Right, both platforms that algorithmically isolate people into echo chambers, only showing people content that offends them in ways that polarises them further, so as to keep them doom-scrolling forever.
My point is that this isn’t conducive with a social platform that unites people and builds consensus, but one that extract’s money at the cost of inflaming divisions even further.
social platform that unites people and builds consensus, but one that extract’s money (…)
I mean, thats the point and to pretend that any social media was ever anything but that is to either be a historical revisionist or delusional.
Reddit may have had a different point when Swartz was around, but anything that takes venture capitol money is eventually beholden to their moral prerogative. And that is the extraction of all possible wealth in the shortest possible timeline, even at the cost of the platform itsself. That final bit is key. and its a bummer that Reddit didn’t go public before all this fucking around, because we could be making good money off their demise.
Wanting the world to be better is not “delusional”.
Identifying something that exacerbates the problems in human society and arguing against it, is not “revisionist”.
Just because humans tend to be tribal, doesn’t mean the only way to benefit from being a facilitator of communication, is to cynically feed that trait.
If anything, that puts you in an even greater position of responsibility to design the system to do good. Give a system all that humanity creates, and you can make it make you feel whatever you want.
That we are choosing “whatever makes me money” again and again does not mean “whatever will make us grow as a species” isn’t also an option.
Right, both platforms that algorithmically isolate people into echo chambers, only showing people content that offends them in ways that polarises them further, so as to keep them doom-scrolling forever.
My point is that this isn’t conducive with a social platform that unites people and builds consensus, but one that extract’s money at the cost of inflaming divisions even further.
I mean, thats the point and to pretend that any social media was ever anything but that is to either be a historical revisionist or delusional.
Reddit may have had a different point when Swartz was around, but anything that takes venture capitol money is eventually beholden to their moral prerogative. And that is the extraction of all possible wealth in the shortest possible timeline, even at the cost of the platform itsself. That final bit is key. and its a bummer that Reddit didn’t go public before all this fucking around, because we could be making good money off their demise.
Wanting the world to be better is not “delusional”.
Identifying something that exacerbates the problems in human society and arguing against it, is not “revisionist”.
Just because humans tend to be tribal, doesn’t mean the only way to benefit from being a facilitator of communication, is to cynically feed that trait.
If anything, that puts you in an even greater position of responsibility to design the system to do good. Give a system all that humanity creates, and you can make it make you feel whatever you want.
That we are choosing “whatever makes me money” again and again does not mean “whatever will make us grow as a species” isn’t also an option.