Hell is ourselves | Hacker News Reader

Hell is ourselves

thenewatlantis.com

69 pointscratermoon60 comments

Firmly believe that these algorithms will be the downfall of society. They are driven by pay per click/ view advertising and have done more to echo chamber people than anything in history. You are only shown news and videos that support what you already believe. If you don't believe it at first you will soon as you are just going to get fed messages enforcing what you clicked on.

Remember when the NBA player believed in a flat earth because of a youtube rabbit hole? This is what's caused the massive political split in the US and perhaps eventually the collapse of democracy.

With that said there are few sites more frustrating than the Google News homepage. I clicked on a marvel movie review months ago and now half my news is comics related. Drives me insane.

> that support what you already believe

More likely, the echo chamber algorithm wants to show you what will trigger you the most, so you'd contribute as much of your energy as possible in response. I believe that somewhere in the dungeons these companies keep user profiles with red-blue response maps: areas with red mean that the user will be outraged with this statement, and areas with blue mean something that the user agrees with religiously. By skillfully matching these red-blue maps with each other, the algorithm creates an angry echo chamber.

The behaviors they try to evoke are less like outrage and more like gambling. It just so happens that many people are motivated by controversy, but just as many are motivated to get likes, follows, or just to see if the next pull of the lever will come up all 7s. In Vegas, the slot machines and games are explicitly designed to pay off in small amounts just enough to keep the player engaged, hoping for the big payoff. Some of those same game design theorists have worked with social media companies. https://www.economist.com/1843/2016/10/20/the-scientists-who...

Echo chamber is right. How many hundreds of solar ads am I going to get before the algorithm FINALLLY realizes that I ALREADY have Solar and happy with it. i can't imagine all the wasted ad dollars wasted on me.

I have found the facebook algorithms to be completely inaccurate in predicting my wants and needs. The products that get advertised to me are laughable. I feel like they don't know me at all, in the least bit. they could have 10 times more information about me and it still wouldn't help. For all this talk about algos knowing us and how scary it is: it just doesn't hold water. at least for me.

Just as an example: I once searched for a hoody on google. For weeks, they advertised a hoody with a disgusting piece of raw meat on it. I'm mostly vegan and don't eat much red meat at all. how in the world did the algo come to such a completely inaccurate conclusion? A human just skimming over my profile for 2 minutes would have been able to target ads much better than the incredibly inaccurate job of the algo.

And, they have such a hard time understanding intent. I once repeatedly clicked on At&t ISP ads because I hate them so much (all that rent seeking behavior), and i'd like to waste their stupid ad dollars. the algo, then proceeds to give me more of those ads because it thinks i like it.

Virtually nothing I buy is a result of online advertising. I find it, incredibly ineffective on me.

I think the term "surveillance" as used with advertising is unnecessarily emotionally loaded and completely innacurate. If an FBI agent or an advertiser real person was actually "surveilling" my browsing habits and purchasing habits, I think they'd be able to come up with a much better product recommendation and would very quickly come to the conclusion that I'm not worth the ROI to be advertised to in the first place for 99.9999% of the products out there.

I’m repeating myself here incase you didn’t read my comment, but this is exactly what happens to me. Google has a decade’s worth of my browsing history but can’t make the basic assumption that I am male and serves me ADs for tampons.

$hasCervix: falsey

I would posit that at least some of the problem is the lack of 'closing the loop' on the ad model. Even if Facebook does know everything about you, the ad buyers don't and instead bid naively using their best judgment. Whereas in an 'optimal' system Facebook should centrally[1] control who sees everything, dispensing the most valuable ad to any given user. In which scenario, because they control everything, they should be able to ML and optimize ads on a per person basis.

[1]So that they can unambiguously determine ad end point value. Here they might even guarantee a sales per ad dollar spend figure - where they simply will not show the ad to anyone they deem less likely to buy the statistically profitable amount of product.

there is something interesting about that. If all the smart ad buyers are avoiding me because they know the ROI is really low, that would explain why I only see the very dumbest ads: they're the only ones who don't calculate any kind of ROI whatsoever. If the ML algo has to show me an ad, by process of elimination it would have to show me those that only count page impressions or views.

They don't have to predict your wants and needs, they just have to keep you engaged. As long as you refresh the site, comment, and post, you're providing your labor as free content generation.

> In my 2015 book The Four-Dimensional Human, I describe a failed promise of the 1990s Internet: that it would free us from our earthly identities and let us move like quicksilver through cyberspace, inhabiting all kinds of experimental selves in gaudy, rackety chat rooms. Instead, our online movements got pinned with thumbnail avatars of our real-world faces; we solidified in the heat of the personal brand. We developed what I called “chain-store selves” as we spread ourselves across the Internet with the trademarked consistency of a franchise.

Who is "us", who is "we" here? I certainly don't post my real face on the internet, and don't develop a "personal brand" there. Those "us" and "we" are doing a lot of heavy lifting in the article, turning a sentiment felt by the author into some kind of universal truth.

"The feeling of being exposed occurs whenever the Internet addresses us in the second person."

This has rubbed me the wrong way since I first saw an icon that said "My Computer". That's the computer addressing me, in first person, as itself, pretending to be me, with words I never used... (gaaah - whose computer is it?!)

This was my first reaction to the new layout for Google News, for example, which features a "briefing" section. Who the heck am I that I need a "briefing"? I'm just here to gaze over the headlines! I know myself - and I know I don't have the stomach for that - I will be looking for a new news aggregator soon.

Can anyone else relate here?

> Being self-conscious, then, relies on the gaze of someone else. “The Other penetrates me to the heart,” Jean-Paul Sartre writes, describing Hegel’s intuition about how we are dependent on one another in our very being. “I cannot doubt him without doubting myself, since ‘self-consciousness is real only in so far as it recognizes its echo (and its reflection) in another.’”

> Personalizing algorithms thus offer a startling twist on Hegel’s idea, as we begin to see ourselves more and more through the gaze of these unselfconscious but intelligent and highly attentive algorithmic “others.”

This article is a little heavy on prose, but this part was interesting. We define ourselves in part by how others see us (i.e., programmer, husband, poor, rich, crazy, inspired). As more of our social feedback comes from algorithms, it changes our self-perception.

Anyone who's read through, say, Antisocial, is probably already aware. But the idea of the algorithm's gaze... that sticks with me a bit.

Btw this is a reference to sartees quote "Hell is other people" from this book

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Exit

I choose this for my GitHub name - with the unspoken ending being "Hell is other people's code"

"Hell is other people" is supposed to mean "Hell is ourselves"

It seems like the article makes the connection, but it doesn't make it clear that the whole point of the famous line is that a critical self-perception, sprouted from a fear of an ambiguous, judgmental "other", is truly our undoing.

When Satre wrote "Hell is other people", he meant "other people". Hell is thinking that our "self" is solely what other people tell us it is.

"Hell is my own code" still works in my case

Yet heaven is each other [1]

[1] https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2021/02/08/hell-is-other-peop...

This article is hard to understand the point, but it feels like it’s talking about ridding one’s ego.

The biggest ego trip is getting rid of your ego. - Alan Watts

TikTok and other “for you” infinite feeds only feed our egos. They prey on our inability to think for ourselves and have us desiring what others have (or claim to have).

I think one needs to think deeply about who they are as a person and hold the integrity to maintain their character. These platforms will give you fragmented pieces of what your identity might be rather than what you believe you should be. In other words, we should trust ourselves more that we’re on the right path.

I don't think that's an accurate description of what the article discusses.

The article is more about how our perception of reality is distorted by our interactions with algorithms that attempt to cater to our taste (or if not, at least get us to watch more ads).

I see that perspective too. It mostly read to me as a Jungian self/ego fight being amplified by personalized tech.

Yet targeted ADs get it wrong. A lot. I’m male and still get ADs for tampons in Facebook and YouTube. Google and Facebook have a whole decade of my browsing history and still can’t infer I’m male.

FB/Google/etc. don't actually need to make correct inferences, they just need to provide infographics that say they are correct so that marketing departments can report to their superiors that they are responsibly spending advertising dollars and getting "impressions" from the right people

it's a multi-tier confidence game

$hasCervix: falsey

not only is it multi-tier, it's circular: FB/Google/etc marketing depts eat the same dogfood when it's served back to them

hence stuff like this https://www.memo.co

(note the Google endorsement if you scroll down)

and since Big brand advertisers (that can't calculate ROI) are the biggest spenders, most ad dollar can not be attributed to purchasing behavior reliably and thus wasted. (queue the ebay 100% wasteful ad story)

They also just need to provide enough stimulus to the users to keep them engaged. Whether that means posting, commenting, or just refreshing their feed, the end result is a) the user counts as active and b) the user is contributing, for free, to the overall content that gives the userbase as a whole a reason to keep coming back.

The 'secret' I learned from AdTech is that while the social media companies do need, to some extent, to be able to show their customers that buying ads provides value, what the social media companies need for themselves is just to keep the users engaged and coming back, generating content (posts and comments) for free so that there are pages in which to place ads and generate impressions.

They probably can, but they prefer not to make it too obvious.

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/4/9/21204425/targeted-ads...

TV had a similar grip to society back then. I once entered a circular argument with a roommate who insisted hi liked Sprite better than 7UP. My retort was the fact he, like me, where already indoctrinated with thousand of hours of tv commercials telling us what to like. TV commercials where more casual. The internet tells me: "News for YOU". I find it creepy and demeaning.

I like this one very much from that series https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/reading-ourselve...

No, I stick with the previous definition.

a big chunk of the people who read HN are the exact people responsible for the systems and algorithms that create (and perpetuate) the solipsistic hell-mirror described in the article

my least favorite part of engineering is that it is led by smart, capable humans who diligently build systems to destroy the best things about being a human

I’m still hoping it’s slowly getting better though.

I just recently had some eye-opening actual seeing-forest-from-the-trees moment myself through this book and the different insider perspectives collected therein:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374538675/voicesfromtheva...

I actually listened to the audiobook, which was very well done if anyone else is genuinely interested:

https://www.audible.com/pd/Voices-from-the-Valley-Audiobook/...

In Silicon Values[1] author Jillian C. York does a good job describing the user-attention-as-profitable-product perspective.

1 https://www.versobooks.com/books/4034-silicon-values

There were a lot of smart capable humans working for the Nazis as well. The issue is not so much the individual, as the social/economic system they're a part of.

Facebook was actually fun until monetization and creepiness destroyed the vibe.

Now you get reminded every two friend posts (of those that still do) of a creepily targeted ad, and then of course another 1-2 posts mixed in from "friends" trying to monetize their daily reiki personal training life coach bullshit, but you keep them around because you've known them for a long time.

Manipulative ads that are coarsely targeted I think we got used to from television. But manipulative ads with foreknowledge of your medical google searches is fucking creepy.

The engineers were following the orders of the businessmen. Does it excuse it? No, but I'm hard pressed to see any salaried employee not actively working against the greater interests of mankind and the world.

Hell is truly us. We are our greatest and only true enemy.

> Facebook was actually fun until monetization and creepiness destroyed the vibe

The same can be said of social media generally. Some manage to disguise it better than others, but they are all selling you, the user, your data and your attention, to sell ads. To do that, they work hard to show you a world that they think you want to see.

I'll save you the trouble of reading, whatever this is. Here you go:

>But what is the psychological impact of a bespoke Internet, tailored to you, and one where it is increasingly difficult to outrun yourself? “Bespoke” sounds luxuriously considerate, but it also entails a kind of revelation. It comes from the older word bespeak, which refers to an indication or a piece of evidence. Sewn into the bespoke is the fabric of external judgments. In the tailor’s series of sartorial calculations and decisions, the wearer is shaped, a silhouette is cast.

Imagine seriously writing word salads and calling them articles. It's too disjointed with no coherent thesis to it, and just meanders for what is (i imagine) an attempt to fulfil a wordcount quota.

It's asking what we will make of ourselves when the determining factor of Identity - the returned gaze of the Other - is 'just' an AI. Hegelian dialectic and such aside, it's an interesting question and I for one found the article more or less readable, if a bit on the self indulgent side (as these types of essays tend to be).

What do you consider to be the difference between identity and Identity? Or other and Other?

capitalization?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitonym

> A particular example of where capitonyms are prominent is in terminology relating to philosophy, [...]. Capitalized words are often used to differentiate a philosophical concept from how the concept is referred to in everyday life, [...]

In other words, capitalizing "Identity" or "Other" just means that the word has a specific meaning in this particular text, and the dictionary definition may be unreliable.

"The Other" is often capitalized.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_(philosophy)

I'll also just note that, for the tech-minded folks, some of these philosophical concepts have surprising relevance to applications in machine learning & AI, especially these days. Epistemology was a purely philosophical topic until machine learning researchers stumbled around trying to reinvent it.

Can you clarify what is confusing about the quote that you reference above?

It seems pretty well formed and makes it's point succinctly and with a reasonable metaphor.

> succinctly

Really? I can think of plain english way to describe (if I understood it correctly) the sentiment in less words and far less cognitive load.

Personally I feel repelled towards this in the same way as code golf, except it's also long, so perhaps worse.

> I can think of plain english way to describe (if I understood it correctly) the sentiment in less words

I don't think the goal of any serious writing is to do it in as few words as possible. Instead, the goal is to write it with the right number of words. Taking a complicated idea and distilling it down to concrete bullet points loses all of the subtleties of the meaning, destroys the pace, and any of the poetry as well.

What you're left with is something like https://norvig.com/Gettysburg/sld001.htm

>I don't think the goal of any serious writing is to do it in as few words as possible.

Even if that's true, it's irrelevant. They were responding to the claim that ithis particular piece was written succinctly, which it manifestly was not.

As short as possible, but no shorter.

clearly this article is not meant for you

I like cognitive load when I'm reading. Unless I'm reading an email from a coworker or a manual for some software I'm using, the cognitive load is nice.

I do too, but from the weight of the idea - not the complexity of the delivery

Complex ideas require complex delivery to communicate.

No they don't. This is just pointless sophistry. It does not explain the idea. It's writing that looks like the point is to show the writer's erudition, not explain the idea.

If you try to express a complex idea directly, in practice, your audience often misses the point or misunderstands it. The complex delivery has in it redundancy. It approaches the idea from different angles. It connects the idea to other ideas.

(That's also a misuse of the word "sophistry", by the way.)

Aha! You are one of them ;-) And I'm apparently not.

Complex idea require multiple simple deliveries in a structured way.

My experience is that this is often insufficient--or if we suppose that it's possible, I can't figure out how to express the complex idea by sticking a bunch of simple deliveries together.

I don't want to abuse analogies, but let's say that you get asked the question, "Why don't you write a computer program that detects when another program hangs, and then restarts the program?" If I'm just going to give an off-hand answer, I'll say that this is connected to a famous problem in computer science, and it's proven to be impossible to solve. If I really want to explain why it's not possible without hand-waving it, I'm going to have to explain concepts like computability, models of computation, and "code as data".

But it's natural to encounter people with these questions.

Philosophy is the same way. It's easy to come up philosophical questions and hard to come up with answers.

If you're writing an article, in either philosophy or computer programming, you're going to have to be careful to ride right line between simplicity and complexity. Too simple, and what you're saying is incorrect. Too complicated, and nobody will understand you.

"Word golf" has different rules than code golf. In word golf, highest score wins.

Definitively subjective. IMO the metaphor was apt in bringing their point across. Got me thinking about other tangents like general systems interplay, conway’s law etc. This kind of etymological philosophizing just might not be your cup of tea but not everyone is like that.

TLDR different people absorb and engage with information in different ways.

What is "word salad" for you, is a lyrical and motivated translation into humanist terms for the non-technical but well-educated reader with a different background, reading style, and perhaps, agenda.

The lyrical essay is a form of writing and argumentation with hundreds of years of literary history. It's not meant to be a man page.

For people rooted in this type of argumentation, fully-examined metaphor is what animates ideas and frames them in terms they can reason with.

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

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