You are in the Matrix

[dougs]

Following from a converstaion with Rupert on Friday

http://www.thefilterbubble.com/ted-talk

Doug

[littleman]

I'm not sure how to stop algorithmic gatekeepers motivated by user retention and profit.

[edo]

I don't see the personalisation of the web as inherently scary, just inevitable as it matures into a mainstream medium.

If you want to find out what's going on in the Arab Spring movements, type in "egypt arab spring" and you'll find plenty of news websites with different points of view. If you type in just "egypt" then that is a lack of imagination and knowledge on your part, not Google's.

At the end of the day it comes down to the open-mindedness of the end-user not the algorithims. People read the same newspaper with all its inbuilt political filters every day and this is no different. It's not ideal, far from it, but it's no 1984.

[ergophobe]

Saw that TED talk a couple of weeks ago. It's a fun one.

What I didn't realize until afterward when I looked it up, he's a muckety muck at MoveOn.org. So when he says "most of my friends are liberal"... well, he means it. So his bubble is probably even more intense than mine.

It's something that's been on my mind a lot lately. I listen to right-wing radio from time to time just to see where they're at. A month or so ago Michael (?) Savage was saying that there was no difference whatsoever between Stalin, Pol Pot and Obama and callers were chiming in saying they were glad someone in America understood that. Honestly, I didn't even realize the Obama = Pol Pot meme was out there.

My point is not to start a political discussion, but just to point out that when we all used to sit around and watch Walter Cronkite, we at least had a semi-shared set of "facts". Nowdays, depending on whether you follow the right-wing Savage or the "savage love" Savage (Dan? Savage), you will have almost no shared "facts."

[littleman]

It reminds me a little of the human-entertainment interface from the movie Wall-E.

[buckworks]

no difference whatsoever between Stalin, Pol Pot and Obama

With stuff like that passing for public discourse, no wonder the US is in trouble.

[I, Brian]

I'm impressed the general American public has heard of Pol Pot. They obviously have no idea what he did, though. Probably think he's a pro-drugs communist dictactor from South America.

[littleman]

We actually have a sizable Cambodian population in California.   I just have to ask, would you say the average Brit knows about the Khmer Rouge?

[edo]

Absolutely not, Littleman. I would wager the average Brit doesn't know what continent Cambodia is in.

We have a similar percentage of thick people as you guys do; the only difference is you've got the bigger population and therefore more stupid people and more smart people.

I actually picked up Scientific American today by chance. Am a big fan of New Scientist which is British, but always nice to see a different style of writing.

[dogboy]

you've got the bigger population and therefore more stupid people

hehheeheh the plain truth of this statement made me laugh

[ergophobe]

you've got the bigger population and therefore more stupid people and more smart people.

People are always throwing out that thing.... how does it go?  China has more geniuses than the US has people. I don't think it's geniuses, but you get the idea.

Now your comment suddenly makes me think of the contrary - China has more dolts than the US has people.

Now I'm trying to figure out whether that's comforting or scary. Scary I think. It can only be scary.

[4Eyes]

I just have to ask, would you say the average Brit knows about the Khmer Rouge?

I think 'the average Brit' now is probably too young to know much about it - but FWIW, (and that is little) it was always on the news at the time, and the news coverage was pretty detailed.

The problem of course, is that 'the majority' of any nation probably pays more attention to the commercials than the News .... "Khmer Rouge? - some kind of blusher from L'Oreal, yeah?"

[edo]

I love the way this conversation has gone from The Matrix through to Pol Pot. There's no filter bubble on th3core!

[dougs]

Back to the simple point. The more data that is tagged to your:

name
address
email
cookie
ip
tv

The more personalised everything you interact with will be. No longer will randomness appear in your life......

Doug