Post

asura
@asura.dev

This is, I think, where we have some societal disconnects. Plumbers used to go to the local library to look up pipefitting books if they didn't already have the trade manual. Plumbers went to the library. Throughout my career I have been paid to monetize accessing information like that.

hailey@hailey.at

it is really hard to not hold this position whenever i was able to build a career for myself with absolutely zero education in the field. i didn't have to buy any books, pay for any classes. everything that i know was learned through free information that was accessible to me starting at the age 10

1 repost15 likes

asura
@asura.dev

Throughout my life we have heard that Google can't be trusted, Google is plagiarizing thumbnails, Wikipedia can be edited "by anyone", LLMs "lie", ... Hint: This all audience capture for a specific publishing medium so that people with money can pay people to monetize knowledge for them.

hailey
@hailey.at

the whole wikipedia hatred thing when i was growing up as a kid and having all my teachers say this to me was so bizarre. like, as a kid understanding a bit of how wikipedia worked i didnt understand why they would say that large-group consensus was bad but single publisher consensus was good

asura
@asura.dev

They would unironically say that and then we would see harebrained conspiracy theory books hit NYT Best Sellers. Clearly anyone can write a book. The large group consensus with actual references has a better sniff test. Someone needs to Netflix doc how all of that was just audience capture.

hailey
@hailey.at

additionally, group consensus working on wikipedia is precisely why the current us admin hates it, and also why no one can "train out the woke" from llms