Wow. What an exciting time for reallyread.it. The crisis is coming to a head and we have a very real solution that's ready to scale. I met recently with professor Brendan Nyhan at Dartmouth. He's doing good work, digging past the buzzwords (like "echo-chamber"). These problems are complicated. Simple solutions won't work. We can't rely on Facebook/Twitter/Reddit to solve this for us.
I loved (finally!) seeing the word "read" here:
“My experience is that once this stuff gets going, people just pass these stories on without even necessarily stopping to read them,” Mr. McKinney said. “They’re just participating in the conversation without stopping to look hard” at the source.
And this made me crazy:
"Stopping to drill down and determine the true source of a foul-smelling story can be tricky, even for the motivated skeptic, and mentally it’s hard work."
No!!! It's not tricky! It's not mentally hard work!! You just need to look at who is actually writing the stuff you're reading and, of course, don't forget to really read things.
The author really seemed to get that the solution to problems such as fake news and echo chambers is for people to actually take the time to read past the headline. It's so refreshing to read such a perspective with so many others calling for social media companies to become arbiters of truth, as if mindlessly liking and sharing "better" content is the answer.
C'mon though, it is hard work (at least compared to other ways you can spend time online)! It took me way too long to even get around to reading this article. Every time I'd sit down to start I'd be tempted to jump over to reddit to look at some funny animal gifs or other easy distractions. The good thing is that I couldn't post some uninformed nonsense here before finally taking the plunge.
Wow this was a delightful blast from the past. Deep diving indeed!
So there are a couple different options for linking articles in comments. The most straightforward would be to just post the publisher's URL which should be auto-linkified. Markdown is also supported so you can linkify some specific words instead. Click the "Formatting Guide" link that you should see when you're composing a post or a reply to see how to use brackets [] and parens () to achieve that.
Also instead of using the publisher's URL you can use the Readup "read" link instead. This has the benefit of bringing people you share the link with through Readup first in case they're not already a user. To get the read link for any article you can click the share icon (little up arrow in a box) and then click "Copy Link." You can also link directly to specific comments this way. We need to make all of this much easier to discover!
It's definitely not the same amount of work for everyone. Like everything else that's good for you (and bad), it takes reinforcement of a habit over time. FB/Twitter/Reddit provide gratification for the lowest possible investment, individually. Short term greed over long term sustainability.
It's human instinct to reach for candy. We love and crave the sugar. Sometimes vegetables taste like cardboard. But we know we need the vegetables. Besides - broccoli, when prepared correctly, can taste delicious AND provide the longterm positive benefits. :)
Wow. What an exciting time for reallyread.it. The crisis is coming to a head and we have a very real solution that's ready to scale. I met recently with professor Brendan Nyhan at Dartmouth. He's doing good work, digging past the buzzwords (like "echo-chamber"). These problems are complicated. Simple solutions won't work. We can't rely on Facebook/Twitter/Reddit to solve this for us.
I loved (finally!) seeing the word "read" here:
And this made me crazy:
No!!! It's not tricky! It's not mentally hard work!! You just need to look at who is actually writing the stuff you're reading and, of course, don't forget to really read things.
testing something: can an update be a link?
The author really seemed to get that the solution to problems such as fake news and echo chambers is for people to actually take the time to read past the headline. It's so refreshing to read such a perspective with so many others calling for social media companies to become arbiters of truth, as if mindlessly liking and sharing "better" content is the answer.
C'mon though, it is hard work (at least compared to other ways you can spend time online)! It took me way too long to even get around to reading this article. Every time I'd sit down to start I'd be tempted to jump over to reddit to look at some funny animal gifs or other easy distractions. The good thing is that I couldn't post some uninformed nonsense here before finally taking the plunge.
Good morning guys-
Deep Sea ReadUp Diving Here:
Can either of u teach me how to link articles in Comments Thread?
Also, OMG, Mind-Blown with the Veggies comment below. 🤯😍
And finally this F Scot Fitz Quote Feels Especially Relevant Here on a Foundational AOTD as a Banner Mantra for RU:
“The test of a First-Rate Intelligence Is the Ability to Hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same Time and Still retain the Ability to Function.”
queues Shattering The Hourglass by Deep Sea Diver
Wow this was a delightful blast from the past. Deep diving indeed!
So there are a couple different options for linking articles in comments. The most straightforward would be to just post the publisher's URL which should be auto-linkified. Markdown is also supported so you can linkify some specific words instead. Click the "Formatting Guide" link that you should see when you're composing a post or a reply to see how to use brackets [] and parens () to achieve that.
Also instead of using the publisher's URL you can use the Readup "read" link instead. This has the benefit of bringing people you share the link with through Readup first in case they're not already a user. To get the read link for any article you can click the share icon (little up arrow in a box) and then click "Copy Link." You can also link directly to specific comments this way. We need to make all of this much easier to discover!
Thank you for this thorough reply, Jeff! Much Appreciated
It's definitely not the same amount of work for everyone. Like everything else that's good for you (and bad), it takes reinforcement of a habit over time. FB/Twitter/Reddit provide gratification for the lowest possible investment, individually. Short term greed over long term sustainability.
Exactly!! Twitter/FB/Reddit = candy. reallyread.it = vegetables.
It's human instinct to reach for candy. We love and crave the sugar. Sometimes vegetables taste like cardboard. But we know we need the vegetables. Besides - broccoli, when prepared correctly, can taste delicious AND provide the longterm positive benefits. :)
@Gonzojourno - You gotta check out today's Article of the Day: https://reallyread.it/articles/motherboardvicecom/new-study-finds-that-most-redditors-dont-actually-read-the-articles-they-vote-on
Also (unrelated) - let me know what you think (if anything) about the new reallyread.it homepage.