[squeefers]

> Back then it took a lot of effort over an extended period to do what can now be had for a few dollars of LLM tokens,

we are just prone to hysteria id say, predating the invention of internet, phones or even print media (though they certainly exasperate the issue)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-care_sex-abuse_hysteria remember the US daycare/satanism scare... it made its way to england via TV, no mechanical turks required.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism the common person manipulated by lies in print. old as print itself

[ben_w]

The difference I point to the effort required to pull it off, and adaption to it, not of existence.

Yellow journalism was when we had not yet adapted to print.

The satanism scare was when we had not yet adapted to international news.

We're in the "yellow journalism" phase of social media.

And there was nobody to push back against the satanism scare (straw men are so very easy to fight against, and it was at the time a straw man); a better reference for those eras would be the Hillsborough disaster where coverage by the Sun got it boycott in the region because it had become more difficult to get away with stuff like that than the newspaper itself could manage, and conversely the limited coverage of mistreatment of Mau Mau era Kenyans in UK press because their treatment was a national embarrassment and the highest levels didn't want that embarrassment.

[squeefers]

> Yellow journalism was when we had not yet adapted to print.

people still believe whatever shit is in the daily mail even today. there are just far less yellow journals now... its in the collective memory that papers print shit for profit. maybe. i cant fully explain why it stopped

> The satanism scare was when we had not yet adapted to international news.

it was the late 80s wasnt it?

> a better reference for those eras would be the Hillsborough disaster where coverage by the Sun got it boycott

national newspaper. could still happen now.

> The difference I point to the effort required to pull it off, and adaption to it, not of existence.

yes. the printing press had similar effects. IE lies could now travel much faster than before, much easier. im sure people made similar grumblings about gutenburg as you have done about AI. are you slagging the printing press the same way though?