And so, the Eternal September strikes again [1].
There's a ton of gold in figuring out how some communities succumb to it, and others don't.
Too many people have peed in the pool
261–270 of 555 posts
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#262It is never acceptable to attack and use violence against other individuals. The fact that you perceive them as making money from their marginalization does not make it acceptable for you and others to attack them to send death threats, and to engage in other horrific and violent behavior. It is reprehensible and disgusting that you think your hatred and bigotry is acceptable... because somebody might've made money.…
I don't know what you're talking about as I've never engaged in violent or horrific behaviour or sent death threats. Bigotry and hatred are disgusting. Not once did I say they were acceptable. I think deep down you know you're making vicious, unfounded accusations and that's why you feel the need to do so from a new account disconnected from your real name.
You're right. You didn't make death threats. You just explicitly defended sending death threats to marginalized people who you feel have found a way to profit from being marginalized; and indicated your belief that if a marginalized person finds a way to profit from being marginalized then it is acceptable to threaten them, and to do violence against them.
Fortunately for you, HN is a safe space for bigots, so your horrific, amoral defense of coercion and violence will be celebrated mightily.
And the brigade of people who think it's oh-so-hard to be a white man will down vote me.
And assholes like you attack me for using a persona, even though my alternative would be to receive death threats and complaints to my employer about fabricated events. But yeah... you have it hard.
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#263Up you go!
Best part of not having Twitter and the book of faces is the mysteriousness that you project when attempting to court the opposite sex, either that or just a doushy superiority complex. Either way I want nothing to do with Facebook (twitter is useful for finding out the status of services like Firebase etc). As far as I am concerned in life, distraction is the enemy, and if distraction is the enemy well then that makes Facebook a windmill to my Don Quixote.
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#264Earlier 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.
Intelligence allows you to search through ideas faster. This is worth nothing if you are evaluating them badly.
It doesn't matter if you are the greatest geinus to ever live - if you are looking for a reason to believe what you already want to, being smart just means you find it.
"You can always design a cryptosystem that you yourself cannot break."
Humility and an open mind are probably worth more than intelligence in this way.
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
What?!? Masses usually act like morons. That's a well known phenomenon, old enough to become jokes in movies, and the entire audience (a mass) to get it. When people are acting smartly, they each do different things, and don't form a mass at all.
Or is it the other way around, that people act smartly and rationally individually but when taken as a whole become a singular moronic entity? See also: corporations, nations.
People act dumb both in groups and individually. You don't see very many intelligent people joining big groups and becoming moronic - they're smart enough to recognize groups cater to the lowest common denominator and avoid them.
The exception being young people who have the potential to be intelligent but lack life experience.
As much as you'd like to believe that people are smart somehow - the average IQ is 100. 100 is really, really dumb.
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#266Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#267I'm a bit monomaniacal about this, but the current online culture wars (and the previous offline culture wars) make me wish that secession didn't have such a bad name. It is obvious that large groups of people have irreconcilable differences of opinion on matters of free speech, sexuality, gun ownership and so on. It is a shame that rather than a firm handshake and friendly wave goodbye, we will end up with a totalit…
Personally I don't think there's any such thing as 'irreconcilable differences'. The idea of secession in that instance kinda scares me because it leaves you with a new foriegn nation on your doorstep with the exact same set of 'irreconcilable' differences and nobody to moderate them. Seemingly irreconcilable differences (e.g. US rep/dem, Israel/Palestine) are created by the narratives we're fed & let fester. Sure, n…
Personally I don't think there's any such thing as 'irreconcilable differences'.
How would you reconcile the differences between the Western world and fundamentalist Islam regarding the rights of women? Should we "admit" that our perspective that women should be allowed to go outside with their faces uncovered is possibly wrong?
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
See, you think it's personal and that I've made some kind of determination on your character based on my conclusion. You've totally come off the rails and started attacking me personally at the mere suspicion (not even to you!) that you might have misinterpreted things. I've merely read and worked with the information that was made available; you call this person a friend, for example. You were having lunch with this…
> 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.
I'm just going to assume you don't have many friends or don't see them on a regular basis. It seems extraordinarily unlikely you would have many friends you see frequently and not have a weird argument with at least one of them.
See how that works? It's this very sort of "extrapolate on my own, dismiss things that don't fit my worldview" that is where this comes from.
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
I couldn't agree more about the mass market being morons. It's hard to say and not often said so bluntly in public though. Not because it's untrue but because the person saying it could be afraid they might be a part of that group of morons. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a moron call everyone else morons. So is there ever any way to know when "the mass market are morons" means what it says literally or w…
>>So is there ever any way to know when "the mass market are morons" means what it says literally or when it's a stand-in for "most people aren't agreeing with my strongly held beliefs". Absolutely there is. We have a measuring stick with which we can measure the validity of one's beliefs: empirical evidence. If you believe X, and scientists say we have sufficient empirical evidence that confirms that belief, and the…
There are many kinds of evidence and many ways to interpret it - and many kinds of science (physicists disagree with each other less than economists for a reason.)
Incidentally, most "morons" disagree with you on matters where they can find a scientist on their side, or on issues of morality, or on inconsequential matters (like the origin of life, which is interesting to most but doesn't affect any practical decision.) Few "morons" jump out of windows in defiance of gravity, and those who do no longer bother you on Twitter.
Also, scientists err, falsify results, cherry-pick them, etc. Of course, so do "morons"...
Re: Too many people have peed in the pool
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
And I personally think it is even more insidious. When I'm on facebook and see some extreme rightwing nutjob upvote ring I see what's going on On HN on a lot of downvoted commets it makes sense, they are poorly written and full of bs. But every time there is a little more political and/or contentious issue on all I see is Political Correctness police mercilessly downvoting and flagkillig anything that dares to even d…
> But every time there is a little more political and/or contentious issue on all I see is Political Correctness police mercilessly downvoting and flagkillig anything that dares to even doubt.
Yes.
> It is insidious and ironically has exactly the oposite effect (look:most of europe extreme right rise in popularity)
Let me add a little detail here for non-Europeans. "Far right" in some western European countries has come to mean about Obama-ish politics (health insurance for all instead of government-pays-everything-for-everybody like those contries have today.)
As emp_zealoth points out this constant framing of anything that isn't way left and politically correct as "brown" and "extreme right" is now starting to backlash.
People starts to question mainstream media and conservative/right wing media/pro Israel groups/conservative political parties seems to see a surge in readers/participation.