Comment by throwway120385
5 days ago
It also explains why there's been an alarming trend over the last 10 years of people just getting more vehement about everything.
5 days ago
It also explains why there's been an alarming trend over the last 10 years of people just getting more vehement about everything.
We started attaching public comment boxes to everything and now everyone thinks their opinion on everything is important.
10? We’ve been getting steadily more polarized since at least the 80s.
Possibly true, but I'm sure you'd agree that it can't really be called steadily since around 2010-2014
There is a straight line through 70s Falwell, 90s Limbaugh, tea party, to MAGA. All fueled by a self-reinforcing rage machine.
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So basically since when cable TV came into mainstream existence.
- Huge shift in (near-total abandonment of) antitrust enforcement starting in the late 70s, driven by Chicago school assholes. Centralized economic power.
- Fairness Doctrine killed in the 80s, resulting rise of partisan AM radio and, somewhat later, Fox News.
- Media ownership concentration rules neutered in early ‘00s (iirc). More centralization, again in the hands of big capital.
- None of those rules ever applied to the Web, so when its power as a propaganda and agitation tool skyrocketed with increased use by normal folks (rise of Facebook; usable smartphones with the iPhone) that immediately headed bad directions.
Now we have LLMs, which are at their most-useful by far when you don’t care about accuracy or reputation—so, scams and propaganda getting a big boost in productivity.
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Turning attention away from each other and toward images of each other
I think you're confusing the issue. Cable TV wasn't coming into mainstream that was the problem. The issue was the 1996 Telecommunications Act that was the starting gun.
I think human nature dictates that this opens up a literal market for the opposite. People aren't served by exhausting hysteria, it's just a cheap date, a way to grab low hanging fruit. The more that's focussed on, the more an opportunity arises to cover abandoned needs and wants.
The question becomes, is YouTube's algorithm good enough to itself pick up on this new market and serve it? I see no reason it couldn't. It's possible human algorithm-minders might sabotage this instinct by going 'no, this is the big win' and coaxing it towards MrBeast stuff, but surely the algorithm will eventually win out?
> is YouTube's algorithm good enough to itself pick up on this new market
Something I find interesting is that there are good channels producing very high quality (non-extreme or non-intense) content for many interests on YouTube and they coexist with the hyperbolic large channels. I suppose that they make less money, but they do so without a large production crew. I think the algorithm is supporting both types of content (content for myriad mindless viewers, and content for the fewer discerning viewers) and accommodates both scales.
By "human nature", what exactly are you referring to? The statistically most common amount of extremities?
People tire of being poked with an algorithmic stick, even though it ensures a reaction.
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and I think "literally" abuse is a sympton of that
They changed the definition of 'literally' to fit the modern meaning. You can no longer call it abuse now as the misuse fits the new definition.
See definition 2 here:
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/literal...
That definition genuinely gives me cancer. I seriously, 100% am going to die now because dictionary editors don't seem to grasp that this is simply a "tone" of ironically over-emphasized speaking similar to sarcasm, and not a new definition of one word. I'm 250% honestly in chemotherapy now because they don't get that. Veritably, indubitably, unarguably cooked now. Thanks, dictionary editors.
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Literally false: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/misuse-of-literally
Use of literally in, well, the non-literal sense dates back hundreds of years.
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Dickens did it. And people have been doing it since the 1700s.
Not to mention, if you're using the word "literally" to mean "something that actually happened", you are also using the word wrong. Because it means "relating to or expressed in letters".
I also notice people complain about "literally", but they never complain about "really" which also gets used in the same ways even though it means the opposite.
And I've noticed people do it as a substitute for intelligence. They complain about these things to seem intelligent. To seem knowledgeable. But when confronted with knowledge that contradicts the complaint, they try to dismiss the knowledge rather than adjust their point of view. Similar with fewer/less. These words mean the same thing. There are no rules as to when to use one or the other. There was the preference of one guy, who even said that he had no reason for it, he just liked it. And people took that as an ironclad rule. Or the gif debate. People try to invent all of these rules, but get pissy when you point out all the places where English does not follow those rules.
There have been thousands of years of written language, and the worst thing that ever happened was the invention of the dictionary, which enabled generations of prescriptivists to pretend that word meanings can't change once they're written down, despite thousands of years of evidence to the contrary. Maybe look up 'hidebound' sometime.
What would you suggest using instead. Actually?
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But come on, that's been going on for literally centuries.