C. Thi Nguyen: The Gamification of Public Discourse (Royal Institute of Philosophy) - YouTube

Interesting talk from Nguyen that highlights the structure of echo chambers and how that extends into the structure of conspiracy theories and how to architect them.

Social media has turned conversation into a game, where we compete for points in the form of likes, retweets, and follower counts. This tempts us to trade away the subtle goods of discourse--like connection, understanding, and wisdom--in return for the thrills of success in vividly quantified terms.

I found the extension of how quantifying things can affect the qualitative components of them. He puts it all together like this.

If you want a system to build a belief system for virality and stickiness you would give it:

1. Easy explanations for as many phenomena as possible
2. A simplified moral system that condemns everybody on the outside
3. Gamify it so people will focus on a narrow goal, and get pleasure for doing so
4. Put it an echo chamber to seal it off

This talk is from 2019. 🤔