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3 Black Teenage Scientists Had a Breakthrough, Then Came the Trolls

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Re: 3 Black Teenage Scientists Had a Breakthrough, Then Came the Trolls

#2
Slight off-topic. I'm sure this has been said before, but I'm saddened to catch myself doing it. All my life I've been indifferent to matters of race, and so if I'd read 10 years ago about 3 black girls doing whatever I wouldn't have thought twice about it. But after what's been happening in recent years, I just caught myself thinking: "3 black girls? I wonder if they didn't win as part of the diversity quota" :-/ I maintain that "affirmative action" does more bad than good in the vast majority of the cases.

On-topic: In any case, prevalence of occurrences like the reported trolls are why I no longer give the benefit of the doubt to people who claim "there's no racism". For a while you had the excuse of not being aware, but now you're just intentionally adding noise to the conversation.

Re: 3 Black Teenage Scientists Had a Breakthrough, Then Came the Trolls

#4
I wonder why we do social media voting at all. Even if it isn’t ruined by racist trolls it’s still kind of silly isn’t it?

How would a bunch of random strangers know which science project was good? And more importantly, why do we care what everyman Joe/Jolie has to say about anything? We’ve always had village idiots or people who stood on cardboard boxes and yelled about our impending doom, but when did we decide that it was a good idea to give these people a megaphone?

Personally I think it’s rude as well. If I entered something cool into a science competition I’d appreachiate it if it was evaluated by people who actually knew something about science instead of entering some popularity contest.

Re: 3 Black Teenage Scientists Had a Breakthrough, Then Came the Trolls

#6
I've always wondered whether 'freedom' encompasses freedom to be racist or hateful. But then again, the moment you bound the freedom, you have to allow others to bound other freedoms in their societies as well, which could very well lead to oppression, or even enslavement. It's a tough call.

Re: 3 Black Teenage Scientists Had a Breakthrough, Then Came the Trolls

#7
Meta-Comment: While I really don't doubt a bunch of racist trolls would do something like this, I've seen /b/ do enough dumb shit over the years, but I don't see why these papers (NPR, WaPo) don't at least include an example, i.e. screen-shot, of the calls for vote-rigging. Would make the cynic in me, and hopefully others, thinking this is a stunt for free press, like with the Clock Kid, go away.

Re: 3 Black Teenage Scientists Had a Breakthrough, Then Came the Trolls

#8

Slight off-topic. I'm sure this has been said before, but I'm saddened to catch myself doing it. All my life I've been indifferent to matters of race, and so if I'd read 10 years ago about 3 black girls doing whatever I wouldn't have thought twice about it. But after what's been happening in recent years, I just caught myself thinking: "3 black girls? I wonder if they didn't win as part of the diversity quota" :-/ I…

Off topic: I just wish people understood what a troll is rather than using the term for anyone abusive or bigoted. Like you aren't getting trolled simply by getting hateful engagements on social media.

On topic: As long as it's not considered racist just because they are African American. It's like where I live a woman at a sports match threw a banana at an indigenous person, completely ignorant to any race issue. Yet the media ran it way out of proportion, I would say it was the media that were racist, they set a narrative which followed which was deeply saddening to me.

Re: 3 Black Teenage Scientists Had a Breakthrough, Then Came the Trolls

#9
post #6

I've always wondered whether 'freedom' encompasses freedom to be racist or hateful. But then again, the moment you bound the freedom, you have to allow others to bound other freedoms in their societies as well, which could very well lead to oppression, or even enslavement. It's a tough call.

It does in the US.

People seem to get confused though and expect that repugnant speech won't have any consequences.

Re: 3 Black Teenage Scientists Had a Breakthrough, Then Came the Trolls

#10

Slight off-topic. I'm sure this has been said before, but I'm saddened to catch myself doing it. All my life I've been indifferent to matters of race, and so if I'd read 10 years ago about 3 black girls doing whatever I wouldn't have thought twice about it. But after what's been happening in recent years, I just caught myself thinking: "3 black girls? I wonder if they didn't win as part of the diversity quota" :-/ I…

> I maintain that "affirmative action" does more bad than good in the vast majority of the cases.

Even if it was a case of affirmative action, their work still gets the chance to get criticized and touch people’s eyes. Arguably with no action it could have rotten in some binder in a desk, so isn’t “something” still better than nothing ?

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