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

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482 points ilamont | 1 comments | 11 Jul 20 21:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.203s | source
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ufmace ◴[11 Jul 20 22:43 UTC] No.23806806[source]▶
I think there's a larger point in what he said. Basically all current social media ends up optimizing for creating outrage, spawning mobs, less thoughtful discussion and more vitriolic arguments, etc. It's becoming a real concern to me that this is going to drive us into some kind of civil war or something if we don't find some way to check it.

The outrage seems to be like a drug. Nothing generates engagement quite like it, even if it's toxic in the long-term. So all social media platforms that embrace it grow bigger until they become near-monopolies, and all that don't so far have had a hard time growing userbases, making money, and generally fade into irrelevance.

It would be a real service to society IMO if we could find a way to somehow generate enough engagement and energy to challenge the big players without the outrage culture.

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joe_the_user ◴[12 Jul 20 02:18 UTC] No.23808156[source]▶
Basically all current social media ends up optimizing for creating outrage, spawning mobs, less thoughtful discussion and more vitriolic arguments, etc. It's becoming a real concern to me that this is going to drive us into some kind of civil war or something if we don't find some way to check it.

Outrage-driven profit models existed before social media as such. Once known as tabloids and the guttered press, this kind of media existed a while before Facebook. William Randolph Hearst was credited with starting the Spanish-American war back in the day (as fictionalized in Citizen Kane). This is to say the "outrage complex" extends well beyond social media platforms though such platforms certainly serve to accelerate it.

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1. ufmace ◴[12 Jul 20 04:56 UTC] No.23808945[source]▶
They sure did. None of this is really new in concept, but it seems to be amplified quite a lot by modern technology. If it can already be credited with starting real hot wars, what will happen now that we've ramped up that same effect hundreds of times or more?