In the end, the Internet made us stupid.
The Internet did no such thing. It just amplified human propensities. But if you see stupid people on the Internet constantly you should reconsider what for and how you use the Internet.
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Richard ‘Lowtax’ Kyanka, founder of Something Awful, has died
141–150 of 185 posts
Re: Richard ‘Lowtax’ Kyanka, founder of Something Awful, has died
#142Re: Richard ‘Lowtax’ Kyanka, founder of Something Awful, has died
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If the answer is anything less than “infinite money”, you’re anti-free-speech. Pointing this out is not the most popular thing on HN, but that doesn't make it less true. I made a similar case a week or two ago in response to someone who did a Show HN on their new "free speech" platform. I essentially challenged the creator to advocate for his new platform by supporting the speech rights of child abusers to promote…
I don't think providing a place where other people can say what they want is equivalent to being compelled to promote someone elses' speech.
The suggestion was not to support the speech itself, but the right to the speech. Big difference.
Many of those who've been deplatformed for disinfo, or hateful speech, etc. couch their victimization narratives in the loftier ideals of free speech, with the disingenuous pronouncenent "who gets to decide?"
My point is that society decides and must necessarily decide if we're to continue to have a society. And, if they disagree that anyone should have the right to decide, then they can demonstrate their committment to that belief by openly embracing the speech rights of those most universally abhorred.
Otherwise, they acknowledge the existence of and rationale for limits, and just want to be the decider.
Re: Richard ‘Lowtax’ Kyanka, founder of Something Awful, has died
#144Well that’s too bad. I had a lot of fun trolling D&D and participating in photoshop Fridays. I remember loading that up and watching 9/11 footage set to the Benny Hill theme practically the day it happened. The forums were just brutal, and hilarious for a certain kind of mind. And the impact on the internet is clear and widespread.
> The forums were just brutal, and hilarious for a certain kind of mind. I don't want to know that there are people with that kind of mind.
You’re just learning about the concept of dark humor today?
Re: Richard ‘Lowtax’ Kyanka, founder of Something Awful, has died
#145I always thought his insight that the Internet will bring together every oddball idea people have that they used to keep private and it will be awful.
Re: Richard ‘Lowtax’ Kyanka, founder of Something Awful, has died
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If the answer is anything less than “infinite money”, you’re anti-free-speech. Pointing this out is not the most popular thing on HN, but that doesn't make it less true. I made a similar case a week or two ago in response to someone who did a Show HN on their new "free speech" platform. I essentially challenged the creator to advocate for his new platform by supporting the speech rights of child abusers to promote…
> I essentially challenged the creator to advocate for his new platform by supporting the speech rights of child abusers to promote their ideas I wouldn’t do that. I’m not sure why anybody would.
Well, feel free to substitute something legal or more abstract, like tentacle porn.
But, I did it exactly because it's a real-world example of near-universally abhorrent speech that I don't think they would support on their own platform.
But, the deplatformed and other types who are recently lamenting "the great fall of free speech" always offer the argument "who gets to decide what speech is acceptable?", which is a gratingly disingenuous position that pretends we don't have standards and laws, etc. as a society. And further pretends that they themselves believe there should be no limitations on free speech ("unfettered").
We've always had deciders. These people just don't like the recent decisions. But, if that's not the case, then the only way to prove it is to truly allow all speech on their own platform and telegraph that intention by openly supporting the speech rights of the most abhorrent people in society.
Re: Richard ‘Lowtax’ Kyanka, founder of Something Awful, has died
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its interesting that you mention this infinite money problem. Have you ever noticed that the second a fully free speech site opens it is almost instantly crippled with CP? Do you really think that is just happening naaturally? How can something universally loathed also be so prolific that it needs to constanly infect venues to propogate? Its almost like its a tactic to suppress free speech but im just a nut.
This is a problem with the post-'60s post-Chatterly trial conception of free speech. Since then, amidst other developments, the concept of free speech has been conflated with a rabid opposition to any obscenity laws. The US and Great Britain have had a much longer history in which free speech had a meaning separate from the absence of prohibition against obscene material (with some small exceptions we have today like…
Is there more information about the changing definition of free speech? How did modern activists get it so wrong?
Re: Richard ‘Lowtax’ Kyanka, founder of Something Awful, has died
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
4chan's influence is not good but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. In fact it's so influential that a lot of the garbage on there bleeds into the real world e.g. Pizzagate, QAnon, the OK symbol means 'white power' hoax. Most of the terrible stuff that people blame facebook or twitter for spreading usually comes from there.
4chan hardly had any responsibility for Qanon. Q poster was banned very early after most recognised it as a larp. It is overwhelmingly the legacy of infinity chan. This is not withstanding who was eventually revealed to be one of the people behind it all, but I hate to overexplain this because the bottom-line is that this whole idea that lowtax was some kind of Gavrilo Princep is over-the-top and kinda dumb. The 4cha…
4chan was influential in many other ways, from all of Anonymous’s ops, to playing a role at Occupy and other protests. SA led to the rise of the Dirtbag Left, to Brown Moses and bellingcat, to r/wallstreetbets culture.
Re: Richard ‘Lowtax’ Kyanka, founder of Something Awful, has died
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a problem with the post-'60s post-Chatterly trial conception of free speech. Since then, amidst other developments, the concept of free speech has been conflated with a rabid opposition to any obscenity laws. The US and Great Britain have had a much longer history in which free speech had a meaning separate from the absence of prohibition against obscene material (with some small exceptions we have today like…
Is there more information about the changing definition of free speech? How did modern activists get it so wrong?
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Re: Richard ‘Lowtax’ Kyanka, founder of Something Awful, has died
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
> can imagine just how anonymous the internet was then. It wasn't that anonymous on SA though. Once you paid your :tenbux: then the site admins (incl. Lowtax) had your PII, assuming you used your own credit-card, ofc. I don't recall Lowtax et al. ever doxxed any of their own forum patrons, at least not any in good-standing, but I assume fear from the possibility of being doxxed for being an asshat on the forums kept…
Lowtax wasn't anonymous either... My friend looked up his number and address with whois and we called him, then went to his apartment parking lot and bought t-shirts out of the back of his car. Sometime circa 1999.
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