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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

#381

Post by rustynails »

Kalium wrote: post #290
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…

A lot of people believe it's their right to disrupt the communities of others. They call it "activism" or "advocacy" or "defending family values" or whatever the justification du jour is. It's all basically trying to stake a claim to the whole service as the territory of your tribe. I like the idea of reinforcing some separation, but I also fear it may be too late. A lot of people seem to derive joy from attacking th…

I agree with your sentiment but it's far too simplistic.

Take for example, a forum on ISIS. Yes, I've just triggered Godwin's law. I'm sorry about that.

Now, the idea is that there should be no challenge to ISIS on some parts of the Internet because they have the same right as anyone else.

However, this fails Karl Popper's criteria, don't tolerate the intolerant.

I support the criticism of any prejudiced and intolerant group in any forum (even the ones that Political Correctness blindly defends). If the goal of a group is truly noble, I will often support it.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#383

Post by VLM »

kefka wrote: post #333
Kalium wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people believe it's their right to disrupt the communities of others. They call it "activism" or "advocacy" or "defending family values" or whatever the justification du jour is. It's all basically trying to stake a claim to the whole service as the territory of your tribe. I like the idea of reinforcing some separation, but I also fear it may be too late. A lot of people seem to derive joy from attacking th…

> "defending family values" Which is what I hear exclusively regarding Christian activists. They disregard any non-Christians whom have families, or of other value systems.

This is an interesting side topic, social signalling and out of control holiness spirals.

What do you get if you mix the tolerance of a religious inquisition with any side of contemporary politics? You get out of control holiness spirals as each author tries to outdo the previous at being just a little more holy, a little better of a true believer in the real story. Its a perverse game of "telephone".

I propose VLM's law, that any large enough communications system that's not anonymous will devolve into holier than thou signalling warfare. Or rephrased you get three people together, one will slander another to show off to the third how much holier he is. It doesn't matter if we're talking about Jesus, physics, or emacs vs vi, same behavior.

Some of it is a culture of assuming the worst. Because if you've seen what passes for journalism, usually what we see IS the worst.

If you'd like the actual truth on a non-holiness spiral format, the reason why "family values" are described by Christian activists as coincidentally being Christian (well, as they see it, anyway) values is the same propaganda meme as the only opposition to traditional scientific evolution is the binary choice of Evangelical Christian biblical creationism. The same intentional thought process leads to it as a propaganda movement. The point is NOT to debate the issue with 3rd parties, but to assert primate dominance as the leaders of the Christians because they are the ones setting policy. The point isn't that Islam family values are not Christian or only families have values or whatever nonsense when internal doctrine is applied to outsiders who aren't supposed to be part of the conversation anyway, but to very publicly beat chest and tell competitors inside the in-group of Christians to "bring it on" because we are the leaders of the Christians so we decide whats a Christian family value... unless you'd like to argue and try to become top dog of the Christians yourself? Its sort of a misunderstood out of context quote used by outsiders almost as a slur when its really none of their (direct) business who is in charge of the Christian leadership. In a different age the Christians would be slandering each other over translations or various twisted out of context biblical readings, and back then it ALSO had nothing to do with outsiders and they can quite safely butt out and ignore the internal grindings inside the group. Unless you're personally involved in the dominance fight for Christian leadership I can assure you the whole topic is nothing personal, at least not intentionally, and was never meant for your ears.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#384

Post by minimuffins »

danharaj wrote: post #107
maker1138 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

voluntary exchange is not the problem with society. involuntary exchange on the other hand...

Property rights are involuntary for the have-nots. The basis of capitalism isn't 'voluntary exchange', but property rights and the accumulation of capital.

Is there a name for the thing where every discussion online eventually becomes about stridently defending or bashing capitalism?

SOME PUBLIC FIGURE: I'm leaving twitter, too many trolls.

[ 50 pages of discussion ]

AGGRIEVED COMMIE: ACTUALLY, capitalism sucks!

(As it happens, totally agree with the commie stuff though. All the cheery talk about liberty and voluntarism is idiotic since it acts like primitive accumulation and enclosure don't exist, as if everybody starts out with equal capital to manage, like in a board game.)

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#386

Post by kps »

rustynails wrote: post #381
Kalium wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people believe it's their right to disrupt the communities of others. They call it "activism" or "advocacy" or "defending family values" or whatever the justification du jour is. It's all basically trying to stake a claim to the whole service as the territory of your tribe. I like the idea of reinforcing some separation, but I also fear it may be too late. A lot of people seem to derive joy from attacking th…

I agree with your sentiment but it's far too simplistic. Take for example, a forum on ISIS. Yes, I've just triggered Godwin's law. I'm sorry about that. Now, the idea is that there should be no challenge to ISIS on some parts of the Internet because they have the same right as anyone else. However, this fails Karl Popper's criteria, don't tolerate the intolerant. I support the criticism of any prejudiced and intolera…

  > However, this fails Karl Popper's criteria, don't tolerate the intolerant.
It's worth pointing out what he meant by ‘intolerant’:

  | they are not prepared to meet us on the level
  | of rational argument, but begin by denouncing
  | all argument; they may forbid their followers
  | to listen to rational argument, because it is
  | deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments
  | by the use of their fists or pistols.
‘Intolerance’ here does not mean holding disagreeable opinions; it means intending to suppress rational argument. This is not a call to shout down opponents by calling them ‘intolerant’; it's a call to stop people shouting down opponents.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#387

Post by ksk »

lhnz wrote: post #164
braythwayt wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take a moment to look around, you’ll realize that a lot of socially progressive people are saying the exact same thing about Twitter, that the “professionally offended” are becoming too influential. Mind you, they’re talking about what happens when a woman criticizes video game culture and winds up with death threats and snuff porn choking her mentions. I am not saying this to suggest that one “side” or “the o…

A problem I've noticed is that offensive content seems to float to the top. Outside of Twitter I rarely see the kind of hatred I'm about to refer to. For example, the other day Trump RT'd a tweet by an account with a name like 'White Genocide'. I kid you not. Anybody that clicks this is going to find very unpleasant material about 'the end of the white race' including photos of blood-covered Swedish women, etc. Not v…

Luckily, Twitter is a private company and does not have to offer a platform for anyone to say anything. They are free to limit speech as they see fit. That includes people from the so-called SJW community. Its not even PC vs non-PC, because that itself assumes there is an obvious 'correctness' in the language one must use. The whole "that's offensive/that's X-ist" crowd is annoying as hell.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#388

Post by overdrivetg »

skybrian wrote: post #235
david-given wrote: post #154

Earlier 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…

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…

If you're thinking along these lines, you'll enjoy reading this post[1] by Venkatesh Rao. Stephen Fry leaving is the exact scenario of "evaporative cooling" expressed there, and you are exactly describing the process of "warrenization" that is required for large-scale online communities to survive and thrive. Obviously Twitter has failed in including these insights into their social architecture, to their detriment[2].

[1] http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/12/07/socratic-fishing-in-lak... [2] http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/10/trying-to-fly-with-broken-w...

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#389

Post by Kalium »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #325
Kalium wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people believe it's their right to disrupt the communities of others. They call it "activism" or "advocacy" or "defending family values" or whatever the justification du jour is. It's all basically trying to stake a claim to the whole service as the territory of your tribe. I like the idea of reinforcing some separation, but I also fear it may be too late. A lot of people seem to derive joy from attacking th…

IMHO, the problem is not disruption by outsiders. The worst cesspools I see are entirely in-group. It seems to me that the in-group echo chamber becomes not a discussion , but a means for all to signal their right-thinking loyal membership of the group. Just over the last couple of days I've seen some awful stuff along these lines on Facebook, regarding the new opening on the Supreme Court. Someone will share a meme…

I'd go so far as to say that attacking someone else's tribe and poison their territory is one of the stronger ways to signal tribal membership.
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