[HN Gopher] The Silence Is Deafening (2020) ___________________________________________________________________ The Silence Is Deafening (2020) Author : luu Score : 55 points Date : 2022-03-12 18:44 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (devonzuegel.com) (TXT) w3m dump (devonzuegel.com) | holoduke wrote: | In real life you communicate on a much higher level. Non verbal | communication is so important. That's why I don't believe in pure | working from home. At least till we have full 16k VR work | environment simulations. | kkfx wrote: | Honestly I agree only very partially: in some context seeing | others in a room, full body is indeed _very_ useful, but that | 's not the case most of the time. Giving a remote lecture is | painful because it's almost impossible to feel the class, | discussing serious business is similar, but daily work, at | least most of daily works do not really have, or can be | designed not to, such needs. | | The real issue is being _really_ able to separate work and | life, or have a _local_ social activity in person, in the | physical world, while have a secondary and separated working | life in a "virtual" world. This is hard IME, we tend to make | friends where we are most active, then it's hard to separate | remotes people from work to real physical and human world, for | that I still have to find a real solution but meeting each | others _sometimes_ while keeping WFH for the rest again suffice | in most cases. Having a local physical life separated from the | work it 's not that hard, at least if we do not live in a | desert/very remote areas. | | The main issue I see in practice are mostly due to the lack of | "social interest" in many remote workers who actually prefer to | be remote _just_ to avoid working with their colleagues, so | they do not interact as needed, they do not try to communicate | what 's needed etc, the lack of habit and organization where | most people simply start from scratch just like child doing | their first experience "in the wild" without real experience, | but those issues can be solved just with trials and errors in | few years: for the system part we need to rediscover _really_ | remote work vs working on the shoulders of giants on their | platforms, for the human part simply learning to develop a kind | of "remote sociability" for work and a healthy local | sociability where we physically live. | | "Remote sociability" is hard, but not that hard IF we learn it, | of course we (society) have to _really_ try to learn... | earleybird wrote: | There are conversations and then there are conversations. The | dinner party conversations are ephemeral, often in a smaller | groups than the whole of the attendees. This is discourse in a | small group where there is high bandwidth communication and | nothing is recorded verbatim for posterity. Opinions can be | malleable, folks may change their mind in the course of | conversation. | | Online forums have much smaller bandwidth and much larger pool of | participants. Nuance in expression is terribly limited to the | ASCII character set. What ever you've written, whether a | thoughtful paragraph or two, or just adding a short bit of | flavouring to the discussion is now cast in stone for all time. | | My suspicion is that the size and durability of online forums is | antithetical to nuanced discussion. | bambax wrote: | Very insightful post in general. About this: | | > _Bringing it into a private space like DMs is crucial, because | it credibly shows that you 're not trying to get brownie points | from your in-group by bashing them in public._ | | The problem with DMs is that they are too much work for the | passive onlooker. | | Public forums like Twitter, Reddit, etc. should include the | possibility of sending private signals: "uncool" badges that take | no more than one click, but that are only seen by the original | poster. | wkearney99 wrote: | This doesn't work if the author doesn't care. | | Perhaps a weighted surfacing of the "uncool" numbers. If a | certain number of 'considered authentic' users mark it as such | that starts to become visible on a post, and on the overall | 'karma' of the author's profile. | | The idea being if the author DOES care, and sees they're | getting marked as 'uncool' then they have a chance to self- | censor/edit/adapt. But if the authosr doesn't care then the | audience still has a chance to see what some sort of 'curated' | members have said about the content, and that the author's | overall rating has potential to take a hit for it. | | Any system can be gamed, of course, but the lack of clear | options for contributing negatives about content is how we've | gotten into this mess. Sole up/down votes are not enough. | bambax wrote: | I think that would work, yes. Someone should try it... | agrover wrote: | So, like YouTube? Where only the creator can see dislikes? | bnralt wrote: | I've seen a lot of sentiments like this article, where the author | is talking about what methods they can use to make others behave | the way they'd like. But I rarely see the opposite - an author | talking about being receptive to others trying to change their | own behavior. That seems to be a large part of the problem right | there. As long as everyone is convinced that the problem is other | people and not themselves, it's hard to see how things will | improve. | parksy wrote: | People just need to be able to speak freely. Likes and dislikes | and other scoring systems just encourage echo chambers and are | almost purpose-built tools for astroturfing. | | People are afraid to say their opinion because of the backlash. | Not everyone has a well thought out opinion, that doesn't mean | they deserve to be punished. The human experiment can only move | forward with open displays of ignorance coupled with open-minded | discussion and acceptance. | | It's idealistic to think this could happen easily, but I see no | other way for global civilisation to come to terms with our | historical cultural differences. | | We're either going to devolve into systems where nothing matters | and everything goes, which frankly we already have with 4chan, or | allow certain views to prevail over others, which literally every | forum or approval-based channel has these days, or find a | different way to share differences and come to terms with them, | which I hope somebody invents soon. | verisimi wrote: | I totally agree with the comment here. I love that you say: | | > I see no other way for global civilisation to come to terms | with our historical cultural differences | | I agree. | | But the path we are on is the opposite. 'We' (or whoever is | running the show - as I don't think the state we find ourselves | in is natural) is not about allowing for diversity of opinions, | and building personal resilience and tolerance to diverse | thinking via the application of reasoned argumentation. | | No. Instead we herded into low engagement, preferably | simplistic binary positions. We are even moving away from law, | into a time of cancel culture driven by corporate policy. We | are going into hardcore tyranny of the individual. | | The reason is (imo) that it is far easier to govern when you | treat people as a collective. If you have imprinted thoughts | patterns into what might have been individual thinkers, and | support that throughout their lives via top-up programming from | the media, you can guide this communal thinking. | | The answer from my perspective is for everyone to be trying | achieve maximum individuality. (Everyone thinks they are | individual, but they are actually expressing received opinions. | I don't even say I am an exception - though I do think I am | working on it.) | | But who's got time for individuality?!? There are mortgages to | pay, children to train into the system - er, I mean educate, | work takes a lot out of you, and passive engagement with | screens is so tempting. | | Maybe in the next life! | hirundo wrote: | "A huge part of the problem is that digital spaces generally have | no equivalent of a disapproving glare." | | That's largely what down votes are, and why it's a problem that | YouTube now hides them. We need both smiles and glares to | communicate well. | peakaboo wrote: | YouTube and Google and their attitude is the problem. And that | we don't have many popular alternatives. | | Our tech overlords are the equivalent of Kings now, above the | law. And their attitude to humanity stinks. | bryanrasmussen wrote: | >That's largely what down votes are, | | Has it ever been theorized that in even so pure a place as HN | the down vote is abused? | | At any rate the disapproving glare has been the go to tool of | small minded and provincial people throughout history, and is | often enshrined as such in media. So I guess I'm not that sure | that having one will solve all problems. | moltke wrote: | This is what happens when you kick everyone with different views | off your platforms; you get an echo chamber. | 1270018080 wrote: | I don't think you read the article? How did you get that out of | what was written? | meredydd wrote: | This article accurately describes a problem, but while it claims | to talk about digital media in general, it is really just talking | about Twitter. | | Here's the giveaway: | | _> A huge part of the problem is that digital spaces generally | have no equivalent of a disapproving glare._ | | Every. Single. Platform. has an equivalent to this - except | Twitter. Reddit (and HN) have visible downvotes. YouTube's | downvotes, invisible though they now are, can at least influence | the recommender algorithm. Even Facebook has "frowny emoji" | reactions. But on Twitter, the only way to express disapproval is | to "join the conversation" - thereby amplifying it, and incurring | all the negative consequences Devon explores. | | It's engagement genius. (Accidental genius, naturally - like most | of Twitter's "core game loop", it's an unforseen, emergent | phenomenon about which its inventors seem faintly embarrassed). | The "grifter" problem Devon mentions exists almost exclusively on | Twitter, _because it 's incentivised by the platform!_ | | Normally I wouldn't get so heated about this stuff, but Twitter | has attracted a critical mass of the world's journalists, so its | incentives flow directly into The National Conversation(TM). This | has visibly malign results, prompting many people to look for | ways to fix it. This is a noble aim, but won't get anywhere if we | regard Twitter's design decisions as immutable and inevitable, | rather than a deliberate choice. | umvi wrote: | Frowny emojis on Facebook aren't anonymous though so people are | reluctant to use them | yesenadam wrote: | > on Twitter, the only way to express disapproval is to "join | the conversation" | | I've never signed up for Twitter, so not an expert, but doesn't | unfollowing someone express disapproval? | GauntletWizard wrote: | Unfollowing someone is the best way to get their tweets in | your timeline with the current state of Twitters algorithm. | You were interested enough to follow and mad enough to | unfollow == engagement. | twoxproblematic wrote: | laretluval wrote: | > A huge part of the problem is that digital spaces generally | have no equivalent of a disapproving glare. | | It's interesting to see that people are now arguing in favor of | public shaming and peer pressure as ways to control behavior, and | lamenting that these are now harder to implement at scale. A | generation ago the internet was seen as a way to escape pressure | for conformity. | dang wrote: | Discussed at the time: | | _The Silence Is Deafening_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23728212 - July 2020 (225 | comments) | egypturnash wrote: | From the footnotes: | | _Imagine a "tth_tth" button on each tweet. The poster finds out | how many people _THAT THEY FOLLOW* clicked that button, but can't | find out specifically who. They just know that the crowd of | people _that they respect_ has a certain air of disapproval.* | | I love this. This is so much more interesting than a downvote, | which could easily come from someone you're disagreeing with or | people who share their views. This is _your friends_ giving you | the hairy eyeball. I want this. | Animats wrote: | _A huge part of the problem is that digital spaces generally have | no equivalent of a disapproving glare._ | | Hm. Need to think about that for virtual worlds. | swivelmaster wrote: | It's easy to physically move away in a virtual world. Lots of | options: Walk, fly, teleport... | Animats wrote: | Yes. One point I make about virtual worlds is that space | keeps everything from being in the same place. The annoyance | radius of jerks is limited. In Second Life, it's about 100 | meters, and the world is the size of Los Angeles. There's no | "retweeting" or "following" or "broadcasting" to amplify | jerks. So jerks are a very local problem. | cardamomo wrote: | https://archive.ph/d8nrR ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-03-12 23:00 UTC)