alice's recent activity
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Comment on Does anyone else feel like people are unreasonably impatient? in ~talk
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Comment on Apple becomes the first $1 trillion company in history in ~tech
alice Link ParentI mean, MacOS is weird in a lot of ways. Stuff like tar and sed aren't the GNU versions most people are used to. And it doesn't have a package manager at all. You can install Brew, which is the...I mean, MacOS is weird in a lot of ways. Stuff like tar and sed aren't the GNU versions most people are used to. And it doesn't have a package manager at all. You can install Brew, which is the closest thing there is, but it's mostly just a collection of shell scripts. It's not as robust as something like apt or dnf or what have you.
MacOS is a unix-like, and a polished one at that, but all the idiosyncrasies keep me on the Linux side.
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Comment on Is there a net benefit to social media? in ~talk
alice Link ParentHow are these not also social media?FARK, Bannination, and Reddit
How are these not also social media?
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Comment on Is there a net benefit to social media? in ~talk
alice Link"Social media" is really broad. Facebook is a social media site, and I'd argue it does good. It helps people keep in touch that otherwise might not. It helps organize events. It's an easy way to..."Social media" is really broad. Facebook is a social media site, and I'd argue it does good. It helps people keep in touch that otherwise might not. It helps organize events. It's an easy way to share pictures, etc.
Something like Twitter, though, is a completely different beast. It's like a giant conversation involving everyone that lets you choose who and what parts of the conversation you listen to. So yeah, there's a lot of snarky hot takes, dumb jokes, arguing about bullshit, and so on. Whether you derive value from that is largely personal. The same way you personally derive value from hanging out with friends, or going clubbing, or taking pictures of whatever's happening around you.
Is there a net societal benefit to it? I dunno if it's even possible to answer that question. Is there a net societal benefit to any social phenomenon? There's undoubtedly individuals who benefit. There's undoubtedly individuals who are worse off, too.
I want to say, though, that for me, there's been immense benefit as a transgender woman. It makes it very easy for me to find people like me. It makes it easier to be heard. It makes it easier to speak as a group. That's a huge benefit for any minority, especially one that's geographically spread out. LGBT advocacy wouldn't be as huge without the internet. Neither would BLM, or the Arab Spring, or March for Our Lives, or innumerable other movements.
Now, that also means nazis, incels, pedophiles, and similar fringe groups. You can frame that as "increased polarization/extremism," or "diversity of thought" or whatever. That's a pessimism/optimism thing, I think. It certainly means centrists have less power, but maybe mainstream majorities have too much social power to begin with. Again, it's all about how you frame it.
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Comment on MoviePass is down again in ~movies
alice Link ParentThing is, the auteur crowd sees more movies. There was a time when MoviePass was $50/mo, and it wasn't profitable then, either. Because the only people who'd sign up for one at that price are...Thing is, the auteur crowd sees more movies.
There was a time when MoviePass was $50/mo, and it wasn't profitable then, either. Because the only people who'd sign up for one at that price are people who watch a lot of movies. So they bumped it down to $10/mo, to attract casual moviegoers. If people are only watching a movie or two a month or whatever, maybe you can turn a profit on them.
But then, what you get is millions of casual moviegoers who all want to see the new Mission Impossible movie on opening weekend, and by God, that's expensive.
There's like... no way to win here. Their business model at this point is to literally just discourage people from using the service
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Comment on Twitter turns to academics to improve conversational health on the platform in ~tech
alice Link ParentThe thing, is, though, under the current model, the two are effectively the same. I mean, one requires initiative from the user, and one is just an algo working in the background, but they...The thing, is, though, under the current model, the two are effectively the same. I mean, one requires initiative from the user, and one is just an algo working in the background, but they ultimately tend toward the same result: people are fed, or feed themselves the garbage they're already into.
Algorithmic bubbles can be different. Like, the joke is that the Youtube algorithm is "would you like to become a nazi today?" but it could just as well be the opposite. You could have a "tend towards the middle" algo, for example. Or a "try something completely new but still tangential to your interests" algorithm.
The bubbles people make for themselves, though, tend to all be the same, and are arguably just as dangerous. I think it's weird to say "right companies should 100% stop suggesting content," and at the same time say "It's important to always give individuals all the choices and let them figure things out for themselves," because people tend to make garbage choices. (I'm not excluding myself from this, to be clear.)
Idk what the answer is, but I think suggestions and bubbles are still useful. We should figure out how to benefit from them, while also avoiding the dangers, and making sure we don't crush human autonomy somewhere along the way.
I know that's vague.
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Comment on Twitter turns to academics to improve conversational health on the platform in ~tech
alice Link ParentPeople filter themselves into bubbles. That's how websites like Twitter and other social media work. You choose who to follow. You choose who to block. Getting rid of bubbles would be a...stop filtering people into bubbles
People filter themselves into bubbles. That's how websites like Twitter and other social media work. You choose who to follow. You choose who to block. Getting rid of bubbles would be a fundamental restructuring of how most social media works.
Now, I will agree you can be more filtery/bubbly or less depending on how you do things. Algorithmic front page vs chronological is the most obvious example.
Besides that, I largely agree.
See, from my perspective it's the exact opposite. You must live an awfully boring life if you think of yourself as particularly important here. I don't find my own home the most interesting, valuable place to be. I go to the wider city. I go to bars and museums and shops and other people's houses. I don't find my own head the most interesting place. I prefer to empathize with others and imagine other people's headspaces. Or to go to school and learn new things. Or to just read a novel and find new and novel thoughts and emotions presented in an engaging way.
Anything about me isn't really about me. Things like political identity, or personality, or perception and understanding, or aesthetic sense develop in social contexts. Freedom doesn't exist without something to be free from, etc. And knowing that... Well, the wider your set of perspectives, and experiences, and understandings, and emotional range and so on, the more you realize your own position is arbitrary. And I find breadth the opposite of boring.