hipadev23
See some of you on the other side but it won’t be here. I’m out.
It's what's happened across Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook over the past decade. You've all built platforms intended for social discourse but instead built extremely brittle systems subject to gamified manipulation by showing people which opinions reward and punish them. And those are then manipulated at-large by outside groups responsible for elevating a particular way of thinking about a given topic.
Conversations do not need a algorithmic popularity mechanism.
I agree, but that's unfortunately a very low bar these days.
If we got rid of upvotes/downvotes (keep flagging privileges, but make it public record, and abuse-it-you-lose-it) the variety of thought and ideas on HN would 100x overnight.
Who gives a fuck about HN. Consider the notion that dang is, in fact, partially to blame for this entire fiasco. He runs an easy-to-propagandize platform due how much control of information is exerted by upvotes/downvotes and unchecked flagging. It's caused a very noticeable shift over the past decade among tech/SV/hacker voices -- the dogmatic following of anything that Musk or Thiel shit out or say, this community laps it up without hesitation. Users on HN learn what sentiment on a given topic is rewarded and repeat it in exchange for upvotes.
I look forward to all of it burning down so we can, collectively, learn our lessons and realize that building platforms where discourse itself is gamified (hn, twitter, facebook, and reddit) is exactly what led us down this path today.
No they don't? They a take an oath to the constitution. "I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic"
The president is temporary. The constitution endures.
Also due to the upvote/downvote/flag system, entire narratives are controlled with a small number of accounts. It's a fundamentally broken approach to online discussions. We need to get rid of upvote/downvotes completely. Retain flagging for vetted users, and punish those who are flagging material that should not be flagged.
Edit: Let's go you anonymous fucking cowards. @dang it's time you man the fuck up and do something.
1) Remove upvotes/downvotes entirely. It does nothing for discussion except create groupthink and open itself to manipulation by unscrupulous actors.
2) Retain flagging access by long-time contributing accounts, but if you're found to flag something in bad faith, those privileges are revoked.
3) Flagging itself needs to be a public record so we can see exactly which accounts are doing so.
Illusion of choice. Think about how Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, iOS Appstore, Google Play Store, and even your example -- Steam -- provide recommendation to users. The overwhelming majority of people are already letting an algorithm make decisions for them. Acting like this is where people will suddenly draw the line is amusing.
"Play a new action movie that I'll enjoy" -- "Taken 4 now playing..."
OpenAI will subsidize banks to offer that safety-net for users of Operator. If Chase says you're 100% not on the hook for purchase mistakes made by OpenAI's Operator -- are you going to take the risk (as you pointed out, it's financial, it matters to people) with Perplexity Pro or Siri?
100%. You absolutely get it, and also the implications, and also the outcome.
Humans will more and more rely on their AI assistants to take care of mundane things for them. If your site is difficult for an AI assistant to use (due to anti-bot behavior, or an overly complex flow that confuses LLMs, or whatever) your business will suffer. It's gonna be glorious if every retailer starts publishing a swagger API to facilitate automated transactions.
If your site doesn't support/allow agentic bots, it will be similar to not accepting Visa or Mastercard. Yes, cash-only business is a thing. But it's suicide to make that your only payment option for most retail businesses.