Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka, creator of Somethingawful, has died • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by notahacker » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 1:51 PM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #131

tallanvor wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Women are still often told that sexual harassment is their own fault for dressing the way they do, or get told "boys will be boys". It used to be expected that women would have to put up with it in the workplace. Rape victims get told that if they really didn't want it to happen they could have fought harder. There are still judges in the US giving lighter sentences or no jail time at all…

Which is a justification for the objective metoo set out to achieve, and it seems one a lot of people agree with. However those objective are very clearly to undermine the foundational principles of justice. Perhaps you find the arguments for this to be very compelling, but it’s simply a fact that metoo set out to promote a presumption of guilt, in all areas of society that it was able to influence. Most metoo advoca…

The principle that the standard of evidence for the state to deprive somebody of their liberty should be high /= it being epistemically sound to assume the person issuing denials is the most likely person to be telling the truth.

And as far as concrete responses go, I would think it extremely unjust to lock up somebody purely based on anecdotes about creepy behaviour towards kids. But I also wouldn't hire him as a babysitter or a television presenter.

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

#192

Post by happytoexplain » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 1:52 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #181

prvc wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>confirmed his treatment of me was Domestic Violence Wording suggests that adopting an expansive definition of the term (which has undergone substantial concept-creep) was necessary in order for it to have applied to her allegations.

"Concept creep" is interesting — is there an old and new concept of domestic violence?

The parent is referring to a part of the broader notion that some people feel that some other people have over-extended the use of accusatory terms. It's a segment of the SJW/wokeness/cancel-culture/left-vs-right thing. E.g. the word "violence" was used by somebody (I forget the case, but it was not a legal usage of the term) to refer to something non-physical. "Words can be violence", or something like that. I think "poverty is a form of violence" is also something I've heard. I've seen this criticism made for over-usage of the term "hate speech" too, but only in a sarcastic, theoretical way. I've haven't seen the actual instances of the term's misuse. Similarly, I haven't seen cases where the specific term "domestic violence" was over-extended in any popular or legal context (though they may exist).

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

#193

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 1:55 PM UTC

smt88 wrote: post #13

donatj wrote: post #8

Well dang, that sucks. Something Awful circa 2003 really shaped my sense of humor as a teen. Photoshop Phriday was something I and all my friends waited for each week. In my opinion this deserves the black bar.

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.

[deleted]

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

#194

Post by JohnBooty » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

romwell wrote: post #121

Jensson wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The concept of "jokes at someone else's expense = bad" isn't hard to grasp for an analytical mind. Rape jokes aren't at anyone's expense. A joke at someone's expense would be making fun of someone, a rape joke is just something like "9 out of 10 enjoys gang rape" etc, that isn't what people mean when they say "joke at someone else's expense". So to me your post just shows that you lack the social awareness to under…

Do I really have to play Captain Obvious and say that rape jokes are usually at the expense of rape victims? The "9 out of 10 enjoys gang rape" joke makes fun of the fact that the person being raped doesn't "enjoy" it. Let's see if it works in other contexts: > "9 out of 10 people enjoy lynchings" > "9 out of 10 people enjoy stoning" > "3 out of 4 people enjoy bullying" > "1 out of 2 people enjoy scalping" > "9 out o…

Whoa, I think there's a major misunderstanding here.

First, I agree: rape is a bad choice for humor. For a number of reasons.

Second, sexual assault is a huge problem and it has affected my own life in various ways. People I love have been sexually assaulted. I've seen the damage and I'm sure that the damage runs deeper than I can truly know.

However...

    What mind finds deliberately hurting another 
    human being an enjoyable pastime?

As somebody who used to employ/enjoy that sort of humor (long ago) I assure you that's rarely what anybody is thinking when they tell that sort of joke.

It's gallows humor, more or less. The idea is that you're laughing because you know that rape/murder/whatever is wrong. The jokes generally make no sense otherwise. For many it's even sort of a coping mechanism. It's not entirely dissimilar to the appeal of horror/slasher movies - folks generally aren't watching them because they think murder and torture are "enjoyable pastimes" in a literal sense.

Or when somebody says, "I'm gonna kill the next telemarketer who tries to sell me an extended car warranty!" We understand that they are using hyperbole: murder (a thing we acknowledge is wrong) would clearly be an unethical and disproportionate response. Therein lies the humor.

Again, please let me restate that I agree with you: rape is a very poor choice for humor. But your posts lead me to believe there is a deeper misunderstanding at work.

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

#195

Post by rexreed » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

I don't think we'll be seeing a black banner on HN for this one, even though his controversial history is probably highly relevant to the growth of Internet society and culture.

Is there specific criteria for who gets a black banner and who doesn't?

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

#196

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

Chris2048 wrote: post #185

romwell wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an autistic: no. Lack of social awareness isn't an excuse for rape and abuse jokes. You don't need any social awareness to figure out that you shouldn't do that. The concept of "jokes at someone else's expense = bad" isn't hard to grasp for an analytical mind. Autism is not stupidity. You are not doing "autists" any favor by trying to excuse this behavior. (Also, for some reason , autistic women aren't seen joking…

There's (famously) a spectrum for autism, and individual differences in any case. You can't speak for the whole spectrum just for placing somewhere on it.

[deleted]

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

#197

Post by dwater » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #146

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--…

I'm unfamiliar with BitTorrent Barnyard, despite knowing of both SA and BitTorrent for nearly twenty years, and a search just gives me torrents for a 2006 movie. Someone mind telling me what it was? Guessing a tracker?

When the forums went paid and semi private, a few boards were created for sharing music, porn, and torrents. AFAIK you could never see they existed without a paid account. The last time I logged in with a paid account was more than 15 years ago though so I can't say how it evolved.

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

#198

Post by Kye » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

dash2 wrote: post #75

loriverkutya wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even if you despise the person, their death has caused real human suffering and pain among those around and associated to them. Generally the victims of a serial abuser are usually experienced the suffering and the pain while the abuser was alive and their death is a relief. (firsthand experience) I really don't understand of this speak ill if the dead thing, where is the limit, am I allowed to speak ill of Stalin o…

Most humans are imperfect. Some guy once said something about casting the first stone. A more recent guy pointed out that analogies with Stalin and Hitler are usually not illuminating.

"Imperfect" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I don't know what the reference to a character in a book is doing there. Godwin of Godwin's Law fame said you could compare people to Hitler.

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

#199

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 2:10 PM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #147

onion2k wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domestic abuse is a real problem, but false allegation of domestic abuse is a real problem There are significantly fewer false allegations than real ones. I'd be amazed if more than 1% were proven to be false, and it's likely far less than that. To assume that the alleged victim is lying would be incredibly harmful; many more people would refuse to make an accusation if they weren't going to be believed. Your opinion…

> To assume that the alleged victim is lying would be incredibly harmful > many more people would refuse to make an accusation if they weren't going to be believed Of course. That's the point. Why should people be able to accuse others of serious crimes without one shred of evidence? Are people innocent or guilty by default? That's what this boils down to. > There are significantly fewer false allegations than real o…

[deleted]

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

#200

Post by praxxis » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

ghuntley wrote: post #32

mjfl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am the greatest.

VGH

I mean while we're talking about the legacy of Tribes and SA and "old internet" culture we need to shout out a certain dancing gherkin wearing a pink inventory as a hat.

(hi Nexty, it's ParadoX)