TheFriar

I think they’re using “teaching” here in a way neither you nor I would. Because there’s no way they can put any lessons in front of the right students. That’s the algorithms decision. And those signs reek of astroturfing.

Well, it is slightly different. The reason TikTok poses a different type of problem with people’s addiction is the tailoring of the content.

All social media uses a basic port for people to come on and find others, but mainly create their own space. And even that was addictive and harmful to mental health. Not to mention proved a great way to manipulate people. But it also gave people a route to alter their interactions with the app—to a degree.

TikTok, on the other hand, tailors everything that happens when you open the app. You don’t get to follow people, change the flavor of content you’re seeing. You open the app, and the algorithm is all that dictates what you’re scrolling through.

I don’t know where I stand on this. I think all social media should die out. It’s killing discourse, it’s creating hate, it’s misinforming people like never before. It’s radicalizing people and generally making everyone stupider and less able to conceive of, let alone discuss nuance. And without nuance, we are truly fucking doomed. It’s far too easy to manipulate people with regular social media, and TikTok has turned all of those problems into an art form. It’s literally like a perfect little brainwashing machine. I’ve seen people use it on the train. They’re like…zombies.

On the other, it’s shocking to me to see a representative claim that having their constituents…call their offices and, yknow, participate in the process is portrayed as being “weaponized against America.”

It’s like a rock and a hard place. Firstly, TikTok is poisoning the minds of people. It’s like social media on steroids, and social media was already having a profoundly negative effect. On the other, it’s always dicey when taking things away from people “for the good of America.” Like…where was this attitude when instagram and Facebook were weaponized against the American people? Like, didn’t they prove it was used to sway elections here and in the UK? Why the uneven hand? Because they like demonizing foreigners and they protect white rich people weaponizing their wealth.

So yeah, maybe it’s the right move, but in context, it’s so blatantly favoritism shown to the evil fuckers causing harm for their own ends.

Same. I gotta update my console though. I bought an Xbox X or S, whichever is the cheaper of the two. And I don’t play many games. Literally like two. RDR2 and fifa. Used to play GTA V but I’m over it. Getting there with rdr2. But I wanted to play the new resident evil 4 remake but it’s “not optimized for this console.”

But now all this talk about PlayStation 5 “reaching the sunset of its career” or whatever Sony said recently and then the whole Microsoft maybe bailing on the Xbox thing, I feel like if I sink the money into a new console soon, I’ll just be getting into another situation where all the things I might want to try are for the NEWER console. I dunno, I’m not a huge gamer, but I still enjoy playing.

Ah. I use reader mode and it didn’t load the comments. Thanks

Honestly, I didn’t see that whole controversy when it happened and I just looked it up. The final, actually canvas, bag they ended up sending…still seems like a huge ripoff. But that’s just me and I’ve never really seen anything but the monster factory episodes of fallout.

It does? I didn’t see that anywhere

The fucked up thing is they don’t seem to have a problem with rich 1%ers owning and manipulating millions of people. Only when it’s the Chinese. Facebook, Twitter, instagram are just as harmful. Although the delivery method of the content isn’t exactly “tailored” on those services like TikTok. I dunno how I feel about this. I mean, I think all social media services should die out. This just seems like an uneven hand.

until you decide the world shouldn't be defined by effort but instead utopia is defined by someone else applying thought control on anyone but you.

It’s always portrayed as “thought control” when it’s inconvenient for people to be protected from an onslaught of dangerous, vile hatred. But that’s absolutely, positively, so stupid and dead wrong.

Say your site becomes a haven for paid killers. Will you step in then? Or say it becomes a space for CP. Where does your “make it whatever you want!” schtick cross the line? Content moderation exists for a reason. And that reason is we live online these days. What happens online is happening to real people. And the online life of those people can very quickly turn physically dangerous. Are you pro-dangerous situations for people in the name of “do whatever you want?” I mean, your actions would suggest “yes.”

I get it. You’re a libertarian-leaning person and you believe in a free exchange of ideas. But that’s not all the internet is anymore. If this were a physical community you built and wanted to see flourish, would your beliefs of “everyone do whatever you want, no one here will stop you” still apply? Of course not. Because communities do have people that need to be looked out for. Your site is no different. Being hands off with hatred isn’t admirable, no matter how much the new e-right wingers want to shout it over and over. It creates danger for people and only serves to spread that hatred to larger audiences because it’s being platformed. So you’re not pro-“free speech.” You’re pro hate. And that’s a stance even most right wingers know to outwardly stay away from.

But here’s the kicker: those rich, powerful people promoting that type of unregulated speech are benefitting from that type of hatred spreading. But they can’t say that out loud. You’re doing the same thing without an ulterior motive which is…maybe even worse?

Don’t worry, bud. I thought it was funny. In fact, I was gonna make the same joke, but saw you’d made it first and paid the price lol

I didn’t get past the part where he started talking about the dark forest theory as if it “solved” the Fermi paradox. The Fermi paradox is an observation, the dark forest theory is a theory. Worse, actually, it’s considered a hypothesis. I was willing to sit down for the 15 min video. Why blow your credibility in the first sentences.

Yeah, the difference is it’s expanding exponentially, and will continue to do so.

The real thing that ruined the internet, though, is the walled garden approach. The monetization. They took what was wild and free, creative and equal, and turned into something…gross. Generative AI is just the next step of that. It’s the continuation of a trend. And the acceleration of it. That’s a problem, even if the scaremongering around AI may be a bit overblown.

And while that also may be the case, it also might—this time—not be unfounded. Capitalism has strengthened its stranglehold on everything. Every new leap in tech has worked us harder, increasing profits, while we increase productivity. And that increase in profits, led to richer guys, which means they’re more powerful, and their grip gets tighter. It’s not just the tech that’s happening in a vacuum. At what point is the stranglehold too tight, the demand of people to produce too great, the power and control of business too great? Why not now. Because it’s already unwieldy and inhumane. Where once there were creative artists trying to get their work out there, we now have everyone flooding those spaces with AI generated bullshit.

Again, it’s not just the new tech. It’s this tech’s ability to make things worse than they’ve already been getting, to worsen the massive imbalance between a space for people and a space for business. It’s all business. And we’re now way in the margins. This will make that worse.

lol what. The storytelling was amazing. If anything, yeah there are some problems with the mission mechanics, but the character story of Arthur and his overcoming his near-lifelong grooming to be a killer when he’s actually a good man, his struggle between his loyalty to helping others while being a contradiction of a man as he robs and kills, his past chasing him down no matter how far he runs a metaphor for he, himself, running from who he is—whether that is a good man or a bad man—and having his transgression ultimately kill him while he sacrifices himself for a brother and his chosen family, even though it’s all in vain and ultimately not enough because he was dying as is, the weight of his sins dragging him to an early death?

Not to mention the overarching theme of statism, anarchism, freedom. The Pinkertons an excellent chosen villain, the arm of the wealthy while these outlaws try to make a free life for themselves, so-called civilization killing the world around them while they are the ones treated as if they’re crazy? Dutch revealing himself over time to not be a freedom fighter but another greedy piece of shit who used the people around him as cannon fodder for his own ends? Trying to string the gang along as long as possible? His actions speaking louder than his words but he had somehow gotten them all to ignore his actions—and their own—in favor of the lies coming out of his mouth? Or were they lies at all? Were they his true beliefs and he was just led astray as he got older and let the power go to his head? Power corrupting.

The missions are too rigid, the motivation for the each being a little repetitive, but you really can’t knock the storytelling.

You’ve never heard of the fishing hat that dreamed of being a baseball hat?