Hacker News Reader

Comment by kogus | Hacker News Reader

I agree 100% with what you are saying, but I don't think you need a human connection to have good content. The encyclopedia Brittanica didn't establish a human connection, but it was a valuable resource. An ugly problem with an attention economy is that you are rewarded for seeming useful and interesting, but once the attention has been given, there is no incentive to actually deliver. So we get clickbait headlines and veneer-grade content because that's enough to get the ad dollars, without the investment that original content would require.

To be fair, most web users are happy with the arrangement - they get an endless feed of free tiny doses of dopamine while they avoid the real responsibilities of life. The large-scale effect is decidedly negative, though.

View on HN

> An ugly problem with an attention economy is that you are rewarded for seeming useful and interesting, but once the attention has been given, there is no incentive to actually deliver

> To be fair, most web users are happy with the arrangement - they get an endless feed of free tiny doses of dopamine while they avoid the real responsibilities of life.

I'd argue it's mostly the latter. Most creators produce content to make money, catering to demand.

Ancient Aliens BS, TikTok reaction videos, blatant staged animal rescues, celebrity drama... this is what the general populace regards as interesting and useful. These are all genuinely popular and sought-after content.

It is a dopamine trap. People want to feel good knowing something special, feel a shared emotional bond, feel the world has good, or that they are almost a socialite... and they'll fight tooth and nail if that perception is challenged.

The harsh reality is that any conversation about what "people" want needs to factor in the fact that half of "the people" are dumber, more simpler-minded than the average person.

No, you and I don't want to look at staged animal rescues or celebrity drama... but if the average person does, then so does at least 50% of the population. We're in the minority.

Yes, but also let's cut people some slack: most people on either side of IQ 100 are spending all their energy at work, and between the job, commute, preparing food, spending time with kids, etc. they only have enough energy to crawl into bed and start the grind again the next day. With that in mind, the popularity of low-effort, high-dopamine entertainment doesn't necessarily imply that most people are simple-minded and just like this - the alternative hypothesis is that they just don't have time and energy for any more complex, richer ways of spending their time.

some of the most brilliant people I know apparently get stuck in these dopamine loops too. not everything is a matter of intelligence

> half of "the people" are dumber, more simpler-minded than the average person.

Spiders Georg would like a word with you. And 99.99% of people have more than the average number of legs. And "the average person" is not something you can actually imagine. Think about "the average driver". You're actually thinking of an asshole driver, because asshole drivers are more salient. You don't notice "the average driver".

I think we are missing one important point. Communities acclaimatize to ground realities, though it takes time.

In my early experience of social media, people were criticized for not writing correct English. That is almost gone. Infact, now people realize that people belonging to different backgrounds can't be expected to perform in one particular context. There is reverse sort of meme, where non-natives are celebrated for writing perfect English. Similarly, there was debate on how to actually spell Quran or Koran etc. Now people understand the intention behind the words rather than actual grammer or spelling. It takes time for higher level of ideas to percolate social media.

*grammar

There was a question asked on Quora by a child to her mother, "Why haven't we used all the short words and gave them meaning before using all the long words?"

The simple answer, apart from historical origins of words is "error correction". It is far easier to error correct words which are far apart in spelling and audio space.

relevant : https://youtu.be/AZX6awZq5Z0?t=3107

Reputation is still valuable over time. Some YouTube creators I ignore irregardless of the thumbnail, while other content creators get a click automatically. The same happens with websites and everywhere else in the attention economy.

some content creators I click on _despite_ them having to do the click-bait stupid YouTube thumbnails.

As an aside - word you may have been looking for is irrespective, or perhaps just plain old regardless. irregardless is not a word.

> irregardless is not a word.

Lots of dictionaries disagree. But not me! I'll join you on this hill, regardless of what those dumb dictionaries say.

The misuse of "literally" and the common use of "irregardless" are the red pills that have turned me into a crotchety old ... prescriptivist.

People say that people use literally to mean figuratively now which is literally the opposite of literally, but I've literally never seen someone use literally to mean figuratively. I have often seen it used to hyperbolize the strength of analogies or generalizations, which means they apply literally somewhat figuratively, but that doesn't mean that they literally mean for literally to mean figuratively.

Literally is literally a point. Figuratively is a point only figuratively, literally it is a continuum. If you're not using literally to literally mean literally, you are literally using it to mean figuratively.

People are just not literally-absolutists. They believe literally exists in a continuum.

That means they disagree with you on the definition of the word, but it doesn't make it a synonym of figuratively.

No, if you aren't using it to mean literally, you are using it figuratively, but not necessarily (or ever, IME) to mean figuratively (usually as an intensifier to a statement that is expected to be understood as figurative from context.)

> I'm literally dead right now

Is that figurative speech?

Yes. Definitely.

If I say "I literally broke my arm" after I actually broke my arm, that use is completely correct. But you cannot be literally dead and still type a message, unless it's an automated message that you ordered someone/something to send AFTER you died.

If I'm on my regular nightly haunting mission, and I decide to speak to the new owner of the house that I'm haunting, how do I convey to them that I am really, actually, truly dead? I could say, "I'm literally dead", but they would think I'm laughing at their joke they just made!

If the answer to this is to avoid the word "literally", and instead replace it with "really, actually, truly" (like I did above), then I might just decide to retire from haunting.

You obtain "literally dead" privileges if you are a ghost, too, of course.

OMG A GOAST SO SPOOKY

Of course.

Would you be less likely to interpret it as such if the speaker had omitted "literally"?

I would say that the sentence is an example of hyperbole. "I am so figuratively dead right now it's as if I am literally dead." The meaning of literally, there, remains intact.

In the same way, when someone complains that you left them waiting for "days" we don't say "sometimes days means ten minutes" but that sometimes people exaggerate.

Linguists call this usage, “the emphatic literally” and the best writers of the past 300 years have used it.

So if it’s good enough for Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Vladimir Nabokov, and David Foster Wallace, then it’s good enough for me. Literally.

https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/the-300-year-history-of-using...

I wouldn't mind that use of the word if there were a different word available that meant "literally literally".

It’s been in common use for well over 100 years before you where born.

There’s beating a dead horse, and there’s railing about the injustice of it all in the shadow of a great oak growing over the horses grave.

oh snap, I love that analogy.

> irregardless is not a word.

"Irregardless" is absolutely a word. It's not a word I personally like, but there's no denying its status.

I was going to say the same thing. Low-quality content creators can get away with too many ads and subpar work because they don't rely on repeat business. It's like a tourist shop raising prices and selling fake merchandise because they know their customers are unlikely to come back. In contrast, creators who cultivate a loyal audience must consistently deliver value.

This reflects the cooperation vs betrayal incentives analysed in game theory. Agents are more likely to be loyal to agents that can extract payback, and one-time interactions are free of consequences. Google is to blame for sending people on deep links, they won't form a long term relation with the website. Not advocating against Google, just observing this second order effect.

> while other content creators get a click automatically.

A number of times now Youtube has shown me a video recommendation that I ignored for days. The thumbnail with that stupid "gobsmacked" expression of the creator (:-O) with some dumb headline in big block letters ("IS GRAVITY A LIE?"). You know what I'm talking about.

Then I finally get around to looking at it closer, and it turns out it's one of my favorite channels with an awesome video! They went with the stupid title and thumbnail because "the algorithm demands it". The actual video itself is great.

These creators get an automatic click from me as well, except when I'm mislead by the thumnail and title into not even realizing it's one of them. Then it takes time for me to discover it. There's been a couple of times where the video I'm mentally spam-filtering appears on the HN front page, and it turns out to be a great video. But had I not seen it here, I would never have clicked on it.

> They went with the stupid title and thumbnail because "the algorithm demands it"

The end result is I don't use their discovery crap at all, because it all looks like garbage I don't care about.

My use of Youtube has become very similar to my use of Xitter - never log in, almost never look at content on their domains, only on other peoples' sites.

I'm sure it works for them on average.

I do not understand the gobsmacked face thing. It has been going on for years. There’s no way Google doesn’t know about it. I guess we should assume they… want it that way?

Why would elgooG give a gosh-darn about the amazed facial expression of some of their most popular creators? I assume they care about their metrics, and this drives engagement, especially with younger viewers. And because younger viewers have the most time, that in turn drives hours of YouTube watched, ads viewed, and on and on.

We can assume the metrics, we can see the results, and both seem to line up.

Thumbnails with the creator's face are proven to attract more views. The stupid expression seems to enhance that effect.

I have a tendency to ignore anything with strong wording as I know I can't trust the intentions of the author.

When you DO click on them they're almost always the most mundane things imaginable.

The Mr. Beast thumbnail O face because everything you post has to be something you HAVE to click on.

None of this is really new. People have sought low-quality high-dopamine content since television was the main medium. Since the spread of radio. Since the development of novels. Probably the beginning of the printing press, writing, or hell, storytelling and spoken language itself.

Each new medium provides more power to dive into this, and each generation panics that we've crossed a never-before-crossed line. And they're correct.

But the problem lies within us as humans. Lightweight diversionary content is just what the majority of us want, and have always wanted. But not 100% of us. Content that's deep, thoughtful, educational, and useful is still being created and consumed at record scales.

True except now AI robots create low quality content without any qualms

"True except now the printing press means trash novels devoid of real artistry can be pumped out without additional effort from the original author." Parents point is that the newness you highlight also isn't new either, strictly speaking. It's all a matter of scale as the effort approaches zero

Scale matters. "No single snowflake blames itself on the avalanche" is a saying for a reason. Little things that seemingly don't matter can built up to the point they become a deadly maelstrom.

The weird part to me is that the ad dollars have to lead to some sort of connection. The ad buyers need you to want something.

Sure, some of it is just scams and politics (yeah yeah the jokes write themselves). But at core there are people who have an actual thing to sell, and people who want to buy things. It may not make them happy in the end but that's up to each of us to figure out for ourselves, and the philosophers.

Somewhere under all that attention is a service or a product. In the end we've got to learn which ones matter to us. That's what the attention is supposed to be for.

> In the end we've got to learn which ones matter to us.

Not all content is intended to sell a product or service. The really great stuff is not.

I think this is true in the individual level, but less so in the ecosystem as a whole.

I can see how a YouTube channel gets attention-optimized to hell, but then I am able to find content that is genuinely amazing that have survived the temptation to over-optimize for engagement.

At the end of the day I assume this comes down to means of monetization. If someone has some other means of making a living that is not directly tied into the social media platform itself, for example they are independently wealthy, then it's easy for them to create non-over-optimized content.

A common breaking point for creators is the ones where they have job X that makes a decent living, but their content starts getting popular and starts making a decent living. That's where the creator starts running into the 2 masters problem. Do they quit their job and make content only? If they do, will the platform decide to completely screw them over with an algorithm change?

Then you have a 3rd class that is just jumping into content for the purpose of making money by any means possible. All aboard the over-optimization train.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com