• 6 Posts
  • 317 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: December 1st, 2023

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  • Physical Vs chemical changes.

    It was typically taught that physical changes are differentiated from chemical changes because they could be “undone” or that they had “no chemical reaction.” Which was very confusing, because you can’t uncut paper, and dissolving stuff in water clearly results in different chemicals being produced, yet both were examples of physical changes (actually the latter is sometimes taught as a chemical change). Furthermore, most chemical changes are actually reversible.

    It has since been recognised that this classification is BS, and most changes actually exist on a continuum.







  • Counterpoint: tried the above to make a “good” profile, and also a “basic” profile literally generated from AI as a control.

    The basic AI generated profile full of cliches and revealed nothing about me consistently got more attention.

    Research has shown that most people overwhelmingly prefer “average” people, so if your goal is just maximising the number of matches then an “interesting” profile is actually worse.






  • Shoshana Zuboff really was ahead of its time. So many people who were privacy conscious and therefore thought they were clever by simply thinking that Google makes money by only selling your data completely missed the scale of manipulation and control big tech has (myself included).

    Google/big tech doesn’t sell your data. Google/big tech sells advertisers predictions of your behaviour, a highly refined, processed version of your data. Advertisers cannot purchase your data, only “impressions” or “views.” In an extra sinister twist, Google/big tech then uses it’s resources to manipulate you in ways such that their predictions become true.

    This is why their predictions are the best, because after making them, they have a financial incentive to manipulate them into being true. It is why we naturally see more and more polarization, because after Google has sold the prediction that you will engage is a specific type of content (e.g. right ring rabbit holes), it is financially incentivised to make that a reality, and therefore further push you in that direction, to make their prediction true.

    How to “improve” prediction using behavior modification - ScienceDirect - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169207022001066