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Too many people have peed in the pool

stephenfry.com

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Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#351

Post by kyledrake »

My new years resolution was to stop using Twitter actively, and I've basically done that (spare a few offenses). I was intending to pin up a link to a page explaining my reasons, but haven't gotten to it yet.

Public venues like Twitter have devolved into pitchfork-wielding mob battles over extremely stupid, petty nonsense (on all sides of the political spectrum), and I expect this to just continue to happen over and over again as the influentials of the "Twitterati" get better at pushing manipulable people into whatever half-baked agenda they want to use them for.

The "influentials" are the people most rewarded by this system of relentless psuedo-controversy: petty, shrill narcissists that contribute little (or negatively) to anything of genuine value, merit or productivity.

Through a few personal experiences, I've been made a lot more cognizant of the fact that I won't be able to avoid the mobs by staying out of them. I've decided it's best to just not participate at all, and to work to break the systems that enable the mobs in the first place by coming up with better systems.

We need to go back to having sane, civil, intelligent discourses about real issues online, and figuring out the best way to facilitate them. Twitter is never going to work for that, no matter how many lunatics-running-the-asylum tribunals they come up with.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#352

Post by popmystack »

moron4hire wrote: post #202
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a capital crime in Chicago, if you do it in public. That's where the joking about it comes from; ketchup on hot dogs is one of those things that people take jestingly serious with tongue firmly planted in cheek at all times. Nobody actually cares, nobody's actually going to kill you in Chicago despite my joke, but people interpret the joshing as caring and demeaning because nobody can actually take a joke any mo…

See, you're part of the problem. You think you understand my friend's tone better now that I'm relating it to you better than I did at the time that I experienced it. You don't believe my version of the story, even though the only evidence you have is my telling of it. You've treated me as if I'm lying to you, yet you don't just come out and say it. This is the very definition of passive aggressive behavior. Just bec…

No one thinks you're lying, however your perspective on your friend's statements is a bit absurd. It at the very least can be described as culturally ignorant -- the hyperbole built on top of that ignorance is what makes it absurd.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#353

Post by brandon272 »

moron4hire wrote: post #31

The problem isn't that this is a Twitter problem. It's that this is a cultural problem. People kinda suck. People kinda suck a lot. I was having a conversation with a friend at lunch, when I started putting ketchup on my hotdog. He looked at me and incredulously questioned, "really? What are you, like, 8 years old?" I had never even heard of the idea that "only children put ketchup on a hotdog." Yet here was someone…

I don't think that your friend considered his remark to be a joke worthy of a laugh, but it sounds like "good natured ribbing" over something entirely benign.

It's a social technique employed by many people on a day to day basis as a bonding method where no offense is usually intended and no offense is usually taken. Where your friend failed, in my opinion, is that he should recognize that not everyone is receptive to or appreciates this kind of teasing. It's up to him to identify the "line" that should not be crossed with some people and then not cross it.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#354

Post by fapjacks »

derekp7 wrote: post #289
skybrian wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with downvoting (at least simple versions) is that it allows separate communities to interfere which each others' communications. So, say you have hunters and animal-rights activists. They should be able to talk among themselves on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook without interference from the other side. You don't want one side to start downvoting the other side's posts into oblivion so they can't even talk…

I've often thought the same thing, that the score you see should be based on your own voting history. Either based on you voting specifically, or agreeing / disagreeing with existing votes. Extend it even further by having posts from people that you normally agree with get highlighted even if they haven't had upvotes for the specific post. Just out of curiosity, how much of that data is available via HN's public API…

I know specifically of one community that tracks these metrics internally (Stack Overflow) and from which there is also a specific term for someone that mostly only downvotes things ("Vampire").

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#355

Post by ashark »

tokai wrote: post #322
michaelwww wrote: post #171

I've been accused of being sexist exactly once in my life, by an anonymous male friend of a woman on Twitter because I dared to answer a question she asked. I didn't realize she was asking in jest. Her friend said I should have known that she was a very knowledgeable person (I didn't) and her question was a joke, and because I answered it I was implying that she didn't know the answer and therefore was manspainling a…

>Perhaps if Twitter had a real name policy it would level the playing field Didn't work at all with youtube comments.

We need the opposite. The collision of economic incentives to self-promote online under one's real name with the way the Web works has been a disaster, in many ways. We need a no real names policy.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#356

Post by darkr »

chris_wot wrote: post #201
nly wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's exceptionally rare to read the transcript of a conversation or story and to physically burst out laughing. A huge part of humour is in the context ("you had to be there") and the delivery. The current use of "lol" and "lmao" just makes a whole lot more sense than their hijacked and literal definition... it's about replacing what would normally be subtle visual cues and gestures, which signal acknowledgement and/…

Sometimes using shorthand can be disasterous for those getting to grips with it. I remember reading some time ago that someone's daughter had to explain to her mother that her friend was upset because when she wrote "I'm so sorry for your loss, lol" that lol does not stand for "lots of love".

Our prime minister had the same problem, often signing off his text messages "LOL, DC". As a country, we collectively lol'd

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#357

Post by dang »

hnlogics wrote: post #90

It 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.…

We banned this account for trolling. One bad thing about HN's open policy about accounts is that people can, and do, create account after account that they get banned with. Surprisingly much of the worst behavior on Hacker News is the work of a small set of these.

But the other side is that users who are inspired to create new accounts to comment often make some of the best contributions to a thread. That's true of this thread too. The benefit of being open exceeds the cost.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11104337 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#358

Post by KaiserPro »

cazum wrote: post #83
KaiserPro wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

emoticons were annoying on MSN messenger. I'd hope that people will grow out of it, like they did back then. but perhaps they are here to stay.

I don't think MSN users grew out of emoticons, they just stopped using MSN. Facebook chat, Skype and SMS picked up where MSN left off, and all three of those have a strong emoticon game.

interesting, first it appears people really love emojis here, my original post lost me some karma...

second there was a massive gap in my friend group between MSN emoticons dieing out and emojis seeping in.

Perhaps my experiences are abnormal....

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#359

Post by chippy »

orangecat wrote: post #267
richmarr wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I believe the comment that was replied to contains an appropriate response:

"Seemingly irreconcilable differences are created by the narratives we're fed & let fester. Sure, narratives are elusive and sticky, but they're just narratives."

and

"Change the narrative, maybe starting with your own. Whoever the "other side" are; humanise them, don't demonise them. Be the bigger person. "

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#360

Post by maolt »

The way I see it: 1: Really low barriers to entry for each snowflake to express their views.

2: Social networks work as echo chambers, which allow anyone to find dozens that share their views ("If they think like me, it must mean that I am right!!").

3: Misunderstanding of the way the cyberspace works, with people not understanding really that it is encroaching on the "physical" world, and professing extreme opinions they would never have dreamed of voicing if not in front of a screen in the safety and "privacy"(hum) of their home.

4: The powers that be, that is to say the social networks operators have so much at stake that they are walking on eggs, wary of taking any action that could jeopardise their cash cow(actual or potential).

The situation is a mix of all those factors, and the result is I think a bit depressing.

Can you imagine our societies without a police force? Today's social networks are not far from that imho.

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