A Pre-History of Slashdot • Hacker News Board

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#361

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Oct 07, 2017, 7:42 PM UTC

intended wrote: post #360

dredmorbius wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also agreed. (You're going to have to try harder for an argument ;-)

haha not arguing, just seeing how deep this rabbit hole goes. Like teachers, now editors are another social good that we need to manage information dissemination optimized for civilization's good.

Always has been, or at least so long as mass media have existed.

I've been exploring this topic, as a particular focus over the past year, though it's been an interest for some years.

If you look back to the Catholic inquisition (and its precursors), Gutenberg, Martin Luther (500th anniversary coming up at the end of October), J.S. Mill (I've run across some excellent discussion by Hans Jensen: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6x7u6a/on_the_... and http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00346760110081599 (available via Sci-Hub)).

It's sobering.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#362

Post by jtmcmc » Sun, Oct 08, 2017, 2:05 AM UTC

jonstokes wrote: post #52

Slashdot was a major inspiration to us as we grew Ars Technica, not to mention a major source of critical traffic and growth in those early years. Hats off to Rob! I owe you, dude. We all do :-)

right.

slashdot, ars, anandtech were foundational websites to me growing up - amazing that this was 17+ years ago

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#363

Post by int_19h » Sun, Oct 08, 2017, 4:26 AM UTC

wowtip wrote: post #330

int_19h wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of friend/foe system on Slashdot is that foes' comments are less visible, and friends' are more visible. It's basically a way to say "this person tends to say ridiculous things, and I don't care to read more of them" and "this person tends to say interesting things, I'd love to hear what they have to say on other subjects". So if your approach is to "try to avoid interacting with them", it just automa…

I used the friends/foes on /., but never thought much about it. Filtered out a number of vocal nutcases. But wouldn't this sort of create your own cozy echo chamber, where all opinion is streamlined? I think it would be interestring going the other way around, a bit like some sub Reddits don't show comment score for a day or two, to not cause self reinforcement in moderation. Maybe even take it a bit further by anony…

It depends on how you use it. If you only friend people who agree with you, then yes, you'll get an echo chamber. If you friend people who say interesting things instead, you won't.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#364

Post by adrianratnapala » Sun, Oct 08, 2017, 9:36 AM UTC

serf wrote: post #197

samstave wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> In today's world of mass surveillance, corporate consolidation of internet infrastructure, and the call for censorship of speech on the web I am going to have to call you out. I had a low-digit ID on /. We (people like me) have been calling this out for FUCKING DECADES. I feel that we can talk about generational millenials etc.. but we can also call out DIGITAL millenials; those who thing they know what the fuck i…

same story here. Low number ID, privacy advocate, etc since the 90s. the part that disgusts me recently is that when these conspiracies are turned into fact by post-facto released information from official sources, a good amount of the reaction is "So? Everyone already knew that anyway." I feel like that reaction is so blasé that it will ultimately be the deathknell of the personal privacy movement. Whether or not th…

Ask not what the damage is on activism. Ask what is the damage to real human freedom.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#365

Post by skinnymuch » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 5:06 AM UTC

Nition wrote: post #153

gfodor wrote: post #107

I remember getting my house's cable modem slashdotted in 2001 when i launched a community site (half-empty.org) I built -- what a wild ride that was. (If you are reading, thanks to Tim Wilde and the rest of the DynDNS crew for all the memories helping me, a young kid, get that site into an actual DC :)) I remember always rolling my eyes at the Linux and Free Software crowd on /. and the anti-Microsoft zeitgeist that…

> The anti-Microsoft zeitgeist that you could find at the top of pretty much any thread, even if it was about something completely unrelated. Just a side comment, I feel like Hacker News is going this way with Facebook a little. Posts that tangentially mention Facebook, there's usually a high-rated comment about how Facebook is evil and since the user left Facebook their life has improved. Those "I don't even own a T…

Yes the leaving Facebook has helped so much or the exaggerated posts of how Facebook is just too evil are a bit much. It annoyingly ends up making me want to defend and like FB more. Even though rationally I don't want to do that.

Re: A Pre-History of Slashdot

#366

Post by titzer » Mon, Oct 09, 2017, 12:58 PM UTC

cisanti wrote: post #356

titzer wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for Google. I am not going to be "ashamed of myself," but I am also not into drinking the Koolaid. It's an oversimplification to demonize groups in this way. What is more troubling is the (non)reaction of society to the vast encroachment on privacy and rights from all sides, not the least of which are governments, telecommunication companies, and advertisers.

But you should. It's obvious you're privileged enough to change jobs once you have worked for them but you won't, because you don't want to take responsibility of knowingly playing part of the evils and histories biggest and most dangerous spying system.

You actually don't know what my job is, and you can't be sure that my presence here doesn't actually slow the growth of "histories[sic] biggest and most dangerous spying system."