Quote from: the_end_is_near on May 07, 2017, 08:22:19 AM

Yep, Usenet wasnt easy-to-use nor could it remain popular with the much better user experiences with current websites.

That was just a matter of making a better newsreader client. I think that was not the problem. It is true that usenet originated in the unix/command line/text interface world, and its traditional users probably didn't see any reason to switch to some fancy graphical interface and "feature-hiding", but it could easily have evolved. As I said, that was not, IMO, the principal reason for its abandoning.

Quote from: the_end_is_near on May 05, 2017, 12:42:07 PM

3) [no performance guarantees, chaos and unreliable, inconsistent user experience]. In other words, this was a true decentralized paradigm.

I never had any technical issues, honestly. The only pain in moderated groups was that your post only appeared something like the next day, because the moderator had to approve it before it appeared. But that was already not usenet's spirit. Moderation was something that was added to it because the unmoderated groups were full of shit, and wading though it to find something interesting to discuss was delegated to a dude that wanted to do this.

But usenet worked very reliably, technically. No "bad user experience" (if you didn't mind command line client software and ascii, but on a VT-100 terminal, you mostly didn't have anything else in any case !).

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You are conflating decentralized with disorganized shit. Decentralized software systems can be indistinguishable in terms of user experience from centralized software systems. That is your broken clock aliasing error again. I do not understand why your brain continually does this. You seem like you have a very high intellect, but you seem to so often make these egregious errors of logic.

As I said, and I've been using usenet for more than a decade, it wasn't "disorganized shit" at all, but the fancy bells and whistles of graphical user interfaces was not deemed necessary (that said, they exist).
And yes, I already told you that I think that a system can only remain decentralized when it is "disorganized" and when there are no "rules forever". For instance, I consider the ecosystem of crypto coins as potentially decentralized, but there is no single crypto coin which comes near being "decentralized", on the contrary. However, the "disorganized mess" they form, comes somewhat closer. So yes, in as much as usenet could about do anything, it was decentralized.

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Edit: I see below that you were conflating decentralized with maximally disordered.

Yup, but that's on purpose.

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Reputation is essential to the way humans evolved in our ancestral environment. Without reputation, humans do not know how to function well, because they do not digest all the information. They use reputation to make shortcuts, because humans are lazy and busy on other things (such as masturbating, stuffing their mouth with food, watching porn, stroking their ego, and other very important activities).

This brings us to trust, to hierarchies, and to centralization. And why most people are not into the "decentralized stuff" thing.

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You were close to correct. They actually want tribal leaders. They want to compare reputations, because this is what humans have always done in tribes.

But you are incorrect to equate this with a single centralized authority. Humans are quite well adapted to forming groups with group leaders.

Ah, I see. By "centralized" I don't mean "one single controlling entity", but simply the existence of hierarchies of control and command. So yes, several tribal leaders are a centralized system (from the point of view of a tribe member). Of course, they form a decentralized system amongst themselves, if these tribal leaders themselves do not have "higher" hierarchies. But from the point of view of the tribe member, he is part of a centralized system: his tribe, with its rules and hierarchy.

Now, there can be dynamics in the "decentralized layer" of tribal leaders (for instance, warfare) that have the tendency to make only one the dominant one ; or there can be dynamics that will rather make it difficult to dominate. Depending on the dynamical laws of the system, there will be convergence to a "natural monopoly" or not. Things which have network effect tend to have this convergence towards monopoly, and discussion forums are part of that.

As a member, a discussion forum is a central authority ; but discussion forums on the internet have no "higher authority" and hence form an disorganised, and hence decentralized, system. But their evolution is usually that the forum with the biggest network effect draws in all users - unless there are niche applications for other forums (for instance, differently moderated). The dynamical interactions of the market share of discussion forums are a messy, and hence decentralized dynamics, with no hierarchical control but which usually lead to a single market leader, giving a lot of power to the hierarchy of that "tribe".

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In fact, they like being part of their own tribe within their Dunbar limit. Theymos mistake is he is trying for one-size-fits-all site-wide reputation and moderation authority, which is devolving into a clusterfuck because humans need to be able to splinter off into competing tribes (teams). They will rip each others heads off until they are allowed to form tribes within their Dunbar limit of closer like-minded relationships.

Well that's not Theymos' "fault". He's just the tribal leader of the tribe that became a natural monopoly. If you want to be part of his tribe, there's not much else to do but to submit to his rules (or stay under the radar).

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Quote from: the_end_is_near on May 05, 2017, 12:42:07 PM

Usenet wasn't a "database". That's important. It was a *discussion* of which old interactions disappeared.

Group leaders will never tolerate such a system. Would never become popular because the flock follow where the tribal leaders go.

That's exactly why I think that usenet got abandoned ; because people wanted tribal leaders (= centralisation = hierarchy and authority).

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The group leaders will drive the demand for the decentralized systems, because they do not want to invest in closed source, because they risk their investment being stolen by the centralized authority of the closed source.

Forum software is mostly open source... (?)

Quote from: the_end_is_near on May 05, 2017, 12:42:07 PM

Archiving informal discussions is problematic, because in informal discussions, one can test ideas, take temporary positions, say sometimes stupid things ... Archiving takes all this stuff and turns it into a kind of eternal social contract. The strong linking between avatars and content makes that one focusses now more on the building of a reputation and the destruction of competitors' reputations, than to discuss about the content. Whole strategies are now deployed to market or destroy avatars.

It will remain that way until humans evolve.

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Quote from: the_end_is_near on May 05, 2017, 12:42:07 PM

Informal intellectual or recreational discussion shouldn't be a database, and authors of content shouldn't matter.

I disagree. I often refer back to my discussions to remember what I was thinking. Can you remember everything you ever said and thought Huh

Even if you can, how many people can do that?

I can remember a lot of what I have written. Maybe 500 pages of it, but not verbatim. I can remember well enough to use Google to find the post I want.

That's actually one of your irritating posting habits. I forget about immediately what I say (even though by saying it, I improved a conceptual understanding of something). It is like an oral conversation: you simply have to say again whatever it might have been what you were saying before. I consider a discussion "without memory", and arguments only to be valid at the moment of discussion in the flow of the arguments. Of course, during some "back and forth" in a *given discussion*, one can refer to some earlier posts if they inspired a reply to a reply or something, but indeed, everything from more than a week ago should be forgotten (and in my case, mostly IS forgotten).

Logical reasoning is "instantaneous", well, for the length of the argument, and is then "back into the bit bucket", just like in the case of an oral conversation. You are not going to have people listen to pre-recorded older conversations in a given conversation, are you ?

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Decentralization does not necessarily mean that there are no group leaders. You are thinking in terms of absolute decentralization, but there is no absolute. Decentralize all the atoms in our bodies, we can not even post anything, and that is still not absolute.

Ah, to me, yes. Decentralization is the total absence of hierarchy, leadership and the perfect "flatness" of all command and control - which can only happen in a totally disorganized system.

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Disorder and decentralization are not the same concept. You are conflating. Decentralization is about distributing the control of a system. It does not mean the distribution has to be maximal to the point that there is no control whatsoever (complete disorder, i.e. maximum uncertainty and random chance).

Ok, well, to me, both notions are the same. I'm not saying that a decentralized system cannot implement dynamics that naturally evolve towards forms of leadership, but I consider then that they centralize ; unless they also contain dynamical rules that destroy these leaders, so that leadership is an ephemeral phenomenon.

Like prey and predators in nature ; you might think that these establish some kind of "hierarchy", but usually, these hierarchies are just as well destroyed as set up, so that's ok. It is when the dynamics can lock in leadership, that I consider it a failed decentralisation.

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Quote from: the_end_is_near on May 05, 2017, 12:42:07 PM

The masses want hierarchy, bosses and central authority.

Nope they will kill each other if locked into a single grouping and they can not fork off into tribes. That is why the future of the EU is going to be so horrific because the EU refuses to allow the different groups to have their own governance.

I'm not talking about a SINGLE grouping, but *every* form of sustained grouping. Tribal groupings are also, as I said, centralized from the point of view of a tribe member. Whether you have to obey to your tribe leader, or you have to obey to the king of the world, doesn't really matter from the point of view of a member. Of course, it makes all the difference in the world for a tribal leader, who has to put up with other tribal leaders ; or with a king of the world ; or wants to be the king of the world.

From the moment there are hierarchies, I consider the system centralized, even if there can be many of them in parallel, as long as you are locked into one as a member, it doesn't make a difference.

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Nope we are all in the majority of being tribal.

I'm not very tribal.

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Quote from: the_end_is_near on May 05, 2017, 12:42:07 PM

There are many indications that "the masses" want authority and prefer centralized paradigms over decentralized ones. Because people like their own freedom, but they hate even more other peoples' freedom. And they prefer easiness over freedom, and are willing to delegate trust if it makes life simpler.

They hate not having tribes (teams) to go war against.

They prefer reputation over information.

Now I understand why you wrote the following and why you hope the Singularity is true and humans are destroyed and replaced by machine intelligence:

Quote from: dinofelis on May 04, 2017, 08:33:46 AM

That said, it comes close to my view on the world: "me", and "the others"

Finally