The muck-raking is gone because muck-raking is expensive.

I find it hard to believe youâ(TM)re so stupid as to not know the âoerise in opinion and decline of newsâ is a direct result of not having enough money to fund journalism (thanks to Google and the like) which costs significantly more than opinion. If you want news you have to pay for it.

Yeah, I donâ(TM)t think weâ(TM)re at the point where we have to worry about AI rights. Weâ(TM)ll have to cross that bridge, but itâ(TM)s not even built yet. The main issues now are: 1) bots are used to make unpopular ideas seem popular (bandwagon persuasion). 2) bots can diseminate false information without even the trivial disincentive of tying the information to real person. 3) bots are highly efficient tools to incite anger. I think people have a right to know when theyâ(TM)re communicating with a real person. The only reason to deny them that right is because someone is profiting off it.

Iâ(TM)d be surprised if less than 10% of the accounts were fake. I live in Japan, which I *think* has one of the highest percent of users. The people I know who use it donâ(TM)t engage in any kind of social or political debate though. They post and look at pics of food and celebrity bs.

The issue fb has with the current system (or at least until Dec 2016 when I got off it), is that smiles and frowns capture the userâ(TM)s emotional reaction but not the value of the post. That is, I wouldnâ(TM)t respond to a typical NYT article about the midterms with an happy/angry emoji, but Iâ(TM)d upvote it if the content was good. So the NYT article would get promoted. Likewise when some political group posts some clickbait bs, only having the options of smile or frown, both of which raise it in the newsfeed, doesnâ(TM)t allow me to downvote it because itâ(TM)s bs. So I could just downvote it and see less of it on the feed. This is purely hypothetical, of course, as I only use fb when Itâ(TM)s the only way to access a particular community. Not a fan, but they have a lot of power to direct the discourse, so I hope this works out for everyone.

Not to denigrate the research of these economists, but here's a short list of other things we (Americans specifically) are not yet prepared for: 1) the internal combustion engine; 2) globalism; 3) corporations larger than nations; 4) multiculturalism; 5) the internet; and 6) climate change. Considering our piss-poor track record with dealing with societal change, it's ludicrous to think we're going to deal with automation in any sort of positive way. If you live in a society that promotes greed over the collective good, it's just not rational to assume we'll deal with problems effectively.

The DNC also sued Nixonâ(TM)s re-election campaign after the Watergate break in. Everyone said it was a crazy political ploy, but we know how that turned out (the DNC was awarded $775,000 in damages after the truth came out).

For those claiming this is absurd, keep in mind that the DNC also sued Nixonâ(TM)s re-election campaign after the Watergate break in. Everyone said it was a crazy political ploy, but we know how that turned out (the DNC was awarded $775,000 in damages after the truth came out).

Seems like knowing that you've enabled a murder, an overdose, or a rape might keep you up at night. Maybe Reddit just doesn't want to be a part of it. It's a big old internet. Users that want to sell guns and drugs and sex can go somewhere else.

As an older-but-not-too-old gamer who can only hack SP FPS on slow mode, I've moved on to Don't Starve, a gothic horror/survival crafting roguelike. It's got the occasional thrill of FPS with a lot of down time spent on collection, planning, and exploring.

Actually, an addendum: The argument that "if this were not the best way we wouldn't do it" is completely false. You can look at every aspect of society -take the US political system- and see that things are not done the "the best way," they are done "the best way to fit ones specific needs," the outcome of which is degeneration.

I fully agree with everything you wrote except that in this case there is a fundamental difference: The digital "jobs" that spin off in the digital economy from companies linr Instagram are producing digital goods (snazzy pictures) of extremely limited value, as the supply is nearly infinite and the demand is limited by the amount of consumption we have time for. You can see this happening in real time in the game industry: as the barriers to production and distribution fall, so does the cost to consumers and the perceived value of the product. The industry itself is huge, but a lot companies are struggling because consumers have a nearly inexhaustible supply of games. Great for consumers and great for games as competition improves quality, but it also drives down the value of the workers.

I think you're analysis of their analysis has some flaws: 1. The study shows that given 100-200 college students who are differentiated by their perceived social status, those at a higher social status were more likely to cheat. You can take that to mean a variety of things, but that's not the same as it being a faulty study. Similar studies have found similar results (poorer people in poorer states donate a higher proportion of their wealth, for example). 2. The study makes no claims about CEOs. You are conflating jobs and careers (CEO, Entrepreneur) with wealth and social status. The study makes no claims about those things. 3. The study was not an online survey. 4. What connection, exactly, is there between the researchers' self-interest and the conclusions reached in the study? You seem to think they benefit greatly because of their findings, but they would attract the same amount of attention -or more- if they found the opposite result. Perhaps you missed the part about the Prius drivers also being less moral? Finally, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has rigorous peer-review procedures. If you can't trust them, who do you trust?

Thanks for the reassuring post. I have a Thinkpad X61 with Vista and the 5400 drive and 2GB ram and it's a dog. I was just looking into getting the drive upgrade -probably the 7200, not the SSD- and the ram to go along with Windows 7, but was skeptical as to whether it would be enough.

I don't know, you guys are making it sound like anybody could go out and create games. I mean, the big game studios are making money, but they're not making more than other kinds of entertainment companies. And they're certainly not doing anything worse than Hollywood. And just as Hollywood enables indie films to be made and distributed (if all films were arthouse films would there have been VCRs?), the big studios allow the indies to thrive. How else would game schools thrive or engines be refined and distributed? And there wouldn't be a drive for super-realism in games if that didn't sell. Look at the GTA series -it's amazingly well polished but it's also a genre-leader. Go ahead and try to dream up a "new" game, and if you'd like a challenge. DRM at this stage is annoying and troublesome, but the creators have the right to protect their work from theft. In a few years there'll be a less-annoying system and we'll be thankful for it.