Here’s the list of highlights from the article, as it’s a good TL;DR:
- The Reddit app-pocalyse is here: Apollo, Sync, and BaconReader go dark
- How Reddit crushed the biggest protest in its history
- Reddit will remove mods of private communities unless they reopen
- Reddit CEO Steve Huffman isn’t backing down: our full interview
- Why disabled users joined the Reddit blackout
- Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit — and why users revolted
- A developer says Reddit could charge him $20 million a year to keep his app working
The economic “rational agent” that I’m referring to is, in large part, robotic. It (yup, “it” - it’s an abstraction, not a real person) is devoid of emotion and motivated by self-interest alone. It would gladly burn a circus full of people to make some popcorn. It does take long term into account, but only for itself, never for the others.
I just find it funny that, even if it’s called “rational”, its behaviour describes rather well how irrational masses behave.
Bacon on a cheeseburger: isn’t that basically porn? Some outright enjoy it, some avoid it, and some try to avoid it but still consume it in small amounts. Or even politics, for some, who apparently see apolitical content as disgusting.
Yes. Yes and it goes further - “good” and “bad” don’t have intrinsic value, they depend on a point of reference and a specific attribute. And there’s often implicit but never stated moral statements, when people using it. Those aren’t taboo words for me, mind you, but we need to be a bit careful about how and why we use them, and make sure that the others are on the same page on what should be called “good” / “bad”.
For example. When I talk about “good content”, that “good” can be two things:
Yes but it’s clear that the admins were making it more social media-based. Posting to profile, livestream, chat, those things are practically useless in a content-centric site, but they’re essential for a social interactions-based one.
Rational agents can take long-term into account, so if people on Reddit watching it all burn & fall apart before their eyes are choosing to ignore that, are they “fully” rational agents then?
In any case, they might be correct in staying, IF we only only allow looking ahead like a month or so in time - b/c inertia is a real thing. Even then, for some of us it is no longer worth it, while for others it is.
Also, why would upvoting a comment such as “^THIS 1000%” constitute a long-term style of rational acting? It adds nothing to the discussion, so when all “discussion” becomes replaced by such, which float to the top b/c of the large number of upvotes (& maybe awards, etc.), then “real” content such that people might actually come to Reddit - like via a Google search for a specific query - get buried below them? If that is “rational”, then it seems short-sighted to me.
Or in opposition to rational, there is maybe “emotional”, so that you have a feeling and want to express it, and you see something that expresses that, so you “like” it further, in addition to liking / upvoting the original comment - without considering the long-term ramifications.
True - many were resisting that, but it was happening, truth.