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https://warpcast.com/~/channel/thomas
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Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
We’re heading toward a Library of Babel scenario where virtually every permutation of text, video, and audio will either pre-exist online (Borges style) or be artificially generated on the fly (as on https://libraryofbabel.info/) to drive engagement for cheap. Which means that every most brilliant piece of insight will be out there; but they will be drowned out by vastly many more orders of magnitude of trite platitudes. Like in the Library of Babel, no index exists to tell them apart. There is no “key” to finding the needles of greatness in the haystack of slop. Brute forcing discovery would take literal eons, as in Borges’ story. In turn, insightful dwellers of the internet like @riotgoools give up, log off, and go touch grass, leaving ever more of the space to be filled by bots that not only author the content, but also pretend to be consuming and engaging with it. It’s the most recent embodiment of the Dead Internet Theory. How do we course correct from here? 1/3
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elle
@elle
more and more, i'm leaning towards smaller closed networks. the other part of borges' library of babel story is the emergence of things like cults because of all the faulty information much like how monolith social networks today fan the flames of disinformation, conspiracy theories, etc. and no consensus on shared reality can ever be reached again
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Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
Isn’t leaning toward smaller closed networks itself analogous to joining cults (in the loose sense of echo chambers / informational bubbles with a predominant “voice”)? Maybe that’s the direction of travel — in which case, it’s more balkanization of the internet (Truth Social vs Blue Sky vs Chinese Great Firewall web vs any other corporate or state-owned walled garden). We still have the problem of finding insight among slop within those smaller networks, as you observed in your earlier cast
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elle
@elle
that's where i'm split on it – the promise of the earlier internet was gaining exposure to wide varieties information and viewpoints. everyone expected and depended on the "marketplace of ideas" to reveal truths but it hasn't worked out that way. if anything, it's gone the other way in many cases. see things like flat-earthers and qanon where instead of faulty information being defeated in the open marketplace, it actually infects and confuses the more stable information in the general population bc everything occupies and intermingles with equal weight. it's also aggravated by bad actors who intentionally poison open network information for their own ends. and now the flood of empty generated content in terms of small closed networks, i'm thinking more like topic-based networks where it's easier to have clear community guidelines and norms. u see that on reddit (some are looser than others.) debates can still happen but there is also a community system in place that can downrank info poison
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