If We’re Not Careful, the AI Revolution Could Become the ‘Great Homogenization’ | Hacker News Reader

If We’re Not Careful, the AI Revolution Could Become the ‘Great Homogenization’

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Great Homogenization is a good term for it. A classic example is to look at houses built before construction materials were popularly standardized in the 2nd half of 20th century. Every house had something different or unique. The laborer carving the handrail was in the mood for something different this time and it is beautiful. Now... it's all IKEA copy-pasta.

It would be the same principle, but moved into code, documentation, audio, and other areas

2nd half of the 20th century? Sears houses were in the 1st half, and with houses built before that you have some serious survivorship bias going on...

There is survivorship bias but we also know as an objective, verifiable fact that building techniques/components/materials have become more standardized.

I.e. yes sometimes craftspeople executed their whimsy and it came out very badly and was later destroyed, but yes also there was more variance across the board.

I think the geographical scale of the homogenity is growing

If homogenenation comes with generally lower costs and higher quality goods that increases the standard of living for the masses, I’m all for that.

People who appreciate and can afford custom craftsmanship will still be patrons.

> It would be the same principle, but moved into code, documentation, audio, and other areas

I think this is already the case though. Between the amalgamation of markets around the world and commodification of most things in life we are at a point where everything gets optimized into crabs. AI will just give us more crabs.

Cookie cutter bland housing is considerably older than the mid 20th century, we don't see much in the way of old examples because this sort of housing is not meant to last, it is meant to meet a need. Most of the mid century stuff is considerably nicer than what came before, like the tenements of New York and various housing projects built around the country including large developments of single family homes with spartan interiors and all. We needed houses and we needed them fast, a single model with few frills was the only way to meet the need at that time.

I think this couldn't be any more incorrect.

I think the first thing people get confused about here is the fact that AI is trained on predicting the next word. What they don't realize is that predicting the next word for all of English is a really really hard task. It's not something you can accomplish simply by repeating common phrases. These generators have to actually learn to do things to do their job well.

In fact we know what this looks like, Markov chains have existed for ages and we know those sort of output they give as statistical models of language. They are trash in comparison to what we have today.

Imagine saying something like this about a human, "they're not actually intelligent they're just machines bred to reproduce". Don't confuse an error function with the thing that was created as a result of training on that error function.

Instead, I believe that we are going to see the last vestiges of the era of homogenization ending. Television was homogenization. Radio was homogenized. Our current entertainment, short of platforms like YouTube and Spotify, are also homogenized.

AI takes the power from creators to create, and gives it to the individuals of the world. This is going to result in one of the most dramatic personalizations of media that we have ever seen.

And yes, whatever people ask for is going to have to be within the bounds of AI, but humans are not going to sit idly and let the AI determine what they get, they're going to continually try to improve and customize it to fit their needs. Humanity never sits still, and this tool won't make us do so either.

We're already seeing an explosion of individuality empowered by things like youtube and Spotify, and AI is only going to make that even more individualized.

These are not mass produced media machines, what they create is not just copy paste. When you ask an AI machine for an output you get something that is unique from everyone else, and what you ask it is going to be unique from everyone else.

People are soon to have self-expression unlike any we have had before, and we should be more excited for this than we were for the internet as a result.

> AI takes the power from creators to create, and gives it to the individuals of the world

AI gives everyone the exact same connect the dots and paint-by-numbers toolkit as everyone else. Creativity? If you think coloring outside the lines is creativity.

> whatever people ask for is going to have to be within the bounds of AI, but humans are not going to sit idly and let the AI determine what they get

Just like people didn't sit idly by and let social media or Wal*Mart determine what they get?

I kind of addressed your first comment in my original post when I talked about how people are not going to just use these tools and let them determine what they get, they're going to innovate and work on it had to and find creative uses for them as we always have for every tool we've got an access to.

For your other comment, Walmart is a tool of scale and cheapness. It's designed to provide you with what you want at the lowest price possible. If you want vibrant individuality, you need to go to a store like Etsy or get a 3D printer and go to some maker spaces, which all exist and are all doing quite well.

And at Walmart you have plenty of choice, yeah you don't have infinite choice, but it's Walmart. It's a physical good store, You go there because you have a budget and you have to stay under that budget.

I don't get your point about social media, it's one of the most competitive and innovative and ever spaces we've ever had in the history of humanity.

This is a lot of text, a lot of ads, and a lot of memes to say not much. Although I really appreciate the Bitcoin Times calling AI people idealists.

I think globalization has already homogenized things to a great degree...

Yeah... the internet too.

We used to have music subcultures all over the place, growing up "underground," getting "discovered." I haven't seen much of that in the last 20 years. It's like there is no underground now, nowhere for weird and cool ideas to grow up before they're shown to the world.

Each decade in the 20th century had a distinct "sound." For the last 20ish years, we've basically been listening to the same music, just mixed and matched a little. Our biggest change is the prominence of ambient "background music," which isn't as fun as, say, the rise of gangster rap or grunge to me.

It feels like books aren't changing that much lately either, except I guess how morality is now the most important part of many of them. A friend told me that "morality" is the new "cool." Maybe she's right.

> Our biggest change is the prominence of ambient "background music," which isn't as fun as, say, the rise of gangster rap or grunge to me.

This is very dependent on your POV. I've always really liked ambient and instrumental/non-vocal music and it's vastly more accessible now than it was 25 years ago. Grunge + gangster rap and a lot of popular music post the 70s was pretty overstimulating in an unpleasant way to me. I think those of us who like calmer sounds or who listen for ambiance (rather than lyrics and/or the spectacle of shows [ which are of course valid ways to like music and probably more common]) are eating pretty well. I think it's fun - I'm listening to more new stuff than I did from 2000 - 2020.

Of course you're gonna have some like me chiming in with: actually yes underground culture still exists.

Today's punk/alternative ideology is to reject the ad driven visibility industry. Thus it is invisible to everyone not actively looking for something like this.

The point GP is making is that Nirvana wasn't invisible to everyone not actively looking for something like this, because there were DJs, who controlled radio shows, who were actively looking for something like this.

I feel like I'm living in a different world than you man. I'm listening to music that basically no one else listens to. I'm in communities that very few other people know about. I see subcultures all over the place with vibrant and hilariously distinct traits to them.

And I think this is a result of the opposite of what you're thinking. The subcultures you used to see were one of maybe a dozen. It was easy to see them and notice them because they were quite large and you couldn't miss them very easily.

Nowadays, the subcultures are so diverse broad and specific that you really just will never hear about them if you don't go looking for them

Goes for the musical artists. Do you want unique and distinct music? Go online, search for random off the wall genres, and you're going to find little vibrant community surrounding them.

I basically don't use a mobile device, but I am adjacent to a large media market. It would be nice if the radio stations still did this, so I could get some variety on the commute.

I noticed that too, the radio seems to be playing the same stuff they were playing when I was in high school.

And I think it's a consequence of the fact that the only people listening to the radio are the same people who were listening to the radio when I was in high school, everyone younger is on Spotify.

I agree. Anything new tends to be pop, though there is a station just out of reach of my location that plays some modern alternative rock.

> the only people listening to the radio are the same people who were listening to the radio when I was in high school

I thought that too, but it appears to only slightly be the case: https://www.statista.com/statistics/252185/radios-weekly-rea...

About 4 or 5 years ago I was walking on the street and a person who had to have been in his 20s was listening to a song from Meteora. It's a great album, and I certainly listen to stuff from when I was young, or even before I was born. It just struck me.

Edit to add: In case statista paywalls you.

> Weekly radio reach in the United States as of June 2021, by age and gender

A low of 71.1% for those aged 12-17 to a high of 87.5% for those aged 35-64.

Also, you can flip that Mark Fisher perspective around: the 20th century fetishization of "something that has never been done" now kind of seems like a quaint pre-information era fallacy. We now know that everything's a remix. We know the simpsons did it. We know the grand narrative has always been an illusion, whether govt funded or simply based on a lack of access to other schools of thought. Maybe you need to stop fetishizing this obsolete mode of cultural production in order to recognize the historically unprecedented scale of ideas completely alien to you own experience that are currently all around you. Honestly we are so spoiled.

Maybe that's simply because you are older now? Sorry.

More seriously, I suspect this is mainly an artifact of how we currently perceive every form of human activity from a purely economic and commercial perspective. That automatically renders invisible any form of culture production that is not obviously commercially relevant today. Historic subcultures remain visible if some of their aspects had time to get exploited commercially.

And it's easier than ever to find books in non-traditional form or with non-traditional content because it's nowadays possible to publish decently made books for minority audiences. A credible path to commercial success is no longer a precondition, as long as someone is willing to pay for publication (but of course the visibility issue still applies).

The GP is saying globalization homogenized things. But we've always lived and traded on a globe.

You're saying the Internet did, but I don't remember the "wild west" days of the Internet as anything like that.

I think you're both dancing around "profit motive" being the only ostensible reason both of those led to same same everywhere. No "general well-being," no "public benefit," nothing that seeks to understand and preserve anything except maximal profit. And large corporate profit-seeking entities are global, beholden to no government anywhere, really, to no people beyond their shareholders. So here we are.

Not terribly. Try visiting different parts of the world -- you can find some of the same movies, music, and clothing, but the culture continues and evolves, often _wonderfully_.

This is nothing more than an ad for this person's other works and Bitcoin Magazine

For a piece that warns of homogenization, it's rather unoriginal, even down to the historical inaccuracies. (The early internet was not a “place where anyone can say anything“, it relied on the NFSNET backbone, whose policies banned many forms of speech. And of course the “anyone” part is somewhat suspect, too.)

> The law of large numbers strikes again

This is not even remotely what the law of large numbers mean.

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

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the law or article, but wasn’t the author implying that the act of inference on an LLM model itself is a sort of “statistical experiment”:

> In probability theory, the law of large numbers (LLN) is a theorem that describes the result of performing the same experiment a large number of times.

And so the mean in this case is “perceived like a real human”?

> Moving forward, every app we interact with will have a conversational interface, …

I don’t think we have a good idea yet of how to wire up LLMs with software APIs in a safe way. This includes the LLM properly understanding the semantics and context of the software it interfaces with, in relation to the user’s intents.

> …and we will no longer be limited by the bandwidth of how fast our fingers can tap on keys or screens.

A physical keyboard actually tends to have higher bandwidth than speech. Well, maybe not for the mentioned “midwits”, in the author’s opinion.

I have a few thoughts on this.

* We have to use auth that belong to the user and not the LLM, or we have to use a combination of LLM and user keys. The LLM cannot have global read/write access.

* We could give each LLM limited access to APIs but have multiple LLMs. In this way we can control user access to API endpoints based on which LLM they have access to.

* Any context building information we feed the LLM can probably be leaked so we shouldn't feed it any sensitive prompts. In fact we should assume any information we give the LLM can be leaked, so we should treat feeding an LLM data as the same security risk as feeding the user data.

Wow. This is really a low-value entry. I learned nothing. I don't think the premisces are correct, and I think the author never traveled abroad (at least outside of 3-5 star hostels/Airbnb), which is a bit rich when you try to talk about homogenization. I don't know where he lives but I doubt he even trail/hike across his own country.

I think I read about conspiracy singularity theories with more meat than that (at least conspiracy theories have great Wikipedia links to little-know facts)

Yes. The real threat may not be the extinction of humanity, but of creativity.

AI is just harvesting the existing output of humanity. Once it burns through that it will just become stale, or produce vapid nonsense that we all ignore. So us humans will lose our creative edge.

Knowledge will resemble fashion, where divorced of any practicality all we will care about is novelty and wow factor.

Now if AI comes up with a hint of something both new and important, who will be bothered to interpret and appreciate it?

> AI is just harvesting the existing output of humanity. Once it burns through that it will just become stale, or produce vapid nonsense that we all ignore.

What? I don't think content we send into LLM is a one-time consumable. The output will be the same level over time, it doesn't devolve into nonsense.

I'm also super interested in if this reduces total global human writing output or not. I think it will clearly have an impact, but I am not confident enough to say which way it will go

Agriculture homogenized our diets and the landscape, colonialism and globalization are homogenizing language by increasing language death, mass media and the internet homogenize people’s thoughts and opinions (IMO). But with art, once a particular style gains too much traction and becomes dominant, there’s an urge to disrupt it and do something deliberately different, and maybe we’ll see that with the writing style ushered in by generative AI.

I did not enjoy this - you need to get all the way to the end to see that he is ok with silos as long as his get to survive. The article is a bunch of breadcrumbs to get you to the point where he springs his models on the reader.

Which is would have been one thing he if was honest but the frame is bogus. If he wanted real diversity at the popular level he would not have cherry picked so very hard so assign blame.

His frame is that ‘wokeness’ is the real problem with AI, since results from AI language interfaces will be governed by whatever that is. But all sorts of systems can present the problems he wants us to understand. You can’t tell me that Thiel/Zuck/Q/4chan or any other entity on any spectrum could not pose a problem of similar shape, depending on ownership or algorithm mastery.

Having a bitcoin guy tell us the free market is gone and info homogenization will come because commie cat ladies, with no mention of megamergers and market capture through non competitive means, seems like he is burying his own values just to print some dunks he thought was clever.

It is rare for me to more insulted by other terms in a text when the author uses the word ‘ideate’ non-ironically but it happened here.

I am eager to see good debates about language mediated interfaces and debates whether LLMs will expand or contract knowledge, but not starting from his set of assumptions.

I think I agree with you on how I felt at the end of the post, but at the beginning and most of the way through, I found myself generally agreeing. But I want to look past the “bitcoin” switch after the bait because I generally agree with the author on most points.

Especially as I have delved more into how LLMs actually function and are trained, a lot of the magic in e.g. ChatGPT has evaporated for me, but in a good way. The performance of larger models like GPT-3.5 or 4 is still consistently impressive, to me, but as I’ve increased my understanding I do believe that censorship poses a greater threat than the models themselves.

Yes - and I would expand “censorship” to “control”. We have been shaped by whomever has built the algos for google, fb, twitter, etc and while that itself doesn’t make them evil they need to be evaluated somehow. I think the LLM fear comes when the creators tell us a full evaluation is impossible, etc.

Another day, another article opening by shitting on everyone concerned with the dangers of AI without engaging with their arguments, only to dive into a largely unrelated topic. Is that the new way to get upvoted?

This one wasn't the worst offender among them, which was largely about how LLMs are pushing us towards "Great Homogenization" and why that is a bad thing.

This quote alone tells you much about the author:

"computers can be used to document ideas that change the world, or they can be used to operate central bank digital currencies (CDBCs) that enslave you into crazy, communist cat ladies working at the European Central Bank"

I stopped reading after that. I know NASDAQ is pro neo-liberal free market but I can't take that seriously.

AI isn't the cause. It's trends that go around the world. `Globalization` _is_ the `Great Homogenization`

Luckily it's not as useful as people think it is. We will see an AI bubble much to the similarity of the .com crash

Yea, the AI gives out all the stuff in the middle of the standard-normal distribution. For everything.

Article has interesting points but waters it down to almost no value with communist takeover conspiracies, the idea that Bitcoin can replace money with 7tps consuming the energy of a country, and a pointless tirade on "useless woke politics", which is, among another things, people resisting marginalization and oppression of trans people and women in the United States, which is very much actively happening at the moment and requires no hypothetical long term thinking.

The government isn't forcing machine learning models to turn into Disney characters right now, it's trying to punish Disney for the CEO's opinion that he's opposed to laws in Florida making it unlawful for teachers to discuss gay issues, and it's pretty extraordinary to be able to write something like this and use Disney as a reference and not even be aware of that, but I'm happy that the author doesn't feel concerned about what's going right now, perhaps because it doesn't personally affect him.

I invite the author to increase the diversity of viewpoints on his training model to avoid having narrow, ideological opinions heavily influenced by algorithms that are not very compatible with reality.

Anyone have any articles with good potential outcomes? Has one been written yet?

[ChatGPT 3.5] Certainly! Here's a manifesto outlining positive potential outcomes of technology without advocating for violence:

Manifesto: Embracing a Human-Centered Technological Future

1. Empowering Human Potential: We envision a future where technology is harnessed to enhance human capabilities and empower individuals to reach their full potential. Through education, access to information, and skill development, technology can provide opportunities for personal growth and enable people to pursue their passions and contribute meaningfully to society.

2. Sustainable and Green Innovations: We strive for a future where technology serves as a driving force for environmental sustainability. We promote the development and adoption of clean energy solutions, eco-friendly practices, and circular economy principles. By leveraging technology to address climate change and preserve natural resources, we can create a harmonious relationship between humans and the environment.

3. Inclusive and Equal Access: We advocate for the equitable distribution of technological benefits, ensuring that all individuals, regardless of their background or location, have access to the tools and resources they need. Bridging the digital divide and promoting digital literacy programs can empower marginalized communities and foster social and economic equality.

4. Ethical AI and Data Privacy: We prioritize the responsible development and deployment of artificial intelligence. We advocate for transparent and accountable AI systems that adhere to ethical guidelines, respect privacy rights, and mitigate biases. Ethical frameworks should be established to ensure AI serves the collective well-being while upholding human values.

5. Collaborative Innovation: We encourage open collaboration and interdisciplinary approaches in technological advancements. By fostering partnerships between academia, industry, and communities, we can pool resources, knowledge, and diverse perspectives to address complex challenges and maximize the positive impact of technology.

6. Human-Centric Design: We emphasize the importance of designing technology with the well-being and values of humans at its core. User-centric design principles should prioritize accessibility, usability, and user privacy. By incorporating human-centered design practices, technology can enhance our lives, promote well-being, and enrich human experiences.

7. Ethical Governance and Regulation: We advocate for robust governance frameworks and responsible regulation of emerging technologies. Transparent decision-making processes and stakeholder engagement should guide policy development. The ethical implications of technology, such as data security, algorithmic accountability, and the protection of human rights, should be at the forefront of regulatory efforts.

8. Cultivating Digital Empathy: We recognize the power of technology to connect and unite humanity. We encourage the cultivation of empathy, compassion, and respectful online interactions. Technology should facilitate meaningful connections, bridge cultural divides, and promote understanding among individuals and communities worldwide.

By embracing these principles, we can shape a future where technology acts as a catalyst for positive change, enhancing human lives, fostering sustainability, and promoting a more equitable and inclusive society. Together, let us build a technologically advanced world that puts humanity's well-being and values at its core.

Like how everyone is using the same social media? Drinking the same shit at starbucks. Living in the same cities with the same stores? Wearing the same clothes. Talking in the same language. Watching the same shows/movies. We've been trending towards a homogenized global monoculture for a while now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr8ljRgcJNM

Sure about the trending part? In past there was much less options what to consume, do, read, watch.

There are more and more eyeballs over time competing in fewer and consolidating media markets. Content trending towards homogeneity is a real thing, especially on the streaming services.

I don't think this is right, content feels much more fragmented now. There is more content, locked into smaller premium services, catering to niche audiences. If you look at viewership, when there were just three national networks, popular shows had 10x-20x the audience. An example is the MASH finale, which had 106 million viewers. Game of Thrones finale, in comparison, had 19m.

Sure, but those options varied between small regions. For instance, while some television programs would be distributed nationally or internationally, others were filmed at the local stations, and stayed local.

> Sure about the trending part?

Yes. I could see and experience it myself.

> In past there was much less options what to consume, do, read, watch.

We all have the same diverse options. "Same" being the key point here. Sure, now we have avocados, bananas, strawberries, etc to choose from. But so does everyone else around the world. The all have the same options. The options may be superficially diverse, but they are similarly diverse around the world. Monoculture and homogeneity doesn't exclude diversity options, it just means the diversity of options are the same everywhere.

I work in marketing. My clients routinely point to an industry leader’s marketing and say: “We want ours to look like that.”

Brace yourself for the yearly Cannes Lions Archive update.

There could be a metric for rated activities/products that penalizes high ratings if given by ‘pro-homogenous’ raters i.e. who tend to be diehard follower-mindset people who avoid anything really novel.

I don’t think this kind of metric is useful for most people though. You can go anywhere in the world and for example the highest rated TripAdvisor lunch place is likely to have eggs benedict (with a sprinkle of local spices!), and most people find that a feature not a bug.

Homogenized cultures come and go. Postwar 1950s monoculture came and went so will everything else.

Other than using the same social media no other example you gave is accurate in my experience. Is it possible that you are stuck in a bubble of people of similar age, from the same country with similar profession?

Honest, unironic and loud YES from me.

Drive across country in the American West and you'll find: McDonalds, Dairy Queen, Starbucks, Wal*Mart.

Truck stops, ubiquitous on the interstates, always have the same stuff, usually a Subway or similar fast-food chain, food and beverages on the aisles just like any city. Some but not much regional variation, usually manifest by something like the variety of Doritos flavors available. Inside the only way you can tell where you are is to look for the always-present postcard and souvenir racks.

That's not really the will of people though, it enforcement from elites and their control of international global corporations, that destroy cultures for profit.

Before Coca-Cola entered India, tea and coffee were the predominant beverages. However, Coca-Cola's aggressive marketing strategies aimed at the younger demographic positioned their carbonated drinks as trendy and fashionable to shift cultural norms away from traditional Indian drinks.

De Beers, a multinational diamond corporation, is credited with the creation of the diamond engagement ring tradition in Japan. Prior to the 1960s, the concept of diamond engagement rings was virtually unknown in Japanese culture. However, De Beers launched a powerful marketing campaign that successfully associated diamonds with Western ideas of romance and status, thus changing the cultural norm.

Global Corporations are trying to achieve economies of scale. So they benefit from global cultural homogenization, you can see that with many Japanese Gaming Companies likes Capcom promising to include western ESG principles in their games.

The only real backlash in recent history that's been effective has been the Bud Lite fiasco.

> The only real backlash in recent history that's been effective has been the Bud Lite fiasco.

That is limited to the US, in Europe even Duff is more known.

When you have a concentration of power and influence, it will be applied. Another comment here refers to "speaking the same language". Latin was spread by the Romans, Spanish by the Spanish, English by the English, but the concentration of power and influence in the USA really powered the spread of a particular kind of English.

People shop at the same Walmarts because Walmart drove the other retailers out. People shop at Amazon for whatever. Coca-Cola has influenced our view of Christmas with its imagery, and post-WWII influenced the perception of America and its culture overseas.

I agree about the Bud Lite fiasco. It's pretty shameful when a major corporation cannot stand up to bullies and fascists.

For a while? You mean forever.

> Drinking the same shit at starbucks.

Yeah, that isn't really happening. The era of the US exporting food preferences was short lived, mostly at the 90's.

> Living in the same cities with the same stores?

And well, stores are dying, so that's off too.

Everyone is in a different bubble inside the same social media; clothes haven't actually homogenized any more in centuries (I'm not sure if there's room for it); and yes, the internet runs on English and the shows/movies one is spot on.

Overall, 20th and 21th century globalization has been a huge force for enabling local diversity at the expense of global one, but you seem to widely overestimate it.

I am not so sure. I had a stopover in Dubai recently. I was able to visit the city. I visited the Dubai mall, and I was struck by how undistinguishable it looked from a typical American mall. Nearly all brands were American. I was in a completely different part of the world, and expecting to experience something completely different, and I was sorely disappointed.

I don't know about Dubai, but in most places with its own history, US 'mainstream' culture have trouble reaching (US have plenty of different culture too, even if they reach a bit sometime (misouri/KC barbecue)). Especially food.

> visited the Dubai mall

That one famous all over the world for insisting on having exclusively the same stores you find everywhere so that tourists would feel safe?

When you got to the Mc Donald's, did it only have the same kind of food you can find on the US too?

If you insist on staying inside the tourist sandbox, you will only see the tourist attractions.

> Yeah, that isn't really happening. The era of the US exporting food preferences was short lived, mostly at the 90's.

I've traveled a bit since the 90s ended and I can say your statement is simply false. The proliferation of mcdonald's, burger king, starbucks, dunkin donuts has grown exponentially since the 90s. These companies' financial statements backs this up.

> And well, stores are dying, so that's off too.

Local stores are dying and being replaced by multinationals.

> clothes haven't actually homogenized any more in centuries (I'm not sure if there's room for it)

Here is just an image of an ASEAN meeting ( south east asian leaders meeting ).

https://media.philstar.com/images/articles/duts-asean-leader...

Looks very "globally" homogenized to me. Not local, nor diverse.

> Overall, 20th and 21th century globalization has been a huge force for enabling local diversity at the expense of global one

Just like the growth of amazon led to the diversity of local bookstores? A pillar of globalization is scale/size and its derivative efficiency. Globalization, by definition, cannot lead to local diversity. It destroys local diversity in the name of scale, size and efficiency.

Correct - Starbucks is everywhere.

> The proliferation of mcdonald's, burger king, starbucks, dunkin donuts has grown exponentially since the 90s.

And I couldn't be more happy about it, as McD and KFC are two isles of stability and sanity amongst the sea of culinary randomness. No matter where I am, if the local inventions don't sit well with me, I know the nearest global fast food franchise provides me with a line of retreat, a safe baseline.

I think the chains have figured out the food equivalent of i18n and l10n.

For instance, the McAloo Tikki Burger in India, and the McSpicy Paneer I hear good things about. Perhaps I'll try them next time, though I tend to prefer real Indian food when I'm there.

I might test that one day too, however what I referred to in the previous comment is the exact opposite. The cheeseburger, french fries, McNuggets, barbecue sauce, etc. - the staples which are available approximately everywhere in the world, and taste more-less the same. It's a baseline of somewhat decent food I already know. A safe haven - especially when I'm stuck half-way across the globe, and somehow, out of every local place I could eat lunch in, McD and KFC are the two serving the least raw sugar in their meals.

Personally, I have never set foot in a place where Mc Donalds et. al. was the center of the culinary scenario. Not even on the US (Starbucks is relevant at the US, and the US alone, those other ones aren't).

And "These companies' financial statements backs this up." is just confusing large total numbers with market share. Those are two completely different things.

> Local stores are dying and being replaced by multinationals.

You mean grocery stores? Those died a while ago. Retail stores are being replaced by e-commerce.

> Just like the growth of amazon led to the diversity of local bookstores?

No. Just like the growth of Amazon led to the diversity of books, from whatever locality.

My "thing" is that what often gets passes off as diversity and inclusion is actually assimilation.

I like to use the "seat at the table" metaphor. It's been a rectangular table. As diversity and inclusion join, the table should become oval as it progresses towards round. As for a seat at the table? If there's diversity and inclusion some take a chair, some stand, other might sit on the floor. That is, everyone gets a place at the table, but seat isn't forced upon them.

On the other hand, with assimilation nothing really changes. The rectangular table just gets longer and longer, and adds more seats.

All in all, assimilation is the means to the ends of monoculture.

In the complaints about homogenization, people seem to often miss that it's not just marketing and magic US poison. Most of this stuff gets adopted simply because it's better than the local thing it replaced.

To riff off your analogy: the table will remain rectangular and will grow in length for a simple reason: round tables suck. They're good as a metaphor, but are inconvenient and a waste of space in reality. As reflected by their relative rarity.

That's fine. My point is, that's not diversity and inclusion. It's assimilation.

To riff on your riff. There the Groucho Marx’s quote: “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.” While perhaps he meant it differently, we have people/groups lining up to get a seat at a rectangular table with a history of: bigotry, genocide, misogyny, prejudice, war, greed, cronyism, materialistic, etc, etc, etc.

The new members are so proud of themselves for getting a seat at that table, conveniently ignoring all the unnecessary death, suffering, injustice, etc deeply notched into that table.

That's not diversity.

That's not inclusion.

That's assimilation.

To think otherwise is naive.

No, you’re not taking into account our connectedness and the velocity of ideas as a result of our connectedness.

I would argue that globalization has meant that we all live in the same city and use the same sites, but globalization has also caused a Cambrian explosion of content that has created a kind of balkanized cultural space. So every city looks the same but the granularity within it is far higher because people have separated by culture instead of by locale.

I agree with trends toward homogeneity.

Some people are disagreeing because there's "more" choice now because all the differences are non-localized.

Walmart and then Amazon squeezed out local anything stores. I think it's five large media conglomerates squeezed out any local broadcast station with actual local content other than weather and sports. Etc.

And what we have for diversity is largely non-local and often living inside huge corporate walled gardens - look at all the content I can get on YouTube while they decide it's ok to do that, so better not get a "strike!"

This is still an increase in homogeneity. Not to mention a ridiculous consolidation of authoritarian power.

Oh it will be. Already everyone can program, be a voice artist, draw paintings, write poems, and what not. The actual skills will be lost, because cheap and quick beats depth and intent. Basically every time.

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