
Can monoculture survive the algorithm? - portobello
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/12/17/21024439/monoculture-algorithm-netflix-spotify
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pjc50
As the article itself points out, monoculture itself was a technological
phenomenon; mass broadcast of TV and radio with only a few channels. Even then
it was only monoculture _within_ a country, and we're globalized now.
Returning to a monoculture will require both propaganda and suppression.

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wildduck
> Returning to a monoculture will require both propaganda and suppression
> Great firewall of China seems to be doing that.

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pjc50
You can see China trying to create a hegemonic Han monoculture: that's what
the suppression of Tibet and Uighurs is directed towards.

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huffmsa
It's what they've always done.

> Mastery of 1 set of texts

> Dogmatic adherence to a single school

> Promotion of those who regurgitate the above the best

It's yet to work for more than a few hundred years.

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aidenn0
Has any power managed to rule for more than a few hundred years?

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naringas
rome?

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
Especially if you include the Eastern Roman Empire which fell in 1453.

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ggggtez
That's a bit of a broad generalization. As with all history it doesn't hold up
under scrutiny.

In the 1200s, the empire split into 3 warring countries. The one that took
Constantinople was considered the continuation of the Byzantine empire, but
maybe it's more correct to think of it as a spiritual successor, than an
actual unbroken reign of a single nation.

Which would put it at less than 1000 years of rule. So "a few hundred years"
would still be an accurate upper bound.

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
Even if you take the 1200's as the end of the Empire, and ignore the Roman
Republic and take 31 BC as the defacto start of rule of the Roman Emperor, you
still are looking at over a millenia.

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imgabe
They briefly mention literature and I think that provides a good
counterexample. Books are highly individual, and always have been long before
streaming existing. Yet, there still manage to be runaway hits that everyone
reads and talks about. The same could be true of streaming shows. Stranger
Things managed it in the streaming era.

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ithkuil
One could say that Stranger Things piggy-backed on a feeling of nostalgia for
the shared monoculture of the '80s

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jacobush
The 80s is an interesting funnel for shared monoculture. Modern enough to be
relatable today, distant enough to serve as a canvas to project all sorts of
personal bias onto.

Personally I _love_ the 80s lore and I _think_ I loved the 80s as it happened
as much as anyone can love something while still being inside it. It was just
so palpably on the verge of so many things, the Cold War ending, (violently or
peacefully, it was obvious it was going to end!), technology promising so much
without the downsides being a reality to deal with, and the downsides
projected in dystopia sci-fi were still _cool_ downsides, not the
mindnumbingly dreary, boring dystopia we create for ourselves now with FB,
China and its ilk.

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ethbro
80s and 90s American culture seemed to have an edge of individualism and
creativity that was fed to the corporate steamroller as media consolidated.

Can you imagine Disney producing Animaniacs?

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aaron695
Normal drivel from Vox.

Friends had a black version, Living Single (which came first) that rated huge
for African Americans but non existent for whites, and vice versa.

Game of Thrones is a HBO flagship as they have always done. Marvel on the
other hand is designed for the Chinese audience.

But I have no idea what that means in their markov chain of conflicting
thought.

I'll go back to watching Netfix's The Witcher, based on a 2008 English novel
translated from the 90's Polish novels because of a 2007 computer game and be
happy whether Vox media critics are to good for it or not.

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someone7x
Based on a 1960s albino warrior mage (Elric of Melnibone) which is based on a
1920s albino pulp villain (Monsieur Zenith) who is really just based on
Holmes' Moriarty.

The Witcher's DNA is very interesting.

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hugh4life
This is about 15 years too late. We haven't been monocultural for a long
time... hence the frequent grasp to reboot things for when we were more
monocultural.

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voidhorse
Yeah, it was even on the wane as early as the 70s. Not sure why this article
acts like it’s a new thing. “Monoculture” has been dead and buried for a long
time, and that’s not a bad thing. The solution to unity isn’t “a return to
monoculture”—it’s determining the right composition and interfacing between
pluralities.

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squish78
I first thought this was a reference to 'monoculture' in the agriculture
sector, and I'm also concerned about it surviving the algorithm.

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Apocryphon
Regardless the state of algorithms, it does seem interesting that 2019 was the
coincidental end time for a significant chapter of the Marvel movies, the Star
Wars (first) sequel trilogy, and Game of Thrones. Let's hope that means we'll
at least get some different types of adaptations come 2020.

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guscost
TL;DR (from a skim, as I couldn’t stick with this rambling mess for long):

The front page of Reddit and the water cooler at Vox HQ are both depressing,
boring places, especially since Game of Thrones ended and there’s nothing
mainstream enough to fill that void.

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swiley
There’s other stuff to talk about! Try listening to your coworkers about their
personal interests!

I always felt like talking about television was terribly boring.

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Hydraulix989
I hope it does not. Imagine how isolating it might feel to be the one person
who does not like watching Game of Thrones.

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quotemstr
Imagine how alienating it must be to have no common cultural touchstones to
share with other people.

We're already there when it comes to music. We have a lot of virtuoso
musicianship today. You want top-tier jazz? You can find it. Bossa Nova? Yep.
Orchestral arrangements? Those too. Blues and old-school rock? Still being
made. But we no longer have music as a common cultural touchstone:
everything's been atomized to hell, fragmented into perfectly-curated Spotify
ML-recommended playlists. People no longer use music to connect to each other.
It's more about individual hedonic enjoyment.

As goes music, so goes all entertainment and all media. When everything is
perfectly tailored to each individual's preferences, what we're left with
isn't so much culture (which in its essence is about commonality) as much as
aesthetic pornography.

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stereolambda
I'm not convinced that we need huge proprietary time-wasters to have
conversations with each other. There are circumstances in life when long TV
shows may be fun and entertaining, but watching them shouldn't be expected.
With my family, and random people met in places, I talk about real life that
we have in common or wider societal trends. This can be instructive (about
what people think) even if very light. I remember a guy complaining before an
unrelated class that "computer people hunched over keyboards will take over
everything". Little did he know.

You can say that real life stuff can be hot and divisive, but then pop culture
can also. See how new Star Wars and recent blockbusters generated controversy
and online culture wars. Handling people with opinions, and _your own_
opinions, is a valuable skill nonetheless.

I am into music as well, as in listening to albums and records collecting, and
am very happy that I don't _have_ to know or listen to anything "mainstream"
in particular. Free exploration is so much more pleasurable. I do share some
of my tastes with people around me, but really a different little thing with
each person.

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C1sc0cat
Common cultural touch stones are more thigs like the St James Bible" the
Classics etc.

In the Uk it might be Last night of the Proms, Dr Who , Queens Speech, Test
Cricket on the Radio, world service weather reports etc

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catalogia
You don't need 'common cultural touch stones' when you have shared real life
experiences.

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quotemstr
When you take away all other shared experience, what remains is politics, the
nuts and bolts of running a society. We've seen a surge in political extremism
lately; one thing that drives political extremism in general is the inability
to share non-political experiences with one's political opponents.

