"Best thing Elon should have done was to focus only on the technical aspects of Twitter and let some more level-headed less-emotional people manage the editorial aspects."
"But what I've found is that a lot of the toxic positivity types still hold a lot of negative emotion. However they can't express it without some justification. That justification usually comes in the form of attacking someone who has committed a transgression of expected kindness."
I notice that too. It seems some people look for a social hedge or 'permission' before they'll say something disagreeable to save face.
I'm not so sure I buy the idea that holding back disagreeable opinions or observations is an act of "kindness" per say. To me it seems more like trying to navigate social relationships with tact. I can loosely see how holding back the urge to "let that son of a bitch know what I really think" can be construed as such but I don't really believe that fits the bill either.
There's a massive difference between the idea of kindness coming from a place of understanding where you're letting people know you see their struggle and genuinely believe in their inherant worth and ability to overcome or cope with those struggles vs subtle or overt manipulation for the sake of being socially placating.
I don't really believe there is such a thing as toxic kindness when that kindness is genuine. Smarm, on the other hand, is disingenuous by definition and can be extremelly toxic.
I have a couple of years on the author, but he's right. I think it's similar to what happens on reddit or any community that seems to attract the "my IQ is north of 125 and I know it" crowd. I'm guilty of generating some of that toxicity too.
There are still tons of gems on HackerNews and I usually try to limit my interaction to engaging with that content and bypassing the comments altogether. HackerNews is at its best when it's sharing useful content with people and at its absolute worst when you try to engage with that person who's wrong on the internet. Aside from stroking one's own ego there's nothing to gain by engaging with people to try and set them straight.
In sum. Sharing is caring and that asshole on the internet is still wrong.
If Meta stays true to its history of designing its products to maximize user engagement I find little reason to believe they wouldn't try to design their product to become more and more tightly coupled with the lives of their users. Maybe to the point where they're not able to function in some important way without it.
The main point being that it has the potential to grow to a point where the life of a user becomes inseparable from a 'Metaverse'. Whether you call this 'virtual' or a 'simulation' seems moot.
I'm thinking more about how this seems like a template for people to integrate their personal lives into an actual simulation and give a justification for a 'friendly AI' to determine what's best for us.
Delegation is part of the job but you don't get to delegate consequential executive decisicions to something as capricious as an internet poll...