Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

stallman.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 376 posts

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#261

Post by pyre »

jdietrich wrote: post #247
ppopoff wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nearly 20 years later, it's clear that Stallman is almost certain to be a historical figure remembered hundreds of years from now. Hyperbole much? He's not going to be forgotten, but... RMS is a hacker icon, but he's a bit obscure outside the community. RMS is legit hating on Facebook here but there's no Hollywood movie about RMS. Zuckerberg is a household name. I'll agree that RMS has done more net good thank Zuck…

Breadth and depth of fame are orthogonal. Unless he does some remarkable philanthropy, Zuckerberg will be forgotten shortly after Tom from MySpace. Facebook isn't really fundamental to anything, it's just a business that executed an existing concept very well. RMS may never be well known to the general public, but his reputation within his field is likely to endure in a manner similar to Euclid or Eratosthenes. GNU a…

> it's just a business that executed an existing concept very well

So is McDonald's, but I somehow think that they've managed to embed themselves into the culture/society enough that they won't soon be forgotten should they ever fall.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#262

Post by pyre »

bjourne wrote: post #219
bunderbunder wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What strikes me here in particular is that this article is mirroring most of my own reasons for being uncomfortable with Facebook, but I still find myself wanting to disagree with him. The rhetorical style makes him come across as a bully, and on a gut level I don't like to side with bullies. So I'd like to say that after some more measured, thoughtful reflection I come around to his side. But I don't. The enemy of m…

> The enemy of my enemy is not my friend, and even after taking a few breaths and trying to read it more calmly, his hyper-paternalistic posture still gets to me. Can you give some examples from the text? Like you are expressing frustration over something but what is it? It's a long list of arguments with links to supporting articles. I don't understand what your complaint is.

Sounds like the complaint is about tone.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#263

Post by avindroth »

Frondo wrote: post #191
mwfunk wrote: post #34

If someone can't state their point without warping the very language they use to support their point, it makes it very hard to feel like anything they're saying is credible. Example 1: someone is trying to convince me to vote Republican. They go through the Republican platform issue by issue, and compare/contrast it to the Democrats' stand. However, every time they use the word "Democrat" they instead say "Democrap"…

Thanks for putting this all so eloquently. I'd even go so far as to say, the fact that so much of us are talking about this rhetorical device (one I think is pretty childish and distracting) means he's missed the mark in writing a persuasive essay. A lot of us aren't talking about the merits of using Facebook vs not, because we're talking about that dumb neologism instead. Shakespeare, he is not. Which is too bad, be…

Seeing the discussion about this neologism as the first comment on the thread was disappointing. There were many important issues raised in the article.

In a way, Stallman uses the word "used" because he is writing for a certain audience. For one, he is writing for himself, but also the vast majority of his audience are hackers. And these hackers are curious enough to read the strange language choice and think about what that might mean. One might be led to ask how impure and tilted the language around our relationship with these products is.

If he really wanted to make an approachable article, this should be titled, "21 reasons why you should stop using Facebook". But Stallman isn't trying to please everyone, he is trying to please his audience (including himself).

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#264

Post by pyre »

avindroth wrote: post #259
mwfunk wrote: post #34

If someone can't state their point without warping the very language they use to support their point, it makes it very hard to feel like anything they're saying is credible. Example 1: someone is trying to convince me to vote Republican. They go through the Republican platform issue by issue, and compare/contrast it to the Democrats' stand. However, every time they use the word "Democrat" they instead say "Democrap"…

There are instances where people use wordplay to gain an emotional/rhetorical advantage in a debate. For the seasoned, this might be irksome at best, but I agree, repeatedly hearing "Dumbocrat" can get old and I, for one, will quickly lose respect for that person. But comparing Stallman's use of the word "used" to conventional, quite childish wordplay seems like a very, very far stretch. Stallman is redefining those…

A junkie is a drug user, but they are being used by the criminal infrastructure providing those illicit substances. To say that they are not a user because they are being used via their usage is just nitpicking.

Facebook users are using Facebook and gaining utility through it, regardless of what they are giving up (whether they realize it or not) to do so.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#265

Post by creatonez »

vacri wrote: post #166
geff82 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS, to some extend, is like the pope. He often says strange things, where many people do not instantly agree. But he won't change his message just to please you, which is what we are used to get from most people, especially politicians. You can count on him and his, at heart, very humanist views. I recently was at one of his keynotes, and we all, including me, could only laugh at his over-and-over usage of words lik…

The problem is that saying "Swindle" instead of "Kindle" works when he's talking to people who already agree with him, but is seen as adolescent crap by people who don't agree with or don't understand his message. It's preaching to the choir. "Digital Restrictions Management" is a good semantic switcheroo, but "Swindle" is just name-calling. I've read his reasons for it, but really, it just makes it harder for people…

Honestly, appearing crazy is how stallman attracts his audience. He's the center of a pretty radical social movement, all he needs to do is preach to his fans and his supporters do the persuasion to "normal people". A few years passes, and literally 90% of what he's said becomes true. He gets his credibility from his predictive powers, not necessarily being mature and put together. His article on trusted computing (where he calls it treacherous computing) that he wrote a few years back is extremely accurate to the current state of computing.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#267

Post by pyre »

suprgeek wrote: post #237
mwfunk wrote: post #34

If someone can't state their point without warping the very language they use to support their point, it makes it very hard to feel like anything they're saying is credible. Example 1: someone is trying to convince me to vote Republican. They go through the Republican platform issue by issue, and compare/contrast it to the Democrats' stand. However, every time they use the word "Democrat" they instead say "Democrap"…

He is not "wrapping" the very language. He is trying to correct the semantic imbalance that is tilted towards the $100 Billion corporation. The thing you need to grok about RMS is that he is a purist. This fact strikes many people as stubborn, too idealistic, impractical etc - except that from RMS perspective it is the least he could do to stay true to himself. Also consider this - the world of software has been infi…

Is it the angry punk on the street corner screaming at you that convinces you to stop eating meat? Or the reasonable person that cooks you a tasty vegan meal and can hold a conversation with you?

Just because the person has some amount of credentials doesn't change this fact. It's more about how people work than anything else.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#268

Post by Spivak »

aninhumer wrote: post #141
andrei_says_ wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He refuses to use the commonly established language which distorts reality. It is a radical choice (given how well established the manipulative language is). I can see how some may find this irritating. You may want to take a look at this lecture to see why language is so important and influential. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5f9R9MtkpqM

Some of his substitutions are arguably valuable rhetorical devices, but the majority are just childish digs which don't add anything because they're far more distracting than they are challenging. Every time I run into one of his idiosyncratic terms, it interrupts my train of thought, and dislodges any argument he had been constructing there.

> the majority are just childish digs

I do think there is something important to be gained by those childish digs which is avoiding branded terms while still being able to communicate about them. Take Crapple for example, they have hundred million dollar marketing campaigns designed to get people to associate Apple and iPhone with $desired_positive_qualities and you want to break your readers out of those associations. You can get around this by genericizing the brand (e.g. iPhone -> smartphone) but this doesn't work when you don't have a problem with the generic term or you want to talk about a specific companies product.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#269

Post by Dotnaught »

cbHXBY1D wrote: post #207
igravious wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for this link. More and more I am appreciating this guy's research. Have never seen him speak, what a natural speaker, very enjoyable as well as edifying.

Never meet your heroes. I was a big fan of his work before taking a class with him. He's the rockstar of the cogsci department at Berkeley but he's known as a massive ego and a poor professor.

I took one of Lakoff's classes in 1987 and found his work to be compelling. Metaphors We Live By should be required reading.

http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992...

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#270

Post by Spivak »

relaytheurgency wrote: post #177
yuhong wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about "undemocratic party" for the Democratic party?

It's childish. I don't understand why people try to do this. The organization is called the Democratic party. It is not clever to change the name as some kind of shorthand for your own personal opinion.

> I don't understand why people try to do this.

It's not about being clever, calling your political party "The Democratic Party" is itself a rhetorical device and a brand that is cultivated by hundred million dollar ad campaigns.

If you're going to break those associations you need to call them something else while still having your reader understand what you're talking about and 'childish insults' are one way to accomplish that. Language is powerful and controlling it controls people's perceptions. Maybe a more obvious example would be the PATRIOT Act. Who would be unpatriotic enough to vote against that?

Post reply on HN