Just recording this for my own purposes, since this is a purely private diary with no human readers.
Last week I tried an experiment. The bots who steadily “read” this blog were focusing on one particular item about the Phelps induction telegraph. There’s no reason for this item to be hugely popular. I tried replacing the text of the item with frequency-typical random garble to see if it would serve as a bot repellent. Now, several days later, nobody is “reading” the newly garbled item, and the total number of “reads” has gone down to near zero.
Conclusion: Bots are working for Altman. They look at the preview visible from the main entry point. When they see garble they don’t click in and steal it. When burglars look through the store window and see a pile of trash, they won’t bother breaking in.
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Thinking from another angle: The bots ALSO refuse to read anything heartfelt or creative. They prefer my meaningless quick takes or dull repetitive thoughts. They prefer the items that I write when I’m just filling space to keep the blog moving.
THIS IS IDENTICAL TO HUMAN PREFERENCES. Writers and teachers and artists have noticed the same phenomenon. When your presentation is highly organized and effective, the audience yawns and leaves. When you’re aimless and uninspired, the audience is awake and engaged.
So: Are these readers actually human, or has Altman designed the bots to mimic the input preferences of humans?
Here’s the catch: This preference, whether human or mechanical, is frustrating for creators. It’s not beneficial to culture and technology. Creators need to spread their wings at times, intellectually or emotionally. If they can’t exercise, they won’t reach the point where the dull-seeming stuff is good enough to keep the audience awake. A real improvement seems inevitable and uninteresting BECAUSE hundreds of worker bees (or billions of worker neurons) have been trying and discarding thousands of variations.
Altman is taking away the EXERCISE part of creative work. He’s not the first by any means. The whole Share Value economy has been removing the exercise from all parts of life since 1980. Factories moved to China and took their “dull-seeming” research labs with them.
Think of Corvair vs Falcon. GM was playing the Disruptive Innovation game. The Corvair was full of grand radical UNTESTED ideas that weren’t durable or practical. The Falcon was dull and uninspired, but designed carefully for the best mix of economy and repairability. The Falcon succeeded because Ford had specialized in simple and repairable cars since 1908.
The Share Value vision follows the GM tradition. Aim for flashy variation and exponential growth, destroy the dull factories and dull research labs that DO THE EXERCISE. The solution is State-Owned Enterprises or at least harshly state-controlled enterprises. Move heaven and earth to keep the factories and repair shops running, even if not profitable. Russia beat us to Sputnik because Russia kept its factories and repair shops going. Now China is beating us in everything because we LET CHINA HAVE our factories and repair shops.
Polistra's Mill 