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The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

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Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#391

Post by RC_ITR »

pasquinelli wrote: post #325
RC_ITR wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Let's agree to disagree that you deserve the same rights as me' is just a really hard pill to swallow for LGBTQ+ people. You can choose to hold that opinion if you want, but most LGBTQ+ people and their loved ones will choose not to interact with you as a result.

but actually, they do. thus, social media as it exists today is a bunch of people all trying to own the other side. they live to interact with people they disagree with, the harder the disagreement the better.

I can't really parse what you're saying. Who is 'they'?

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#392

Post by kzrdude »

ar_lan wrote: post #233

Twitter is the fastest way for me to feel like I'm a completely worthless human being, especially in the tech sector. It overwhelmingly emphasizes the following, from my experience: 1. If you are not famous, you don't matter. 2. Front-end engineers are invariably the most important and skillful, and backend engineers really aren't valuable. 3. If you hold any position that's even accidentally politically incorrect, y…

I'm not a fan of twitter either, mainly for reason (3). It is a platform where it's very easy to be publically shamed in an unproportional manner.

In comparison, forums like hacker news and reddit don't focus on the person writing, but focuses on the conversation. People can respond in a mean way (unfortunately) to a comment, but not "to the person", it doesn't have the same dynamic. The potential for huge reach of any single tweet is a big factor in giving twitter this bad dynamic.

That we feel relatively safe to have conversations, to try arguments and to sometimes be wrong about stuff is healthy. Maybe I'm confused and wrong about what I'm writing in this comment. Someone will tell me, but I'll live. :)

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#393

Post by alecbz »

ar_lan wrote: post #233

Twitter is the fastest way for me to feel like I'm a completely worthless human being, especially in the tech sector. It overwhelmingly emphasizes the following, from my experience: 1. If you are not famous, you don't matter. 2. Front-end engineers are invariably the most important and skillful, and backend engineers really aren't valuable. 3. If you hold any position that's even accidentally politically incorrect, y…

> Front-end engineers are invariably the most important and skillful, and backend engineers really aren't valuable.

Heh, that's interesting. I didn't see a whole lot of that on Twitter (though I kinda see what you mean), but I did know a senior engineer that referred to front-end engineers as "finger-painters".

I think both camps probably kinda looks down on the other a bit. (But I guess the frontend camp is louder on Twitter?)

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#394

Post by fleddr »

phasersout wrote: post #284
jameskilton wrote: post #12

"Never pass up a chance to keep your mouth shut" Words my Dad taught me as I was growing up, but only really sank in the last 5 or so years ago.

goes together with the realization that a lot of discussions are really not that interesting to begin with.

Most online discussions regarding divisive political topics are unwinnable (mind made up, bad faith discussion) and more importantly...inconsequential.

The outcome doesn't matter, so it's time wasted.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#395

Post by 0xedd »

vorpalhex wrote: post #146
toastercat wrote: post #71

I tried being a Twitter user for a bit last year, mostly because a lot of engineers I admire use it to communicate about interesting topics and also their work. But after a while, I realized even they will pollute my feed with politically divisive topics, whether it be from them retweeting something, or liking a tweet, or even entering into the fray themselves -- Twitter will find a way to get me to see it. For a whi…

One of my pet theories for why social media is such a cesspool is that it exposes us to the whole of someone else. If I play boardgames with Sue, that's enough. We meet, enjoy a beer and play some Catan and go our separate ways. That's a fine relationship. If I follow Sue on social media, now I know her politics, religion, sex life, drug usage, opinions on every little thing.. and frankly, I don't care or want to. I'…

Wrong. Facebook whistleblower says company made profits from making people suffer. People suffer from reading cesspool produce. Facebook used big data insight to expose users to cesspool produce.

Twitter isn't dumber.

(Assume this was written with kindness)

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#396

Post by username3 »

thrwawy283 wrote: post #274
vorpalhex wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my pet theories for why social media is such a cesspool is that it exposes us to the whole of someone else. If I play boardgames with Sue, that's enough. We meet, enjoy a beer and play some Catan and go our separate ways. That's a fine relationship. If I follow Sue on social media, now I know her politics, religion, sex life, drug usage, opinions on every little thing.. and frankly, I don't care or want to. I'…

This is an interesting idea: I wish you could Follow a combination of a person and the #topic they post to. You could choose to follow "all of" a person, but more realistically the default behavior would be to attach to posts from a particular topic that person is generating. This would be similar to your example of playing a game of Catan with someone and enjoying just that limited bandwidth you have with them. Know…

That is the obvious solution, but Twitter may lose revenue.

Twitter needs to incentivize using hashtags.

John Carmack can add hashtags to his tweets.

Someone can create an account that hashtags and quote retweet John Carmack’s tweets.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#397

Post by Dylan16807 »

jollybean wrote: post #226
UnpossibleJim wrote: post #204

So, this article states that 42% of Americans identify as politically independent. This beats the next largest political identity (Democrats, 29%) by 13%. Yet, the political system has been rigged - obviously so, for anyone who cares to look - so that an independent party fails to get the 5% necessary to get onto the ballot and future funding for the next election cycle for presidential running. How is it that there…

It's much more complicated than that those ostensible 'affiliations' indicate. Many Trump voters do not identify as 'Republicans'. Don't assume elections are 'rigged' because of some uneasy data. There are obviously specific issues with voting but even then it's more nuanced.

First past the post, plus two dominant parties, has such severe negative effects that "rigged" is a reasonable way to talk about it.

Re: The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

#400

Post by MiddleEndian »

erichocean wrote: post #323
MiddleEndian wrote: post #147

I got my twitter account MyfirstnameMylastname somewhere early in the site's existence, probably around 2009. But never really got the appeal of Twitter so I never used it for anything, I'd check it once every six months or so. I eventually learned I share a name with a tech journalist who is very active on Twitter, and occasionally I would get tagged instead instead of him. Every time, I would respond with the Navy…

LOL, similar for me (2008, @FirstnameLastname) but I got banned early 2020 despite not tweeting.[0] I followed lots of CS people that I now have lost. At least you got banned for doing something to annoy The Twitter. [0] I appealed and was told I had evaded a previous ban! Obviously…no, no I didn't.

I suppose I could have just been randomly banned as well lol. I just assumed that was the reason because I never used it for anything else. They never gave me a reason and I never bothered to challenge it.
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