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Geek Social Fallacies (2003)

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Re: Geek Social Fallacies (2003)

#12
This is a shining example of old web content we've lost in the current era of walled gardens and social graphs. People writing honestly about their journey and observations. Sure people still do in some form or another, but I personally don't see, or it's hidden in the flood of memes, tweets, shares and likes.

Re: Geek Social Fallacies (2003)

#15
post #12

This is a shining example of old web content we've lost in the current era of walled gardens and social graphs. People writing honestly about their journey and observations. Sure people still do in some form or another, but I personally don't see, or it's hidden in the flood of memes, tweets, shares and likes.

What you say is quite a common complaint. I was looking at a moderator's thread on a self-help subreddit this morning and people there were annoyed that the only items that got heavily upvoted (and therefore ever appeared under "top") were memes and pictures instead of the sort of deep thinking that could help people on this subreddit.

Re: Geek Social Fallacies (2003)

#16
post #7

I don't get it. This just seems like an attack on an entire group of people that I'm guessing have annoyed or belittled the author at one time or another. For what purpose? I don't believe he is genuinely trying to advise and help here. The tone isn't right for it.

Sounds like GSF2 on full display...

Re: Geek Social Fallacies (2003)

#17
This kind of subgrouping has little value as it tends to manufacture elaborate myths about the 'ingroup' and alienate and dehumanize the other leading to a fictional narrative of the world.

So for instance we get the myth of 'freedom', 'liberty' and 'dissent' by a particular subgroup but in reality what we have seen is complete lack of moral compass, crass opportunism or quietly falling in line. There is only one Snowden.

We also get authoritarian and ignorant perspectives like all 'users are stupid' to facilitate opportunistic exploitation, imagine if people in government as a group thought all citizens are stupid or all professionals thought their clients are stupid. This is dehumanization and is the building base of authoritarianism.

It would be easier to understand how human groups behave when they have status and power both real and perceived and when they don't. That follows a predictable path. Self appointed 'smart people' are always dangerous as they are quick to assume a monopoly on wisdom and lack empathy for the 'other', and are unable to perceive errors in their ideology and thinking and course correct.

Re: Geek Social Fallacies (2003)

#18
post #12

This is a shining example of old web content we've lost in the current era of walled gardens and social graphs. People writing honestly about their journey and observations. Sure people still do in some form or another, but I personally don't see, or it's hidden in the flood of memes, tweets, shares and likes.

Yep, like kuro5hin (gone), everything2 (still there, but stagnant), even jwz's old blog posts. Maybe if there's a decentralized web that gains enough traction, there can be another 5 years before the greedy stream in.

I've heard people say subreddits have taken the place of these things, but whenever I look, they have already converged to the most nanoscopically narrow idea of the respective scope. There used to be more wiggle room for authors, and surprises for readers. Now it's all writing to a well-defined audience, genre, or meme: KPI-driven socializing. In that sense, web 1.0 seemed more fluid and interesting.

Re: Geek Social Fallacies (2003)

#19
post #10
post #7

I don't get it. This just seems like an attack on an entire group of people that I'm guessing have annoyed or belittled the author at one time or another. For what purpose? I don't believe he is genuinely trying to advise and help here. The tone isn't right for it.

> This just seems like an attack on an entire group of people that I'm guessing have annoyed or belittled the author at one time or another. It's an attack on an entire group of attitudes/behaviors. Unless people that exhibit them are entirely defined as personalities by those attitudes (which I don't think is the case), it's not an attack of a "group of people", and even less so, an attack on particular persons. > F…

All of these are common social fallacies, and associating them with “geeks” in particular seems like stereotyping, and seems to me to be reflecting the authors own poor experiences with a subset of geeks coupled with a lack of exposure to the same problematic elements in other social groups.

I believe the author meant well, and these are social fallacies, but attaching them to “geeks” seems more out of bias than fact.

Re: Geek Social Fallacies (2003)

#20
post #12

This is a shining example of old web content we've lost in the current era of walled gardens and social graphs. People writing honestly about their journey and observations. Sure people still do in some form or another, but I personally don't see, or it's hidden in the flood of memes, tweets, shares and likes.

> This is a shining example of old web content we've lost in the current era of walled gardens and social graphs.

Five AMAZING geek social fallacies you never learned in school. You wont believe number 4!

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