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Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

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Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#171

Post by sokoloff »

romwell wrote: post #163
sokoloff wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What definition are you using? Literally to mean “in a literal sense; exactly” not the novel accepted usage to include meaning “figuratively, not literally”.

facepalm What definition of social awareness are you using to make that assertion?

The first definition that came up in Google seems to apply: “social awareness: The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others.”

If you have literally* not any of that, you might need to have a procedural/analytical rule to tell you “Jokes at someone else’s expense = bad”

Then, having the necessity to apply that rule, you would need to be able to evaluate “is this contemplated joke going to be at someone’s expense?”

I can’t see how you could correctly evaluate such a predicate if you had literally not any “ability to take the perspective of [nor] empathize with others”. Evaluating that correctly requires at least a shred of social awareness.

* defined as above and referenced originally here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29186509

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#173

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

lollowtax wrote: post #42
MrLeap wrote: post #9

SA in the early 00's was really special. It was like someone dumped a whole chemical supply closet into a pot and brought it to a boil. Equal parts trash and alchemy. Gold was inexplicably made there, and as long as you had your kitty litter scoop it was easy to find.

Goons screwing around with Poser was probably peak gold or close to it. The large-scale projects like Goon City and Goon Tower stick with me as inspirational with respect to what spontaneous groups of idiots can accomplish pushing in the same direction.

Failed goon projects, too, like the "amazing innovative RPG that does away with all the cliches", which was inevitably completed cliched and gave us johnny.jpg

Also the Goon Island idea that came up all the time: if every goon contributed $10, we could buy an island and it would be a paradise.

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#174

Post by intended »

javajosh wrote: post #65
extortionist wrote: post #12

He leaves behind a complicated legacy. It's important to note that credible allegations of domestic abuse lead him to sell SA in the past year, and this can't be set aside. At the same time, SA's influence on the modern internet can't be understated. The 'image macro' of early SA (maybe created by Lowtax himself, from what Fragmaster says in his video in the link) is the direct ancestor of today's common meme image--…

>credible allegations I truly wish that allegations of any and every sort were considered not credible by the general public. Domestic abuse is a real problem, but false allegation of domestic abuse is a real problem, too. Indeed, if a person wants to harm another without lifting a finger, the simplest thing to do is claim "He hurt me" or "I'm afraid of him" and you'll get every cop, judge, attorney, a legion of your…

Sadly, this take is ever poisoned, since it’s always used in chauvinistic circles.

In those circles it’s used as a way to diminish and remove oxygen for the issue of domestic violence.

I won’t go into it’s merits, or demerits, further. Just an FYI as to why this argument deservedly gets suspicion.

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#175

Post by smt88 »

serf wrote: post #31
smt88 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By all accounts, the good things about Something Awful were in spite of Kyanka rather than because of him. He neglected the site for many years before selling it. He was also a terrible person who serially abused his wives and girlfriends. His site was very influential (in good and bad ways), but that doesn't mean he is someone we should canonize or mourn.

>He was also a terrible person who serially abused his wives and girlfriends. >His site was very influential (in good and bad ways), but that doesn't mean he is someone we should canonize or mourn. "You know what they say, speak ill of the dead!" - Norm MacDonald. A person need not be wholesome or kind to warrant mourning their death. Even if you despise the person, their death has caused real human suffering and pai…

> A person need not be wholesome or kind to warrant mourning their death.

I didn't know the guy. He hadn't done anything that I would miss in a long time. I have no reason or obligation to mourn him.

> fwiw I think it's incredibly tacky to go into a what is in essence a memorial thread to post a list of grievances against a dead person that has no means of explanation or defense

I didn't list grievances. I was pushing back on the idea that HN should have a black bar to honor him. He wasn't honorable and doesn't deserve our posthumous reverence. If a thread had been started about him a week ago, almost no one would have anything nice to say.

Also the truly, hilariously ironic thing about writing "tacky" comments about people who can't defend themselves... this is exactly what Kyanka and his site were about. They had absolutely no respect for what other people considered tacky. If it was genuinely funny, it was OK to post it.

> that way we at least stand the chance of sparing the bereaved

What bereaved person is going to read this? He left behind wives and girlfriends who will likely be happy he's gone. They'll certainly be in a lot less danger.

So maybe he has children who would be sad, but even that isn't a guarantee.

Regardless, I don't care if I offend these incredibly small number of bereaved people who have a near-zero chance of reading this. Kyanka lived a life that didn't earn him glowing reviews. Would we be having this conversation if OJ Simpson died, someone proposed honoring him, and I pushed back on it?

If Kyanka wanted people to say nice things about him after he died, he should have said more nice things on the internet while he was alive, and he should have terrorized fewer vulnerable loved ones.

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#176

Post by javajosh »

claudiawerner wrote: post #96
javajosh wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But yours is not an odd take, I'm afraid. You present strawman (seeing it makes it credible), an ad hominem (not projecting, but thanks for the baseless speculation), and another strawman (I did not and do not confuse meaning with definition). All in quick succession, all in seeming defense of the principle: we can and should considered guilty until proven innocent. There's no argument to be made since you didn't mak…

>You present strawman (seeing it makes it credible) Seeing something happen does make an allegation more credible; this is the whole point of, say, witness testimony. Why we are more likely to believe things which are attested to by others. Credibility is also an element of character and relation to the victim. If I told my parents I was mugged in an underpass on my way home, which explains why I don't have my cell p…

>You can't seriously accuse GP of setting up a straw-man, then relay an idealized (for your point) situation which is, to my knowledge, not backed up by any statistical power.

I can because mine was not a strawman, it was a variant of proof-by-contradiction: assume ~P, produce a contradiction, QED: P. I suspect you know this is a logically valid argument because you segue quickly to "statistical power".

It makes sense to question the frequency of things when talking practicality. I agree. I assert that most people have no idea what goes on in "family court", or the accoutrements surrounding it (like the police, or visitation centers, etc). The people who know are family law attorneys, judges, and those who've been through it. Maybe some others know: therapists, police officers, doctors.

But let me tell you, it's a cynical, brutal game of posturing that starts out giving the father every-other-weekend with the children. And it only can get worse from there. The wife's attorney's will generate any and all accusations to build leverage to take the children away; this gives them leverage for a settlement, because a trial can take years and 100's of thousands of dollars. The father must decide: take the deal, or not see your kids?

This is standard operating procedure in divorces in the united states, although I'm guessing you didn't know that. I'm just saying that my own experience has changed my perspective significantly - when I hear an accusation of DV during a divorce, there is a strong likelihood that we are seeing the mechanization of the attorneys. And they know, more than anyone, the power of an accusation regardless of it's truth value.

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#177

Post by aww_dang »

busterarm wrote: post #23
xenihn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember hearing that image macros originated on TribalWar (a forum for Starsiege: Tribes), but they were definitely popularized by SA

Shazbot!

I heard they originated in Canadia

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#178

Post by parineum »

IanCal wrote: post #74
javajosh wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>credible allegations I truly wish that allegations of any and every sort were considered not credible by the general public. Domestic abuse is a real problem, but false allegation of domestic abuse is a real problem, too. Indeed, if a person wants to harm another without lifting a finger, the simplest thing to do is claim "He hurt me" or "I'm afraid of him" and you'll get every cop, judge, attorney, a legion of your…

This is an odd take. > I truly wish that allegations of any and every sort were considered not credible by the general public. If someone steals my phone at the bar and everyone at the table sees them do it, then tells you exactly what happened with the same story - would you say "no, this is _not credible_. It is not something I am able to believe could happen and it is not plausible". Surely not. It would be a cred…

> If someone steals my phone at the bar and everyone at the table sees them do it, then tells you exactly what happened with the same story - would you say "no, this is _not credible_. It is not something I am able to believe could happen and it is not plausible". Surely not. It would be a credible allegation.

This is a pretty good scenario for explaining why accounts like this can be not credible.

A is at the table and "sees" B steal his phone. A accuses B of stealing his phone in front of C, D and E. Cop receives testimony from A, C, D and E that is all the same story.

Eye witness testimony is not that valuable when people have conferred with each other.

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#179

Post by notahacker »

javajosh wrote: post #124
davidgerard wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point in the thread, it seems clear you're talking about personal issues and not about anything to do with Richard Kyanka or the detailed allegations, police reports, etc.

The guy killed himself and posters are mentioning "credible DV allegations" to imply "good, glad he's dead, he (probably) deserved it." This is the concrete outcome of a much broader consequence of exempting women from ordinary standards of evidence around DV allegations. It's a big problem, worth pointing out, and I strongly suspect that Kyanka would appreciate the discussion.

I don't think anybody has said he (probably) deserved it. They've suggested he was a complicated character whose suicide appears to be the culmination of an unfortunate pattern of self-destructive behaviour, not a hero or victim.

And I'm not sure what you consider to be "ordinary standards of evidence", but you started this subthread by insisting that we should automatically assume allegations were not credible, even in a case where multiple people have independently testified to the same pattern of behaviour and a court has ruled them to be credible, and then went off on an entirely irrelevant tangent about how a half-jokey comment some trashy talk show host made about how to have a second baby with a partner who changed his mind about more kids could, in theory, lead to "18 years free money for the mom". I'm struggling to understand any connection at all between the points you're bringing up other than the repeated insinuation that women are inherently untrustworthy...

Re: Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died

#180

Post by nsxwolf »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #142
content_sesh wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every one of my ex-wives is a crazy bitch. Every judge has it out for me. It's not my fault my kids don't like me; their mom keeps poisoning them against me with lies and my visitation schedule makes it impossible for me to be in their lives. No one ever believes me, they all just want to think I'm the bad guy. You don't need to construct hypotheticals here because we're talking about a specific person. He pretty muc…

> It's not my fault my kids don't like me; their mom keeps poisoning them against me with lies and my visitation schedule makes it impossible for me to be in their lives. I wouldn't doubt that. This is called parental alienation and it happens extremely often if my lawyer friends are to be believed.

That’s been a feature of nearly every divorce I’ve been personally adjacent to.
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