Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The new silent majority: People who don't tweet

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–650 of 784 posts

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

#641

Post by vorpalhex »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #550
vorpalhex wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was such a hot debate on a set of subreddits it caused a collapse of a huge subreddit, the ousting of a powermod, and several spinoff subreddits. Admittedly it was a few years ago, but it was an interesting fight to watch from the sidelines. My preference here is to refer to people however they want to be referred to. When I adopted that view, I thought it was very safe but it has actually landed me in hot water…

A person referring to themselves using a common slur does not mean they want others to refer to them as that.

To hundreds of thousands of people who use that as an identity, it is not a slur.

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

#642

Post by jxramos »

madrox wrote: post #273
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'…

My favorite theory comes from an HN comment describing it as the "toaster fucker problem." I'd attempt to re-explain it, but the original comment is great (and easy to search for. Not many mentions of the phrase "toaster fucker" on HN.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362

wow, the internet and the "coalescing of the fringe", which is probably a more apt phrase and characterization of this phenomenon.

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

#643

Post by bzbarsky »

ratww wrote: post #407
gedy wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Issue is usually in defining terms like 'transphobe' - I've encountered folks who define that as someone who wouldn't be willing to sleep with or be attracted to a trans person in the same way as a biological female. I think that's an example of an area people are just going to have to agree to disagree.

That's a bit of a strawman. That's not transphobic. Nobody is obligated to have sex with anyone, trans or cis, period. That's not even up for discussion. If one, however, goes out of their way to harass transexual people when stating this preference, then yeah, it's a bit transphobic. Intention matters.

> That's a bit of a strawman.

I think that depends on your social circle.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-57853385 has some examples of people for whom this was clearly not a strawman as of 5 months ago.

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

#644

Post by jamaicahest »

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'…

I used to say, half jokingly, people need to learn to shut the **** up, myself included. Meaning just because you have an opinion you don't have an obligation to share it with everyone else. Me writing this comment illustrates that.

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

#645

Post by caffeine »

duxup wrote: post #55
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.

I once worked for a company where several groups were VERY vocal about their complaints about each other. It seemed like bitching about the other team(s) was part of the job. Lots of walls built here and there between teams. I kept quiet. I decided bitching was too tiresome / nobody was getting anything done, nobody was getting better by having complainants flung at them. After I established relationships with variou…

I only recently discovered something that is probably obvious to most other people: someone’s immediate verbal reaction to a message is often different than their long-term behavioural response to it.

“Your team isn’t pulling their weight”

The immediate reaction might be “Yes of course we are, how dare you!”

Now you have two options. It sounds like they have rejected your premise. Do you double down and try to force a verbal capitulation? “No, you are all really doing nothing!”

Or do you leave the seed you have planted: “Oh, alright then, good to hear it.”

The second option works way better. What they said in their immediate reaction is not predictive of the longer-term response. The longer term reaction might be that the team quietly increases their performance. If you went the confrontational approach, you would have ruled that out.

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

#646

Post by Gareth321 »

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…

>I know a lot of folks in my field side by the stance that everything is political, even code.

Conveniently, these are people who want everything to be about their political values and beliefs, and anyone who disagrees is a fascist/nazi.

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

#647

Post by daniel-cussen »

mekal wrote: post #504
alecbz wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 o…

Regardless of what they think I'm still thankful for front-enders. CSS / UI-design/layout...people that enjoy that sorta thing are great because it means I don't have to do it. Maybe they feel the same way about backend work. Whatever, it all works out!

Yeah plus it is a sign of security. It is so much easier and more reasonable to trust a UI that is pixel-perfect throughout all transformations than a glitchy one (the glitch might be farther down the stack). It's just like trusting a bank with impeccable marble in the lobby over one with crappy construction, it tells you how thorough they are about everything else.

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

#648

Post by caffeine »

colinmhayes wrote: post #210
duxup wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once worked for a company where several groups were VERY vocal about their complaints about each other. It seemed like bitching about the other team(s) was part of the job. Lots of walls built here and there between teams. I kept quiet. I decided bitching was too tiresome / nobody was getting anything done, nobody was getting better by having complainants flung at them. After I established relationships with variou…

> right and wrong (well outside real moral issues) Even moral issues don't have objective right and wrong. The idea that there are base moral facts is ridiculous, and without fully understanding each others priors arguments about ethics are rarely productive.

> The idea that there are base moral facts is ridiculous

Sexual abuse of toddlers?

Unprovoked abduction and torture?

I think there certainly are base moral facts at the extremes of behaviour. Evil exists. Malevolence exists.

But I agree that most behaviour isn’t so extreme as to be easily judged without the understanding you describe.

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

#650

Post by raxxorrax »

sjmm1989 wrote: post #348
madrox wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite theory comes from an HN comment describing it as the "toaster fucker problem." I'd attempt to re-explain it, but the original comment is great (and easy to search for. Not many mentions of the phrase "toaster fucker" on HN.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362

My roommate basically put it in his project for university as a similar theory to Toaster Fucker. I too have a personal similar theory where I just refer to the 'village idiot'. They all basically revolve around one truth I think. The internet doesn't radicalize people. People radicalize people. The internet is just full of people who are already radicalized in their daily life, and they are using the internet to rad…

TV talk shows basically had the same formula as Twitter. You don't invite the common, adjusted and perhaps boring personalities, you invite the most polarizing and special personalities you can find. Now they can share their craziness on Twitter together. The press is hostage in an attention economy and must further showcase people like that for financial stability.

Anonymity means more honesty, which is far more interesting than an adjusted and boring corporate world full of advertiser messages and the latter is all you would ever get. That said, the loudest voices on Twitter or Facebook are mostly not anonymous, anonymous boards are mostly far better places to discuss anything. Some abuse it, but without it we would see a much worse net.

Post reply on HN