[mockingbirdy]

Yeah, pretty weird incentives system. It's difficult to filter and sort comments in online communities in ways that don't lead to such a behavior. But I think people will try to get approval even without any point system.

We fall for Karma points because we crave for external validation and want a feeling of belonging because and although we know that we're ultimately alone in our own brain and reduce those pressing feelings of nothingness using approval.

I think even without a point system, people would try to get approval. The desire is already in us. The environment just mirrors and intensifies this desire, it doesn't cause it IMO.

[s-shellfish]

Yes. Desire to have matching ideas. It's all validation. Whether it's something that keeps us in sync with the world or something that prevents insanity by saying "hey, someone out there thinks just like you", it's necessary. Humans don't do well when they have no reflection of their own self. We are social animals. We are fundamentally dependent on some mechanic that says we are and can be understood.

For people who work a lot with their own minds, in abstraction - things that are connected but not directly connected to 'reality', meaning, decisions we make have consequences that aren't immediately obvious, I think that's vital, and I think that's why all these message boards and forums and so have the most nuanced kinds of communication among technical people.

It all ties into our own independent stability. Yea, there's issues with group think, people can easily get carried away with a couple variants of reasoning. But that's how communication is supposed to function. I feel like it's so easy to get disconnected from the point of interaction because, we know that the individual we are speaking to directly can be more than one person.

Humans are ridiculous creatures in general. To think it's something the internet invented, that's disconnected.

[mockingbirdy]

I recognize your name. We comment on the same topics pretty frequently.

You've never answered my life advice - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17492911

I don't always understand everything you say - it often has some kind of mysterious ambiguousness in it - but I still like your interaction. Small place here.

[s-shellfish]

It's probably good advice for some aspects of life, you know you best.

I do see that you comment on similar topics. Group think though. Logic, math, computer science, hyper connectivity of the internet. It's like a microcosm analogy-'trend'-flow. Probably gaining understanding independently primarily through imagery and correlating words and meaning.

I think at base with graphs, math pictures. Then math words. Logic forms rigor that reels in insanity, ties oneself back into reality - data recognized as valid by my own existence. Computer science, software as my profession. But I started out being an artist, that's sense of self.

People sometimes behave like birds or schools of fish, even if the words are all jumbled up and connected in strange ways (lots of wikipedia?). Primes behavior for seeing connections in social media. It's like having a body in digital space, that's how I see it, sort of. Leaving footprints all over the place.

As for feedback loops, self reference. Math. Words, I'm guessing we share a connection through other social media, background validation, I'm going to guess wikipedia, but that's just how I see how people establish thinking connections, because that's the difference between it and so much other information on the internet. It's very organized and ordered in terms of relational linking to connect different topics, and it ties back into academia - 'knowledge as categorical imperative' funded research. You can worry about the feedback loops but pretty sure everyone in the system does too. Everyone needs a base to check against.

I could be wrong but guessing is sometimes fun to do. I try to reduce the space I guess in. Makes understanding simple things turn into a hard problem. Cheers