91–100 of 341 posts
I used to be upset about this. But now I just use a chrome extension to ban people who have clearly not read the article. It just kills any comment thread they start. My HN is much more useful now. My Twitter is fine because I only follow people who don't do this.
Which extension?
Some years ago, Ars Technica ran a story on guns. https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lot... About halfway through a one-page article was this quote. "If you have read this far, please mention Bananas in your comment below. We're pretty sure 90% of the respondants to this story won't even read it first." Sure enough, there were about 3 pages of comments before someone mentioned bananas. Read the…
I really like that idea.
Some years ago, Ars Technica ran a story on guns. https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lot... About halfway through a one-page article was this quote. "If you have read this far, please mention Bananas in your comment below. We're pretty sure 90% of the respondants to this story won't even read it first." Sure enough, there were about 3 pages of comments before someone mentioned bananas. Read the…
> Read the paper? You're lucky if they read the article This is natural if you follow the amount of effort required. Effort to comment ~ close to zero. Effort to go through an article worth several pages (or worse, a paper!) without dropping off is much, much higher.
(epistemic status: I am 100% projecting here. Maybe I'm broadly right though)
A person with an iron deficiency, will often have an urge to chew ice [1]. Ice does not have iron or help you absorb iron -- but brains are weird.
There are an awful lot of people who are lonely and want the sort of emotional and intellectual connection that they'd normally get comes from sitting by a fireside doing chores for hours. It takes effort and vulnerability to make friends with whom you can have 2-hours-long chats. It requires planning and intentionally-directing attention to maintain those relationships. Those who fail to plan and execute those actions will reach out in weird ways to try to meet that need. These will disproportionately be people who:
A. Struggle to sustain attention long enough to plan and execute what they really intend.
B. Fear that interactions with new people will end up with them assaulted, infected, or dead.
C. Feel trapped in some situation and unable to plan a way out.
D. Struggle to form an intellectual connection during opportunities for deep social interaction.
E. Have been in a situation where A-D was true and are falling into old habits.
I posit that the intellectual masturbation of people on twitter or other forums is a symptom of an unmet hunger for real intellectual connection with other humans.
[1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/iron-deficien...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The social network I honestly want is something akin to the tradition of Christmas cards: a rare update (at most once a quarter) about how life is going with the option of attaching a few photos. No comments section, but instead a "I'd like to get in touch and chat sometime" button which helps schedule a video chat. No retweets, shares, engagement metrics.
I like the idea, but how is that different from a personal website/blog with private access?
As a rule of thumb, I try not to quote from media unless I have seen the whole book/story/article/movie myself and am sure I understand the quotation in context. Part of that comes from the kind of frustration Hillel Wayne voices here: > People will offhand use famous quotes to support their arguments, when the context the quote was given in has nothing to do with it. I spent a lot of hours in high school debate list…
Salvor Hardin talking about the archaeologist Lord Dorwin in the first Foundation novel.
"First-hand ideas do not really exist. They are but the physical impressions produced by love and fear, and on this gross foundation who could erect a philosophy? Let your ideas be second-hand, and if possible tenth-hand, for then they will be far removed from that disturbing element — direct observation."
I had to have a conversation with my wife over this yesterday. She ran into the office in tears because opposing protestors were standing off with guns as if it was the American revolution.
The reality of the situation is a couple people had paintball guns but that’s not what she saw.
What she had seen was a tweet about a tweet referencing another tweet that in turn referenced a video.
While I know this example is extreme, it really opened my eyes to just how far we have come.
Some years ago, Ars Technica ran a story on guns. https://arstechnica.com/science/2011/04/guns-in-the-home-lot... About halfway through a one-page article was this quote. "If you have read this far, please mention Bananas in your comment below. We're pretty sure 90% of the respondants to this story won't even read it first." Sure enough, there were about 3 pages of comments before someone mentioned bananas. Read the…