And yet consistently the arguments you hear against regulation are these "let's pretend there's no such thing as nuance, how can we ever regulate an extreme case of something when we don't regulate minor cases?" arguments that act like no law has ever successfully regulated a nuance and improved people's welfare. Should we also allow heroin in baby food because cliff-hangers are allowed in films? Don't restrict my personal freedom to choose to be addicted to heroin from day 1!
I'm not saying these feeds are as bad as heroin for your health, but the difference in addictiveness between cliff-hangers in film and tiktok on your phone is about as big, and I equally think nicotine should be heavily regulated for similar reasons
Yes the argument quality has become poor too, and there is less nuance than before.
And like obviously society benefits from some paternalism for things like this, and we really do need to see good, concrete recommendations be proposed.
Imagine if HN were discussing the merits of things like "interrupt every X minutes of infinite-scrolling with reminders / popups / forced X/10 minute breaks" or other actual concrete, balanced solutions to such problems. This would introduce the nuance and make things interesting again.
But it is increasingly the case I find I need to look elsewhere for such discussions.
I absolutely get what you're saying in theory--discussions about how and why are far more valuable than dialectic no yes no yes no yes debates--but in practice for this case, I feel like those how why conversations would perhaps feel a bit redundant? I think almost anyone on the site could quite easily come up with an effective legal method for reducing the addictiveness of short form videos. The issue lies more in the action/inaction of regulators than the makeup of the actions they should take. Then again, this is all recreational anyway, so why not see who can optimise for the absolute best method?
I also wonder if these discussions are going on, just further down the thread
I would assume it's time spent on video and they start to build a profile of which users like what kind of content. X liked video 934934 so Y probably also likes that kind of video. Group people in buckets.
I'm sure this is part of it, but I suspect it goes deeper than that. I'd guess they probably have some kind automated categorisation algorithm that can extract features from the videos
I'm sorry to point out the obvious here, but who is going to perceive their recommended feed as slow or unfresh if it doesn't learn from exactly the last video you clicked on within 1 second? The bar simply is not that high. The special sauce of TikTok is how it chooses the videos, not the speed it does it at. I'm sure the speed helps to give it that "spookily intelligent" feeling, but that's a cherry on the recommendation cake, a cake which is already twice as good as the nearest competitor. I'm sure your talk goes deeper than this, but if this is the main focus, then you've missed the point.
Speed completely changes the game in a few ways. The first is identifying interests. Imagine every possible interest in a tree structure. Let's say you're into kumiko. There are so many levels of the tree to traverse to find kumiko; perhaps Skilled crafts -> Woodworking -> Japanese -> Construction without use of fasteners -> Panels and decorative elements -> Kumiko. The more iterations you can get through, the better you can match people's interests. If someone has 10 interests and each one requires many questions to determine, it can take forever to find exact interests with a system that only narrows down your interests every X videos vs. after each video.
The second is matching current moods. Let's say you just broke up with your girlfriend, or your pet fish died, or you're on vacation in Spain. A rapidly-updating system can capture those trends and get right to the heart of them in time for them to matter. A slow system might only get through a few iterations and capture a vague interest in Spain; a fast-updating one can get through countless iterations of guessing. Spain? What city? Tourist or moving there? What type of tourist? Foodie? What type of food? How fancy? Bam, you're watching the perfect video about an upscale seafood restaurant in Barcelona.
The third is type and flavor of content. Even inside of a small niche you will find many flavors of content. Super-short or long form, fast paced or slow, funny or serious, intellectual, irreverent, political leanings, background music, et cetera. Maybe you like slow long-form woodworking content but like fast-paced travel guides. Maybe you hate background music except when it's in skateboarding videos. To determine this requires an incredible amount of "questioning" of the user.
Now, of course, an algorithm that updates once daily can also make inferences about your interests and preferences. It can certainly learn, with enough time, what you are into and how you like to consume it. But the key thing is that these inferences only enable _predetermined_ changes. Imagine you are a human showing someone TikToks. Imagine that you can ask them any questions about their preferences right as they watch a video. You may not ask a question after every video, but you will ask countless questions over the hours of scrolling that day, and you will get good data. Now imagine a new restriction: you must decide your questions once a day in advance. You will manage far fewer questions; and to follow up on them you must wait yet another day.
Now, why do I partly agree? Well, I don't think speed is everything; I think TikTok has another sort of je ne sais quoi to it. I think it has a unique culture and community. It has a better UI and better features than Instagram. It has a young and cool reputation, far from the Millennial taint of Instagram or Facebook. And I suspect that they are good at identifying _who_ you are and acting on that information. But in my eyes, the speed could very well be the most important part of the puzzle.
They're suggesting that you listen to and address the points they made rather than simply rephrase your original viewpoint.
I'd suggest you try to understand that psychological problems are real and that you only get one brain. You may say "you don't understand poverty", but it equally sounds like you don't understand trauma and psychological issues. You only get one brain and life is about being happy. If you rise out of poverty, but you're less happy than you were, is that better? It sounds like it is for you as long as they stop voting for candidates you don't like. It's easy to not care about people's happiness if they don't vote for the candidates you like, right?
Can you address the point I made where farmers suicides happen because of material poverty?
If you saw that my main point was that metaphysical concerns of “trauma” and “psychological issues” are a non issue for people who don’t have food on their plate.
> If you rise out of poverty, but you're less happy than you were, is that better?
Who are you to suggest they are less happy than otherwise? They took that decision voluntarily. I’m also suggesting that it’s the best decision.
You seem to think you have a better alternative for those people. Pray tell me, what is it that you are suggesting? What would you have rather done if you were the poor mother in middle of nowhere India and you had 6 children with complete lack of material stability. You would have rejected it?
If it were me or my friends or family- I would have definitely taken the job or adviced my friends to take it.
Apologies for inserting myself into this exchange, but I'd like to point out something that both your primary interlocuter seem to be overlooking.
> They took that decision voluntarily
Doesn't really describe the experience of the woman in the original article. She took a job in "data classification" which was initially boring but benign. Then her job assignments changed to reviewing NSFW and NSFL content that she herself recognized as psychologically harmful, without a pay increase, or affordance for her discomfort. In fact, the altered nature of her job was callously dismissed: "it's still data classification"!
I could probably agree with you that there's a market-clearing price where reviewing disturbing material becomes a worthwhile sacrifice for some to take, or even an actual opportunity for people psychologically suited to the work, but an informed, freely-taken choice is not the situation described. That's the exploitation that I see in this story.
> Who are you to suggest they are less happy than otherwise?
Who are you to assume they always are? Once again, you're just dismissing the problems away.
> They took that decision voluntarily.
As if nobody in the history of the world took a deal that turned out to be bad for them. A voluntary choice does not inherently imply that the choice made them better off.
Regardless, you've completely ignored the last sentence of my original reply, but I'll try to spell it out for you. The neocolonialist objection does not boil down to, take these women's jobs away and make people in the corporation's home country do it. It is primarily a critique of the society that benefits from or depends on labor its own members consider unacceptable or beneath them. It is inherently exploitative by that society's own standards, and retaining such an economy is either unsustainable or incentivizes the perpetuation of the conditions which allow it to exploit. In other words, the US has a vested interest in making sure some people are always poor and desperate enough to do the jobs it doesn't want to do.
You’ve ignored my point on material poverty leading to suicides again. This means you can’t appreciate that Indians suffer mostly from people lack of money than anything else.
> As if nobody in the history of the world took a deal that turned out to be bad for them. A voluntary choice does not inherently imply that the choice made them better off
I’m suggesting that it’s the best decision for them. They’ve clearly taken the decision so they also think the same. I asked you for alternatives, or what you could have rather done but you’ve not answered. Maybe consider that it’s the best option for them?
> In other words, the US has a vested interest in making sure some people are always poor and desperate enough to do the jobs it doesn't want to do.
This shows clearly you have no idea what you are talking about. It’s mostly because of US that India has great IT jobs. It’s also because of products and services made in the US that we use in India that India enjoys some prosperity. Think of all the pharmaceutical innovations. Think of the internet, iPhones and everything. The USA has a massive part in reducing poverty in India.
What you are doing is clear: moral grandstanding without suggesting any clear alternative. It’s always nice to show easy empathy.
Your perspective is consistently too black and white. No one in this comment chain has once said that this should not be allowed. At most it's been said that paying poor people to take trauma is concerning. Your response has consistently been "How dare you say poor people shouldn't have these jobs? These jobs are great!". You're trying to make it black and you white, when it's neither.
If your argument was "These jobs probably will scar some people for life, and that's troubling, but I do think the overall gain in welfare will likely outweigh that", then no one reasonable would be arguing with you. As it is, you haven't bothered to include this nuance, or even once admit or consider that some people could be made worse off overall by these jobs, even if perhaps most aren't. It basically just sounds like you want to see fewer "low IQ" poor people and you aren't really bothered how they feel afterwards. I'll say again, exceedingly many people have all the things you said are required for happiness, and still aren't happy. And that is usually due to trauma, the very thing we're talking about.
> No one in this comment chain has once said that this should not be allowed. At most it's been said that paying poor people to take trauma is concerning
There's a commenter saying that they were forced to do it.
>Being able to force someone to do something is not justification for doing so. Further, it is ridiculous to try and label that as 'beneficial for everyone involved'. By the same token you can call outright slavery under threat of execution 'beneficial for everyone involved'. What tripe.
That's simply a logical conclusion from your own thought process. You keep saying that any job is okay if the person is desperate. i.e. it's okay to force people to do what you want if they've got no other choice
yeah no sorry. there's clearly a person who thinks this should not be done. the way to interpret what they said is that they are forced to take this option.
> No one in this comment chain has once said that this should not be allowed
this is incorrect.
I did say that its okay for people to be forced to do the job if no other option exists (with some caveats).
If you disagree, tell me how and be specific about it. What would you rather do in this case?
>What would you have rather done if you were the poor mother in middle of nowhere India and you had 6 children with complete lack of material stability. You would have rejected it?
There's a major inconsistency here. You're consistently claiming that other people don't understand poverty, and yet you essentially made the point that you're not poor ("those people have lower IQ"). So either you started off poor and then worked your way up via some route that's obviously not this job, or you haven't experienced it either, or you are actually poor and aren't doing this work. Which is it?
>Can you address the point I made where farmers suicides happen because of material poverty?
You haven't provided any evidence. If you can prove the suicide rate is higher for these farmers, you may have a point, but even then, the suicide rate does not necessarily have any bearing on the overall rate of happiness. It's possible that a bigger majority are happier farming, but a small minority are pushed more inexorably towards suicide. Perhaps that isn't true either. We simply don't know without evidence.
That's my basic point. You're making strong claims, but you quite clearly simply do not know and are deciding based on instinct and perhaps a vague desire to have your favoured political candidates get more votes. You haven't provided any justification whatsoever. "I think it's right", "maybe they commit suicide" and "they don't vote for people I prefer" are not justifications, they're guesses. As much as you may want me to ("Who are you to suggest they are less happy than otherwise?"). I have made no claims whatsoever, simply pointed out the lack of nuance using hypotheticals.
Having more money is very good. Psychological damage is very bad. Your point is that psychological damage doesn't matter and having more food is all that matters. Okay, so should you send your child off to fight for a warlord if it means they have more food? Please try to grasp that's there's nuance.
>If you saw that my main point was that metaphysical concerns of “trauma” and “psychological issues” are a non issue for people who don’t have food on their plate.
I've put this at the end because its beside the main point, but this sentence is just a barrel of conceptual misunderstandings. Trauma is a type of psychological issue, so "trauma and psychological issues" makes no sense without a prepended "other". Neither trauma nor psychological issues are metaphysical concerns. Metaphysical concerns are issues of first principles and deeper understandings of concepts. It's a branch of philosophy. If you don't believe me, Google it, or ask ChatGPT.
>There's a major inconsistency here. You're consistently claiming that other people don't understand poverty, and yet you essentially made the point that you're not poor ("those people have lower IQ"). So either you started off poor and then worked your way up via some route that's obviously not this job, or you haven't experienced it either, or you are actually poor and aren't doing this work. Which is it?
Have you considered that I have more knowledge of poverty, not because I have experienced it, but because I have spent time understanding it?
> You haven't provided any evidence. If you can prove the suicide rate is higher for these farmers, you may have a point, but even then, the suicide rate does not necessarily have any bearing on the overall rate of happiness. It's possible that a bigger majority are happier farming, but a small minority are pushed more inexorably towards suicide. Perhaps that isn't true either. We simply don't know without evidence.
You didn't understand the point I was trying to make.
Lets make it clear here: people are either unhappy because of material poverty like lack of money/food or because of higher level needs like love, safety and in this case - not watching abusive videos (so ridiculous that I even have to compare this).
Do you genuinely want to challenge me in claiming that people are more unhappy by watching abusive videos than because of material poverty? Really?
>Having more money is very good. Psychological damage is very bad. Your point is that psychological damage doesn't matter and having more food is all that matters. Okay, so should you send your child off to fight for a warlord if it means they have more food? Please try to grasp that's there's nuance.
Yes I would? The actual equivalent here is that the child does not have other means of earning and would go hungry. And that fighting for the warlord is overall good for the society. In that case its obvious. Are you this naive to not understand that this is _exactly_ why you have an army in your country? Why do you think people become soldiers? You are so naive and stick to moral grandstanding that you have not even grasped why people work.
I have asked you the third (I think) time now. What would you rather do if you were in the woman's situation? You have conveniently ignored it.
Pray tell me, what is the best choice for the woman to make? I have made it clear that I would have done the same thing. I actually think there's a reason why you ignored this question. By answering it, you would clearly admit that
1. this is the best choice she can take
2. this job has to be done by someone anyway so its net benefit to society
3. this means the overall story is a net positive for everyone and your moral grandstanding has no place here
>Have you considered that I have more knowledge of poverty, not because I have experienced it, but because I have spent time understanding it?
If this is true, you haven't shown any evidence of it.
>Lets make it clear here: people are either unhappy because of material poverty like lack of money/food or because of higher level needs like love, safety and in this case - not watching abusive videos (so ridiculous that I even have to compare this).
Again you're making a value judgment and not providing any evidence besides saying it's true. Happiness is far more complex than this, and exceedingly many people who do have all the things you just stated are still unhappy, and very very often that's due to trauma.
>Do you genuinely want to challenge me in claiming that people are more unhappy by watching abusive videos than because of material poverty? Really?
My friend, you are consistently failing to understand nuance. This isn't a contest, no one is "challenging" you. Maybe what you said here is true, maybe it isn't, let's discuss the "why"s and the justifications and the evidence, but all you seem to be able to do is say "this is true and it's true because I say it's true, and also maybe suicides but with no evidence".
>Yes I would? ... 3. this means the overall story is a net positive for everyone and your moral grandstanding has no place here
This entire section boils down to an argument that could equally made for slavery. Well if they have a roof over their head and food, why not have slavery? At least they're not starving, right?
The funny thing is that there's absolutely nothing unjustifiable about your position. I actually genuinely don't disagree that people should be able to have these jobs. I'm bringing all this up because your justifications and motivations are completely immoral and illogical. Of course I would take the choice to do this job, but equally I would take the choice of slavery if it stopped me from starving. That doesn't make it right or a good thing for society.
>This entire section boils down to an argument that could equally made for slavery. Well if they have a roof over their head and food, why not have slavery? At least they're not starving, right?
What's the alternative? This is the 6th time I'm asking this. Without answering this question, you are playing rhetorical games.
What is a rhetorical game if "ignoring the entire comment and then complaining you didn't answer one question that's entirely irrelevant to the central point" isn't? Read the comment again and try to figure out why it's irrelevant. I'll give you a hint: read the last paragraph. Once you've done that I may continue speaking to you.
you have not answered - "its not a good thing for society". so what is? having enough money? what's the point in moral grandstanding to say something so obvious? of course it would be good if everyone has a lot of money.
Read a history book to learn how all this bad stuff was abolished in the West. Ofcourse that requires a basic respect for poor people to develop in India...
If I was in that position, and you gave me the choice to ritualistically mutilate myself for your amusement so my children could escape, I'd probably take it.
Your entire chain of argument is vacuous; devoid of any sense of empathy for your fellow humanity.
I show empathy which is why I’m happy that they have this job and can put food on their plate. You show fake empathy and fake concern by prioritising metaphysical needs.
Again, vacuous. You deride as 'metaphysical' what is psychological. But the health and well-being of
children too is a 'metaphysical' concern to the worker by this metric, and yet you call it up to
support yourself? Your argument is empty, hypocritical: there can be no substance to calling the one
metaphysical and the other physical, thereby dismissing all suffering.
If you're going to play the game you're playing, play it everywhere: their children don't matter, their
suffering doesn't matter, they don't matter.
The core of your argument is merely that if it is possible to force someone to do something, it is right
and proper. What a vile philosophy, to make what is detestable into that which is desirable.
At least have the grace to be ashamed and turn away, if you cannot stomach the taste but to replace it
with deception.
My point is that material needs are more important to people under poverty than metaphysical like feeling bad about watching abusive videos.
You agree that this job is necessary to be done. You agree that this is the best option they have and they are better off with it.
You would also do the same thing if you were in their position. You agree that this job exiting is overall beneficial for everyone involved.
Then what’s with the moral grandstanding? Yes it’s not ideal that someone has to do the job.
What point do you want to make other than virtue signalling?
Being able to force someone to do something is not justification for doing so. Further, it is ridiculous to try and label that as 'beneficial for everyone involved'. By the same token you can call outright slavery under threat of execution 'beneficial for everyone involved'. What tripe.
Repeatedly stating that it's 'better for them' because they have no choice is not the slam dunk you seem to think it is. The entire class of argument does not hold water; this line of reasoning will not convince me. It does not even slightly support your position.
I'd thank you to not put words in my mouth. You're wrong about them.
What point do I make other than virtue signaling? Mayhap read what you replied to, and you'll find it. But if you struggle still: your load-bearing use of 'metaphysical' is basically nonsense. I explained why already, why should I endlessly repeat myself?
> Being able to force someone to do something is not justification for doing so. Further, it is ridiculous to try and label that as 'beneficial for everyone involved'
He likely betrayed his real motivations a few comments back. He's annoyed about candidates getting elected by "low IQ" voters, and he wants them to get smarter by eating more so they can vote for the right people.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to have distaste for farming out unpleasant work to poorer countries. But also I think it's perfectly reasonable to accept that it's a fact of life and realise that it's literally redirecting wealth from the richest companies in the world to some of the poorer people in the world.
I'm more bothered by the fact that once again an article focuses on the plight of an identity deemed oppressed rather than broader concern for working classes. All it does is sell it as pandering rather than exposing a genuine issue. And as usual from the post-modern left, dividing rather than uniting. The article's entire justification for this is the absolute cop-out: >Women form half or more of this workforce.
As another example, I read an article the other day complaining about an advertising campaign from a colossal multinational company replacing the "o"s in London tube stop names with "0.0"s. Why? Not because of excessive corporate encroachment into public spaces, but because it might be confusing for disabled people. Maybe it would be, but once again the broader problem of capitalist overreach is ignored in favour of identity. Corporate exploitation is fine as long as it doesn't impact people who aren't able white men
It is perfectly reasonable to not like it. But it's important to point out that generally you don't go from mass starvation to Starbucks on every corner in one step. There are coal mines and abusive videos in between.
Nonetheless, de facto, they are independent. And if you'd glance back at my comment, I deliberately referred to it as "assimilating with mainland China" to pay lip service to them seeing themselves as the true government of China, in an attempt to avoid this very nitpick.
Controversy doesn't change the reality. Stating that Taiwan is not independent is political posturing. Look to French Guiana, which is not independent.
Taipei only disagrees because they're under threat. Doublespeak should generally be called out. Taiwan lives under perpetual fear of occupation and forced assimilation.
How many times are we going to reinvent the wheel of LLM usage and applaud? Why every day is there another LLM usage article adding essentially nothing educational or significant to the discourse voted to the top of the frontpage? Am I just jaded? It feels like the bar for "Successful article on Hacker News" is so much lower for LLM discourse than for any other subject
How does it feel to read yet another unbelievably unenlightening article about LLM usage voted to the top of the frontpage for the thousandth day in a row?
I'm not saying these feeds are as bad as heroin for your health, but the difference in addictiveness between cliff-hangers in film and tiktok on your phone is about as big, and I equally think nicotine should be heavily regulated for similar reasons
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