Given the rapidly diminishing quality of discourse on the open internet the last decade or so, I understand.
I recently restricted comments on my blog or 15 years to existing subscribers only. It took me a while to accept that after removing the random spam, then the racist, misogynist, homophobic, and other lowlife commenters, I was left with 10-15% of discussions worth reading.
Pretty sad state of affairs, and it’s clear it’s degrading faster every day.
A few years ago I gave a keynote speech at Amazon’s annual design conference called Post Truth Design. This was a year before ChatGPT launched and generative AI blew up. And I was talking about exactly this kind of situation where hyperrealistic, but fake, media and content will supersede and conflict with reality. Most importantly, loads of research tells us that when presented with objective truth versus comfortable or even more entertaining fictions, lies will always win. Because of this, there is a deep humanistic responsibility on us to both find ways to deal with this new future, and actively work against these psychological tendencies to believe comfortable or entertaining lies.
Unsurprisingly, things didn’t get simpler in the intervening years since then, but I feel very strongly believe we can and will find a balance. Even if it takes a lot of bodies to pay for it.
A couple of American politicians were executed in their homes a few months ago and one of the two presidential candidates was nearly JFKd in front of hundreds of cameras last year. A few years ago, a mob stormed the capital and erected a gallows to hang the sitting vice president if they could lay hands on him.
That’s violent enough even if you don’t consider the fact that de facto martial law is about to descend on major cities all over the country in the next few weeks. I’m doubtful that Greeks were anywhere near as volatile or violent as Americans are today.
What you're describing are anomalies. Most Presidental candidates are not "nearly JFK'd" nor do mobs storm the Capitol with regularity. For all of its cultural pretensions of being a nation of armed patriots always ready to "water the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants" the US political system is for the most part incredibly stable and nonviolent. In ancient Greece, meanwhile, violent mobs, assassinations and tyranny were the norm rather than the exception.
Technology does not exist separately from society and culture, and in the last few decades has arguably made a lot of the world and society worse. I’m all for using the biggest lever I have to address harmful behaviors from corporations. Withhold your wallet, stay off their platforms and make your reasons known.
I mean… this is part of GPs point. Here we are, playing on the lawn of private equitists, probably directly or indirectly working for the people that GGP was railing against.
This is Elon Musk‘s MO: announce a feature that would be groundbreaking for the industry well before you have any real understanding of whether it can be built in the first place. A lot of old classmates are at SpaceX now and have told many horror stories of this happening across their projects.
A quick glance at the front row of the inauguration seems to imply they are in fact a monolith. Not to mention how many corporations immediately bent the knee for this administration before even being asked.
Your link spends a lot of time talking about donations to Trump's inauguration committee, which I understand happened after he won, and generally seems to not distinguish between contributions before and after the election.
(1) That is the paradigm of classification, don't knock it, and
(2) I did some work on a pre-product startup that wanted to build something like this about 10 years ago, when visual recognition was much less developed.
I recently restricted comments on my blog or 15 years to existing subscribers only. It took me a while to accept that after removing the random spam, then the racist, misogynist, homophobic, and other lowlife commenters, I was left with 10-15% of discussions worth reading.
Pretty sad state of affairs, and it’s clear it’s degrading faster every day.
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