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PG on trolls

paulgraham.com

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Re: PG on trolls

#131

Post by fiaz »

anewaccountname wrote: post #15

Who is this guy and what authority does he have to write about these topics? I haven't read the essay, but there's no way anything so short and written in such an informal style could have anything useful to say about such and such topic, when people with degrees in the subject have already written many thick books about it.

I also wonder how much of a contributing factor people's attempts at humor would spin the dynamics of group discussions out of control. The main reason why I went Slashdot -> Digg -> Reddit -> YCNews (and most likely YCNews -> ? within the next 18 months) was because of all the one-liners I kept reading over and over again of people attempting to be funny.

My thinking is along the lines of UserXYZ posts something humorous and gets 150 points. This causes others who feel they have a funny bone as well to pile in and attempt similarly witty remarks (which are initially harmless or contribute positively); but then you have an avalanche of users who become aspiring comedians on the message boards they frequent. I sometimes feel that these types tend to herd together and give each other a reason to continue with their behaviour by giving one another a few up-votes out of sympathy...

I would also say that the competitive nature of men in general (I'm a dude, and I won't assume anything on behalf of the women here) would contribute to certain sub-groups within this population with an increasing need to out-do one another. Thus a majority of the discussion devolves to one-liners and people trying to be funny, when all they do is come across as cynical while at the same time contributing little value.

In addition, attempts to be funny on a message board are somewhat akin to guessing on questions on your SAT exam: there is no penalty for trying. Whereas weakly setup arguments can carry a penalty of getting a barrage of refutations making yourself look (or perhaps more closer to the truth - FEEL) intellectually weaker.

Re: PG on trolls

#132

Post by mixmax »

foonamefoo wrote: post #99
mixmax wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't entirely agree. I have seen quite a few comments that were extremely insightful, and/or interesting that got downmodded due to an unpopular opinion. The reason this is unfortunate is not only that you tend to miss these (assuming that there is a higher probability that you read or think about comments that are rated higher, which I am surely not the only one that is guilty of) but also that it tends to promot…

>I don't entirely agree. According to him, you should have just downmodded him. What's with all this discussion and reason?

Isn't discussion and reason why we are here?

Re: PG on trolls

#133

Post by ced »

pg wrote: post #59
Tichy wrote: post #49

On news.yc it is not so extreme, but on german tech news site heise.de, there is also a modding system. Good threads become green, bad ones red. I have often wondered if people are more likely to start flaming away in the red threads. Sort of like beating up somebody who is already down on the floor (comments on the line of "you suck"). At heise.de I often had the impression that it is the case - not so much on news.…

News.YC users are definitely influenced by the prevailing trend, in both directions. I.e. people are more willing to vote something up as its score rises, and more prone to attack something as its score falls. It's not too bad yet here, but it got to be such a problem on Reddit that about a year ago they switched to not showing how many points a submission has till it's an hour old.

Ever thought about doing a controlled experiment about it? I.e.: showing high points for a post to half the users, and low points to the other half.

Re: PG on trolls

#134

Post by yters »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #113
curi wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding subjectivity, if you assert morality is subjective, you don't have a leg to stand on in saying I was wrong. What would that even mean? I was right, for me, or whatever. Regarding "forging ahead": Scheduling criticism is a different issue, and one well known to writers: if you keep editing the first chapter, you'll never finish. There certainly is a place for that kind of thing. It is really a separate (and…

> Regarding subjectivity, if you assert morality is subjective, you don't have a leg to stand on in saying I was wrong. Well, subjectivity doesn't mean you're right in the objective sense. See, you opened your comment with a logical trick to prove the correctness of what you were about to say before you even said it, and you did so by deciding that there are intrinsically right and wrong moral decisions. I think that…

I agree with the logic trick part. To say something is undecidable is to make an objective claim.

However, at the point where you want to say someone should or should not do something the subjective morality comes back to bite you (saying curi's trick was underhanded). I think this is curi's point.

All you can really do with subjective morality is describe your rationale for why you do what you do, and hope the other person buys it. Even that is inconsistent because you are motivated by the thought that the other person should do something.

Curi, while it is true we start from first impressions, either our goals have to be mutually independent, or they must have a common foundation. Otherwise they end up contradicting each other. That's the point of moral philosophy, and what I meant by justifying moral intuition.

Re: PG on trolls

#135

Post by FatBastard »

ken wrote: post #63

I don't think "distance" is the primary cause of asshole behavior by automobile drivers, though it does sound like a convenient first approximation. If I was walking down the street with a $20,000 ming vase, and you were running around nearly hitting me, I'd probably swear at you. Likewise, if you were running around on the street wielding a sharp katana, I'd probably swear at you. A car is both as expensive as a min…

False. People have impunity in their car. They holler things out the window they would never say to your face because they would receive a right cross in the snout. Your assertion that you would swear at me if I were running around with a sharp katana fails the common sense test in a big way.

Speaking of incompetence, there is a third type of troll. These trolls manner of speaking is seen as hostile by those who come from a more genteel social milieu. For example, in person as on the internet, they might tell you to STFU, or use words like shitpump, yet be trying to make a point in a friendly and helpful (perhaps playful) way. You need not be an egghead to be abrupt. For an insight into this social milieu, see an episode of Trailer Park Boys. People need to learn to function differently on a forum, because it is a different social environment.

Re: PG on trolls

#136

Post by FatBastard »

Trollbert wrote: post #73

This is bad. Anyone should be able to say anything. That way everyone can see what is being said - good, bad, sad, left, right, or wrong. Remember, a democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding whats for dinner. Fuck lamb for dinner!

For those who aren't gun nuts, the parable goes: Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb prepared to contest the vote. Here is a good example of a reasonable point poorly made. Seems off topic because not all the premises are stated, but in his meatspace, everybody can fill in the blanks with common knowledge. Also, in his world, everybody uses small, old, anglo-saxon words to add poetry to their speech, he may not realize (or care) that it offends some delicate sensibilities. This is the graffitti of which PG spoke. And surprisingly, it is art. Not art in the beautiful sense, but art in the message sense. Imagine yourself in China and you wrote on the wall "Fuck Tiananmen". This is not pretty, but it is not spam.

Re: PG on trolls

#137

Post by foonamefoo »

fiaz wrote: post #131
anewaccountname wrote: post #15

Who is this guy and what authority does he have to write about these topics? I haven't read the essay, but there's no way anything so short and written in such an informal style could have anything useful to say about such and such topic, when people with degrees in the subject have already written many thick books about it.

I also wonder how much of a contributing factor people's attempts at humor would spin the dynamics of group discussions out of control. The main reason why I went Slashdot -> Digg -> Reddit -> YCNews (and most likely YCNews -> ? within the next 18 months) was because of all the one-liners I kept reading over and over again of people attempting to be funny. My thinking is along the lines of UserXYZ posts something hum…

I think that Slashdot overall still has the highest quality comments. You just have to sort by score, and do a -2 funny modifier. The site instantly becomes much much better. Stay away from the new ajaxy score slider system.

Re: PG on trolls

#138

Post by curi »

DarrenStuart wrote: post #122
curi wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not necessarily ironic. maybe they didn't like how you used "grown up" to imply that children have the various bad traits you listed. which isn't a very reasonable or informative description of children.

I am sorry but you are twisting what I said there. I was meaning immature behavior which to quote the dictionary can mean "Marked by or suggesting a lack of normal maturity: silly, immature behavior." People often tell others acting like an ass to grow up. This has nothing to do with being an informative description of children and more to do with PG's troll post, now that is somewhat ironic :p

All those ways of insulting people are based in an ageist perspective, and one certainly can object to them.

For example, saying an asshole needs to grow up, is demeaning him by saying he is in an undesirable state (not grown up) which implies being a child is bad.

Re: PG on trolls

#139

Post by curi »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #113
curi wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding subjectivity, if you assert morality is subjective, you don't have a leg to stand on in saying I was wrong. What would that even mean? I was right, for me, or whatever. Regarding "forging ahead": Scheduling criticism is a different issue, and one well known to writers: if you keep editing the first chapter, you'll never finish. There certainly is a place for that kind of thing. It is really a separate (and…

> Regarding subjectivity, if you assert morality is subjective, you don't have a leg to stand on in saying I was wrong. Well, subjectivity doesn't mean you're right in the objective sense. See, you opened your comment with a logical trick to prove the correctness of what you were about to say before you even said it, and you did so by deciding that there are intrinsically right and wrong moral decisions. I think that…

Regarding subjectivity, I intended no trick. I'll drop it after this comment, and you can have the last word if you want.

I'm not even going to make a full argument, but I do want to point out that if people from many cultures/eras/etc have different ideas about something, that is not evidence that there isn't a truth of the matter. If there is a truth of the matter, we still wouldn't expect them to all have found it.

Re: PG on trolls

#140

Post by curi »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #113
curi wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding subjectivity, if you assert morality is subjective, you don't have a leg to stand on in saying I was wrong. What would that even mean? I was right, for me, or whatever. Regarding "forging ahead": Scheduling criticism is a different issue, and one well known to writers: if you keep editing the first chapter, you'll never finish. There certainly is a place for that kind of thing. It is really a separate (and…

> Regarding subjectivity, if you assert morality is subjective, you don't have a leg to stand on in saying I was wrong. Well, subjectivity doesn't mean you're right in the objective sense. See, you opened your comment with a logical trick to prove the correctness of what you were about to say before you even said it, and you did so by deciding that there are intrinsically right and wrong moral decisions. I think that…

Regarding criticism, perhaps we can agree that enjoying and seeking out good criticism is important. That means, for example, if you know a source that has a good chance to provide some partially true criticism you may not have thought of, then it'd be a good idea to ask for it, and to like that kind of experience.

On the other hand, if you judge a source of criticism is going to be a waste of time, then it's fine to skip it. Not because you would ever ignore or disregard a criticism without thinking about it, and definitely not due to disliking criticism, but just because you reasonably expect they'd give criticism you'd already considered and rejected, and you have better things to do that you judge will bear more fruit.

The reason I'm not too worried about drowning in low quality criticism is that if there is no new information, it only takes a few moments to properly address. You don't have to ignore it because it's such a fast process. Just remember your take on the subject, verify that it already addresses what's being said, and then you're done. Don't even reply. But I don't call that "ignoring it", since you do quickly think about it, and if you notice there is something new to you, it will get proper consideration.

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