I left Twitter last year when it looked like the 'professionally offended' were becoming too influential. They didn't affect me as I keep a low profile, but it was like seeing an omen and noticing friends were buying into their hype. The way Twitter is now pandering to this lot with the recently announced Orwellian-style group, and other odd behaviour suggests that they approve of the current momentum. I'm just glad…
By "professionally offended", I assume you mean mostly marginalized people who are the recipients of torrents of abuse/death threats/rape threats/sexual harrassment/etc nearly every day they are active on twitter.
Too many people have peed in the pool
231–240 of 555 posts
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#232I have a theory about FB and Twitter -- or maybe more of an observation. Anyway, back in the stone age, people had bumper stickers with little slogans on them. And in the break rooms of various places of work, there was always a bulletin board an on a corner of it there was always some faded-from-to-many-xeroxes bit of humor/racism/sports fandom/sexism/dirty joke or other us-vs.-them thing on it that people would loo…
My theory is that it's because social media systems encourage and publicise agreement, while discouraging and hiding disagreement. This leads to a huge positive feedback effect on any meme that catches even a tiny number of people's attention, no matter how crazy. On twitter, you signify agreement by retweeting; this takes seconds and permanently adds to the tweet's score. But to disagree, I have to write a message o…
I'm pretty sure there is not an easy answer to this problem.
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, I believe your version completely and don't think you're lying at all from your perspective. What makes you think I feel otherwise? This is an odd, and overly defensive, reaction to something that you've clearly misinterpreted. (That sounds familiar.)
How could I have so clearly misinterpreted "GP can't take a joke" to be a refutation of my assertion the guy wasn't joking? Must be you were also telling a joke and I just don't get jokes.
Now, which is more likely from my perspective: that a misinterpretation by you is at work (and which is spilling over here, since you clearly don't have closure on this egregious scenario), or that your friend is the one person out of millions who actually cares about ketchup on a hot dog and was ready to fight with you about it? Someone you identify as a friend chose ketchup on a hot dog as his Maginot Line in your relationship and demeaned you over it. Okay, maybe that did happen (in which case you should think long and hard about who you identify as friends), but my point was it's extraordinarily unlikely, and you cannot fault me for concluding that in my own time and with the facts given.
You can't relay a story and then expect everyone to blindly accept your interpretation without reading objectively. That's unfair. I think you very likely misinterpreted things, yes, and I base that on the entire story including believing your perspective entirely. I don't think you're lying at all. That's the entire point, that I think you're telling the truth from your perspective, and your perspective might be a little bit off. It's nothing negative. I don't think less of you. I see misunderstanding like this all the time.
Yet you felt passionately enough about it to go after me personally and call me part of the problem, simply because I didn't subscribe immediately to a half story. I feel I'm exercising the better option: I'm reading objectively and drawing my own conclusions rather than immediately buying into a single-sided narrative. That's what we should do when confronted with unfamiliar situations relayed by people we don't know, because it's the fundamental brick in the foundation of avoiding mobs, rash conclusions, beheading people over blogs, and so on.
And see? Now we're arguing about this. About ketchup on a god damned hot dog. Remember how I didn't want to live in this world?
(Edit: Also, please, please, please tell me you didn't compare your choice of condiment to the plight of minorities in an upthread comment. I will conclude something about your character after reading something like that, if you mean it.)
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#234It's a wonder he lasted as long as he did. I've joined a number of online forums through the years, and I've always ended up leaving them due to a spiral of "tone gets rough / the good people leave". I'm still in this one, but I guess we'll see how long it lasts here. Seems different somehow, but they all do in the beginning. What are some innovations in solving the asshole/quality spiral? There's lots of takes on mo…
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#235I have a theory about FB and Twitter -- or maybe more of an observation. Anyway, back in the stone age, people had bumper stickers with little slogans on them. And in the break rooms of various places of work, there was always a bulletin board an on a corner of it there was always some faded-from-to-many-xeroxes bit of humor/racism/sports fandom/sexism/dirty joke or other us-vs.-them thing on it that people would loo…
My theory is that it's because social media systems encourage and publicise agreement, while discouraging and hiding disagreement. This leads to a huge positive feedback effect on any meme that catches even a tiny number of people's attention, no matter how crazy. On twitter, you signify agreement by retweeting; this takes seconds and permanently adds to the tweet's score. But to disagree, I have to write a message o…
Downvoting works okay in places like Hacker News that are basically a single community with good moderation and some common values. It doesn't work in large-scale systems where many distinct communities have little in common beyond using the same social network. The average for a controversial post isn't going to tell you much.
Perhaps some form of negative feedback would be helpful; an intelligent system could use it to avoid sharing posts into communities where they're not wanted. But the system could probably figure this out from people not upvoting or resharing things.
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's two reasons for strong moderation (sometimes called 'censorship' by people who don't like it) on the internet: Jackasses creating an unsafe space for other parts of the community, and making a space safe for advertisers. The first reason comes down to having a choice between taking action against jackasses to allow groups like "women" and to have a place on your site. This is pretty damn important, and someth…
We disagree (and I get the impression this is the root of much strife) on the definition of the word "safe" in "safe space". Safe from what? From having your views challenged? From someone calling you an asshat? From people making non-credible threats (Think navy seal copypasta)? From people making legitimate threats? Talk to 10 different people and all will have different definitions as to what the meaning is there.
The right to carve out a space (on the Internet or otherwise) for certain like minded individuals to be "safe" from any of the things you mentioned, as well as any other things they may deem fit, is one that we should generally honor, though.
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is twofold: low bar to grabbing torches and pitchforks, and a high bar for recognizing someone else's humanity. In the old days you might not agree with your neighbor, but you had to live next to them. Now with the flick of a thumb you can denounce someone's entire existence before breakfast.
Of course, the risks are minimal on twitter. At worst they can write a death threat, but nobody's going to come to your house. They'll spend more time arguing with your defenders. And the attention span is short, by next week your controversy will be gone. Contrast to getting into an extreme argument with your neighbor could result in a physical fight, destruction of property, or death. Ultimately, this is why I real…
It only has the power that we give it. Which is to say, right now it has enormous power, because employers fall over themselves to defuse any hint of controversy by firing anyone who becomes the target of a mob. And conferences un-invite people, and et cetera, et cetera.
If, going way back to 2009 or so, employers had stood firm and said "no, we're not going to waste our time policing what our employees say in their off hours, now go away" to the perpetually offended of whatever stripe, none of this would be happening. But they didn't, and it is. We need to reverse this state of affairs before we can afford to sit back and dismiss it as irrelevant bickering.
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no friendly way to say it, the mass market are morons. It might be derogatory jokes, but this can also include things like spreading urban legends which were debunked four decades ago. Just like Usenet and countless other online communities, what starts a a small group of fairly privileged and elite eventually degrades in to garbage as the reach increases. This is not so much an overall size issue but a rela…
> There is no friendly way to say it, the mass market are morons... I hate this super-condescending attitude. Even if you do happen to be smarter than the average bear (which, don't pat yourself on the back yet: there may be things these "morons" know way more about than you do), it's still asshole-ish to assume that everyone else just be completely dismissed...
At this point in human history with the analytics we all have available it's pretty easy to see that the vast majority of people favor bite-size disposable content over longwinded discourse.
Look at the success of businesses that pander to the ever-more-frivolous. The Cheezburger network probably has more money spent on/in it than the New Yorker.
We don't have to hate the proles, but let's never delude ourselves in to thinking they don't exist.
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
The obvious answer: because if you're wise, you realize that raw intelligence is a fairly small part of what makes someone worth listening to on a given question. On most questions of morals or politics, I'd rather listen to someone of average intelligence, but with a humble, good and patient character, than an MIT grad who's convinced they know everything.
Interesting. I'm not sure I can relate, though. I'd rather listen to Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins talk about evolution and atheism than someone of average intelligence.
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
My theory is that it's because social media systems encourage and publicise agreement, while discouraging and hiding disagreement. This leads to a huge positive feedback effect on any meme that catches even a tiny number of people's attention, no matter how crazy. On twitter, you signify agreement by retweeting; this takes seconds and permanently adds to the tweet's score. But to disagree, I have to write a message o…
> Maybe we just need a 'dislike' button along with the 'like' button. It'd certainly be an interesting experiment. 100% agree. And note that HN is already running this experiment; we have downvotes as well as upvotes.