<!-- bryant-content-generator:start --> # Audience feedback did not replace authorial... > Audience feedback did not replace authorial judgment. Popularity can reward simplification, tribal aggression, fear, blame, or novelty just as readily as truth. Metrics therefore functioned as signals rather than commands. A widely shared quotation still had to survive the intellectual test, and a less popular one could remain necessary because it carried a truth the audience did not yet want. {{A feedback loop becomes a conscience only when the values governing the loop are stronger than the reward passing through it.}} **Source:** [[projects/The Argument in Miniature - How I Write Quotations, Paragraphs, and Reusable Prose|The Argument in Miniature: How I Write Quotations, Paragraphs, and Reusable Prose]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “Audience feedback did not replace authorial judgment. Popularity can reward simplification, tribal aggression, fear, blame, or novelty just as readily as truth. Metrics therefore functioned as signals rather than commands. A widely shared quotation still had to survive the intellectual test, and a less popular one could remain necessary because it carried a truth the audience did not yet want. A feedback loop becomes a conscience only when the values governing the loop are stronger than the reward passing through it.” — Bryant McGill https://bryantmcgill.com/passages/passages-audience-feedback-replace-stronger-reward-passing ``` <!-- bryant-content-generator:end -->