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

‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

nymag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 618 posts

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#441

Post by mantas »

dleslie wrote: post #412
naasking wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If gun manufacturers could take back their guns (ban users) when somebody threatened illegal violence the analogy would be closer, and it would be quite reasonable to expect them to do so. Except creating a new profile on reddit is trivial, so "banning" is a weak threat at best.

In doing so you lose your social connections and any moderator privileges you have; so it's not without threat.

Just make XYZ_2, XYZ_3 etc. Communicate on different platform whose username is which. Have new usernames assigned original privileges of their owner.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#442

Post by lowtolerance »

naasking wrote: post #398
Joeri wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guns are a bad analogy because manufacturers have no control over their use post purchase. If gun manufacturers could take back their guns (ban users) when somebody threatened illegal violence the analogy would be closer, and it would be quite reasonable to expect them to do so.

> If gun manufacturers could take back their guns (ban users) when somebody threatened illegal violence the analogy would be closer, and it would be quite reasonable to expect them to do so. Except creating a new profile on reddit is trivial, so "banning" is a weak threat at best.

It’s a more effective deterrent than doing nothing at all.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#443

Post by pathseeker »

moomin wrote: post #436
naasking wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if we ignored the logistics of such a challenge and agreed on the conclusion, why is the same logic not applied to things like alcohol and all the harms that results (drunk driving, alcoholics ruining their lives, etc). Indeed, and we already tried that, and it led to the rise of organized crime. But I think it's important not to get sucked into "slippery slope" style reasoning. There can be good reasons why b…

The thing is, you don’t really need to theorise about how to stop school shootings. It’s been done. It just required people to prioritise children’s lives over a minority hobby. (I’m from a country where owning a gun is legal, but controlled, and has no school shootings. We used to have less control, and school shootings happened.)

>The thing is, you don’t really need to theorise about how to stop school shootings. It’s been done.

It's still theorizing because there are no comparable countries to the US that have done it when it comes to the number of guns already out there (300+ million) and the importance of the 2nd amendment to many of the citizens.

>It just required people to prioritise children’s lives over a minority hobby.

If you see it as a "minority hobby" rather than a right, this makes complete sense. Would you also suggest banning protests in response to violence and death at protests because it's even more of a "minority hobby" than gun ownership?

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#444

Post by pathseeker »

TomMckenny wrote: post #434
ctlby wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that these "hate speech" venues have caused deaths is thrown around quite often, but I wonder if a connection has been found in even a single case. Gaping chasm between rhetoric and reality.

If words do not lead to actions or changes in behavior then why are people bothering to post here? And if words never contribute to actions then there are allot of correlations to explain from the American revolutionary pamphleteers to the Zimmerman telegram to Jihadist Imams to Coca Cola commercials. Now maybe this is a price we're wiling to pay for unlimited free speech, I dunno. But we mustn't convince ourselves t…

> If words do not lead to actions or changes in behavior then why are people bothering to post here?

Because people like the self-satisfaction of thinking they are right on the internet.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#445

Post by tajen »

SeanLuke wrote: post #107
austincheney wrote: post #4

Reddit wouldn't be so toxic if the vote counts were hidden, but echo chamber validation is the ultimate badge of honor there. There is so much in this document that applies to all things Reddit (please note that I wrote it inspired by my time on Reddit) : https://github.com/prettydiff/wisdom/blob/master/Avoiding_Tr...

Fundamentally the problem, I think is anonymity. On the Internet no one knows you're a dog. I have both pseudonymous handles on reddit and also I go by my own name. On Hacker News I only go by my own name. And I have found that it made me a much, MUCH better person when posting. So now I post on reddit about 95% of the time under my own name as well. When you have no skin in the game -- such as your reputation to uph…

Would you have used your real name if you were gay in 1950?

The internet is not where politics are decided, but at the very least that’s where a good part of the debate happens. Use real names and you’ll be able to blackmail people into approving things they disapprove. What about publishing everyone’s votes, while you’re at it? No, people need a safe space to experiment debating about good and bad ideas without risk.

Real name policies are only about the ability to blackmail and coerce.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#446

Post by uxp100 »

airstrike wrote: post #287
optimuspaul wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which makes sense. It seems to have been built on libertarian principles and rejects authoritarian principles. not sure how much more liberal you can get.

You're mixing up liberal with libertarian.

Libertarians are at least related to liberals, but it seems the words left, liberal, and libertarian are often confusing, and they're not very fine grained descriptions anyway.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#447

Post by str33t_punk »

psychometry wrote: post #72
abnry wrote: post #17

I think there is a very important distinction that needs to be made. The popular reddit experience is vastly worse than the customized reddit. It took me a while to realize that my reddit experience was vastly improved once I was very picky about which subreddits I follow.

True, but The_Donald is always leaking. I've seen plenty of sexist/racist content on subreddits for cities, sports teams, memes, etc. Reddit has allowed itself to be a platform used in part for really despicable content, and the despicable people who generate that content regularly venture outside their cesspools.

As a moderate on reddit I see leaking from both sides, but leaking from r/the_donald is much more contained.

It is particularly annoying when a hobby subreddit gets swarmed by the fanatical social justice crowd and kills all conversatamd community that existed previously.

The leaked content from r/the_donald are downvoted to oblivion. The leaked contentent from r/shitredditsays has much more power.

However, if you are simply seeing conservatives from r/news posting, and assuming they are crazies from r/the_donald, then you are assuming bad intent and may need to re evaluate how many conservatives live on the internet. Regardless of your political affiliation, you will see opinions you disagree with and that’s a good thing for the most part.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#448

Post by pathseeker »

webkike wrote: post #387
TearsInTheRain wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not responsible in the same that car manufacturers are not responsible when one of their toys gets driven into a crowd of people.

The reason that guns were created was to fire high powered projectiles into people. Cars weren't created to run people over.

Oh? So everyone who shoots targets or goes hunting is misusing them?

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#449

Post by posterboy »

young_unixer wrote: post #364
eanzenberg wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit's hive-mind is ultra-liberal.

Ultra-liberal, in the USA meaning of 'liberal'. Originally, the word referred to classical liberalism, which has freedom as its primary value. Modern 'liberals' — the one's you're referring to — have values very different to the original liberals. They are, in fact, opposite in the current political landscape. It's worth making the distinction to avoid confusion.

Downvotes without explanation are a pretty liberal use of the downvote button, either way.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#450

Post by simcop2387 »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #431
Bartweiss wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure hiding vote counts is sufficient, since comments are still displayed based on them. The 'Theory of Reddit' sub did some pretty compelling analyses showing that the first 3-5 votes almost completely predict eventual vote direction, and that the top comments in a thread will consistently be the first handful of upvoted comments. Which also explains complaints of the shape "Reddit hates X one day, but loves…

I read about one strategy on my favorite subreddit. A user admitted to posting memes and cheap content there, then going into /new and downvoting every other post and upvoting his own with a couple alternate accounts.

This was done on a large scale by Quickmeme a few years ago. Now the site is banned site-wide. https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/1ux68h/why_ar...
Post reply on HN