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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

#461

Post by iBzOtaku »

potatolicious wrote: post #401
Loughla wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question here - if you believe the issue is that information is too readily available, what is the solution to avoid brigading and the like? Segregating spaces? Safe speech spaces? Pandora's box has been opened in social media and the internet, and it's not going to close again. I believe what we're seeing is the happy crossroads of cavemen tribal thought that we got so used to before instant communication, an…

I think casting my view as "information is too readily available" is a vast oversimplification. Information being readily available isn't the issue, the issue is the ease in responding too it - more specifically the ease in responding thoughtlessly and flippantly, and the empathy gap that entails. IMO the empathy gap is the problem we face socially as we move into the Internet age, and solving must in some part invol…

Thank you for your lengthy reply. I'm a CS student and usually attend meetups and workshops, mostly related to startups and entrepreneurship. Nearly everyone there introduces themselves with their names and twitter handles. I have heard this "advice" again and again that if you want to make connections, get active on twitter. How true is it? Is twitter really the place to get in touch with people more so than Facebook?

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#462

Post by ethbro »

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #459
ethbro wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've mulled this over in watching the community. Unfortunately (for other sites), I've come to the conclusion that it's a cultural thing and therefore subject to the whims of the dominant culture at any time. HN certainly does things (thanks, team!) that make this more likely, such as playing around with the ability to downvote replies to yourself, etc. But I think a larger part of it is "monkey see, monkey do to fit…

it's a cultural thing and therefore subject to the whims of the dominant culture at any time It's also subject to the whims of dang the moderator, he's "the dominant culture". He's deservedly called me out a couple of times. Consequently I've tried to change my occasionally boorish behavior. Sometimes it only takes one person to create a culture.

One person only scales so far / for so long though. If BusinessWeek wrote an article claiming that "Hacker News was the place to hang out if you want venture capital!" then I wouldn't have optimistic illusions of cultural persistence.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#463

Post by hudibras »

monksy wrote: post #460
hudibras wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really not understand how telling a woman that she looks like a bag lady is offensive, even setting aside the fact that a.) this was on a television program and b.) the woman was not in a position to say anything in response?

"Only one of the great cinematic costume designers would come to the awards dressed like a bag lady. So lets break that down. The subject is a "cinematic costume designer" According to Sir Fry, she is a great one at that. Then we have the other part of the statement: "She came to the awards dressed as a bag lady." This part of the statement is a bit odd/stands out when compared to a group of rather posh individuals.…

Thank you for breaking it down like that, but nobody's saying it wasn't a joke. The point is that it was an offensive joke.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#464

Post by spin »

rdancer wrote: post #276
chatmasta wrote: post #251

My Facebook newsfeed feels like a cocktail party where the host has surreptitiously arranged for the silent majority to observe a performance wherein the most "unsophisticated" guests squabble with each other over politics. The opinions on the feed, regularly produced by the same small group of people, are rife with dramatization and lacking any substantive argument. Yet hardly any of them come from friends who I kno…

I have found that unfriending/muting people whose contributions to my feed I don't value makes all the difference. Facebook is what you make of it.

I totally agree. I have un-followed a few people and now I only friend people that actually want to be friends with. I try to avoid posting political or technical things (mostly). So now, my FB is mostly just sharing pics and events with friends. (Actual friends, that I see IRL.)

(... now if only I could get rid of the ads...)

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#465

Post by mirimir »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #456
DenisM wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ban sarcasm in addition to outrage I'll sign up to whatever thingamajig you're making there.

Can't tell if you're being serious or not. Would you actually enjoy that kind of network? Sarcasm is really hard to identify, and would be really hard to ban.

Poe's law :)

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#466

Post by reitanqild »

bitwize wrote: post #380
reitanqild wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 c…

It so happens that Western Europe has settled on a political system or set of systems which aren't perfect, but basically work well for everybody. Europeans have much less "stuff" than Americans, but when it comes to the basics -- health, education, public infrastructure, in some cases even housing -- everybody, rich and poor, has more or less equal access. America, by contrast, has got its shit so not in one sock th…

Don't get me wrong: I enjoy the European system and I think you are mostly right.

What I don't like is the constant framing going on from the currently politically correct ones on the left. I do not think it would be better the other way around, just state my wish for a bit of sane discussion.

"democracy is the worst form of government - except for all the rest" I guess.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#467

Post by colllectorof »

braythwayt wrote: post #27
malsun wrote: post #17

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…

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…

The notion of "professionally offended" implies making money off the whole thing. If you don't, than you're merely an amateur offended.

Also, saying that Twitter has a problem is like saying that fires can cause property damage. Twitter is a problem. It's designed for propaganda, whether corporate or political. There is very little else to it that an RSS feed can't do. You cannot use it to run a community or have a real discussion. 140 character limit dumbs things down. Retweets encourage mob mentality and echo chambers. Embedded pictures server to spread stupid memes (think 21st century propaganda posters) and also as an ugly workaround for the character limit. You can't even link to stuff properly, because... uh, reasons. (URLs really shouldn't have counted towards message length.)

If people thought things through, it wouldn't have taken off in the first place.

Re: Too many people have peed in the pool

#469

Post by niccaluim »

colllectorof wrote: post #467
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…

The notion of "professionally offended" implies making money off the whole thing. If you don't, than you're merely an amateur offended. Also, saying that Twitter has a problem is like saying that fires can cause property damage. Twitter is a problem. It's designed for propaganda, whether corporate or political. There is very little else to it that an RSS feed can't do. You cannot use it to run a community or have a r…

I prefer "recreationally fragile."
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