Comment by Solvency | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Solvency | Hacker News Reader

I think people grossly overestimate the amount of real human beings embroiled in these online communities of niche collectivism outrage. Developers are not immune to this either, because they are chronically online and whether they like it or not, they're catching wind of the exact same volume of clickbaity activity.

Joe Rogan is notorious for this, as he vehemently believes every single thing he sees or hears from Twitter as being reflective of the state of the rest of the real world. This is because he, ultimately, is actually sequestered from real society, operating in a tight little bubble of an elite privileged few.

And this is no different from other small, vocal, and ultimately isolated communities of people who spend all day together… Just online.

I live in a suburban part of Southern California, I deal with regular people of all shapes and sizes and ages and races daily basis in person. 99.99% of them have absolutely no idea about any of this nonsense. not a single thing from this article would even register on their personal radars. unless it was served up to them on a platter by which ever partisan news network they happen to check in with once in a while.

and don't even get me started on the fact that the vast majority of this Internet activity is ultimately bots, bored trolls, and paid schills.

also: why is this article focused on modern mass media? Simply look thousands of years ago at the original mass media mind prison called religion.

This is absolutely the psychosis of today and tomorrow. Just watching my own father in isolation in algorithm walls on twitter and Facebook is astonishing

> and don't even get me started on the fact that the vast majority of this Internet activity is ultimately bots, bored trolls, and paid schills.

I suspect there are many more shills living in our imagination, than are on the payrolls in reality. Do you have any evidence one way or another?

This is it. I never got into Instagram reels, fb shorts, whatever it's all called until I had a period of unemployment this year. I got sucked in because I was absolutely fascinated by how disconnected this online world is from real life. It's an onion of strawmans and hypotheticals that didn't actually happen that people are getting outraged over. People are frothing over the mere idea that someone would have a thought or carry out an action that they deem unethical.

It's pure insanity and I really believe the source is Russian and Chinese cyber ops. I'm liberal as fuck, but the stereotypical blue haired anti-gendered person raving about communism isn't real, per se. It's like a few hundred people that got pushed to the top. And people lose their shit over it. It's brilliant.

> I was absolutely fascinated by how disconnected this online world is from real life

Relevant Bill Hicks (1991) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGjuPJskNRE

I don't think that's the same thing. There is war and famine happening in the world. You don't see it Bill? Turns out other countries exist. I like some of Bill Hicks stuff, but I think that's a lazy take.

> There is war and famine happening in the world. Turns out other countries exist.

So what? It's not my responsibility to participate in that. That just sounds like “The White Man's Burden” with extra steps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden

Move to Somerville MA. You will find that stereotype walking the street. Not everyone, but a surprisingly high percentage have swallowed the Woke agenda whole.

Keep downvoting me all you wish, but just as there are unreconstructed Trumpists dominating some areas of the country, there is a Left contingent dominating others.

> I really believe the source is Russian and Chinese cyber ops

Here in Colombia we got something that went to be known as bodegueros: People hired by the (then right-wing) government and their allies (and sometimes using public fundings) to mass spread misinformation to make it seem the opposite parties as the "baddies". Blatantly enough they went to the point to claim it is the opposite party who is doing such practice.

Facebook and Twitter are full of fake accounts posting/sharing/retweeting whatever strawman and sensationalist "content" en masse to provoke outrage. At the point I went out of Reddit, even r/Colombia was going the same course - even at least a couple "colombian" subs went this way, like r/ColombiaReddit and r/ChomposCol, but all with that same pattern.

The odd thing is that r/ChomposCol came as a Reddit extension of what is/was a group on Facebook that originated on a private university that actually did hate acts in real life, like harassing a student or menacing a teacher with physical violence.

don't even get me started on the fact that the vast majority of this Internet activity is ultimately bots, bored trolls, and paid schills

This is the sole reason I dont bother arguing on the internet. If I feel I must say something, I say it and move on (except on HN ofc :) ).

A majority/totality of my IRL friends has a problem with spending too much time in front of a screen. Regardless of the political/liberation parts of the article, it is hard to argue against social media being designed to be addictive, and all forms of digital entertainment encouraging binging, from Youtube to Netflix to videogames.

Boredom, I think, is a key motivator for fulfillment. Anecdotally, I find myself in a city where I have very few IRL friends; you could say I'm lonely, and yet I am not seeking out activities or "third places" where I could meet more people. I think it's plausible to say that's because digital entertainment keeps me busy enough, but that's a (very) local maximum

So what's the "nonsense" these people have not heard about? Maybe "terminally online" evokes images of reddit and 4chan hardcore users, but it should also include people who spend hours a day scrolling instagram, tiktok, and what have you. The _average_ screen time per day among internet users is almost 7 hours [1]; of which 3 hours on average spent on social media (which does not include entertainment such as youtube/netflix) [2]

The amount of "real human beings embroiled in online communities" is extremely high. They might not be engaging in niche collectivism outrage, but that's only half of what the article is about... I took it to be complication, an additional stake: if you _do_ care about, say, liberation, then note: this is also controlling you in that specific regard.

1: https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2023-global-overvie...

2: https://www.statista.com/statistics/433871/daily-social-medi...

Most of the problems the author is worried about simply go away when you switch off the computer and phone and go out and “touch grass.”

Real Life doesn’t care what someone on Reddit (or HN, to be fair) is posting. Real Life doesn’t care who’s being canceled on Twitter. Real Life doesn’t care about whatever the latest ragebait is being shared and passed around. Real Life doesn’t care about 4chan or QAnon. If people would just log off, spend some time with their families, with their neighbors, with their community, all the pointless shit author is writing about would simply disappear.

I have a handful family members now getting suddenly mad in the middle of conversations because they had an intrusive thought about “Pelosi” or “Hunter” and make a sharp turn into rageville. These are people who have never been interested in world events or politics but now the specter of “Pelosi” haunts their thoughts in the middle of breakfast.

Seen the same with trump, etc. Its a social illness no matter the party.

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