It's (a) the complete lack of transparency, (b) that the algorithms are often tailored toward objectives other than content quality (which leads to gaming, hence the perceived need for opacity), and (c) that the data now available about us is invariably used against us by bad actors (and that a lack of influence / platform will also be used against us, so I don't know if there's a way to win).

The algorithms themselves aren't so bad; what's worse is that these companies often slip shit into the algorithms that punishes people or ideas they dislike, and of course (a) this is completely unregulated, (b) it's impossible to prove, and (c) you'll often damage your reputation if you point it out (since you sound identical to a crazy person who failed organically and is lashing out at "the algorithm" with unprovable assertions).

Speaking truth to the power sometimes is nothing to do about power itself. It is about speaking.

In fact writing is never one person’s game. Otherwise why bother to write. It is also not just about who the author write to. It is the side audience, the chorus in the Greek drama, the reader of the x outside the channel etc.

of course someone has to struggle through it on their own. There is a target audience.

But real life it is never about them.

P.S. chapter 4 of Zhoungzi is about this speaking the power and even strangely it is arguing even if one adopt a zhoungzi position, very post-modern. The speaking truth to power could be just a guy state his position and not changed anything. Just hurt himself. But if the story leaked out it is a different matter. But if one concerns oneself … hence never about one. Not ever one person’s game.

> In fact writing is never one person’s game. Otherwise why bother to write.

Ever hear of personal diaries or lecture notes? People write to formulate their thoughts, reflect on their lives, record something so they can remember it later, establish a base of ideas on which to build on top of, etc.

It could possibly be argued that at some point what they will interact with others, and they might use the results of those thoughts in the interaction, and therefore indirectly the writing is not single-player, but unless you're a hermit living in the mountains that's just something that has to happen and "single-player" becomes a bit useless as a definition. I might as well start saying single-player board and video games are multi-player then, too, as I might take skills I picked up playing them into the real world.

Like I've got about 300,000 words in a personal diary. Some of them I intend to maybe eventually turn into blog posts, but the vast majority of those words I will most likely keep private until my death (after that point, whatever). But every once in a while I reread some entries, and help remember some details about my life that I have since forgotten. Also there's a bunch of game designs I recorded that I might need to get a reminder of what I was thinking when I double back to them.

But those journals aren't going to build me an audience sitting on my hard drive or physically written on a notebook.

> In fact writing is never one person’s game. Otherwise why bother to write.

Writing is useful as a way to better articulate your thoughts. When the thoughts are in your head, it's "obvious" that they just "make sense". But when you have to give them structure on a page, putting them into the real world, you may start to see that your ideas weren't so coherent after all.

One could then argue, "But why are you trying to better articulate your thoughts if not to communicate them to others, i.e. an audience?" Which is a valid point, but I think there's value in developing clearer thinking, in terms of living a better, more fulfilling life.

I read the title as "Writing a single player game" and was utterly confused by this comment. Damn you brain!

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