I completely and totally agree with the article that the attention economy in its current manifestation is in crisis, but I’m much less sanguine about the outcomes. The problem with the theory presented here, to me, is that it’s missing a theory of power. The attention economy isn’t an accident, but the result of the inherently political nature of society. Humans, being social animals, gain power by convincing other people of things. From David Graeber (who I’m always quoting lol):
Politics, after all, is the art of persuasion; the political is that dimension of social life in which things really do become true if enough people believe them. The problem is that in order to play the game effectively, one can never acknowledge this: it may be true that, if I could convince everyone in the world that I was the King of France, I would in fact become the King of France; but it would never work if I were to admit that this was the only basis of my claim.
In other words, just because algorithmic social media becomes uninteresting doesn’t mean the death of the attention economy as such, because the attention economy is something innate to humanity, in some form. Today its algorithmic feeds, but 500 years ago it was royal ownership of printing presses.
I think we already see the beginnings of the next round. As an example, the YouTuber Veritsasium has been doing educational videos about science for over a decade, and he’s by and large good and reliable. Recently, he did a video about self-driving cars, sponsored by Waymo, which was full of (what I’ll charitably call) problematic claims that were clearly written by Waymo, as fellow YouTuber Tom Nicholas pointed out. Veritasium is a human that makes good videos. People follow him directly, bypassing algorithmic shenanigans, but Waymo was able to leverage their resources to get into that trusted, no-algorithm space. We live in a society that commodifies everything, and as human-made content becomes rarer, more people like Veritsaium will be presented with more and increasingly lucrative opportunities to sell bits and pieces of their authenticity for manufactured content (be it by AI or a marketing team), while new people that could be like Veritsaium will be drowned out by the heaps of bullshit clogging up the web.
This has an analogy in our physical world. As more and more of our physical world looks the same, as a result of the homogenizing forces of capital (office parks, suburbia, generic blocky bulidings, etc.), the fewer and fewer remaining parts that are special, like say Venice, become too valuable for their own survival. They become “touristy,” which is itself a sort of ironically homogenized commodified authenticity.
Don’t we humans derive from our trained dataset: our lives?
If you had a human with no “trained dataset” they would have only just been born. But even then you run into an issue there as it’s been shown that fetuses respond to audio stimulation while they’re in the womb.
The question of consciousness is a really hard one for sure that we may never have an answer that everyone agrees on.
/kbin is certainly not dying, as @fr0g pointed out, work on new features and bug fixes is ongoing. However, it may give the impression that it is, and for that, I take full responsibility and owe you an explanation....
Being unable to admit they are wrong or don’t know something. I feel like it’s one of those traits that snowballs into someone coming off as obnoxious and elitist
Actually as I was explaining to another person, unfortunately, there is a reason.
I am living in Tampa, Florida, the nearby walmart to my house, has a huge parking lot, but a car corral near the entrance and ONE on a huge damn parking lot.
The thing is, while I am not against returning carts when possible in anyway, what can I do if I park my car all the way on the other side on the parking lot and not near the cart corrosal? And the reason I park there is because it's one of the few parking spots available in a busy day? I am sorry but in such cases, people will just leave the carts on the side and leave with their car.
Not to mention, the damn sun here, it gets absolutely hot here at times, even I don't see myself walking halfway to the other part of the parking lot just to leave a cart when I already walked all the way from the entrance carrying all of my groceries, I don't see myself returning in that case.
Again we need to think in practical real-life scenario, so not only should people start returning carts, stores that don't have enough cart returning points in parking lots especially, should increase them.
I am not saying I don't return carts because that actually doesn't apply to me, atleast lately, as I have been mainly ordering stuff online mostly.
I do also want to make it clear, I am in no way giving justifications for those who make these basic mistakes without a genuine reason, I don't ever see myself not returning a cart when there is indeed a fairly nearby cart corrosal, and unfortunately, there are people who won't return their cars even if they have a nearby car corral, and i'm not arguing for them!
Yeah, I can see it being an issue when there’s a massive parking lot and no return locations. I’m sure some stores did the studies on how much time and workforce it saved to put those corrals out in the lot as most people are inclined to do a bit to help out others.
Do you think it's fair to think that just because you are able to, others can too? I've been living in Canada before moving to florida, opposite weather here, extremely hot, I try to stay cool as much as possible, it's good that you "crossed a parking lot at a street" (assuming that is long distance, don't extactly understand the meaning here), but I am not you man, different people, scenarios, circumstances.
I know people are going to downvote this for me lol, again I ain't justifying for those who actually don't return when there is actually a cart corral nearby, but I am not trying to justify my own actions or argue for those who make this mistake without a genuine reason wantedly, in-fact as I''ve mentioned in several other comments in this thread, I do online shopping mostly these days, so this does not even apply to me.
I am simply trying to discuss from another not so popular perspective here in this thread.
I am also wondering if people have different definitions of what "bad" could be, because to me, this is more about lack of responsibility and ignorance when you are able to return a cart, but you still don't. If I saw someone doing this without a genuine reason like I have stated before, I don't think that'd still make them a bad as a person, I'd consider them not so responsible and kindly ask them to return it.
For reasons that I can't quite fathom, they've been taking them away in California. Stores that used to have them, don't any more.
Often there isn't even a safe place outside. You could put them up on to the sidewalk in front of the store, but is that the best place? It's convenient for the workers but it also gets in the way.
An international research team including the University of Göttingen has described seven previously unknown species of leaf insects, also known as walking leaves. The insects belong to the stick and leaf insect order, which are known for their unusual appearance: they look confusingly similar to parts of plants such as twigs,...
The ex-president talked about his daughter's breasts and "what it might be like to have sex with her," a former Trump administration official writes in a new book....
Her breasts are tremendous. What could be the issue here? So I had sex with my daughter? I don't see a problem in this free country. #MakeAmericaGreatAgain
Currently, on the main instance, people have created 40191 accounts (+214 marked as deleted). I don't know how many are active because I don't monitor it, but once again, I greet all of you here :) In recent days, the traffic on the website has been overwhelming. It's definitely too much for the basic docker-compose setup,...
I wanted to post this here since I want to help as much as I can in my own way to people coming here for the first time. I hope it is useful and helpful! I tried to assume low knowledge with the Fediverse in my responses which I collected here from a different post and assembled into a single article....
How the coming flood of AI-generated content might actually free the soul of Internet (www.staygrounded.online)
Not paywalled, you can just click "No thanks" on the popup.
AI Lie: Machines Don’t Learn Like Humans (And Don’t Have the Right To) (www.tomshardware.com)
Some argue that bots should be entitled to ingest any content they see, because people can.
Is Kbin dying? I wanted to address the deleted thread and provide some insight into the current situation.
/kbin is certainly not dying, as @fr0g pointed out, work on new features and bug fixes is ongoing. However, it may give the impression that it is, and for that, I take full responsibility and owe you an explanation....
What's a dead giveaway that someone is a bad person?
What would be a good sign coming out of such people?
Sleep can be most restful for older adults when nighttime temperature range is between 68 to 77°F, study finds (medicalxpress.com)
New research finds that sleep can be most efficient and restful for older adults when nighttime bedroom ambient temperature ranges between 68 to 77°F.
Curious and cryptic: New leaf insects discovered (phys.org)
An international research team including the University of Göttingen has described seven previously unknown species of leaf insects, also known as walking leaves. The insects belong to the stick and leaf insect order, which are known for their unusual appearance: they look confusingly similar to parts of plants such as twigs,...
All 50 states with the same naming convention as West Virginia (lemmy.world)
'Barbie' Makes Greta Gerwig 1st Female Director with Billion-Dollar Movie (www.tmz.com)
Greta Gerwig is in a league of her own as the first solo female director whose movie has made $1 billion.
Russian incorrectly fires an RPG, backblasting himself in the shoulder. (streamable.com)
Mirror: files.catbox.moe/5kjva8.mp4...
Challenge: reading google chromes blog without throwing up (blog.chromium.org)
If you can read a few paragraphs of this article without wanting to punch someone, congrats....
Trump Made Disturbing Comments About Having Sex With Ivanka, Ex-Staffer Claims (www.huffpost.com)
The ex-president talked about his daughter's breasts and "what it might be like to have sex with her," a former Trump administration official writes in a new book....
PSA: Upvote is not an upvote like you are used to (like Reddit) - "Boost" is the Reddit Upvote
Like the title says, if you want to upvote something on KBin, you should use the Boost link, not the upvote button (Why? Don't know...)...
/kbin server update - or how the server didn't blow up
Currently, on the main instance, people have created 40191 accounts (+214 marked as deleted). I don't know how many are active because I don't monitor it, but once again, I greet all of you here :) In recent days, the traffic on the website has been overwhelming. It's definitely too much for the basic docker-compose setup,...
egg💻irl
A small FAQ to hopefully help new users to kbin (kilioa.org)
I wanted to post this here since I want to help as much as I can in my own way to people coming here for the first time. I hope it is useful and helpful! I tried to assume low knowledge with the Fediverse in my responses which I collected here from a different post and assembled into a single article....