COVID-19 Health System Overload Forecaster

Consider this thought exercise.

Censorship has been a major issue of contention amongst the body autonomy/freedom movement. It is referenced frequently, and often used as a credibility booster to some narratives, when those narratives experience censorship on various platforms (ie. Doctors with a conflicting perspective not allowed on mainstream news cycles, nurses censored by APHRA, medical journals retracting studies, posts taken down on social media, shadow banning of certain influential identities on social media, fact-check banners appearing on material identified by AI as containing c19 related info, etc etc.) The mere suggestion of censorship or deplatforming of certain voices seems to imply a "See, they don't want you to know what I am saying" sentiment and qualifying emotional reaction if those are your views you already hold. Confirmation bias manifests itself in the release of chemicals that satisfy the brain, when we encounter information that agrees with our preformed notions on any idea. "Aha! I knew those anti-vaxxers were crazy and violent good-for-nothing's!" or "Aha! I knew those billionaires were trying to stop me from having free choice by coercion and manipulation!". Both reactions illicit a similar response in the brain depending on your worldview.

Now, consider the mechanism of social media, and the ultimate objective of most platforms in the space. Engagement is king. Engagement equals more scrolls, more posts, more likes, and more shares. Growth in engagement becomes growth in user numbers, growth in advertising revenue, growth in metadata collected (and subsequently more data to sell, and thus more revenue). Growth in engagement also equals more addiction to the platform itself, thus equating to more engagement and on and on until the platform collapses or society moves on to something novel and fresh.

I have read (and had my own confirmation bias tickled by) studies conducted by social media companies on what drives engagement for most* users. One such study focused on the propagation of engagement through addiction. As a former addict and someone who has come to understand his own addiction through therapy and introspection, I understand addiction to largely be a manifestation of a reliance on certain emotional responses in the brain. Said emotional responses release hormones, we get accustomed to the way these hormones make us feel (happy, sad, anxious, etc etc), and thus we become compelled to repeat cyclical patterns of behaviour. What was most interesting (to me at least) in the results of the study I mentioned, was that the social media researchers found the emotion of outrage to be the most effective emotion when it came to developing addictive emotional responses during social media engagement. Thusly, generating outrage amongst users drove these users to use the platform more, share more, post more, comment more, engage... more. Outrage turns into dollars.

* No, I am not implying that you are addicted to outrage, I'm sure you are perfectly healthy :D

Now, consider your own social media experience, or even to a greater extent your general media experience. How does the nightly news make you feel, if you are someone who watches it most nights? What about when you pick up a newspaper? If you are a regular user of FB or IG and were to have a scroll during an idle moment, would you expect, upon reflection, to see some content that outraged you, saddened you, or made you happy? Now, I am just about to get to my point that ties this all together so bear with me if you have made it this far.

I am going to focus on social media now to illustrate where I am going with all this. Specifically Instagram, as my experience there is where I generated this thought from. There are currently 1 billion monthly Instagram users. No two feeds across the platform are the same. This is due to the way AI gathers and utilises data to optimise engagement. You and I could follow the exact same pages, and based on how we, as unique individuals, engage with the feeds that are curated for us, we will end up with slightly or wildly different feeds to scroll through every time we open the platform. When we scroll, the front facing camera (if we have given camera access, is measuring biometric data from the face of the user to determine emotional response), the app itself is measuring every touch of a finger to the screen, the time spent in front of a certain post, the comments, likes, and shares we make, even the quick flicks past content we don't want to see. All of it is collected, measured, and utilised to drive further engagement. Which emotions are a particular user more likely to respond to? Do they respond to outrage or happiness? Do they shut down the app when they see something confronting, or do they engage further? How can we keep this person addicted to the cycle of scroll, like, comment, share?

The feed is not designed to foster just one emotion in the user, that would be unsustainable and actually drive people off the platform due to overwhelming them. So, the typical feed goes something like outrage, happiness, here's something you lack, happiness, happiness, more lack, hotchicks, friends, BIG SAD, happiness, outrage, buy this thing, buy that thing, happiness, hotchickshotchickshotchicks, etc. It is designed to bring us up, bring us down, and up and down and up and down until we unconsciously become addicted to the incessant bipolar chemical response our brain creates when exposed to the feed.

A common assessment of a platform like IG (amongst people of my own ideological leanings) is that they have some sort of interest in censoring information that might harm the vaccination effort. That it is a bad actor with it's fact-check banners, removal or posts, and banning of certain narratives, And yet, every single time I open IG, the very first post I see every single day, is from my very intelligent and articulate friend Mieke. Mieke writes lengthy posts regarding medical freedom, philosophical arguments against coercion and tyranny, and generally rails against the system for it's inhumane and segregationist approach to mandated medical treatments. Why is it, that on a platform that is supposedly neutering such discussions, the AI has determined that I need to see this discussion before any other content every time I log in? Is the AI directed to support censorship, or is it really just programmed to promote addiction? Perhaps it has detected that I respond favourably and remain more engaged in the platform when I am given posts about the freedom movement, discussions on ethics, and content that studies the things that may need to be discussed more frequently in our society. Perhaps, the algorithm, the staff at ig, and ultimately the shareholders don't really care too much what content I see, so long as it serves to foster a reliance on the platform for that daily serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin or cortisol hit.

From my perspective, censorship of my views makes me feel outrage, sadness, despair. Perhaps this is why I am hyper aware of the censorship, that by making me aware of the censorship itself, the algorithm is achieving it's intended purpose of growing engagement. For someone with an opposing view to mine, perhaps they see silly protestors and people sick with covid just as much as I see corrupt politicians, sociopathic billionaires, and inhumane institutions. Perhaps we are all mostly right, and all mostly wrong at the same time.

Perhaps we are confused and convicted in our beliefs by design.

Peace and love no matter your disposition and which political flag you wave, if any. If you agree with what I said above, let me know cause I will appreciate the nice feeling brain chemicals. If you disagree with what I said above, also let me know cause I am slightly addicted to outrage and could use the hit (but seriously I am interested in the discussion also) hahahaaaa!

Anyways yeah, I'm cylinders I like bodysurfing slabs and gluten free waffles and thanks for listening to my ted talk heheh

wow, v. interesting Cylinders.

That's a good post cylinders.

I feel like this is probably why Swellnet continues to post Nic Von Rupp content, even though it seems to offend the more soulful ones amongst us. The metrics won't lie! And I bet his vids, even though they end up with a large amount of criticism underneath them, actually do rather well on the site hahaha

And, thank you freeride and Ben, for the nice brain chemicals

dose yourself up cylinders good post

I think one thing you overlook (assuming mieke is a bit of a nobody...) is that AI appears to be incredibly dumb...

I say this, because it blows me away how someone like brett weinstein and friends can have a vid up on youtube for weeks or months... and then suddenly it is gone...

AI should detect certain things almost instantly no?

AI is either incredibly slow, dumb, only / more concerned with big players?

or waiting for a human...

therefore, maybe it really doesn't know or care what mieke is on about, because mieke is a bit of a nobody...

Enjoyed that cylinders thanks for taking the time... more endorphins for you I hope :-).

So in short cylinders either switch off these sources of actual or potential manipulation or a least become aware, which your post really helped with. Super constructive post, thank you.

cylinders the mechanism you describe is what drives the increasing polarisation of views. To produce outrage it provides you with the ever more extreme opposite of your views. To produce happiness it provides you with the views that most closely coincide with your own. In this way the more vulnerable become driven out to the extremes. The less vulnerable never have their views challenged in a meaningful way. So we end up with extreme woke at one end and RWNJs at the other.

Excellent post cylinders, thank you.

sypkan - yes I would agree with you there. The machine learning is rudimentary at the moment, but it's refinement and evolution into a more instant and elegant system will take very little time, relatively to how long free discourse has existed. Following the hypothesis of Hegel in his model of society's dialectic (the Hegelian Dialectic), we are likely entering into a contraction phase in our journey on the internet. This contraction is a direct response to the expansion of information sharing and the free availability of near everything on the internet that we have experienced from the early 1990's until very recently. I expect more paywalls, more funnelling of users by AI into narrative's that serve their confirmation biases, and a more challenging route to views that differ from our own.

Shortenism, I have found the most sustainable approach is a highly personal one. For myself I have done away with all social media except the occasional Swellnet ramble and my ig profile. IG I have maintained for a couple reasons, one it allows me to check the pulse of where we are heading, and two I may in the future use it to spruik some handmade handplane's amongst the bodysurfing community. That being said, my interaction with the platform is much healthier, now that I feel that I understand better what I was previously unconsciously engaged in. It is possible to "game" the algorithm to a degree if you observe how it responds to you. For instance I take note of posts that illicit a heightened emotional state, and I then take the time to consciously "engage" with content that counteracts that (ie. reading material from a holistic psychologist or a philosopher immediately after being exposed to a protest video). You will be amazed at how quickly the algorithm adapts to these inputs. Also, I try to not give IG as much data as it wants, covering the front facing camera most of the time as I don't need it for selfies I don't take. As a former telecommunications technician, I formed the opinion that the business model of mobile ownership is actually ethically inverted. I think that for the amount of revenue generated by our use of mobile technology, as users we should be paid (rather than pay for the usage of) based on how much revenue we generate for the extended food chain of businesses that sup from the trough of the metadata we generate. 5G was not an end user benefiting upgrade so much as it was supporting the massive increase in uptake of aforementioned metadata by apps, advertisers, mobile providers, corporations, and governments.

I have sat and thought about these issues at great length, and it is due the notions formed during that time spent that I feel it is important to speak about what is happening amongst ourselves as members of a "free" society. I see these discussions as healthy solutions to a unhealthy situation (the situation that blindboy so perfectly described of increasing polarisation). By understanding the nature and source of our polarisation, we can form a societal response to the inevitable contraction, and prepare ourselves better for the next expansion as well. Understanding our opposition (be it machine or man or nature itself) is the key to loving the existence of it. Upon beginning to love it, we may find ways that it enhances our human experience.

As surfers we often surf our best when we study the rips, tides, sand movements and swells. We can rush forward to the waves, but the greater the consequences present in the situation, the greater the likelihood that such excitement can lead to our own injury or demise. I view censorship, corruption, and other issues facing society in the same way I view a 6m @ 17s south swell, and this approach allows me to harness the energy of these conflicts as it propels me forward in my evolution as a man through this upside down world.

Great posts cylinders. It's stuff like this that makes these forums interesting and useful.

Much of what you said echos my thoughts.

We're in the age of personalisation of internet content and experience to each individual user. But I don't believe this personalisation and bipolar type of emotional roller coaster experience is about censorship or necessarily getting more clicks on websites.

I believe perceived and actual censorship and control of content is just a byproduct of the personalisation of the internet experience: the machine learning algorithms just don't present stuff that they deem as not interesting to you and/or that does not achieve their overall actual commercial objective:

It's not necessarily about getting more website clicks either. The performance metrics of the ML algorithms predominantly measure click-throughs of websites (such as Swellnet) to online sales platforms and ultimately to Purchasing Decisions. It's all just about selling stuff, that's all. It's just commercial realities, not censorship. It's just control of content and experience to induce an emotional state leading to purchasing stuff on the advertiser's online platforms.

Hence, what they're really trying to do is just personalise the internet content and user experience to put us in an (upset, bipolar) emotional state in which we're more likely to click through a website and make actual purchasing decisions on the advertiser's platforms in order to make ourselves feel better and whole again. Just kind of instant pain relief and gratification. (Think of all the ads you see when not subscribed or logged into Swellnet.)

They're just trying to reinforce and get us to repeat this pattern of purchasing behaviour and the emotional state that leads to it, which they measure by our clicking patterns and facial expressions etc as you pointed out above.

what about big tech censoring... and I mean censoring... anything to do with the lab leak theory... anything pro rittenhouse... anything anti vaccine... and anything hunter's laptop...

that's real

admitted and conceded

not algorithm

not opinion

@cylinders , what’s your thoughts on the TNI https://mediaspace.global/news-articles/trusted-news-initiative-announce...

gsco - you present some interesting points, and I am glad for your input. Though I would tend to agree with sypkan in that in extreme cases (usually having a political agenda) there is real censorship present on these platforms. This censorship is too widespread to be either entirely by machine learning or entirely by human input, it is a synthesis of manual methods and automated identification/demotion/promotion. The methods I describe are likely only scratching the visible surface of a very large iceberg too. Various organisations have been working on these concepts for many many years, predating the internet by a considerable margin.

Big tech has a very interesting and some might say concerning agenda in many corners of its existence. One that goes beyond simple capitalistic aims, concerning itself with shaping the human experience. To some this is exhilarating and encouraged, to others it is an unwelcome intrusion into our way of life and values.

The recent Meta announcement is a good indicator of something they have actually been working toward for a long time. There is a popular novel amongst Silicon Valley thought leaders called Snow Crash (written by Neal Stephenson in 1992). It is actually the origin of the word "metaverse", and was known to be required reading for participation in certain work groups at Google and other companies. Mr Stephenson went on to take multiple consulting roles within companies in Silicon Valley, and his particular brand of futurism has a stronghold there. Reading his book prior to the Meta announcement would have ensured you were not surprised at all by Zuckerberg and his vision for the future.

"Now we have a new North Star, to help bring the Metaverse to life. And we have a new name, that reflects the full breadth of what we do, and the future that we wanna help build. From now on, we're going to be Metaverse first, not Facebook first."

In these pretty straight forward sentences, there is quite a lot being said. If you read Snow Crash, or even just study it without reading it, you may find yourself enthralled or horrified by the prospect of "metaverse first". Personally, it seems to me to affront the beauty of the human experience. Beyond my personal dislike for the concept, it has posed some very big societal questions that loom over us. Not the least of which is addressing the potential for disparity and classism based on access to better hardware/software. This is a problem we face today, but it is less noticeable I believe as we are still, for the most part, living lives in the real world.

Society as a whole must wake up to these problems we face, and be prepared for the difficult conversations that will inevitably follow. Just a few that present themselves to me now while writing this are;

Is a digital life as valuable as a human one? Who ultimately is the master of a digital life? Who decides when a digital life begins or ends? Do we need an End User Licence Agreement to participate in the Metaverse, and if so, what are we giving away by registering ourselves and binding ourselves to these contracts?

It is heady stuff, and I am veering off the topic of the thread and the topic of my post. Perhaps this deserves its own thread, where our little pocket of surf mad societal participants can begin having this discussion for ourselves...

Supafreak - interesting information in there. And a fair question.

"The partners within the TNI are: BBC, Facebook, Google/YouTube, Twitter, Microsoft, AFP, Reuters, European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Hindu, CBC/Radio-Canada, First Draft, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism."

For me, on a personal level, this tells me about as much as I need to know about the nature of this project. I have an inherent distrust of large institutions, both corporate and government in origin, especially when they say they are protecting me from something. And even more so when they are essentially saying I have lost the ability to think clearly and make judgements for myself.

I will withhold judgement on the TNI for now until I can assess their actions, but consider my spider senses... *tingled*.

cylinders you have mentioned censorship frequently. Can you give an example of it that you have encountered? In my experience governments are the greatest censors and act through security legislation but you seem to be suggesting that media organisations are also acting as censors. Apologies if I have not followed your logic.

No apology needed you have followed my logic well. I am suggesting that corporations are participating in censorship yes.

In my direct experience, I have had a post removed by ig that referenced published medical journal papers that did not align with ig's own fact-checker organisation (which is not independent, being majority funded in fact by ig parent company Facebook).

That is one example of a company interfering with free communication.

If someone had an opinion entirely oppositional to mine, I would still have an issue with ig censoring them, as I actually like to ingest counter-narratives in my process of sense making. It helps me figure out what tastes like bullshit and what doesn't haha.

I'll be back tomorrow gang, gonna jump in the ocean for a quick swim and grab a drink with a friend. Thanks for the interesting conversation!

Thanks for the great posts.

Like.

Yep. Agreed with Zen and all above. Great conversation, great content. Good stuff.

Jeez swellnet forums are a breath of fresh air compared to all the anti-vax and other conspiracy theorists on facebook. Jim Banks is one guy who seems intelligent but jeez he spews out some garbage, then never says "sorry i was wrong".
Just like flat earthers, you cant argue to them with logic or common sense they are brainwashed.
Jim makes good boards though..only reason im still friends with him.

groundswell wrote:

Jeez swellnet forums are a breath of fresh air compared to all the anti-vax and other conspiracy theorists on facebook. Jim Banks is one guy who seems intelligent but jeez he spews out some garbage, then never says "sorry i was wrong".
Just like flat earthers, you cant argue to them with logic or common sense they are brainwashed.
Jim makes good boards though..only reason im still friends with him.

Haha, this is so true.

cylinders in terms of censorship social media are damned if they do and damned if they don't. There is material of various kinds that legally they must remove such as child pornograohy, calls to violence etc. Then there is the problem of the huge amounts of disinformation pumped put by institutions linked to autocratic governments. The Russian efforts to help Trump's election via Facebook is well documented.
The pandemic posed further difficulties as lies about the nature and cause of the disease spread as well as misinformation about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines. Since these posed real risks to public health such material was also censored. In your case it is possible that your post, while being accurate just triggered something in the AI. More likely, I think, is that the paper you referenced was on a site known to spread poor quality research on the issue. As I am sure you know there are many sites that pretend to be authentic mainstream scientific publishers, when they are merely fronts for a particular view. This was problematical with climate change and quickly became problematical with the pandemic also. Free communication is an ideal that has always been shaped by the need to prevent people screaming Fire! in a crowded theatre. Its extension to limiting the opportunities to lie about vaccines during pandemics seems reasonable to me.

That’s a great couple of posts you’ve dropped there cylinders.
Thought provoking.

Covid and vax stuff is complicated and keeps changing. On top of that it has masses of misinformation built up through agendas, the social media click bait outrage phenomena discussed above and just plain mischief. Other fudges are peddled by government to keep the message simple for generally good intent. Big money has its own agenda. The virus itself has no agenda beyond replication of itself but is very much a player in the confusion by being so variable in effect and mutation.

There are also just different perspectives on risk. An old retiree with guaranteed large super income living in comfort on the coast has a totally different perspective to risk, vax and lockdown measures to a fit younger person whose business is in lockdown and has decades of wealth building being wiped out before their eyes.

I am not fully confident on many narratives around covid and have few strong fixed views. That to me is a sensible position. I am wary of those who think they have it all worked out.

In amongst the mist though I can make out enough firm structures and facts to shape my broader views and actions.

But not enough to pontificate.

frog wrote:

I am wary of those who think they have it all worked out.

Wise words.

imo social media (big tech, whatever) has the right to censor their content (it's their content, not yours, 'you' just created it), just as i have the right to censor theirs & by that, i mean don't engage, don't feed the beast

if you're on f-book/insta, you're part of the problem, you're giving them the power

once again, imo

Couldn’t agree more synchro. The kids are off Facebook. This turn to ‘Meta’ by Zuckerberg may be the dying sounds of a dinosaur. As pointless an invention as anything capitalism has created thus far.

frog wrote:

I am not fully confident on many narratives around covid and have few strong fixed views. That to me is a sensible position. I am wary of those who think they have it all worked out.

In amongst the mist though I can make out enough firm structures and facts to shape my broader views.

Wise words frog. Welcome to the world of grey, the world of uncertainty. Doubt is uncomfortable, but certainty is ridiculous.

Every conviction is a prison.

.cylinders wrote:

It is possible to "game" the algorithm to a degree if you observe how it responds to you. For instance I take note of posts that illicit a heightened emotional state, and I then take the time to consciously "engage" with content that counteracts that (ie. reading material from a holistic psychologist or a philosopher immediately after being exposed to a protest video). You will be amazed at how quickly the algorithm adapts to these inputs.

10 points for thinking about how the system might work, and then experimenting to see if you could change its behaviour.

thermalben wrote:

.cylinders wrote:

It is possible to "game" the algorithm to a degree if you observe how it responds to you. For instance I take note of posts that illicit a heightened emotional state, and I then take the time to consciously "engage" with content that counteracts that (ie. reading material from a holistic psychologist or a philosopher immediately after being exposed to a protest video). You will be amazed at how quickly the algorithm adapts to these inputs.

10 points for thinking about how the system might work, and then experimenting to see if you could change its behaviour.

I thought all this stuff was obvious and everyone already knows it and has already experimented with and gotten a good laugh out of it.

It's easy to change the algorithms and what they present you by just clicking and spending time on totally different stuff to what you usually click and spend time on. The user experience and in particular the ads targeted at you then become totally different and it's laughable and comical what the algorithms throw at you.

The reason for this is the machine learning models behind the online/social media algorithms are predominately trend following and they "overweight" the most recent browsing and clicking activities and behaviours.

In another context, this is one of the causes of "flash crashes" in financial markets. A lot of the HFT/quantitative algorithms are heavily biased towards trend following, or what's more commonly called "momentum" indicators, and thus reinforce and snowball trends that start in market prices.

.cylinders wrote:

It is possible to "game" the algorithm to a degree if you observe how it responds to you. For instance I take note of posts that illicit a heightened emotional state, and I then take the time to consciously "engage" with content that counteracts that (ie. reading material from a holistic psychologist or a philosopher immediately after being exposed to a protest video). You will be amazed at how quickly the algorithm adapts to these inputs.

It's worth taking the experiment one step further:

- Note your position on an issue.

- Begin liking and following FB pages belonging to those of an opposite political ideology to you.

- Read and engage. Or even just read the headlines and note the context in which the issues du jour are delivered.

- After a few weeks or months, circle back to the original issue and note if your position on it has been altered.

It's interesting.

I'm not on any social media.

My exposure to different stuff comes primarily through here, which is why I'm always asking Shorto or Burleigh where they read that etc etc

Then I go look for it and read it.

Far as the censorship thing goes, I just don't see it, maybe for that reason.

Because I clicked on a Tucker Carlson video that Blowin or Syypo put up here, now if I expand a YouTube video to watch a surfing clip, the side wall is full of Fox News and Tucker Carlson vids, or other videos of that ilk.

Which means my entire You-Tube AI feed would be pro-rittenhouse, anti-vax mandate , lab-leak theoey etc etc.

So I don't see those views being censored, quite the contrary, I see them being aggressively promoted through MSM and Big tech to millions or billions of people.
This is despite the obvious black irony that Tucker Carlson will spend half a clip on You-Tube complaining about Big Tech and Mainstream Media censorship.

Most of my other media is centre left: Guardian, ABC etc etc.

Here is the top video that came up on You-Tube for me.

It's basically the same view points that people claim here are being censored etc etc

Don't click if you don't want to be Machine spammed with Fox News content.

gsco wrote:

thermalben wrote:

10 points for thinking about how the system might work, and then experimenting to see if you could change its behaviour.

I thought all this stuff was obvious and everyone already knows it and has already experimented with and gotten a good laugh out of it.

I doubt that even a fraction of a percent of the population knows about this, let alone has the interest or willingness to experiment.

Hence the shit show that we're in.

thermalben wrote:

gsco wrote:

thermalben wrote:

10 points for thinking about how the system might work, and then experimenting to see if you could change its behaviour.

I thought all this stuff was obvious and everyone already knows it and has already experimented with and gotten a good laugh out of it.

I doubt that even a fraction of a percent of the population knows about this, let alone has the interest or willingness to experiment.

Hence the shit show that we're in.

I have a family member who had poor mental health which got severely amplified through these algorithms. His addiction is obvious and you need to be very selective when talking to him otherwise he might go through a crisis. Not to mention that radicalisation caused him to neglect his responsibility towards kids or work life. Without going into too many details, I strongly blame social media companies. They are on par with gambling and should be legally receiving the same treatment.

So, I do agree that a healthy, stable person can curate content consciously. However, many are neither healthy nor stable. And these companies are not taking any responsibility. I support increased regulation in this space. Legislators who want to do that will rank highly with me (regardless of the political party they belong to).

One of the other problems that I see occurring with new/alternative media like ZeroHedge and the Sub-Stack blogs is what I call "audience capture."

When you develop an echo chamber and an audience devoted to a particular ViewPoint, then the tendency is for that viewpoint to become more entrenched and more extreme over time.
Which then tends to the Author catering to his audience by writing more and more radical and extreme content.

Look below the line on ZeroHedge or some of the anti-vax substacks.
It's fcuking gnarly.

Here's a random comment I picked from todays Zerohedge Article on the Rittenhouse Trial.

Ophiuchus
PREMIUM
6 hours ago
(Edited)
You need to realize that people like me can spot meat bots like you from a distance of fifty feet. We can identify some of you things just by your gait. When this baby blows; If you want to blend in, make sure your hair is of a natural color and you conduct yourself in a humble manner. If not, you'll be running down the streets, intestines in tow.

edit: don't take that as a personal threat as I don't believe in violence. I just want you to be aware there are millions out there that want to exterminate those like you are portraying yourself to be. Keep up the good work. (wink)

Ben Dan
3 hours ago
That's what the new Rittenhouse round is designed for: Libtards, mentally-ill, ANTIFA types, pedophiles. I'll bet when things blow hundreds of Kyle's will be popping rounds into crowds of indesirables that think they can waltz in and burn and loot their communities.

Those extreme calls to violence are everywhere below the line.

Thats the rage that the authors are whipping up and catering too.

ZH comments 10 years ago had some amazing insights from people with deep inside knowledge of finance and geopolitics.

Now it is just a ridiculous pile on of rage, doom porn, everything is a conspiracy, chinabots, russiabots, macho posturing on stacking ammo, tear down any poster who looks a target. Totally feral. I pick and choose articles to read carefully. I skim the comments to "sniff the wind" occasionally. Some of the endless hotchpotch of articles can give valuable insights into things not in the MSM e.g. early (doom porn!) info on the pandemic in Jan 2020 that proved accurate and led to me shuffling some investments around to my gain.

I come away feeling somewhat wiser, somewhat confused, somewhat depressed and a little bit dirty.

Aaaah for the dreamy sun drenched days of my youth, flicking through Surfer Magazine, imagining trips to mysterious Mexico and deepest Africa - oblivious to the worries of the world.

Taking the aqua blue surf pill and disengaging from the unfathomable and unfixable has much merit.

"....When you develop an echo chamber and an audience devoted to a particular ViewPoint, then the tendency is for that viewpoint to become more entrenched and more extreme over time...."

Very true Freeride. Just like the supposed "crooked MSM" legacy media, each one of these authors/bloggers/alt news sources needs to sell their own product and has to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Find something that resonates and milk it. That post by @cylinders relating to social media and addiction above can be easily applied to much of what can and is consumed in the wider internet/media landscape in general. Outrage and outrage at outrage get clicks and attention.

While there is a lot of light and heat generated, as illustrated in the below-the-line commentary and a few of the forums here, I am not sold on the idea that people are unable to be discerning in their consumption of information. As an example, there is a fairly diverse range of opinions expressed, and some robust discussions, on Swellnet, with only a few (albeit vociferous) ranters on the more extreme edges. Just have to tune out the noise.

I find your dismissiveness puzzling freeride

big tech openly admit they censored posts about the lab leak theory for over 12 months

it's no secret they censored supporting posts for rittenhouse

and hunter's laptop censorship was such outrageous overeach even jack darcy has conceded it was a 'mistake'

just because you are getting vids after the event doesn't mean it doesn't happen

frog wrote:

ZH comments 10 years ago had some amazing insights from people with deep inside knowledge of finance and geopolitics.

Now it is just a ridiculous pile on of rage, doom porn, everything is a conspiracy, chinabots, russiabots, macho posturing on stacking ammo, tear down any poster who looks a target. Totally feral. I pick and choose articles to read carefully. I skim the comments to "sniff the wind" occasionally. Some of the endless hotchpotch of articles can give valuable insights into things not in the MSM e.g. early (doom porn!) info on the pandemic in Jan 2020 that proved accurate and led to me shuffling some investments around to my gain.

I come away feeling somewhat wiser, somewhat confused, somewhat depressed and a little bit dirty.

Aaaah for the dreamy sun drenched days of my youth, flicking through Surfer Magazine, imagining trips to mysterious Mexico and deepest Africa - oblivious to the worries of the world.

Taking the aqua blue surf pill and disengaging from the unfathomable and unfixable has much merit.

similar to my ZH routine, there's only occasional articles that are interesting anyway...

the comments are loose, and crazy, same with fox and brietbart...

but ZH is phenomenal for some of it's breaking stories

the fact the no platformers are so vehement about shutting it down just confirms its value

sypkan wrote:

I find your dismissiveness puzzling freeride

big tech openly admit they censored posts about the lab leak theory for over 12 months

it's no secret they censored supporting posts for rittenhouse

and hunter's laptop censorship was such outrageous overeach even jack darcy has conceded it was a 'mistake'

just because you are getting vids after the event doesn't mean it doesn't happen

Sorry, but re: Rittenhouse, isn't the event happening right now (Trial), and wasn't Fox News balls deep in support for him during the Kenosha riots?

Maybe, I'm just not exposed to this censorship, because little ol me who doesn't even go looking for it, is exposed to plenty of Pro-Rittenhouse commentary.
If it's being censored they are doing an absolute shitt job of it.

As for the Lab Leak theory , when I was listening to ABC radio last year they had a multitude of experts come on and seriously discuss the Lab Leak theory.
In a mostly sober fashion they discussed it, mostly thought it was implausible but it wasn't outright dismissed.

It sure wasn't censored here.

I just don't personally experience this censorship of information that is supposedly occurring.

I'm not dismissing the possibility it occurs, and is maybe even widespread.

Censorship from adverse reactions/deaths from this jab happens every single day.
why do you think Freeride?

Edit: Victoria also don't release if their covid deaths were jabbed or not. This speaks volumes

How many deaths have their been in Australia?

flollo wrote:

I have a family member who had poor mental health which got severely amplified through these algorithms. His addiction is obvious and you need to be very selective when talking to him otherwise he might go through a crisis. Not to mention that radicalisation caused him to neglect his responsibility towards kids or work life. Without going into too many details, I strongly blame social media companies. They are on par with gambling and should be legally receiving the same treatment.

So, I do agree that a healthy, stable person can curate content consciously. However, many are neither healthy nor stable. And these companies are not taking any responsibility. I support increased regulation in this space. Legislators who want to do that will rank highly with me (regardless of the political party they belong to).

That's unfortunate to hear.

People with personality traits like routine, habit, addictiveness, repetitiveness, rigidity in patterns of behaviour and thinking, a tendency to cling to views and beliefs, and strong inquisitiveness and curiosity and a tendency to try to get to the bottom of things and to the "truth" in current affairs and events, etc, are particularly vulnerable.

These news and social media algorithms can easily pick up on their repetitive/habitual behavioural patterns and target them with personalised content, experiences and advertising that just further reinforces, encourages, magnifies and snowballs their habitual patterns of behaviour.

As also mentioned above, the algorithms also just send them further down their own rabbit holes of rigid, strongly held views and beliefs (all combined with even more personalised and targeted advertising...). There really is no "truth" out there to find, just an endless digging.

I believe I've noticed myself start to do this a number of times during covid. Previously I spent very little time on the internet, particularly social media and news services. But during lockdowns it was hard to find something else to do. Now I find it hard to break free from the patterns.

Actually, my main concern with online news services and social media is: I wonder who really stands to gain the most with covid lockdowns? It seems that it's the online world itself. But then who is the main provider of information about covid? It's the online world.

I can't think of a better strategy by news services and social media to increase engagement, clicking traffic and ultimately purchasing behaviour than to influence governments as much as they can to force lockdowns on the population, thereby leaving us with nothing else to do than to be lulled into and get addicted to their spell and spider web trap of AI driven targeted and personalised content and online experiences.

The real winners out of covid lockdowns are online news services, social media and all the online sales platforms that advertise on them.

But it's from the very same online news services and social media that we get our information about covid.

There is a very serious conflict of interest here.

I didn't find the Victorian data but I only spents 30s looking. The NSW data for ICU admissions is a good proxy.

blindboy wrote:

I didn't find the Victorian data but I only spents 30s looking. The NSW data for ICU admissions is a good proxy.

Do you know if they are now calling people without a booster unvaxxinated? And it the missing (20% roughly) percentage Part Vaxxed?

burleigh wrote:

Censorship from adverse reactions/deaths from this jab happens every single day.
why do you think Freeride?

Edit: Victoria also don't release if their covid deaths were jabbed or not. This speaks volumes

Censored?
It's freely available on websites.
https://www.tga.gov.au/periodic/covid-19-vaccine-weekly-safety-report-04...

Thats the TGA site, it's full of info about pericarditis and myocarditis.

Not too mention the thousands and thousands of posts all over the internet on social media about people having adverse reactions.

Who do you think is censoring it?

Here is the results of hundreds of thousands of Under 20's vaxxed with Pfizer.

seems the information is totally available?

I just can't see any censorship here, unless you think these figures are totally made up?

https://ausvaxsafety.org.au/adolescent-participants/pfizer-covid-19-vacc...

I cannot see any intention here to hide adverse reactions from vaccines.

freeride76 wrote:

burleigh wrote:

Censorship from adverse reactions/deaths from this jab happens every single day.
why do you think Freeride?

Edit: Victoria also don't release if their covid deaths were jabbed or not. This speaks volumes

Censored?
It's freely available on websites.
https://www.tga.gov.au/periodic/covid-19-vaccine-weekly-safety-report-04...

Thats the TGA site, it's full of info about pericarditis and myocarditis.

Not too mention the thousands and thousands of posts all over the internet on social media about people having adverse reactions.

Who do you think is censoring it?

That links doesn't correlate to the reported reactions/deaths. I'll find a link later today.

Yeah there are thousands of social media posts on adverse reactions, this is what i mean by censorship. why is this not being reported on msm?

Maybe it's not newsworthy to publish Facebook reports from people.

especially if the data as a whole is available?

Hey Ben & Freeride. here you go, https://apps.tga.gov.au/Prod/daen/daen-report.aspx

Type Covid in medicine and select them, select your dates and away you go.