1,513 karma · joined March 17, 2021
In general this reads like a sickening melange of half-true diagnoses (yes, of course lack of competition is a problem) and naive appeals to the nanny state that don't understand what they're inviting. To whit:
"Renée Diresta, research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, said policy should also differentiate between free speech and free reach. The right to free speech doesn’t extend to a right to have that speech amplified by algorithms."
Yes citizen, you can say whatever you want. You just have to say it in this sealed, soundproof room with no windows! This is almost literally the author saying "You have the right to speak, you just don't have the right for anyone to hear you", which is nonsensical. Free speech is meaningless if you can't actually reach anyone with it. The right to yell your deepest beliefs in the middle of the Sahara desert isn't free speech.
But of course, this ability to silence "misinformation" is fine, because it will only be used against the bad people! Surely it will never be used to silence people like the author, because they're good and right! Never mind that this is already happening (Youtube is famous for silencing certain LGBT and sex-positive figures, as well as any number of left-wing activists, for example).
2. Bad people steal good thing.
3. Bad people ruin good thing while trying to make money with it.
Tale as old as time.
You'd think after the last time the Audacity vultures would have learned their lesson, but of course they don't care. It's just another thing destroy in the vague hope of making money.
Audacity should have no online components. NONE. And as such, no such notice should be needed.
Never read Wired seriously. They are not your friend. They do not have your interests in mind.
This whole article is talking past the sale. What if regulating DOESN'T fail, mmm? What then? And why is Wired so eager to get us to imagine a world where it does?
Everyone said anti-trust and other actions against tech monopolies were impossible, never gonna happen. Then enough people got pissed off, politicians smelled an opportunity, and suddenly there were lawsuits and talk of serious legislation.
Everything's impossible until it isn't. There's a whole hell of a lot still in the pipe for Facebook and their ilk. Let's see where it goes. And if it isn't enough, I suspect people will continue to get angry, and that anger will find another outlet. You can make enemies. You can even make a lot of enemies. But you can't make enemies of nearly everyone. Sooner or later that kind of behavior has consequences.
Good stuff should be preserved, but it's not the Internet's job to somehow magically do it. It's OUR job, and the nature of digital information (DRM not withstanding) makes this easier than ever.
The overall bent is a hand-wringing about link rot, which I thought we mostly got over a decade ago. The Internet is fundamentally ephemeral. If you see something you like, save it so you can repost it later. If you rely on someone else to keep in up indefinitely, you're being foolish.
Around the edges of that main discussion, the Atlantic also touches on censorship in all the wrong ways, re-iterating the too-common view that censorship is good as long as the good guys do it. They at least argue that this censorship should be transparent and censored works still accessible in some way, but they seem to not understand the nature of what they're talking about.
Censored works aren't censored to protect the public. They're censored to protect the rich and powerful. That's why "right to be forgotten" really exists. That's why Google and Youtube and Twitter and Facebook quash anything that goes against the accepted narrative in any given field. They aren't protecting the public from dangerous misinformation. No one gives a shit about the public. They're protecting the financial and political interests of some very powerful people.
Given this, talk of a "poison cabinet" only illustrates ignorance of the issue. The Memory Hole cannot be divorced from the censorship process, it's a core part of it. If people can still find the information in some form, it's not censored enough to make the people it threatened happy.
And this leads to the final point, which is that the real reason the web is "rotting" isn't link rot, it's censorship on the part of tech monopolies, due to their joined-at-the-hip relationship with every large corporation and industry imaginable due to advertising and other deals. The fact that links die doesn't matter much: you can just repost the material. The fact that links ARE ACTIVELY KILLED to suppress their information is a much more serious problem, and one that doesn't have an easy solution besides full breakup of the tech monopolies.
The first thing a web browser needs is a non-profit, propped up by an enormous endowment, so that they can stay independent in the face of unthinkable pressure and sabotage attempts from the tech monopolies.
The second is to enshrine one concept above all others: you are building a tool for the users. Not for yourself, and not for any company. Serve the users. Do not harm or exploit them.
The third is to understand that a web browser in the modern era is no longer a document viewer: it's a weapon of war. It must be assumed that every page you load is trying to do something nefarious to the user, from low grade like dark patterns and ads to high grade like phishing and full-on malware and hacking attempts. Start from a point of extreme skepticism. Nobody can be trusted, including (especially) not leading tech companies.
The fourth is to get rid of cancerous, masturbatory habits in programming like chasing after whatever language is most hip and stylish this week. Only three things matter: How efficient is the program, how secure is the program, and how quickly can you build it? These obviously pull in different directions, so a balance will have to be struck, but the point is there's no space for chasing languages or programming practices for vague ideological aspirations. Tried-and-true over shiny and new.
A new browser is definitely needed, and probably won't happen thanks to a near complete market capture by tech monopolies. But the solution to current issues isn't to make a browser that's even more drenched in them.
Edit: I will agree with the author on one thing though, which is that modern browsers do too goddamn much. Scale the shit back.
-A firestorm of slander from media outlets controlled by competitors. -Cartel-style harassment and denial of basic services required to run the site, hosting, financial, etc, again, by competitors.
Competition is not a solution when the game is rigged. People literally are "stopping you," and they are some very powerful, influential people at that.
Yes yes, there's "on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination." That seems about as firm as a plastic bag blowing through a parking lot. I'm sure that category won't grow larger and larger until it's impossible to criticize the powerful or the status quo at all.
Power to muzzle people for saying something mean is power the government SHOULD NOT HAVE. And if they get it, it WILL be abused.
This can be somewhat ameliorated by cross-referencing several sources, and the internet makes this easier, especially Youtube. But it's still infuriating, especially when time and money are limited.
As time went on, everything rotted. The chill sites struggled to keep the lights on, and many eventually shuttered. The "we'll sell it off some day" ones sold it off, and the buyers ALWAYS ran the site into the ground.
So now we get an Internet that resembles a b-movie graveyard. There are a lot of corpses, and a lot of shambling zombies. The few souls still alive are holed up somewhere with a shotgun, awaiting the end.
Until then, it's about value for money.
"Caplan argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skills but to certify their intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity—attributes that are valued by employers. He ultimately estimates that approximately 80% of individuals' return to education is the result of signaling, with the remainder due to human capital accumulation."
> No they do not.
Then why are student loans (in the US) the only loans not dischargable in bankruptcy? If I live like an irresponsable asshole, run up credit card debt right and left, buy a car and who knows what else I can't afford and it finally catches up to me, I can just throw up my hands and say "Ok, you've got me. Bankruptcy." They'll take my fancy stuff, my credit takes a hit, and I can move on with my life with a clean slate.
On the other hand, if I try to improve myself and my community by getting educated to get a good job, go into debt doing so, and then can't repay the debt because the good jobs the university promised aren't actually there, I can NEVER GET RID OF THAT DEBT. It will literally follow me until the day I die. Why? Because Universities are mostly a scam, and the people running them know it. If they had any faith in the education they were providing, they would put their money where their mouth was and let people discharge the loans if needed. Almost everything in the modern era has a "Satisfaction or your money back" guarantee, except education. The reason is that they have no faith in the product they're selling.
>Both schools and universities bend over backwards to inform prospective students on the fit between degrees and careers.
On the contrary, there was a whole industry, the for profit college industry, that existed solely by lying about the viability of the education they provided. Thankfully those have largely collapsed now, but the ordinary college world is hardly any better. As just one example, nearly all of them trumpet the well-worn graphs showing the connection between college education and increasing income, despite those graphs being blatant lies (income goes up among college graduates because most people from rich families go to college, not because college makes you more employable).
There was a time, post WWII, that college was a no-brainer. That time is long past. And it's amazing how much of the population is still hypnotized into believing, and ardently defending, the idea that college is still a good idea for anyone who isn't already rich. Young people's futures are being destroyed. The future of many nations is being destroyed. Huge amounts of public funds are being wasted. And yet people still keep defending the scam.
If you came from a well-off family, went to college, and got a great job related to your degree, great. Understand that most college attendees are not you. Most are middle-class or lower, desperately trying to find some way to avoid working in the service industry for the rest of their lives. And most will fail, with a debt burden that is modest to you, but devastating to them.
The other half is that shit's bad. Corona, soaring wealth inequality, tumbling quality of physical goods and art/entertainment. Everything feels like it's a hollowed out facade now, whether it's the job you're working, the food you're buying, or the movie you're watching.
Put these two together, and you get a population that is being forced to realize The End is coming. Or at least A end. Chaos and upheaval is at hand, and the government might not be able (or interested in) protecting you. In such a circumstance, buying a gun and learning to use it is one of many obvious responses.
1. Most effective communication is "propaganda"
As outlined in "Thinking Fast and Slow" (and in numerous other places), there are two ways of thinking: the quick instinctive "gut," and the slow, considered, logical mind. People, especially the kind of people that read HN, tend to deify the latter and villainize the former, but the truth is both have value. Furthermore, the "gut" actually has MORE value overall, since being able to sit down and carefully consider every aspect of a situation or concept is a luxury that is often impractical.
"Propaganda" is simply anything that speaks to this instinctive mind. Sales is propaganda. Dating/pursuing someone is propaganda. Trying to get a child to calm down when they're afraid or angry is propaganda. People sneer at making "emotional appeals" and appealing to "base instincts," but the reality is that humans spend most of their time living in world of emotion and instinct, not fact. Speaking to the instinctive mind is a more effective way to persuade someone, because the instinctive mind has more power in most people. That doesn't make it inherently bad. Talking directly to a person's "gut" is simple effective communication, which can be used for good or bad end.
2. Logic is a luxury, not a silver bullet
Almost every discussion of this topic inevitably frames it the same way: there are dark, sinister forces using "propaganda" to manipulate the vulnerable, and we must fight back by teaching people to think logically! Elevate yourself above base instinct, see everything with the cool remove of a Vulcan, and you will triumph, in yourself, and in winning arguments with others.
The reality is that the world, and people, don't work like this. Logic, reason and facts are not trump cards. Quite the opposite: they require a cool, friendly and reserved setting to work, and are thus mostly useless in any situation other than one between friends that mutually respect and understand each other.
The language of most of humanity, most of the time, is "propaganda," ie an appeal to instinct. Victory doesn't lie in trying to stomp this out like a Victorian trying to purge their sex drive, but rather in accepting it, understanding it, in yourself and others, and learning to speak in its language. Careful rational thinking is great, we wouldn't have all the advancements we do without it. But most people don't spend their free time reading research papers. They watch movies or TV, or play video games. Some even still read books.
Stop treating "propaganda" as a dark tool of the evil one. Bad guys use what works, and speaking to instinct works. If you want to fight them (and more importantly, to just lead a richer life) learn to do the same.
Computers are information. Giving people access to information does not magically make them moral, or curious, or thoughtful. It just amplifies what they were already trying to do.
In the 90s, not getting an expensive new PC every 2 years or so meant you were screwed if you wanted to play any of the cool new games coming out. I haven't upgraded my system in over 5 years, and I can still play most new titles with a few minor graphic settings turned down or off.
1. Smart, well-meaning people see a problem, and try to craft a solution.
2. Bad actors completely ignore these good intentions and use the new invention for money and power, harming or exploiting the general population in the process.
This isn't to say progress is never made, but the lion's share of the benefits of any new tech always ends up going right back to the rich and powerful that didn't need it in the first place.
I wasn't a programmer in the 90's, but I did grow up then, and into the hacker culture of the 00s. Looking back, I feel comradeship for the radicals in the 60s. A revolution was in the air, things were going to change! And then it all petered away to nothing.
Smart, well-meaning people constantly dream of freeing everyone: from poverty, or political oppression, or ideological entanglement. One more advance, one more theory or piece of tech and then we'll have it! But the general populace will never be free, because they don't want to be. On an unconscious level, they desire their cage. Freedom is scary and uncomfortable. That's why smartphones replaced PCs, and why software and the web became a closed, user-hostile morass. Most people do not want the power to self-actualize. They just want to be kept comfortable until they die.
Technically though, there is still a use for Windows search on the start menu: pulling up Windows components like the Control Panel or Disk Manger quickly.
As a result, my default policy now is "If it ain't broke, NEVER fix it." Install, then disable all updates, forcibly if necessary. On Windows and your browser at a bare minimum, and probably on any other software you use often or rely on. Yes, there are risks and downsides to doing this: security holes won't be patched, bugs won't be fixed, and new features won't be present. But everything in life is a balance. And on balance, the bad of updating is almost always worse than the good is good. This article highlights that in brilliant neon letters. How on EARTH do you justify boot and reboot times doubling or tripling, and just about every metric getting worse over time? Why would I let Microsoft fuck with my system if they're going to make it shittier?
And of course, the article leaves out the worst part. Never mind gradual performance drops, there's a good chance that update you just downloaded just broke something. Entirely. Something you NEED to work. When is a fix coming? Anyone's guess.
Install Windows 10 LTSB. It's the only one worth using. And unless you NEED a new feature or bugfix, never EVER update.
It's great at getting a bunch of likes while harassing someone like Yang into shutting up, but did that action actually have any meaningful impact on how Israel acts, or how US politicians act toward Israel (not what they SAY, notice, but what they DO)? Probably not.
It's great at getting fame and money for the Kony people, but had no actual impact on the situation in question.
Slogans like Build the Wall and Lock Her Up served their purpose, which was to build an electoral base for Trump, not to actually accomplish those things.
I'm actually more sympathetic to Trump here, because he's a salesman using sales tactics to make a sale. The others clothe themselves in high-minded morality while in reality being exactly the same thing.