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Trouble at the Koolaid Point

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Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#271

Post by ryanpardieck »

kansface wrote: post #42
iherbig wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not who you asked, but if I may step in? It bothers me for the same reason it bothers me that those things exist. They are terrible, and should not be given a platform. I don't feel that we, as a society, should tolerate terrible things in general, much less let them prosper.

May I ask where you are from? Free speech - bigoted, hateful, maybe untrue, or otherwise, is perhaps the one enduring (sacred) tenet of American society.

And it has almost nothing to do with reddit.

Reddit could censor all instances of discussion featuring the phrase "hackers news" tomorrow, and it's not as if they would be brought up on freedom-of-speech charges.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#272

Post by mkr-hn »

tedks wrote: post #266
mkr-hn wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This isn't the greatest part of white supremacy or homophobia but it does exist and to claim it doesn't is either ignorance or (now that you don't have that excuse) willful complicity. Wait, back up. Who said they don't exist? Your claim was that letting people be bigoted makes it worse, not that it creates the problem in the first place.

You said they don't exist: >>Where are the violent neo-Nazis? I don't see it.

No, I said I don't see it. I asked you to show me. You still haven't made the connection between the links you offered and free speech.

I definitely deal with less homophobia now than I did five or ten years ago, and most of it came from engaging with homophobes and changing their minds. Racism is still almost as bad as ever, but it seems like that's mostly because the instigators (racists) never interact with their targets (people visually and culturally dissimilar from them).

The only difference I see is that one improved more than the other because people engaged with bigots and changed their minds. Which goes against your (as of yet unproven) assertion that engagement makes it worse.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#273

Post by ryanpardieck »

mintplant2 wrote: post #223
jmduke wrote: post #3

This is an excellent, brave thing to write and I originally had a long comment highlighting a bunch of particularly poignant paragraphs that I deleted because really you should just read the entire thing. Neither I nor the vast majority of the people I know have ever been subject to online harassment and it makes me thankful that there are incredible people like Kathy out there. Lord knows I wouldn't have the courage…

Related: Does anyone know of a good-quality place to go for discussion that doesn't center around news and links? Something akin to MetaFilter or HN in terms of standards, but not focused on aggregation. Are mailing lists/Usenet groups good for this?

Mailing lists, in my experience, can feature incredible discussion. I participated on one centered around a somewhat obscure literary topic for some years. You almost develop a sense of kinship.

However, mailing lists seem to be going extinct. Even back then it had a quaint, ancient feel to it.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#274

Post by McDoku »

mkr-hn wrote: post #232
McDoku wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions. -- Marcus Aurelius

That sounds bleak.

Not really. Ambition is like a bottle for your consciousness. It is the container. As your ambitions expands so does your mind.

If your ambition is to troll someone, that is your maximum value. I think if you look deeply many will realize that this is not the value they want. I believe that they can dream of something greater then to harass someone online.

If anything it is reminder to avoid being trivial. Ambition leads action. This cycle is who you are. It is beautiful self awareness.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#275

Post by ryanpardieck »

vertex-four wrote: post #136
McDoku wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom of speech mean that these ideas can be challenged in the public sphere. Anything else is the department of arm chair theorist. Freedom ain't free. It calls for noble labour.

> Freedom of speech mean that these ideas can be challenged in the public sphere. I will note that much of HN doesn't seem to believe this - when the Brendan Eich thing happened, and people were choosing to boycott Mozilla for his views (thus using their freedom of association and freedom of speech to call for him to be removed from that post), many seemed to believe that Brendan Eich's rights to freedom of speech an…

Yes, for some reason many people think freedom of speech means they--and those they identify with--should be able to speak free of social consequence. I don't really know what leads a person to think that. Maybe they just said stuff for so long without being challenged, that they start to think they are entitled to never being challenged?

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#276

Post by McDoku »

McDoku wrote: post #214
McDoku wrote: post #38

My take away from this article is simply raise your standards of people. Esteem should not be so fickle, it should mean something. Our culture has a very short attention spans and we exalt the wrong people. It creates a weird tension. Being a bad actor is an equal opportunity field and the doubt this creates grows until reasonable people are swallowed. We have no willingness to forgive and this puritanism has in the…

My dear beautiful downvoters did you disagree or not understand?

Option three. Irrational emotional rejection :-)

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#277

Post by mkr-hn »

McDoku wrote: post #274
mkr-hn wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds bleak.

Not really. Ambition is like a bottle for your consciousness. It is the container. As your ambitions expands so does your mind. If your ambition is to troll someone, that is your maximum value. I think if you look deeply many will realize that this is not the value they want. I believe that they can dream of something greater then to harass someone online. If anything it is reminder to avoid being trivial. Ambition l…

I think we're talking about different kinds of ambition.

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#278

Post by McDoku »

mkr-hn wrote: post #277
McDoku wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Ambition is like a bottle for your consciousness. It is the container. As your ambitions expands so does your mind. If your ambition is to troll someone, that is your maximum value. I think if you look deeply many will realize that this is not the value they want. I believe that they can dream of something greater then to harass someone online. If anything it is reminder to avoid being trivial. Ambition l…

I think we're talking about different kinds of ambition.

This is what I mean by ambition.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ambition

Re: Trouble at the Koolaid Point

#280

Post by McDoku »

mkr-hn wrote: post #279
McDoku wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I mean by ambition. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ambition

This comes off as very condescending.

It is not. There is an association with ambitious and grandiose in general language at times.

I think it is related to whole 'the meek shall inherent earth' way of thinking. Which is a whole other debate if we get into the gospels of Matthew, Luke and Q issue.

Which if you follow the logic of the statement to Matthew 5:3 it related more to an understanding of poverty and conduct. Ironically very much in line with something Marcus Aurelius would say.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_5:5

So I get the confusion, because I used to make the same error.

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