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Erik Uden 🍑's posts Post Back to profile
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JW prince of CPH

@ErikUden I utterly agree, obviously - but on the other hand, maybe we should find ways to reclaim words from commercial actors, platform owners & other exploiters?

I mean, today they've taken "content" - a perfectly normal, meaningful word - from us; tomorrow one of them is going to commoditize the word "fediverse" & then we can't use that anymore either...

11 January at 15:04 | Wall-to-wall | Open on norrebro.space
4 comments
Werawelt

@jwcph @ErikUden
I initially read the opening post in the German translation and didn't even understand it. In English I understand, what it means. Apparently the English word "content" is a kind of technical term too. But not in the German translation. Here it means "Inhalt" and that is always meaningful. I could imagine that it is the same in other languages.
It is therefore important to separate the technical term from the real meaning of the word "content" in English.

11 January at 16:15 | Open on social.tchncs.de
Erik Uden 🍑

@werawelt @jwcph well, in both languages that issue exists. However, in the English space people more often discuss “content mills” or “content creators” etc. I have begun disliking that term, I think Tom Scott also mentioned it once.

I just... I don't know. If Shakespeare wrote a playwright and then was approached by World of Tanks in order to put an ad placement into his “content” he'd be insulted so much he'd die. Just the reduction of creative work down to a level where people simply do the work to make money, not because of passion, is something I deeply despise.

The word has morphed in order to have that meaning for me. You don't just make content, no, you make something you love. Technically speaking that is content, but I will not stand for the reduction of that work to something so basic. An AI makes content. You make content. A random number generator makes content. There's just no appreciation for the work inside of that word, to me it just means seeing that work as nothing. As something an AI could replicate, but no. Only one human could've done what you do, and whatever it is we're doing is not producing content, as that's just the result, not the goal.

@werawelt @jwcph well, in both languages that issue exists. However, in the English space people more often discuss “content mills” or “content creators” etc. I have begun disliking that term, I think Tom Scott also mentioned it once.

I just... I don't know. If Shakespeare wrote a playwright and then was approached by World of Tanks in order to put an ad placement into his “content” he'd be insulted so much he'd die. Just the reduction of creative work down to a level where people simply do the work...

11 January at 16:20 | Open on mastodon.de
Erik Uden 🍑

@werawelt @jwcph it's hard to explain but something I personally am very invested in! So don't worry if it doesn't make too much sense ^ ^

11 January at 16:21 | Open on mastodon.de
Werawelt

@ErikUden
I understand what you mean. Words and their meaning change over time, e.g. due to technical developments. Content and identity with the content as something alive, a creative act, were one and the same until a few years or a decade ago. Just as dance cannot be separated from the dancer. If there were automated, programmable dances, we would probably have the same problem with them as we do now with the word content.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
@jwcph

@ErikUden
I understand what you mean. Words and their meaning change over time, e.g. due to technical developments. Content and identity with the content as something alive, a creative act, were one and the same until a few years or a decade ago. Just as dance cannot be separated from the dancer. If there were automated, programmable dances, we would probably have the same problem with them as we do now with the word content.

11 January at 16:32 | Open on social.tchncs.de
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