How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US • Hacker News Board

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#131

Post by pyre » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 5:44 PM UTC

unabridged wrote: post #97

>The obvious counter-argument is silencing them strengthens their argument and makes them a martyr. I don't buy that argument at all, it's far more dangerous to allow them to indoctrinate and appeal to all the fringe disenfranchised youth which they've become frighteningly effective at. In any case it's clear reddit can be used for good like in this article, I'm just not so sure it's a net positive to society as anot…

> You can only fight ideas with better ideas.

The problem with this is that human beings will reject ideas that don't agree with what they want to hear, like the populations of coal towns in Appalachia that want to blame "Liberals" for their lot in life because they've hitched their wagon to the (dying) coal industry and don't want to change.

It's like the Simpsons Principal Skinner meme. "Could I be wrong about something? No! It's definitely everyone else that is wrong!"

Also, ideas don't woo people in and of themselves. Why do you think that charismatic leaders can swap entire populations to follow horrible ideologies that offer simple and easy solutions to their problems by throwing other people under the bus to pave the way to a better future for a select few?

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#132

Post by irrational » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 5:45 PM UTC

bllguo wrote: post #85

hrktb wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to recognize reddit is mostly a set of somewhat independent community, yet view it as a problematic site for ‘minorities’. Did you face significant hurdles when only participating to subreddits that had decently behaved users ? I think at this point reddit is almost a good representation of the internet, and getting out of reddit because of shitty subs feels like taking distance from internet because of 4cha…

parent explicitly mentions people making racial jokes and mentioning racial stereotypes. This occurs even in every large subreddit, well-behaved or not. They likely aren't even malicious on the part of the people who say them, but nevertheless, they are damaging comments to make, and I wouldn't blame people for leaving reddit because of them. that said there are plenty of small communities that are pleasant, sure. Bu…

What counts as a large subreddit? I mostly go to r/boardgames and r/javascript and r/webdev and I can't remember a single racial joke/stereotype. Maybe these are small subreddits or I'm just not looking at the "right" posts?

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#133

Post by jerrylives » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 5:46 PM UTC

unabridged wrote: post #97

>The obvious counter-argument is silencing them strengthens their argument and makes them a martyr. I don't buy that argument at all, it's far more dangerous to allow them to indoctrinate and appeal to all the fringe disenfranchised youth which they've become frighteningly effective at. In any case it's clear reddit can be used for good like in this article, I'm just not so sure it's a net positive to society as anot…

>You can only fight ideas with better ideas. Kicking them out and silencing them, says to them you can't compete.

Lol okay dude hop onto stormfront and engage in some civic discourse, offer some arguments, see how that goes.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#134

Post by vkou » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 5:49 PM UTC

dionidium wrote: post #123

vkou wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree with you and think the hubbub around r/the_donald is amusing. In my opinion, r/the_donald is a "beautiful" example of mob trolling. If a subreddit doesn't interest you, just unfollow it. The problem with having something r/the_donald on reddit is that its posters don't stay in r/the_donald. They go out to other reddits, and post hateful shit. It's like having a shared space for clubs, that also includes a l…

You're subbed to the wrong subreddits. You could be getting a lot more out of reddit than you are. The comments here make it sound like 95% of all conversations are about race and politics, but if that's what you're seeing, then that's really just a reflection of what you're reading. There are subreddits about everything . Most of them don't include conversations about police shootings or Islam.

Yes, the guys wearing white hoods will probably not collectively crap all over the knitting club. That doesn't make the overall situation any better, nor is it a good idea to have them make up a large part of the site's userbase.

(And the only reason it seems that they aren't a problem is because moderators of more specialized reddits have to delete their posts, and ban the posters.)

Some customers aren't worth keeping.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#135

Post by aaronbrethorst » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 5:49 PM UTC

gooseus wrote: post #130

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple notes: 1. The opioid crisis is getting a lot of airtime in the media outlets that I read. 3. The opioid crisis is one of the biggest reasons why the Senate's Trumpcare bill is now dead, and was also a major topic of discussion in the weeks leading up to its unexpected loss this week. In short, its drastic cuts to Medicaid would have decimated opioid treatment in some of the states hit hardest, and Senator Ca…

What I was referring to was the proportionality, obviously it IS being discussed (I linked a prominent policy maker discussing it), so really what I'm saying is that the amount of airtime/attention given to stories on the opioid crisis was far less than the combined number of stories attending to gun crimes or self-driving car successes/failures. I remember seeing a Vanguard episode on the "pain management" industry…

"isn't being talked about or addressed proportional to other societal issues"

Talked about, from my perspective, it is. Addressed, no, it most certainly is not being addressed.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#136

Post by nissimk » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 5:49 PM UTC

jefurii wrote: post #72

danlindley wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit has been demonstrated time and time again that it is subject to, and vulnerable to, blatant manipulation and propganda. Whether it's a celebrity endoresement masquerading as an interview, threads defending corporations and/or their actions, the manufacturing of consent, the anti-democractic activities of shill accounts, or being subject to blanket disinformation, Reddit is a net-negative to society in my opini…

So it's much like traditional print media, just a lot faster and with fewer filters.

And more easily manipulated with automated techniques.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#137

Post by irrational » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 5:51 PM UTC

BoratObama wrote: post #28

pat_space wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think of Reddit as a single entity, but as a platform for communities(subreddits). The differences between subreddit communities are vast, ranging from 100% toxic to 100% positive.

My view of reddit has changed similarly. I think of it as something similar to vBulletin or bbPress with r/all or r/popular as a flagship gateway to subreddits. And recently I purged all my subreddits and started from scratch to build a better reddit experience geared towards self improvement and a more wholesome experience. No more toxic communities. I look for niche communities with civil discourse and common inter…

I don't know if you are interested in board games, but I have found r/boardgames to be incredibly wholesome and nice. It's just a pleasant place to visit.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#138

Post by smokeyj » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 5:51 PM UTC

SippinLean wrote: post #101

smokeyj wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question. Why do you care what people post online? The great thing about reddit is that you get to choose which communities you subscribe to. Your mentality is the equivalent of "I can't go to bed. Someone on the internet is wrong". I think your basic premise is wrong - that "racism and xenophobia" are on the rise. You can't measure the number of people who aren't racist because you don't hear them. And before…

Because the hate has spilled over into the good communities as well. Hatred and bigotry used to be contained in places like /the_donald and /WhiteRights but those users eventually browse /popular and leave their vitriol there as well. Having been on reddit for a decade it's sad to see it go from a tech/intellectual community to what it is now. I want real discussion, not arguing with racists. Seems reddit offers less…

> Because the hate has spilled over into the good communities as well.

Is this really an issue? Are they going to /r/programming and dominating the conversation? Because I'm just not seeing it.

I think that the quality of a community is inversely related to the size, which explains why reddit "used to be cool". But the reason I still use reddit is because you can subscribe to communities you want - and there are still many good ones.

That said, there is room for improvement on the moderation side. I think a "peer-moderated" community would be awesome. Say for example, when a comment is flagged - a random but deterministic set of peers will make a judgement call. A "deterministic peer-jury" could be a useful mechanism for communities to grant voting/commenting/moderation rights.

The bigger issue in my opinion is controlling the discussion via sock puppets and underhanded moderation.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#139

Post by j2bax » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 5:51 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #109

wutbrodo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike Twitter because the medium is so crappy,and has crappy effects on discourse. By contrast every summary dismissal I've heard of reddit revolves around overgeneralizing from portions of raw humanity, as you say.

I dislike Twitter because I don't fucking get it. I feel like everybody here in the Bay Area "gets it" but me. They're all telling eachother their twitter handles, posting announcements on twitter, asking questions and actually getting answers there, wtf, I don't understand! I probably should have taken the time to engage with it in the beginning so I could know the basics of how it works, how to speak to followers,…

I'm right with you. I have no regrets about not getting in on it though. I have enough time sucking scrolling addictions.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#140

Post by nissimk » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 5:51 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #106

danlindley wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit has been demonstrated time and time again that it is subject to, and vulnerable to, blatant manipulation and propganda. Whether it's a celebrity endoresement masquerading as an interview, threads defending corporations and/or their actions, the manufacturing of consent, the anti-democractic activities of shill accounts, or being subject to blanket disinformation, Reddit is a net-negative to society in my opini…

>anti-democratic activities of shill accounts Can you clarify why the actions of shill accounts are inherently anti-democratic? I don't really see the connection between the concept of Democracy and paid posters on a social media website.

Propaganda. It's a highly effective tool for manipulating public opinion by API. What do you think all of this talk about hacking the election is about? It wasn't just publishing private emails.