信息传染与回音室 - Aryan Naik 博客 --- Information Contagion and Echochambers - Aryan Naik Blog
Information contagion runs rampant in the startup and venture ecosystem and produces mediocre outcomes.
As investors in the frontiers and fringes of technology we are inherently supposed to invest in contrarian and/or non-consensus ideas to produce returns. Comically investors are the most prone to groupthink. We are quick to recite talking points from the newest All-In Podcast or viral tweet.
This happens in various echo chambers online and offline.
This can also be extrapolated to advice given on the internet or by peers and mentors. These inputs should be weighted appropriately before applied and should not serve as a substitute for experience.
Bad information is worse than having no information.
Reddit is heavily slanted towards groupthink via its upvote system self-selecting for consensus ideas to be seen first, therefore we should be cautious of information in an environment where ideas are ranked by the average (chronically online) Redditor.
R/relationship advice is famously a terrible place for actual relationship advice.
The same applies to hacker news, another forum with an upvote system.
Take for example: this comment on the Dropbox announcement on HN in 2007.
As of Aug. 2024, Dropbox sits at a market cap. of 7.92B. HN forgot that people just want something that works.
When taking any advice, story or anecdote, consider it a mimetic mind worm. A contagion that might impact you and also your closest nodes and further their nodes. Spreading from node to node from the moment you read a tweet and tell your friend about it.
Consider all of CS lowbie twitter building things from scratch in Zig, or all the doomers on r/csmajors or even incels. Or all the notion and obsidian influencers on youtube.
Chronically online-ness creates echo chambers because instead of interacting with a more diverse cast of characters, the invisible hand of the algorithm selects for ideas that do well with the vector space that represents your online existence. That vector space also further determines who you interact with selecting for people within your bubble.
Thanks GK, PS, TO for reading early drafts