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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

#761

Post by sjmm1989 »

lazide wrote: post #758
sjmm1989 wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to quote taco girl too overly much; but how about both? Algorithms require input to give you output, right? So even if you are correct that badly created algoritms are to blame, we still have the people who fall for the algorithms outputs because they are feeding it the inputs. To put it simply, it all goes back to the calculator/computer quote in regard to their users. They are only as smart as the person using…

Not quite. If 99 out of 100 users input not-BS, and 1 user inputs BS, but the algorithm picks the 1 users BS input and feeds it to the other 99 first so they get angry and yell at each other over the 1 BS input together - that is a historically unique situation. If it does it at scale for cheap, that is also a historically unique situation. If it does it without a human being directly involved in the choosing and pus…

I feel like all of this just means that teaching proper critical thinking in schools again would solve most of this. Along with maybe an educational update for those who missed it.

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

#762

Post by CRConrad »

bena wrote: post #691
seneca wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Parler was gaining steam until a consortium of megacorporations aligned to erase it from the internet.

That's a pretty generous interpretation of what happened.

Yeah, the less charitable but probably more accurate interpretation was that not only were they wrong, but for the wrong reason, too.

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

#763

Post by nobody9999 »

beaconstudios wrote: post #754
nobody9999 wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Huh? I was just expanding on your comment about not knowing what people were expecting you to do about systemic problems - I wasn't attacking you. That's as may be, but you focused on a single sentence ("I have no control over what other people do, think or say. What other stance can I take?") in my comment and ignored everything else I wrote. You then deigned to forgive me (and 300+ million other people) my ignoran…

I'm sorry if I offended you - I didn't mean for that to come across as patronising or as some kind of sanctimonious forgiving of sin, I was just wary that a lot of people tend to get their backs up around the topic of systemic problems and wanted to be clear that I wasn't attacking you. You did also literally say "what other stance could I take?" which I interpreted as meaning you didn't know your options for helping…

>You did also literally say "what other stance could I take?" which I interpreted as meaning you didn't know your options for helping combat systemic problems.

And you interpreted that incorrectly.

the "stance" I take (in this case, support for the equal rights and equal opporunities of all) is the stance of one who doesn't have governmental or corporate power to directly impact change other than my behavior and my advocacy.

You interpreted what I said to mean that I'm powerless to effect any change. Which is unfortunate since not only is that not true, I neither said nor implied anything of the sort.

All that said, I suspect we're, in large part, in violent agreement on this topic.

Go back and read the comment[0] to which you originally replied. You'll see that it makes clear what I think.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30608880

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

#764

Post by beaconstudios »

nobody9999 wrote: post #763
beaconstudios wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry if I offended you - I didn't mean for that to come across as patronising or as some kind of sanctimonious forgiving of sin, I was just wary that a lot of people tend to get their backs up around the topic of systemic problems and wanted to be clear that I wasn't attacking you. You did also literally say "what other stance could I take?" which I interpreted as meaning you didn't know your options for helping…

>You did also literally say "what other stance could I take?" which I interpreted as meaning you didn't know your options for helping combat systemic problems. And you interpreted that incorrectly. the "stance" I take (in this case, support for the equal rights and equal opporunities of all) is the stance of one who doesn't have governmental or corporate power to directly impact change other than my behavior and my a…

I feel like I didn't interpret you incorrectly, because while I missed that it was a rhetorical question, I didn't miss that you didn't list a single way to affect systemic change outside of voting - which is to say that you have an individualist perspective on systemic change. That's why I listed those other options for action - because let's be real here, US electoral politics is a corporate duopoly between a neoliberal party and a vaguely conservative, trending towards fascistic party, neither of which are known for advancing social progress (because the Democrats are wilfully incompetent). Thus, things like BLM protesting for rights or the progressive caucus of the Democrats smuggling actual progressives into Congress. All I wanted to highlight was that real political change happens outside the ballot box, and even though we don't have the power to enact change by fiat the way the powerful do, we can do things beyond just voting and trying to be good people individually, to advance progressive causes. That was all I was trying to say - I do think we're in agreement broadly speaking (though beyond being a progressive I'm also an anarchist, so perhaps we differ there).

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

#765

Post by jollybean »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #397
jollybean wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

First past the post is not 'rigged' is just one way of having elections.

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

#766

Post by dredmorbius »

9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: post #685
dredmorbius wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. No. 2. Yes, yes.

1. http://neuralnetworksanddeeplearning.com/chap4.html , https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/parallel-distributed-processi... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_skepticism

1. Halting problem, as a reductionist example.

2. I don't follow your point.

I do appreciate the examples/links.

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

#767

Post by lazide »

sjmm1989 wrote: post #761
lazide wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite. If 99 out of 100 users input not-BS, and 1 user inputs BS, but the algorithm picks the 1 users BS input and feeds it to the other 99 first so they get angry and yell at each other over the 1 BS input together - that is a historically unique situation. If it does it at scale for cheap, that is also a historically unique situation. If it does it without a human being directly involved in the choosing and pus…

I feel like all of this just means that teaching proper critical thinking in schools again would solve most of this. Along with maybe an educational update for those who missed it.

While it would help a little, you’ll always have a minimum of 25% (probably more like 50%+) of folks who lack the degree of emotional self control necessary for any sort of rational learning to override the emotional response.

They might feel worse about it later because they know they shouldn’t have reacted that way, but in my experience that doesn’t help as much as you’d want.

Doesn’t take much to get a mob going unfortunately.

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

#768

Post by Graffur »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #733
Graffur wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not the person I replied to. It was intended to be dismissive in response to "You don't get to message someone and cry "spam" when he replies.". As for the response, it would be unsolicited by the fact the original tweeter did not ask/want a response from the Meme-ster. They tagged the wrong account. Take this example: John says to the person he thinks is Brad: I can't believe the weather today! Emily says to…

> Take this example That's an example of a reply that is "unsolicited" and "also irrelevant", by your criteria. I'm not trying to defend that combo here. You said such a screed is " also irrelevant", right? That means even if a reply wasn't irrelevant, even if it was a useful response, it would still be unsolicited. Right? Is that what you intended to say? Am I misreading something?

I think your understanding is affected by whatever definition of unsolicited is. Can you share your definition of solicited and unsolicited?

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

#769

Post by CRConrad »

hedgewitch wrote: post #711
vorpalhex wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think the whole spectrum of LGBTQ identities isn't controversial? We aren't saying good or bad, we aren't assigning value, we are simply saying controversial. Like, obviously you feel you have to fight everyone if there is so much as a chance someone is attacking you - that sort of supports the argument, no? And no, my original argument was not that LGBTQ aligned folks should go back into the closet or…

So, there are two points that you've yet to address and I doubt ever will, which casts an extremely negative light on your argument: 1) You have yet to provide any concrete examples of what it is you mean. You keep going "but I swear this isn't what I mean." Thus, I can only conclude that you mean the whole. Am I to think you're saying that LGBTQ+ people shouldn't be allowed to discuss marriage rights, even though st…

> Am I to think you're saying that LGBTQ+ people shouldn't be allowed to discuss marriage rights, even though straight people have been afforded that right and freely talk about their marriages in front of people who are affected by laws outlawing their unions?

Are we to think you're honestly too stupid to see that discussing marriage rights is something totally different than talking about their actual marriages? We can, if you want. If not, we'd have to conclude it's a conscious tactic; twisting facts and your opponent's words into something they didn't say or doesn't happen.

We could then think this is a constant tactic of yours... But I'd prefer to ascribe it to temporary rhetorical overheating in discussing a burning cause. Hope you've put out the flames and cooled down now.

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

#770

Post by CRConrad »

hedgewitch wrote: post #719
vorpalhex wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not what I said. Go back and read the original post. It's amazing how strangers on the internet can just star gaze and determine my gender, sexuality, race and so on. It's less amazing how often wrong they are. I'd really take a moment and think whether predicting someones identity is aligned with your ethical beliefs on those topics. If you want to fight straw men, please have the courtesy of doing it in pri…

To be completely fair, if you're not a straight white man and people are regularly mistaking you for a straight white man, that generally means only one thing: you're on the wrong side of history. And no, I think you should think a bit harder about what it is you said and how you said it. It's easy to claim that isn't what you meant, but you've yet to provide any concrete examples of what you mean, which I called you…

> To be completely fair, if you're not a straight white man and people are regularly mistaking you for a straight white man, that generally means only one thing: you're on the wrong side of history.

Because straight white men just are "on the wrong side of history, everyone knows that", or what?!?

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