Why we crave internet justice • Hacker News Board

Re: Why we crave internet justice

#51

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #49

noduerme wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think democracy can survive if people in a nation can't form a consensus on basic features of shared, objective reality. This type of consensus did exist, and could be reached, in the 1770s, long before centralized mass media. The creation of competing "chains of trust", which see an election as legitimate or illegitimate, a virus as dangerous or fabricated, is actually only possible by the manipulation of ma…

Did it exist? In the early 1770s, there was a pretty big war on the subject of who's in charge; the late 1770s were subject to the Articles of Confederation, famous for their complete failure to establish political legitimacy for the federal government. Even in the constitutional era, there were constant questions with foundational implications. Is slavery moral? Should Native Americans be forced to move wherever the…

[deleted]

Re: Why we crave internet justice

#52

Post by sys_64738 » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:01 PM UTC

"Why People Are So Awful Online" is the actual title.

The answer is it's been that way since Sept 1993.

Re: Why we crave internet justice

#53

Post by TMWNN » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 9:13 PM UTC

Jerry Pournelle on what happened after he discovered online discussions:

>I noticed something: most of the irritation came from a handful of people, sometimes only one or two. If I could only ignore them, the computer conferences were still valuable. Alas, it's not always easy to do.

Re: Why we crave internet justice

#54

Post by drewburg » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 10:06 PM UTC

humanistbot wrote: post #17

ggoo wrote: post #3

They can be awful offline too.

Working retail as a teenager made me lose faith in humanity -- and all the theories that blame anonymity for online toxicity. Sure, the darkest parts of the internet can be cesspools, but give the average person a tiny bit of entitlement and power, and they'll abuse others just for the pleasure of it. And this was over a decade ago. So glad I got out and into software. I can't imagine what it must be like working ret…

I could first relate to this when I was working in a kitchen and how awful people can be when they fully assert up front that because of your job, you can be treated however they feel entitled to treat you. Also reminds me of the Stanford prison experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

Re: Why we crave internet justice

#55

Post by helloworld11 » Sat, Jul 17, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

noduerme wrote: post #31

Ambolia wrote: post #7

Consensus building doesn't work without centralized mass media. People just have to get used to have different groups with different values inside the same country and be ok with that. Decentralized chains of trust will grow, which was the norm before mass media appeared. Either that, or centralization will reassert itself brutally and force a new consensus.

I don't think democracy can survive if people in a nation can't form a consensus on basic features of shared, objective reality. This type of consensus did exist, and could be reached, in the 1770s, long before centralized mass media. The creation of competing "chains of trust", which see an election as legitimate or illegitimate, a virus as dangerous or fabricated, is actually only possible by the manipulation of ma…

You might want to analyze that idea of consensus in the late 1770s. At the onset of the American Revolution, at least a third of the fledgling country was monarchist to one degree or another and bloody, deadly fights between independence sympathizers and monarchists were common among the civilian population (I'm not even speaking here of military hostilities). People were often lynched or tarred and feathered in the streets for saying the wrong thing. Tarring and feathering are not nearly the funny things their description might bring t mind by the way.