striker
2mo ago
Also Mach3 (or whatever other identical 3-blade I can find). I always use cream. I vary between cheap-as-chips shaving foam and more expensive lather with brush etc. I don’t think either gives me a better shave, but I feel better after the brush and lather exercise. It just takes a bit longer, so I don’t do it all the time. I rarely, if ever, cut. Can’t remember the last time I had one of any significance.
striker
2mo ago
To clarify: I’m not saying mainstream media as the only info source is preferable. I’m saying it’s preferable to give preferential visibility to respected media sources, manned by journalists and editors with bona fides and track records of truth-seeking, and with investigative teams given the latitude to do the legwork that real journalistic work entails, over Alex Jones and InfoWars.
striker
2mo ago
You won’t find me disagreeing that the privately owned internet is a bad thing. Protocols such as SMTP and HTTP are sort of owned by everyone, but log in to Facebook.com and everything you do there (or even, for a long time, everything you do ANYWHERE ON THE INTERNET while your Facebook-logged-in cookie was active) is owned by them. Mass adoption of public social media protocols is long overdue.
striker
2mo ago
I can't even say that all of this is wrong
Exactly. Things like the Trusted News Initiative. I don’t like this, and we should not trust every word the mainstream media says, or even trust ANY of it blindly, but it’s a damn right more preferable than loads of far left and far right crackpots producing their own propaganda and all of it being given equal billing with FT, BBC, NYT, Economist etc.
striker
2mo ago
I think the soundproof room in a dungeon is another false equivalency. But for the sake of a civil argument let’s agree on the loudspeaker question. Do we actually think some people are getting a helping hand through a shiny new loudspeaker, with the twin express aims of promoting their ideas and drowning out ideas someone doesn’t like? Or is it just the case that people whose ideas get more reach have skilfully figured out the content algorithm game?
Personally I think that it’s convenient for some people to claim that they’re being throttled by some nefarious group of actors, rather than build the skills necessary to be more successful in the algorithm.
I think the second reality is much more likely, but that turns down the dial on conspiratorial thinking. Messy reality is scarier than a perception of victimhood, which appeals because it moves the locus of control away from you and me.
TLDR - it’s more attractive for us to believe our freedom of speech is being limited by bad actors than accept that we’re not skilled enough or our ideas aren’t very good.
striker
2mo ago
I’m not brushing over it or not noticing. You’re making completely false equivalencies between publicly owned and privately owned.
Now you might argue that X or YouTube etc should be publicly owned (I.e. commandeered by the state). But thats a completely different argument.
striker
2mo ago
But
it's simply manually coded to prevent people from talking about certain ideas, even between people who both like said idea.
in order to get your idea in front of other people who might line your idea, it has to distribute your message to a proportion of available people who might like it. My point is, this distribution, if it happens, is a bonus. You, or nobody, is entitled to this distribution. People who complain that their reach is getting throttled are complaining that they’re not getting wider distribution, and then complain that their freedom of speech is getting unlawfully restricted. It’s not, because they are not entitled to that distribution in the first place.
striker
2mo ago
No I’m not missing the point. The freedom of speech people are not talking about you talking to your mother. They’re talking about being throttled or “censored” so their content doesn’t go as far as they would like it to.
You been to London? There’s a place called Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park. I can go there, get up on a wooden box, and speak about whatever I want. If what I’m saying is well constructed and delivered, a small crowd will inevitably gather round. If not, or I’m crazy, no one will listen to me.
It seems like a ridiculous analogy, but the freedom of speech brigade think Hyde Park should usher in a hundred people and encourage them to stand there and listen to me.
striker
2mo ago
Fair points. My point is it’s got a lot LOT worse since ~2021/22. This was absolutely influenced by TikTok’s algorithm which meant it didn’t matter who you followed, they were giving you what your behaviour told it you wanted. The others followed suit and the consequences are / will be disastrous.
striker
2mo ago
Bad phrasing. Basically:
- Old Twitter was almost always additive and became almost indispensable over many years.
- New X (and lots of the other platforms have gone the same way) has followed the style of building the most addicting experience fuelled by extreme emotional response. Fairly sure TikTok started this c. 2019/20 and it was so successful all the others thought they had to follow.
striker
2mo ago
I deactivated twitter/x a few months ago. Got tempted back in last week and went through the ordeal of solving 10 visual puzzles (weirdly cryptic and very difficult) to prove I was human. Within three minutes, and WITHOUT A SINGLE POINT OF PREFERENCE FROM ME (no likes, no comments, no follows…) I was being shown loathsome racist material. Somebody somewhere wants this to happen, and set it up precisely this way. The base algorithm of X is racist, bigoted, hateful, angry and divisive, and it’s radicalizing people’s opinions every second of every day. And I say this as someone who thought Jack’s original app, from ~2010 and right up to the way it introduced dissenting voices during COVID-19, provided an indispensable service to humanity. There was obvious censorship and bias that Elon set out to fix. But he’s made it 100 times worse in the opposite direction.
striker
2mo ago
I agree. And surely it can’t be far away from legislation that forces tech platforms to give users control over (or at least MUCH more transparency about) the algorithm used.
It’s impossible to consider that the tech cos will do this themselves. They would be slaughtering the greatest golden goose that ever was. Their hand must be forced.
striker
2mo ago
Agree with this, for sure. When I say “freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom of reach”, I don’t at all mean you should be thrown off the platform. What I do mean is the platform has no obligation to algorithmically promote what you say to other people on the internet.
The people who follow you is an interesting question, and a much thornier one for Internet user preferences.
-
There’s too much content, and we “follow” too many accounts, for reverse-chronological content to work. If it ever worked, it certainly cannot work now, with AI helping everyone pump out 10x to 100x more content and content variations than before. So there’s just too much. Some sorting algorithm is required but…
-
I hate the algorithms. They act like crack and plug me in intravenously (figuratively speaking) to the brain-rotting content I can’t stop myself from consuming. I know I am better off without the algorithms (as they’ve evolved in 2022-25). In 2016-21, the algorithms brought me interesting, heterodox ideas and content, and I was psychologically and epistemologically better off as a result. That has flipped since 2022 on almost every platform. (YouTube seems to be an exception.)
striker
2mo ago
Algorithms are supposed to personalize your feed so that content you're interested in is shown to you
This is obviously wishful thinking. We don’t own the algorithms. The tech companies that own the platforms own the algorithms. Companies operate in service of shareholder value. Therefore algorithms are constructed for the set of events, circumstances and behaviours that creates most shareholder value. Definitely not for you or me, no matter how many “For You” tabs you see.
The point stands. You can say whatever you want. No media / social media company is obliged to take that and bring it to one or a hundred or a million other people.
Also – and this is the most important point of all - having the freedom to say whatever you want is good, because you might win someone (or a whole society) over to your way of thinking. But if the opposite happens, and someone or society decides you’re a crackpot and they don’t want to hear from you ever again, that’s okay too. The one who listens has as much freedom as the one who speaks.
striker
2mo ago
Some people seem to equate “freedom of speech” with “freedom of reach”. You can say whatever you want. That doesn’t mean what whatever you say must be published by loudspeaker media institutions and promoted by social media algorithms.
striker
2mo ago
Re I Am Charlotte Simmons, at least part of the criticism seems to have come from Wolfe’s position as an untouchable. He became a demigod, and demigods often become targets of underlings who think they can raise their own status by taking someone else down a peg or two.
striker
2mo ago
I remember that too, and being affronted, because I enjoyed it so much. In a way that might have been when my trust in “the critics” started to erode.
There was a great review show on BBC for years called variously The Late Show, Late Review, Newsnight Review and it was always fun to hear three critics disagree so vehemently and often ridicule each other’s arguments. In contrast newspaper critics got to hold forth without being questioned. Unfortunately Late Review was a victim of the BBC’s cost-cutting and political correctness.
striker
2mo ago
Thanks! Had heard about The Mandibles but never read it. [This comment from Shriver is exactly the kind of thing I’m seeking: “Having, like the rest of us, gone through the whole 2008 financial debacle I thought I had plenty of material (for a novel set in a dystopian economic near-future). My reading on what happened in 2008 is that we dodged a bullet. I feel as if that bullet is still whizzing around the planet.”]
Feel like I should be taking a fresh look at her whole body of work. (We Need To Talk About Kevin was told from pov of mother of a school shooter. For some reason I never picked it up.)
striker
2mo ago
Finished The Human Stain (Roth) recently. I thought it was extraordinary. Brilliantly executed social commentary of late 1990s America.
Now reading:
- Cleanness (Garth Greenwell), which has some sordid master-slave gay sex. Sticking with it for some of the writing. For now.
- Irreversible Damage (Abigail Shrier), investigation of possible trans social contagion among teenage girls
- Lots of poems.
Who are the novelists telling state-of-the-world stories right now? I loved Tom Wolfe’s novels for their expansive representation of what he saw as the core story of an era (Bonfire of the Vanities 80s, A Man In Full 90s, I Am Charlotte Simmons 2000s). I have not read all of Philip Roth but got similar vibe from The Human Stain (written in 2000, set in the US of the Clinton/Monica Lewinsky of 1998).
Big, bold, often brilliant novels that take a snapshot of a moment in time and allow readers and the broader culture to make sense of things, and maybe see their own insanity reflected.
Our moment (narrowly: since Covid 2020; more broadly: since Trump/Brexit 2016; broader still: since Lehman Bros/global financial crisis 2008) is in great need of a literature.
Is anyone writing it?
striker
2mo ago
Yes, this is the reality as I see it. Economics not adding up anymore for most / all legacy news media organisations, so they have to do one of two things, or both: cut news costs, or sensationalise the news to generate attention and win another round of the advertising money game.
striker
2mo ago
Of course it’s a possibility, and I’m sure it happens. I don’t believe it to be pervasive (here, anyway) because that would require a degree of coordination that honestly I don’t give them the credit for. It’s a small country and “everyone knows everyone” is a cliche, but there is some truth to it. There are very few leaps from me to editorial team in state broadcaster newsroom. Comes to mind: “Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.”
striker
2mo ago
Small observation, struck me as interesting. I’m in Ireland. In the car this morning, radio on. The top of the hour news came on (public radio, state-funded). Top three stories:
- Gaza situation, MSF and WHO statements
- Iran nuclear situation, new sanctions
- Denmark drones situation, new sightings over military bases
There’s plenty happening in Ireland (presidential election campaign, housing crisis, Budget 2026 to be announced next few weeks)
Two competing thoughts:
- We (and maybe many EU countries?) have a very broad perspective on the world, and this is generally a good thing for Ireland’s place in a globalised/interconnected world.
- Our state broadcaster is sourcing its news agenda from international wire services, probably with many political biases intact and unquestioned, and doesn’t fund enough of its own journalism and newsroom anymore, and this is generally a very bad thing for everyone in Ireland over any time horizon.
striker
2mo ago
Then it went to shit for reasons I haven't been able to fully articulate yet but involves the concentration of labels, rise of solo artist & built groups and of course modern production methods (and a bunch of other things).
To add: it went to shit also because pop music industry’s big data data-sciencing and machine-learning was able to identify what the masses wanted, and gave it to them. Manufacturing of, e.g. Sabrina Carpenter and Sabrina Carpenter types and the disappearance of auteurs and any sense of authorship to the margins.
This – perceived lameness – is pervasive across the west. The sad thing (for democrats in the US, or progressives or liberals or lefties or whatever they’re called elsewhere) is that in general they are compassionate people, with empathy towards others, especially those who have fallen through the cracks, and they’re interested more in civic society than in individual gain, but online media has no proven way of effectively showing the OTHERS whom they have compassion for. Which makes them look lame. Whether they are or not is largely irrelevant because perception creates reality.
In contrast, online media does a great job of showcasing and promoting individual gain, thereby attracting all those who are primarily driven by it.
But even more importantly, because all humans are a jigsaw of mismatching parts, and nobody is either 100% compassionate or 100% individualistic, this means you get the strange phenomenon that even people who are 25% individualistic, say, are exposed to a lot more content (and a lot more compelling content) that is individualist in nature, and so the prevailing wind is that those people gravitate slowly from “left” (compassionate) to “right” (individualistic) by dint of the air they’re breathing in online settings much more than carefully thought out worldviews and philosophies.
TLDR - liberals look lame online, therefore they are lame, therefore most people gravitate towards conservatives over time.
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