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PG: The biggest source of stress for me at YC was running HN

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482 points ilamont | 2 comments | 11 Jul 20 21:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.434s | source
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im3w1l ◴[11 Jul 20 22:49 UTC] No.23806845[source]▶
People were always like this. You just weren't able to see it, because you were in an offline "filter bubble" of peaceful and reasonable people. There have been countless civil wars in history after all.
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ianai ◴[11 Jul 20 22:57 UTC] No.23806901[source]▶
No, what online media are doing is massive propaganda at scales and levels of insidiousness unlike ever imaginable before now. Cambridge analytica for instance targeted ads at people to maximize their outrage toward other citizens. Before advertisements were much easier to avoid or ignore and weren’t being used for outrage. Ads have to get clicks nowadays for revenue and in the past they just had to be associated with wide viewership. People click on what infuriates them more often than other content.
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1. hindsightbias ◴[11 Jul 20 23:39 UTC] No.23807199[source]▶
Just because the medium is more diverse doesn’t mean it’s much different.

In 2009, the NYT started a series called “Disunion”, a day-by-day look back to the Civil War 150 years prior. Filled with sampled newspapers, opinion pieces, letters to the editor.

After a couple of months, it was quite clear how a country tore itself apart. They didnt need ads or FB, all they needed were the paper owners and the editors. They actually paused the series because (imo) the things said about Lincoln in 1859 and Obama in 2009 were quite similar.

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2. ianai ◴[12 Jul 20 14:10 UTC] No.23811393[source]▶
So they found a great way to highlight what was going on in current events and canceled it? Now we’re left in the lurch.