Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Maybe it goes without saying, but I think that problem is far
greater on the right than on the left because the epistemology of
the left, however prone to error, is based on Enlightenment values
of free inquiry and reasoned evaluation of evidence; whereas the
epistemology of the right is based in defending mores, taboos, and
norms which are deemed absolute from the start.

Roger, would you say that FB and the other stacks made the schism on
the left worse than it would have been without them? I'm thinking of
the similar schism between Nader and Gore voters in 2000, when I am
guessing the influence of the stacks was insufficient to be felt in
electoral politics.  Both of these elections presented a real
dilemma for progressives, with or without Russian shenanigans. I'm
willing to believe FB was a but-for cause of Trump's election, but
only because his razor-thin margin meant a dozen otherwise minor
factors may have been but-for causes -- from Comey's inept meddling
to HRH's failure to campaign in Wisconsin to the contempt some of
her campaign officials expressed towards Sanders supporters. It was
a kind of perfect storm of combined forces. 
  

    
One aspect of this problem that terrifies me is the decline of facts
relative to opinions: anything I believe is a fact; anything that
you believe (which differs from my "fact") is an opinion.  

Democracy depends on having some shared beliefs. Shared beliefs
enable people to disagree without being guilty of bad faith.
Compromise is possible for the same reason. Disagreement and
compromise are building blocks of democracy.  

The polarization in society is so extreme today that even people who
share the same values sometimes cannot compromise.  This happened
between Sanders and Clinton voters during the 2016 primary. The
Russians used Facebook to magnify the disagreements between Sanders
and Clinton supporters, effectively making the gap unbridgeable for
many Sanders voters.  

Compromise is difficult, especially on issues of substance and
values, but I don't know how democracies can work without them.
Another way to think about this: if we want to change the balance of
power in Washington, we are going to have to accept a coalition that
includes people who disagree with us on some issues.  I call this
the "Joe Manchin Problem."  Manchin votes like a Republican on a few
issues, but it turns out he has been a loyal Dem on a wide range of
issues that really matter, such as ACA.  I used to think he was a
bum, but I would rather have a Senate vote in WV in favor of good
health care than a Republican who votes wrong on everything.  
  

    
One aspect of this problem that terrifies me is the decline of facts
relative to opinions: anything I believe is a fact; anything that
you believe (which differs from my "fact") is an opinion.  

Democracy depends on having some shared beliefs. Shared beliefs
enable people to disagree without being guilty of bad faith.
Compromise is possible for the same reason. Disagreement and
compromise are building blocks of democracy.  

The polarization in society is so extreme today that even people who
share the same values sometimes cannot compromise.  This happened
between Sanders and Clinton voters during the 2016 primary. The
Russians used Facebook to magnify the disagreements between Sanders
and Clinton supporters, effectively making the gap unbridgeable for
many Sanders voters.  

Compromise is difficult, especially on issues of substance and
values, but I don't know how democracies can work without them.
Another way to think about this: if we want to change the balance of
power in Washington, we are going to have to accept a coalition that
includes people who disagree with us on some issues.  I call this
the "Joe Manchin Problem."  Manchin votes like a Republican on a few
issues, but it turns out he has been a loyal Dem on a wide range of
issues that really matter, such as ACA.  I used to think he was a
bum, but I would rather have a Senate vote in WV in favor of good
health care than a Republican who votes wrong on everything.  
  

    
Andrew Trott ...

My impression is that FB has aggravated polarization on both ends of
the spectrum.  The way FB's business model works, people in the
middle have relatively little economic value relative to people on
the extremes.  As a result, FB has an incentive to identify
emotional hot buttons and activate users to make their views more
extreme.  

In my view, there is a factor you don't mention that has also
contributed to the relatively larger population of people on the
right who caught in the spell of filter bubbles: Fox News.  Fox uses
the same tactics as FB -- appeals to fear and anger -- and benefits
in this from having an ancient viewership.  
  

    
re: are bubbles inherent in online communities?

This is a really intriguing hypothesis.  Behavior on message boards
and comments sections is consistent with it.  
  

    
Facebook Purity gives you all the fine tuning you could possibly
want for your Facebook Stream:

https://www.fbpurity.com/

But, depending on how you use it, can make your feedback loop even
more of a bubble...there are a lot of annoying features on FB that
it is nice to filter away, but I think it is important to have
points of view in my stream that represent other points of view, so
I am intentional about trying to have a balance of left, center, and
right - conservative, progressive and liberal points of view...

Like Andrew, I have left FB several times, and keep coming
back...why is that, what buttons does FB push that I don't seem to
be getting pushed elsewhere?  I've tried Diaspora and others and
they just don't seem to get traction for me...why is that? 
  

    
There's a 'fluffiness' to FB that I actually like...lol cats, family
pics and updates, stupid memes and videos. And then there is the
occasional thoughtful post that grabs my head or heart, and the
great ones that grab both. But, generally, I am ignoring most of
everything that comes up in my stream. 

Messenger is a nice feature, in that, I can serendipitously catch up
with someone who happens to be online at the same time...and, once
in a while, meet someone new who isn't pushing some agenda, group,
or request for money.

And now there are groups and causes and buying and selling in the
Marketplace...

It is morphing into a Medieval marketplace -- stalls, jugglers,
magicians, etc. And I have the choice of mixing and mingling or just
walking on by to the next booth. Very much like life I see around me
here in Phoenix...strip mall after strip mall, and then the big
malls...do I make a short, quick trip for a single item or should I
wait and go once a week to get it all done in a one stop shopping
setting? 
  

    
How we spend our time online is not all that different from how we
spend it on the ground...it is just that cyberspace is more easily
addictive to grabbing our headspace and time.

This is all to say that some of this is on us as users...we have to
educate ourselves and get some digital skills as well as discipline
ourselves to the amount of time and places we spend online. I don't
fault FB from the standpoint of my "time suck". And, like
Washington, D.C., I don't expect them to do all that much for me. 

It is still the mix of the Cathedral and the Bazaar and where I
choose to spend my time and energy - online and in my community.
And, tribalism, as Andrew and others point out is a common
denominator...something to be recognized and reckoned with.
  

    
Roger, I guess that is part of the issue for me...just how much of
Facebook do I really want to be fixed? I have the same problem with
Washington, D.C. I want them in my life, but I don't....when I do
want them in my life I want them on my terms....

Is that just human nature and part of the battle? I don't want
Facebook to solve hardly any of my needs, other than to be a safe,
friendly place to visit my friends and have an occasional
chat...sort of an English Pub.
And, of course, I want to beer to be free. 

Freemium/Premium models don't really work all that well. I already
have the WELL for that aspect of my social and mental life, so I
don't need to put it on Facebook.

I love my tribes, but don't trust them for much, other than a good
conversation over beer. I certainily don't want them deciding my
life choices for me. The more carefully I read you, the less certain
I am about what I actually want. Yikes!

Can you speak to that? Obviously Facebook's model has to change, we
can all see where that's going...but is there a model that allows me
to have my beer and go home alone and still myself and freely decide
whether or not to come another day...or is all this subtle shaping
simply fixing me to become a better sheep? This is all very 1984.
  

    
For those of you following along from the great outside, please feel
free to ask Roger any pertinent questions or comments by sending an
email to Inkwell @well.com and we will post them for you.
  

    
"A subscription model would allow Facebook to improve the user
experience dramatically. For example, the basic bundle might include
multiple news feeds, such as unfiltered feeds for family, friends
and any number of groups, as well as news feeds organized by topic,
including news, politics, sports and music. Premium news feeds could
include newspapers, magazines, blogs and podcasts, each curated by
the publisher. There could also be video news feeds for HBO, Netflix
or regional sports networks, as well as audio news feeds for Spotify
and Pandora. A cord cutter with a full suite of premium news feeds
might spend as much on Facebook per month as a premium cable
customer spends today — $100 or more. Facebook would take a piece of
the revenue from every premium service."

Roger, what kind of response, if any, have you gotten to this idea?
  

    
From Forbes, 2/22/18 Our Facebook Failure: Do you really know your
customer?
(https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinomarah/2018/02/22/our-facebook-failure/#67f6
af9a20f5)

"Social media is admittedly just one vector in the still expanding
universe of digital demand sensing opportunities, but it is
especially important. This is because it offers not only buy signals
which have been available electronically for years, but also a
window on consumer emotions. By “liking” things, including them in
images of a happy life, endorsing them to friends and passing along
use-case ideas, consumers can become far more than just customers.
They can act as extensions of brand marketing strategies as well as
a perpetual focus group offering real-time feedback on products of
any kind."

"universe of digital demand sensing opportunities"...now there's a
phrase. 'demand sensing opportunites', is that what we've been
reduced to now....a receiver for 'screen sucking' opportunites to
engage our bandwidth and headspace? Apparently.
  

    
From Washington Post, 2/21/18, Mark Zuckerberg says he want to fix
Facebook. His employees keep getting in the way.
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/02/21/mark-zuckerberg-s
ays-he-wants-to-fix-facebook-his-employees-keep-getting-in-the-way/?utm_term=.
d93313de5559)

"Zuckerberg's latest major directive: shifting the company’s metrics
so that “meaningful interactions” are valued over likes and clicks,
a response to the misinformation and reports about the harms of
social media that drew attention last year."

This is the beginning of a crack in the egg, the business model.
"meaningful interactions", that's a tough one to define, much less
program for.
  

    

I find Facebook to be hugely valuable, both professionally and socially.

My decades here in the WELL have taught me how to be a responsible user.
ACCOUNTABILITY is a huge part of what works here. Each userid is associated
with a real person, and every post is associated with a real userid.

Not sure if it's possible to scale this culture up to global size...
  

    
#53 sums it up for me. The problem is not limited to the technology
stack providers, though. We also have major traditional media
players divided into Red and Blue camps with different facts. 

A small personal example: I shared a cubicle wall with a very
intelligent engineer who was a member of the Tea Party. In a
political discussion, I claimed that Clinton had balanced the budget
and had no deficit. He disputed this. We could not agree on facts.
The sources I pulled up, he dismissed as biased.(*) 

If we cannot agree on facts, and if we cannot trust our traditional
sources of news to do fact-checking, how can we come up with
intelligent compromises?  If there is no accepted source of truth ,
how do we reconcile these conflicting streams of information?

I see Facebook and the like as amplifying and exploiting this trend,
but I don't think they started it and I don't think they're going to
end it. Because, who do we trust to say what is true? 

(*)
https://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/
  

    

And BTW I believe that Fox News is an immense part of hte problem. A society
that tolerates a 24/7 propaganda channel is a fucked-up society indeed.
  

    
I agree with anyone who excoriates Fox, and it is clear that it is a
big part of the problem. But partisan, nasty media have been with us
since we first started recording things. What changed that causes
the very human demonization to affect so many so poorly--or has that
been true, as well? (Now that I think about it, we've had no
shortage of media-inspired wars, going back to I don't know
when--the Israelites marching into Israel, committing genocide
because "God says so"?
  

    
This is hardly an original thought, but I agree that we've entered
an era in which Americans increasingly demonize each other, an
attitude clearly enabled by social media and targeted media like
Fox. 

But it is also true that the post-war landscape most of us Boomers
grew up in - with the 3 networks, the Fairness Doctrine, and bland
centrist media on every side - was not the norm for all of American
history.

The middlebrow culture of that era was, in some respects, swill. 
But in retrospect we can see that it was part of the glue holding a
very large and disparate country together.

Now it is the norm for Americans of many stripes to at best
completely disregard and at worst burn with hatred for other
Americans.
  

    

> partisan, nasty media have been with us since we first started recording
> things.

Sorry, but Fox News is disinformation on a global scale, and I think it's in
a class by itself as these things go.
  

    
I think Ari is asking what changed? Not making a value judgment.

What's changed, it would seem, are many of the historical constraints on
information flows. This, in turn, gives rise to more self-reinforcing
loops.
  

    
<64> Not sure if it's possible to scale this culture up to global
size...

That's the tough nut, David....FB is now requiring a driver's
license or other State ID to open an account, and then they mail you
a code on a postcard in order to verify...Makes it slower to start
phoney accounts, but won't stop it.

Don't forget FB owns Instagram as well, so there is bound to be some
integration of platforms going forward to make it competitive with
Twitter and LinkedIn.
  

    
re <65> Betsy, you make a good point...we are tribal on the Web and
tribal now in this country...very easy to divide and conquer that
kind of social approach...
  

    
<68> Now it is the norm for Americans of many stripes to at best
completely disregard and at worst burn with hatred for other
Americans.

Don't know if they still Pledge the Allegiance to the flag in
schools anymore, but "with liberty and justice for ALL" is the part
that has been eroded for the past 40 years or more....

I think we forget that this country was founded in order to protect
and provide all the rights of pursuing life, liberty and happiness
for each and every one of us....then States rights...then a
Federation.

We have lost our moorings and has been pointed out in many
editorials the Right Wing, wittingly or "un" is coming straight at
all the Enlightenment values incorporated into our Constitution and
Bill of Rights....

The Facebook fiascos are just the natural flow of this. And while we
hem and haw about Russia's involvement, not much is said about North
Korea's blatant and continual cyberattacks on our corporations and
government data bases....this is a huge problem, and only going to
get worse. 

I'm waiting to see how the NRA figures out a way to sell AK 15's and
AR 47's to fix it all.
  

    
<69> Agreed David...it's much bigger than Fox News, it is everything
Rupert Murdoch owns.
  

    
<70> What's changed, it would seem, are many of the historical
constraints on
information flows. This, in turn, gives rise to more
self-reinforcing
loops.

Yup...and the speed of communication is also a factor...

We are moving "at the speed of byte" now...the horse is long out of
the barn before the damage is discovered.