
Is Clickbait Destroying Our General Intelligence? - alan_wade
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YicoiQurNBxSp7a65/is-clickbait-destroying-our-general-intelligence
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alan_wade
> I've had the sense before that the Internet is turning our society stupider
> and meaner.

Taking this slightly out of context and ignoring subtler points of the
article, but this is obviously false.

I got access to the fast internet when I was 15-16 years old, so I remember
what it was like without it. I shudder to think what my mind would be like
without HN, Less Wrong, PG essays, RSD, and all kinds of courses, books,
videos, and influences I have found online.

There are all sorts of negative effects and unhealthy behaviors that came with
the internet too, but I just want to point out that despite all that internet
is life-changingly awesome.

\----

More to the point of the article, sure competition among a lot of ideas will
bring ideas that are better at competing to the surface, but:

\- If you make even the basic effort to filter your information responsibly
and look for stuff thats good for you, you can filter out a lot of the low
quality noise that rises to the top only because it's goot at being viral.
Good example - open youtube's hot videos page or the front page of reddit, and
compare what you see to the content you usually consume deliberately, through
HN/RSS/whatnot, there's a difference in quality when you try to seek out good
stuff.

\- Smarter content/ideas are generally good at competing. Internet forces
teachers and smart people to get more engaging and entertaining in order to
succeed, which is not necessarily a bad thing. My favorite creators make stuff
that's very enjoyable to consume, without dumbing it down too much. As hard as
internet may be selecting for memes and viral videos, clearly there's plenty
of space for quality too.

