Comment by spicyusername
20 days ago
divisiveness this kind of stuff will create
I'm pretty sure we're already decades in to the world of "has created".
Everyone I know has strong opinions on every little thing, based exclusively their emotional reactions and feed consumption. Basically no one has the requisite expertise commensurate with their conviction, but being informed is not required to be opinionated or exasperated.
And who can blame them (us). It is almost impossible to escape the constant barrage of takes and news headlines these days without being a total luddite. And each little snippet worms its way into your brain (and well being) one way or the other.
It's just been too much for too long and you can tell.
> It is almost impossible to escape the constant barrage of takes and news headlines these days without being a total luddite
Its odd to me to still use "luddite" disparagingly while implying that avoiding certain tech would actually have some high impact benefits. At that point I can't help but think the only real issue with being a luddite is not following the crowd and fitting in.
I didn't use it disparagingly.
In fact, it's easier than ever to see the intended benefit of such a lifestyle.
Fair enough! I must have just misread you then, I'm too used to see it described as a bad thing.
Which also has a term with stigma: hipster
Hipster used to mean that but meaning changed to being someone who “doesn’t fit in” but only for performative reasons, not really “for real” but just to project an image of how cool they are
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> Its odd to me to still use "luddite" disparagingly while implying that avoiding certain tech would actually have some high impact benefits
They didn't say to avoid certain tech. They said to avoid takes and news headlines.
Your conflation of those two is like someone saying "injecting bleach into your skin is bad" and you responding with "oh, so you oppose cleaning bathrooms [with bleach]?"
How so? The OP referenced how difficult it is to avoid said takes and news without being a complete luddite. That certainly implies avoiding certain tech, I have to assume they meant much of the digital tech we use today rather than the power loom luddites were pushing back on.
Your bleach scenario is confusing to me, its also you arguing against something completely unrelated to the discussion here.
it's malware in the mind. it was happening before deep fakes was possible. news outlets and journalists have always had incentive to present extreme takes to get people angry, cause that sells. now we have tools that pretty much just accelerate and automate that process. it's interesting. it would be helpful to figure out how to prevent people (especially upcoming generations) from getting swept away by all this.
I think fatigue will set in and the next generation will 'tock' back from this 'tick.' Getting outraged by things is already feeling antiquated to me, and I'm in my 30's.
There's a massive industry built around this on YT, exemplified by the OP's post about his parents. To a first-order approximation, every story with a theme of "X does sexist/racist/ageist/abusive thing to Y and then gets their comeuppance" on YouTube is AI-generated clickbait. The majority of the "X does nice thing for Y and gets a reward or surprise" dating from the last year or two are also AI-generated clickbait, but far more of the former. Outrage gets a lot more clicks than compassion.
> news outlets and journalists have always had incentive to present extreme takes to get people angry, cause that sells.
As someone who’s read a newspaper daily for 30+ years, that is definitely not true. The news has always tried to capture your attention but doing so using anger and outrage, and using those exclusively, is a newer development. Newspapers and broadcast news used to use humor, suspense, and other things to provoke curiosity. When the news went online, it became focused on provoking anger and outrage. Even print edition headlines tend to be tamer than what’s in the online edition.
> It is almost impossible to escape the constant barrage of takes and news headlines these days without being a total luddite
It really isn't that hard, if I'm looking at my experience. Maybe a little stuff on here counts. I get my news from the FT, it's relatively benign by all accounts. I'm not sure that opting out of classical social media is particularly luddite-y, I suspect it's closer to becoming vogue than not?
Being led around by the nose is a choice still, for now at least.
I think the comment you're replying to isn't necessarily a question of opting out of such news, it's the fact that it's so hard to escape it. I swipe on my home screen and there I am, in my Google news feed with the constant barrage of nonsense.
I mostly get gaming and entertainment news for shows I watch, but even between those I get CNN and Fox News, both which I view as "opinion masquerading as news" outlets.
My mom shares so many articles from her FB feed that are both mainstream (CNN, etc) nonsense and "influencer" nonsense.
Right, and my point is how easy opting out actually is.
I have no news feed on my phone. I doubt on android it is any harder to evade. Social media itself is gone. The closest I get to click-bait is when my mother spouts something gleaned from the Daily Mail. That vector is harder to shift I concede!
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>I'm pretty sure we're already decades in to the world of "has created".
Simulacra and Simulation came out in '81, for an example of how long this has been a recognized phenomenon
I honestly think it might be downstream of individualized mass-market democracy; each person is tasked with fully understanding the world as it is so they can make the correct decisions at all level of voting, but ain't nobody got time for that.
So we emotionally convince ourselves that we have solved the problem so we can act appropriately and continue doing things that are important to us.
The founders recognized this problem and attempted to setup a Republic as an answer to it; so that each voter didn't have to ask "do I know everything about everything so I can select the best person" and instead were asked "of this finite, smaller group, who do I think is best to represent me at the next level"? We've basically bypassed that; every voter knows who ran for President last election, hardly anyone can identify their party's local representative in the party itself (which is where candidates are selected, after all).
Completely agree, but at the same time I can't bring myself to believe that reinforcing systems like the electoral college or reinstating a state-legislature-chosen Senate would yield better outcomes.
Most people I know who have strong political opinions (as well as those who don't) can't name their own city council members or state assemblyman, and that's a real problem for functioning representative democracy. Not only for their direct influence on local policy, but also because these levels of government also serve as the farm team or proving grounds for higher levels of office.
By the time candidates are running with the money and media of a national campaign, in some sense it's too late to evaluate them on matters of their specific policies and temperaments, and you kind of just have to assume they're going to follow the general contours of their party. By and large, it seems the entrenched political parties (and, perhaps, parties in general) are impediments to good governance.
I think it's an inherent problem with democracy in itself, and something that will have to be worked out at some time, somewhere.
The accidents that let it occur may no longer be present - there are arguments that "democracy" as we understand it was impossible before rapid communication, and perhaps it won't survive the modern world.
We're living in a world where a swing voter in Ohio may have more effect/impact on Iran than a person living there - or even more effect on Europe than a citizen of Germany.
I disagree.
Voting on principles is fine and good.
The issue is the disconnect between professed principles and action. And the fact that nowadays there are not many ways to pick and choose principles except two big preset options.
It's easier to focus on fewer representatives, and because the federal government has so much power (and then state governments), life-changing policies mainly come top-down. Power should instead flow bottom-up, with the top being the linchpin, but alas.
> It is almost impossible to escape the constant barrage of takes and news headlines these days without being a total luddite.
It’s quite easy actually. Like the OP, I have no social media accounts other than HN (which he rightfully asserts isn’t social media but is the inheritor of the old school internet forum). I don’t see the mess everyone complains about because I choose to remove myself from it. At the same time, I still write code every day, I spend way too much time in front of a screen, and I manage to stay abreast of what’s new in tech and in the world in general.
Too many people conflate social media with technology more broadly and thus make the mistake of thinking that turning away from social media means becoming a luddite. You can escape the barrage of trolls and hottakes by turning off social media while still participating in the much smaller but saner tech landscape that remains.
Nothing wrong with being a Luddite these days. It’s the only way to not have your mind assaulted.
I feel like you people are intentionally misconstruing what "Luddite" means. It doesn't mean "avoids specific new tech." It means "avoiding ALL new tech because new things are bad."
A luddite would refuse the covid vaccine. They'd refuse improved trains. They'd refuse EVs. etc. This is because ludditism is the blanket opposition to technological improvements.
you have completely misunderstood what it means to be a luddite.
the luddites were a labor movement opposed to the negative externalities imposed by rapid industrialization of formerly-craft/artisinal markets. it was a movement that stood for the protection of workers rights and the quality of goods produced; it was not opposed to new technologies. what it did oppose was the irresponsible use of those technologies at the expense of workers and consumers.
what you're referring to is probably more accurately described as primitivism.
> I feel like you people are intentionally misconstruing what "Luddite" means.
That’s a very unfair accusation to throw at someone off the cuff. Anyway, what you wrote is not what a Luddite is at all, especially not the anti-vaccine accusation. I don’t think you’re being deliberately deceptive here, I think you just don’t know what a Luddite is (was).
For starters: They were not anti-science/medicine/all technology. They did not have “blanket opposition to all technological improvement.” You’re expressing a common and simplistic misunderstanding of the movement and likely conflating it with (an also flawed understanding of) the Amish.
They were, at their core, a response against industrialization that didn’t account for the human cost. This was at the start of the 19th century. They wanted better working conditions and more thoughtful consideration as industrialization took place. They were not anti-technology and certainly not anti-vaccine.
The technology they were talking about was mostly related to automation in factories which, coupled with anti-collective bargaining initiatives, led to further dehumanization of the workforce as well as all sorts novel and horrific workplace accidents for adults and children alike. Their call for “common sense laws” and “guardrails” are echoed today with how many of us talk about AI/LLM’s.
Great comic on this: https://thenib.com/im-a-luddite/
> It is almost impossible to escape the constant barrage of takes and news headlines these days without being a total luddite.
Then I am very proudly one. I don't do TikTok, FB, IG, LinkedIn or any of this crap. I do a bit of NH here and there. I follow a curated list of RSS feeds. And I twice a day look at a curated/grouped list of headlines from around the world, built from a multitude of sources.
Whenever I see a yellow press headline from the German bullshit print medium "BILD" when paying for gas or out shopping, I can't help but smile. That people pay money for that shit is - nowadays - beyond me.
To be fair. This was a long process. And I still regress sometimes. I started my working life at an editorial team for an email portal. Our job was to generate headlines that would stop people from logging in to read their mail and read our crap instead - because ads embedded within content were way better paid than around emails.
So I actually learned the trade. And learned that outrage (or sex) sells. This was some 18 or so years ago - the world changed since then. It became even more flammable. And more people seem to be playing with their matches. I changed - and changed jobs and industries a few times.
So over time I reduced my news intake. And during the pandemic learned to definitely reduce my social media usage - it is just not healthy for my state of mind. Because I am way to easily dopamine addicted and trigger-able. I am a classic xkcd.com/386 case.
> Everyone I know has strong opinions on every little thing, based exclusively their emotional reactions and feed consumption. Basically no one has the requisite expertise commensurate with their conviction, but being informed is not required to be opinionated or exasperated.
Case in point: if you ask for expertise verification on HN you get downvoted. People would rather argue their point, regardless of validity. This site’s culture is part of the problem and it predates AI.
This has been going on since Usenet. Nothing new.