671–680 of 784 posts
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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.
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Is this sarcasm? If not, I'd love to hear the rationale behind this, as to me this seems far less objectionable than lots of things which happen on mainstream Twitter.
I suppose the charitable argument for banning would be: it pollutes Twitter without extending any conversations or bringing anybody joy per se. Basically it's spam. Certainly on HN that person would/should be banned right away (which is part of the reason HN is the best place on the internet). But Twitter is a different animal. So are Reddit and 4Chan. Sarcastic copypasta is par for the course.
Looking from the outside, this is an accurate description of 99,99% of all messages ever written on twitter. Arguably, the copy pasted text can at least bring a bit of joy which other tweets also fail at.
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'…
Thing is, personal social media accounts don't expose you to the whole of someone else, they expose you to that part of someone without the buffer of small talk, low-level real life social interactions, non-verbal cues, work/school/routine-based camaraderie, and, as you put it, enjoying a beer and playing some Catan.
The problem is that without that part of social interaction, you end up with raw opinion or dogma which doesn't have any "soft" dimension or transition layer, and that causes people to be reactionary rather than accepting.
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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
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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…
> everything can be viewed through the lens of politics
You wouldn't say "everything is geographical" because that would be absurd (just as absurd as "everything is political") but you could view most topics through the lens of geography if that was the hammer turning all your concerns into nails.
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IMO it’s not unreasonable to ban users who are outliers in terms of complaints from other users.
It isn't workable. If you ban the 2% most complained about users there will still be a 2% most complained about users. There should be something as close as possible to an objective standard of what is and isn't allowed.
Aren't these the people who have always been, and the “new”, is the small majority on Twitter thinking they represent the vast majority of society?
Thinking about it further, my government appears to listen to a lot of what Twitter has to say.
I wonder if it's easy to control a country using a high number of well-placed Twitter commentators designed to usher in whatever those in power actually wanted.
There are two groups who I think need to learn this lesson:
1. Jouralists. I constantly see statements like "People are about " based on a handful of sassy tweets. That's not journalism.
2. Product Managers. If you get 10 tweets asking for a feature you'll hear the PM say "our users really want " which is not true. 10 extremely online users want . I am convinced that this is how so many apps get dark mode but don't get actual new features.
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You're taking a very individualist stance on the issue - nobody reasonable thinks you should literally give your money to oppressed people to assuage privilege guilt. Hell, you shouldn't feel guilt at all for privilege; it's just something you're meant to be aware of when looking at things outside your frame of reference. All anybody wants is for you to support the movement for their rights in whatever ways you feel…
>You're taking a very individualist stance on the issue - nobody reasonable thinks you should literally give your money to oppressed people to assuage privilege guilt. I have no control over what other people do, think or say. What other stance can I take? I know. I was being hyperbolic with the US$20 bit. Upon reflection, I interpreted GP's comment as moralistic and condescending, which colored my response in a bad…
Of course - individualism in a political sense means the rejection of collective action. It usually boils down to the belief that people's political actions should be limited to financial transactions - solving climate change by individuals recycling, solving food insecurity by individuals donating, that sort of thing. I knew you were being hyperbolic, but a lack of familiarity with institutional or systemic change made me think you might be missing that option. That's not a criticism; it's really common in the US.
> Sadly, those who pile that sand on these folks' heads are never held to account.
Yeah, I was considering saying in my original comment that targeting those types of people has been a conservative strategy for years now, but figured it was political enough already. It seems its easy to switch people over from "nominally anti racism but also anti change" to "nominally anti racist but practically anti anti racist, ie pro racist" by getting them to support counter protest movements escalating in extreme from "all lives matter" and "its OK to be white" up to believing in the white genocide conspiracy theory.
> I suspect that many of those with their "heads in the sand" would be less inclined to ignore the intolerance if the sand shovelers (dump truck operators?) were shown for the venal, cynical scum they are.
Unfortunately people aren't very easy to reason out of positions they've dug themselves into. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink, as they say.
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You're taking a very individualist stance on the issue - nobody reasonable thinks you should literally give your money to oppressed people to assuage privilege guilt. Hell, you shouldn't feel guilt at all for privilege; it's just something you're meant to be aware of when looking at things outside your frame of reference. All anybody wants is for you to support the movement for their rights in whatever ways you feel…
There is a huge difference of who asks. The answer to if I support BLM is different and can even contradict itself if the family of George Floyd asks or some corporate media that runs a populist ad campaign. I still believe people were scammed out of their money, that their good nature was taken advantage of. Black girl programmers should not be black girl programmers, they should be programmers. And they most certai…
> Black girl programmers should not be black girl programmers, they should be programmers. And they most certainly won't face discrimination because of that.
This is a perfect demonstration of the "head in the sand" position that leads to conservatism that I was talking about. The whole point of "black girls code" is that black girls have less opportunity to get into programming, which is a form of systemic racism given that programming is a lucrative career. It's not an identity thing, it's an access thing - it's an outreach program.
It's also absurd to claim that black women never face discrimination in the workplace.
You seem to be starting from a belief that equal opportunity and discrimination based on race are solved problems and then putting yourself in opposition to programs that try to alleviate these problems (which actually do still exist).