But how is that an "internet"? The point of the free internet was to be free to communicate with whomever.

When you seclude yourself in bubbles, you might feel protected, but really you expose yourself to becoming irrelevant.

The crucial problem is, people confuse message with messenger.

When comments are objectively true and faithful (representing the topic correctly), it doesn't matter who wrote them.

The other way around, knowing somebody personally doesn't guarantee their messages to be true and "not spam". The important thing is to check content thoroughly for actual truth and point out deviations. Just like in an ideal scientific discussion. The remaining social part is a question of civil discourse and enforcing that.

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ezekg 3 days ago | parent [-]

> When comments are objectively true and faithful (representing the topic correctly), it doesn't matter who wrote them.

This disregards the humanity of understanding a thing. I vehemently disagree.

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Loquebantur 3 days ago | parent [-]

Objectively true statements don't depend on any human understanding them for being true. So it doesn't matter who acts as their messenger.

You conflate two disparate things there: you as the reader understand something as a human. Who wrote it plays no role for the true content. Expressions of human sentiment are another thing entirely.

When LLMs are used to astroturf and manipulate human community building, they rely on such sentiment to stir emotional reactions. Without a rational, objectively true, basis to stand on, that remains sterile if people value truth.

The problem we currently see comes from people foregoing that rooting in objective truth entirely. They act on pure sentiment and are prone to automatic manipulation by it.

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raddan 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

You seem to be externalizing the cost of verifying that a thing is true. The cost is nontrivial.

Consider for a moment that all of science is, in some way or another, the search for truth. I have a hard time seeing that any one person—or even any one person with an amazing computer program—can substitute for generations of humans trying to achieve that goal. It is extremely difficult to know what is objectively true.

	▲	Loquebantur 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		What a weird take on things: you are currently externalizing the non-trivial cost of verifying that a thing is true. When you want to understand something as true, you are the one who has to verify it, implicitly. People currently are used to others (supposedly) doing that for them. That doesn't mean, it wasn't externalized. Now, you're right about individuals being overtaxed without the collaborative effort of society. You have to have chains of trust to have any chance, or personalized AI (which again you would have to trust). But I was talking about the process of filtering truth collectively. You start from what you believe to know now, team up with others sharing your opinions and go from there. Revising your preconceived convictions is part of proper science.

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wolvesechoes 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Objectively true statements don't depend on any human understanding them for being true. So it doesn't matter who acts as their messenger.

All such statements are pretty worthless.