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Rage against the Algorithm

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Interbane

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Rage against the Algorithm

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There's increasing attention on the true culprit of polarization and division, which are the algorithms that control our social media feeds. I'd like to discuss this at length, but I'll start by posting links to content worth digesting.

An article in Scientific American on how our biases are tapped.

The Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma.

The Story of Usseries by the comic Wait but Why. The name might be misleading, it's cerebral. Parts 3, 4, and 5 deal more with the issue I'm talking about, but parts 1 and 2 have some fantastic foundational concepts.

I think this is one of the greatest short term existential threats we face. In part because at no time while you're browsing social media do the alarms ever trigger in your mind. It doesn't feel like harm is being done.

The rabbit holes so many people around me are falling into are best fought with a friend holding a flashlight. But it takes superhuman tact, since the enemy behind the curtain is a supercomputer AI. Not that I'm implying intent or malevolence, just a lot of processing power.
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Re: Rage against the Algorithm

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So, that's a funny title. Since the point of the algorithm is to foster rage. Well, not exactly, but people are more likely to pound away at the keyboard well past 11 if they are confronting malevolent stupidity than if they are intrigued by something they would like to think about together.

I got really sucked in at first. It was exhilarating to explain progressive Christianity to people who only know the Franklin Graham type. People whose views of religion were shaped by 911 and Charlie Hebdo and Christopher Hitchens. I spent a lot of earnest hours on other sites before arriving, more or less calmed down, at Booktalk. But I also saw some really unhealthy social dynamics. And had a nagging feeling that the conversation was not a conversation.

Maybe we have made some progress, but there are still so many opportunities for going down a rabbit hole. I have friends from high school who routinely post on FB that the MSM lies constantly and that the Ukraine scandal was a mess of cherry-picking to try to create a scandal where nothing really happened. The phone call was perfect, yadda yadda.

And beneath it all lurks the Algorithm. In an ecology based on grabbing people's attention, the seduction of knowing what your neighbor doesn't hear about, and standing for values that are under attack by dark forces, is going to pull in a lot of what Eric Hoffer referred to, in "The True Believer," with a chapter called "And slime they had for mortar." What are the chances of a friend with a flashlight making a difference when a person has come to want to be "in the know"?
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Re: Rage against the Algorithm

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Harry wrote:What are the chances of a friend with a flashlight making a difference when a person has come to want to be "in the know"?
Many people won't engage deeply enough. I have a few acquaintances like that. However, I have a few more that are often taken aback when I point things out. Obvious things like the precise timline for Ukraine events, and how many various entities wanted Shokin removed. The only way this works is playing information roulette, sitting side by side with laptops and digging deep into any point of disagreement. I've learned stuff I didn't know in this manner as well, and some of what I believed has been moderated.

Debating on a forum like this is far different, and more difficult. People can cherry pick what they reply to, and ignore the rest.
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Re: Rage against the Algorithm

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Harry Marks wrote:So, that's a funny title. Since the point of the algorithm is to foster rage.
There is a Wikipedia page on the political views of the 90s rock band Rage Against The Machine, illustrating the mechanical nature of the empire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political ... he_Machine The social media algorithm has become the apotheosis of the cynical capitalist machine, despite piles of irony somehow, since social media enables a fake rage based on emotion rather than evidence, purely to make money.
Harry Marks wrote:people are more likely to pound away at the keyboard well past 11 if they are confronting malevolent stupidity than if they are intrigued by something they would like to think about together.
This theme of collaborative thinking reflects the philosophical tradition of dialectic, epitomised in Plato’s Dialogues. A respectful conversation back and forth between differing perspectives deepens shared understanding.
Harry Marks wrote:I got really sucked in at first. It was exhilarating to explain progressive Christianity to people who only know the Franklin Graham type. People whose views of religion were shaped by 911 and Charlie Hebdo and Christopher Hitchens. I spent a lot of earnest hours on other sites before arriving, more or less calmed down, at Booktalk. But I also saw some really unhealthy social dynamics. And had a nagging feeling that the conversation was not a conversation.
A conversation may require openness to conversion. That means a willingness to change one’s opinion based on new information and reasoned argument.
Harry Marks wrote: Maybe we have made some progress, but there are still so many opportunities for going down a rabbit hole. I have friends from high school who routinely post on FB that the MSM lies constantly and that the Ukraine scandal was a mess of cherry-picking to try to create a scandal where nothing really happened. The phone call was perfect, yadda yadda.
Thinking is susceptible to gossip and confirmation bias.
Harry Marks wrote: And beneath it all lurks the Algorithm. In an ecology based on grabbing people's attention, the seduction of knowing what your neighbor doesn't hear about, and standing for values that are under attack by dark forces, is going to pull in a lot of what Eric Hoffer referred to, in "The True Believer," with a chapter called "And slime they had for mortar." What are the chances of a friend with a flashlight making a difference when a person has come to want to be "in the know"?
I have a pdf of The True Believer, and have previously suggested it as a Booktalk nonfiction selection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer
The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements is a non-fiction book authored by American philosopher Eric Hoffer. Published in 1951, it depicts a variety of arguments in terms of applied world history and social psychology to explain why mass movements arise to challenge the status quo. Hoffer discusses the sense of individual identity and the holding to particular ideals that can lead to fanaticism among both leaders and followers. Summary of the book is at https://lifeclub.org/books/the-true-bel ... ew-summary
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Re: Rage against the Algorithm

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This may be a bit off topic, but I think the band Rage Against the Machine took their name, rather their name was inspired by, the Dylan Thomas poem, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," which includes the line "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
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The Biden administration is looking to curb disinformation spreading on facebook:

https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-b ... ck-2020-11

An interesting takeaway from some of the sources I posted above is that there isn't any sign of overt agenda other than making money. Social media feeds are optimized for engagement, utilizing a ton of data on how fast we swipe, how long we look at a post(tallied in milliseconds), whether or not we click through, etc. And AI engines parse all this data and tinker with our feeds nonstop, constantly learning in a cyclical fashion how to increase the engagement/advertisement ratio.

A side effect of this engagement optimization is that, as emotional creatures, we're drawn to sensation. It turns out, fake news spreads up to 6 times faster than real news, as a byproduct of our emotions. Fake news has a form of sensationalism that reality can't compete with I guess. Perhaps real news is far too boring.
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Re: Rage against the Algorithm

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Interbane wrote:
Harry wrote:What are the chances of a friend with a flashlight making a difference when a person has come to want to be "in the know"?
Many people won't engage deeply enough. I have a few acquaintances like that. However, I have a few more that are often taken aback when I point things out. Obvious things like the precise timeline for Ukraine events, and how many various entities wanted Shokin removed. The only way this works is playing information roulette, sitting side by side with laptops and digging deep into any point of disagreement. I've learned stuff I didn't know in this manner as well, and some of what I believed has been moderated.
I am charmed by your experience. It means that you are both willing to follow the truth and question the surface, "spin" versions. I would like to believe most of us Americans prefer truth over error. And since much of the buy-in by real conspiracists is to get some social acceptance and belonging, that same motivation to get the truth has been skewed toward whatever reinforces the prejudices of their social group. So, if you find the people who are willing to, at least on one issue and at least for a time, put truth first, that kind of deep dive sounds promising. The person is getting social reinforcement on an open-ended basis.

I ran into a reference on Facebook (I am back on FB after they showed some willingness to exercise restraint on baseless smears) this week to an article out of MIT's Technology Review that aligns well with what you have experienced.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/0 ... l-be-kind/
Interbane wrote:Debating on a forum like this is far different, and more difficult. People can cherry pick what they reply to, and ignore the rest.
Well, people on these kinds of forums (I don't mind butchering Latin) are often here to spout their view, not to seek truth and understanding. We can usually tell which people are at least in principle open to learning.
Last edited by Harry Marks on Wed Nov 11, 2020 10:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Robert Tulip wrote:
Harry Marks wrote:people are more likely to pound away at the keyboard well past 11 if they are confronting malevolent stupidity than if they are intrigued by something they would like to think about together.
This theme of collaborative thinking reflects the philosophical tradition of dialectic, epitomised in Plato’s Dialogues. A respectful conversation back and forth between differing perspectives deepens shared understanding.
Absolutely. But, oddly enough, one does not have to read Plato very long before realizing that much of the Socratic nature of the dialogues is fake. Plato puts words in the mouth of the person Socrates is debating, and the result is mostly just a spin job to sell Plato's views. I don't want to take away from his brilliance or deny the innovative approach Socrates took. I just think it is amusing that the archetypal example of this approach was not, as far as we can tell, really about respectful conversation between differing perspectives or about deepening shared understanding.
Robert Tulip wrote:A conversation may require openness to conversion. That means a willingness to change one’s opinion based on new information and reasoned argument.
I recently listened to Brene Brown's "Dare to Lead" (while exercising - love audiiobooks :yes: ) and she observed that trust has been demonstrated to require steady consistency of behavior over many, many small choices. I agree there is a fundamental requirement of a willingness in principle to change one's opinion based on new information and reasoning, but over the long haul it doesn't matter so much that you change your views as that you demonstrate that the other person is heard (respectfully). I am quite open to hearing perspectives I am very unlikely to ever adopt much of, and freely confess that I learn a lot of interesting stuff that way.
Robert Tulip wrote:I have a pdf of The True Believer, and have previously suggested it as a Booktalk nonfiction selection.
Though I read it long ago, I would enjoy the chance to read it again, with a group.
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KS wrote:I am charmed by your experience. It means that you are both willing to follow the truth and question the surface, "spin" versions. I would like to believe most of us Americans prefer truth over error. And since much of the buy-in by real conspiracists is to get some social acceptance and belonging, that same motivation to get the truth has been skewed toward whatever reinforces the prejudices of their social group. So, if you find the people who are willing to, at least on one issue and at least for a time, put truth first, that kind of deep dive sounds promising. The person is getting social reinforcement on an open-ended basis.
Sometimes I wonder what amount of untruth(or cognitive dissonance?) people are willing to accept. I think that large swaths of belief within someone's worldview can withstand a decent amount of dissonance. Sort of like the slow buildup of contrary evidence in a scientific paradigm before it changes, there usually isn't any single piece of evidence or argument that changes minds. Rather, it's constant exposure to reasonable criticism. Sometimes there is a straw that breaks the camel's back, but I think more often it's gradual. Unfortunately, it's also uncommon for webs of belief to change at all. With respect to social media, I think the social groups keep people from being exposed to enough reasonable criticism to meet the critical mass of contrary evidence. And the feeling of social acceptance and belonging prevent people from seeking or accepting it, as you mention.

A few recent conversations I've had reminded me of inner turmoil I had perhaps two decades ago, when I first joined booktalk. I remember plenty of conversation with a personality named MadArchitect, and he was frustratingly brilliant. It wasn't any one thing he said, but over time, after calling me out repeatedly, he helped me identify when I was defending a belief based on emotion rather than reason. Naturally, most any belief is defended with a mixture of the two, but sometimes it's held together more by emotion than reason. The epiphany was that it hurts to admit when a belief is held together more by emotion than reason. In a sense, the emotion is a shield as well as a glue for that belief.

One of my friends was mentioning voter fraud, and how he believed it was happening. He kept mentioning the chain of custody, and gave quite a few examples of where he thought there could be issues. I pointed out a few safeguards that prevented the issues. We went back and forth for a time, and he kept returning to his summary argument - complex chains of custody are complex and exploitable, and when combined with votes popping up in the middle of the night, it's suspicious. I agreed, but suggested that after having gone through the details, he's still holding onto his summary argument because of feeling rather than reason.

The crucible test, I mentioned, was to consider instantly and wholeheartedly changing his mind. If there was a pang of some mysterious, hard to identify, negative emotion... as if something is lost or he's committing some sort of minor betrayal to something nebulous, then emotion is obviously involved in that belief. And if the scaffolding of reason was systematically removed through our conversation, then emotion could be the only thing holding him to that belief. Often when emotion is recognized as a shield, a person can then see through that shield to contemplate whether the glue for that belief is reason or emotion. A glimpse into metacognition. In my experience, that's often just the seed for change, and only germinates when many such seeds are planted across the swath.

Sorry for the long train of through. I've always been curious about the emotion of belief. It's so maddeningly difficult to recognize and identify and describe.
RT wrote:I recently listened to Brene Brown's "Dare to Lead" (while exercising - love audiiobooks :yes: )
I'm addicted to audiobooks. I listen to them for hours per day. Driving, exercising, manual labor, while building stuff, etc. I'm an introvert, so I have a lot more alone-time style activities than social.
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Re: Rage against the Algorithm

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Robert Tulip wrote:I have a pdf of The True Believer, and have previously suggested it as a Booktalk nonfiction selection.
I read The True Believer some years ago and I would read it again.

One of Hoffer's more salient points is that those who latch on to a mass movement have lost faith in themselves as autonomous individuals. They will latch on to any movement for the hope of finding purpose in their lives (and of course finding a tribe to join). There must be an algorithm in our brains that makes such belonging imperative, more important than truth itself. I would suppose that the social algorithms mentioned by Interbane offer memes so tantalizing that they short-circuit our ability to think critically.
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