Poll: Social Media: Good or Bad? (no politics)

[W800]

byke bringing his A-game to this thread :thumbup

That's his A-game?

He missed my blowjob joke, lol.

Shot right over his head a tiny bit!!!

ETA: byke, I am mostly AGREEING with you. I don't think regulation helps and I think people should learn common sense.

 

[byke]

Didn't go over my head, hit me in the ear and I thought it was hair gel.

The way you know echo chambers aren't real is because it attempts to correlate whether or not something is true relative to repetition, but repetition has nothing to do with what's true. Every math class is an echo chamber, people have been saying the same stuff in there for centuries. And it's all true.

 

[W800]

Didn't go over my head, hit me in the ear and I thought it was hair gel.

The way you know echo chambers aren't real is because it attempts to correlate whether or not something is true relative to repetition, but repetition has nothing to do with what's true. Every math class is an echo chamber, people have been saying the same stuff in there for centuries. And it's all true.

The internet echo chambers are neither true or not true. For the people in them, they are true. For the people outside of them they are false.

LOL, I see what you are doing, BTW.

You are appearing to both argue AND agree at the same time to prove a point that's the opposite of what your words, at first blush, appear to say.

That's why I am saying we are not in disagreement.

;-)

 

[Eldritch]

It is unquestionably terrible for society as it currently exists.

People who do not understand the technology NEED to watch the documentary, "The Social Dilemma."

It is on Netflix.

 

[W800]

It is unquestionably terrible for society as it currently exists.

People who do not understand the technology NEED to watch the documentary, "The Social Dilemma."

It is on Netflix.

Agreed. Like Lanier says, it's all about changing behavior. The O.G. internet was a bunch of hippies + DARPA. I was on "The Well" back in the early 90's. I was on Prodigy, Compuserve, and the other one before that. Before that, I was on dial up BBS's.

People had sense of community. It was idealistic and continued that way for a long time.

Once people figured out that you could monetize behavior, and once big capital got involved - it got scary, like it is now.

Here's where it gets even wierder. Since the dawn of humans we have worked on what I call "shared reality." That means that people in a given area generally see things about the same way. Example would be Britain before there was Great Britain and Brittany. The Celts saw reality in a certain way as part of their culture. The Romans came and saw a different reality. Those realities eventually merged. Same with the Mongols and Han Chinese. Same with every conflict between cultures. Over time, a shared reality emerges that incorporates aspects from the constituent cultures.

Now we don't have that. I can be sitting next to someone on the bus, and their entire view of reality is so heavily mediated that they see the world through an entirely different lens. It's like that everywhere now. It's not just the old "tribe" thing. Everyone is now their own "tribe."

 

[byke]

This seems like what Bill Burr would call "going rogue".

 

[littlebeast]

keeping in touch with those you can’t be with on an on-going basis aside (awesome use of social media) - IMO - this is like asking if high performance cars / motos are good or bad. it all depends on in whose hands and for what purpose.

 

[W800]

keeping in touch with those you can’t be with on an on-going basis aside (awesome use of social media) - IMO - this is like asking if high performance cars / motos are good or bad. it all depends on in whose hands and for what purpose.

What I am getting at is "overall effect."

I will give example.

The AK-47 (actually the AKM & and its stamped steel variants like the Chinese Model 56) changed history. There's even a book about it. Because they are cheap, indestructible, and easy to use - many revolutions were powered by that one firearm.

The tool itself has essential qualities that inherently cause change. Its mere existence causes change.

All tools are both good and bad. But en masse, the qualities of certain tools will skew reality in different and unpredictable directions.

I posit that social media is like AKM times about a million. Reason is that information is highest form of power. At bottom is violence. Above that is money (money buys violence). Above that is information (information gets money).

Social media can now determine who is in power. Those in power can use state violence to remain in power.

 

[littlebeast]

What I am getting at is "overall effect."

I will give example.

The AK-47 (actually the AKM & and its stamped steel variants like the Chinese Model 56) changed history. There's even a book about it. Because they are cheap, indestructible, and easy to use - many revolutions were powered by that one firearm.

The tool itself has essential qualities that inherently cause change. Its mere existence causes change.

All tools are both good and bad. But en masse, the qualities of certain tools will skew reality in different and unpredictable directions.

I posit that social media is like AKM times about a million. Reason is that information is highest form of power. At bottom is violence. Above that is money (money buys violence). Above that is information (information gets money).

Social media can now determine who is in power. Those in power can use state violence to remain in power.

with all due respect, i think the AK analogy is not a particularly useful one (single or rather limited purpose use v. the multi purpose use potential that is social media). additionally, while i agree that social media is power, it’s not force (which a weapon implies) - more long the lines of ‘access’. power, used or abused, comes with how it is applied (hence my example of high performance vehicles).

WRT information - that all boils down to how people are predisposed to assimilate it and use it. so i guess IMO, social media is essentially a magnifying glass - allowing us to see things we were previously incapable of seeing. what we do with that information depends almost exclusively on our individual world view and individual confidence - or lack thereof (accentuate the negative or the positive as the case may be).

the thing is, we choose. not sure if i’m comforted by that or terrified by it.

 

[ksandvik]

I miss the days of Usenet before 1992 when trolls, advertisers and propagandists were banned from the forums. All self-regulated.

 

[Kurosaki]

The majority of people are not critical thinkers and social media is a problem for them because they're being told/how to think.

Outside of that, I love social media and all it's good uses keeping in contact with friends and family on a global level.

 

[Pushrod]

Social media is both evil and pristine at the same time. Sort of like Schrodinger's Cat being both dead and alive. It's all about YOU.

 

[Kurosaki]

Social media is both evil and pristine at the same time. Sort of like Schrodinger's Cat being both dead and alive. It's all about YOU.

That's a good way to put it.

 

[Climber]

Social Media is 3-fold.
1. Connects people with shared or common factors like interests, friends and family. That is a big positive.
2. Used for shaping perceptions for both political and commercial purposes. This is a big negative.
3. Used to collect data on the users including marketing, political and personality. This is another big negative.

 

[kevin 714]

Social media is both evil and pristine at the same time. Sort of like Schrodinger's Cat being both dead and alive. It's all about YOU.

exactly

information literacy is vitally important, and social media only highlights that, but its always and will always be a problem for humans

its not even social media. its simply the idea of the "timeline" within social media. getting rid of the idea of the timeline would do a lot of good.

 

[byke]

with all due respect, i think the AK analogy is not a particularly useful one (single or rather limited purpose use v. the multi purpose use potential that is social media). additionally, while i agree that social media is power, it’s not force (which a weapon implies) - more long the lines of ‘access’. power, used or abused, comes with how it is applied (hence my example of high performance vehicles).

WRT information - that all boils down to how people are predisposed to assimilate it and use it. so i guess IMO, social media is essentially a magnifying glass - allowing us to see things we were previously incapable of seeing. what we do with that information depends almost exclusively on our individual world view and individual confidence - or lack thereof (accentuate the negative or the positive as the case may be).

the thing is, we choose. not sure if i’m comforted by that or terrified by it.

Firearms are fine as an example since most are agreeing these things are arbitrary mediums which reflect the person using them, but agree that focusing on AK's is kinda silly. Rocks changed history, swords changed history, the musket changed history, the cartridge changed history, centerfire changed history, on and on with the same issue of people worrying about the downsides of every improvement in technology, looking up at the cosmos wondering if we've gone too far. What's a little different here is that the OP seems to recognize these repetitive cycles.

 

[Eldritch]

Agreed. Like Lanier says, it's all about changing behavior. The O.G. internet was a bunch of hippies + DARPA. I was on "The Well" back in the early 90's. I was on Prodigy, Compuserve, and the other one before that. Before that, I was on dial up BBS's.

People had sense of community. It was idealistic and continued that way for a long time.

Once people figured out that you could monetize behavior, and once big capital got involved - it got scary, like it is now.

Here's where it gets even wierder. Since the dawn of humans we have worked on what I call "shared reality." That means that people in a given area generally see things about the same way. Example would be Britain before there was Great Britain and Brittany. The Celts saw reality in a certain way as part of their culture. The Romans came and saw a different reality. Those realities eventually merged. Same with the Mongols and Han Chinese. Same with every conflict between cultures. Over time, a shared reality emerges that incorporates aspects from the constituent cultures.

Now we don't have that. I can be sitting next to someone on the bus, and their entire view of reality is so heavily mediated that they see the world through an entirely different lens. It's like that everywhere now. It's not just the old "tribe" thing. Everyone is now their own "tribe."

Control of the Cognitive Map has always been the struggle for control that Nations have battled over. The dissociated route of the cognitive map is what is so fracturing now to Democratic processes. The trouble is not that there is no longer a collective cognitive map, but rather it is no longer bound by geographical lines, the sort of boundaries that would in previous eras place more moderate and reasonable controls on the group through a diverse inclusion strata.

 

[W800]

Firearms are fine as an example since most are agreeing these things are arbitrary mediums which reflect the person using them, but agree that focusing on AK's is kinda silly. Rocks changed history, swords changed history, the musket changed history, the cartridge changed history, centerfire changed history, on and on with the same issue of people worrying about the downsides of every improvement in technology, looking up at the cosmos wondering if we've gone too far. What's a little different here is that the OP seems to recognize these repetitive cycles.

Exactly. I just picked that one because I used to have a book about it. But disease is another. Or the potato, for that matter. The idea is that something that would seem to have one effect, can have other effects.

The issue with social media is that only a few people control the major platforms now. This means that the internet is the opposite of what it used to be. At the inception, it was "many to many." Now it's a modified version of that.

Example: https://theintercept.com/2020/10/15...ine-far-more-dangerous-than-what-they-censor/

 

[W800]

so i guess IMO, social media is essentially a magnifying glass - allowing us to see things we were previously incapable of seeing. what we do with that information depends almost exclusively on our individual world view and individual confidence - or lack thereof (accentuate the negative or the positive as the case may be).

the thing is, we choose. not sure if i’m comforted by that or terrified by it.

It's a broken magnifying glass. But most people can't see that.

"Abstraction today is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, nor survives it. Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory . . ."

https://web.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Baudrillard/Baudrillard_Simulacra.html

The internet doesn't reflect reality - it creates reality now. See also my next post and "politics of the inconsequential."

ETA: If I pull out "neutral" - we have 24 on the negative and only 3 on the positive right now.

 

[W800]

Control of the Cognitive Map has always been the struggle for control that Nations have battled over. The dissociated route of the cognitive map is what is so fracturing now to Democratic processes. The trouble is not that there is no longer a collective cognitive map, but rather it is no longer bound by geographical lines, the sort of boundaries that would in previous eras place more moderate and reasonable controls on the group through a diverse inclusion strata.

I tend to agree. I think what's happening is what is called "inverted totalitarianism." The people themselves are split from one another. They can't organize because there are too many factions. The power-holders are corporations.

All those catchy hashtags are basically ways for large and powerful corporations to seem like they care.

The result, he writes, is that the public is “denied the use of state power.” Wolin deplores the trivialization of political discourse, a tactic used to leave the public fragmented, antagonistic and emotionally charged while leaving corporate power and empire unchallenged.

“Cultural wars might seem an indication of strong political involvements,” he writes. “Actually they are a substitute. The notoriety they receive from the media and from politicians eager to take firm stands on nonsubstantive issues serves to distract attention and contribute to a cant politics of the inconsequential.”

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/sheldon-wolin-and-inverted-totalitarianism/

Edit - ps - look up Wolin's use of "cant" - dude put layers of meaning in that one word choice:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cant