seems intuitively correct but *why* do these optimizations have that effect?
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Because the algorithms amplify what makes one group different from the other groups.
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how so? why?
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The differences in content are important: if one group seems to use the words "yarn" and "needles" a lot, it will tend to be offered content with those words. The high correlation between some groupings of words are used to drive the content feed.
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why does this tend to produce "ever more extreme and provocative content"?
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Because those key terms are what makes it extreme. I'm sure there are also hardcore knitting groups and hardcore groups devoted to polydactyl tabbies, but they generally don't kill people so you never hear about them.
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Im not sure if that's what the OP refers to. imo its generally the case that online communities are becoming more extreme, partisan, enclosed, etc, not just communities that were extreme or predisposed to extremity in the first place.
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Replying to @_Vimothy_ @oliversampson and
it also seems that there was a prior state in which less extreme content was also satisfying on some level, why isn't this content being selected by the recommendation engines?
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Replying to @_Vimothy_ @oliversampson and
there are probably numerous optima satisfying the maximsation problem, why is it that we end up stuck in the most socially destructive one?
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That's confirmation bias and the law of large numbers. You just haven't noticed all of the other non-socially destructive, yet still frothy, communities of Deaf Veteran Philatelists for Christ or whatever.
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but that's my point - why are we stuck at these optima *across the board*?
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