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Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

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Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#101

Post by bh42222 »

keithpeter wrote: post #95
rickmb wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that for a second. I'm 45 years old. My parents were born during ww2. I grew up with black and white tv (okay, partly because we couldn't afford color yet...). But my dad, an unskilled immigrant, ran IT companies for most of his life, and my mother, well into her 60's, got an iPad before I did. Hell, she was on Skype when I still had a landline... She even owns a friggin' Wii. If there are people who…

I'm 53, my parents were teenagers before the end of the European second world war. My Dad would have loved all this stuff. My mum's best friend was a telex operator in a large shipping company the 1950s and they had this thing called operator net. Facebook for 20something sweater girls, it sounds a hoot. Here is my thought: the Internet (e.g. the IP/TCP protocols and http) can support either large centralised systems…

You are all right!

I think that a lot of older people DO very much continue to keep up with all social and technological changes.

But the main point, that older generations are both socially and technologically conservative is not controversial.

I think that, despite many exceptions, this is a universal human truth.

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#102

Post by tomjen3 »

trentmb wrote: post #20
nekojima wrote: post #13

I am happy to be called a geek, nerd or expert. Thank you for the complement. :-)

In this case, however, they're laughing at you, not with you.

That is fair -- I think most of us are laughing at them too.

The trouble is that even a law made by an idiot is valid.

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#103

Post by scott_s »

pinaceae wrote: post #17

it points to a big shift in society and the economy. software is now a cornerstone of the world economy. modern life runs through the internet. even if you personally avoid the internet, you depend on it. but the baby boomer generation, represented by these politicians has not understood it. they know engineers as the guys building houses, bridges, aeroplanes, rockets. but software? it is an invisible world to them.…

Not all of the politicians in this clip are baby boomers. At least one looked to be in his 40s.

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#104

Post by dalke »

dalke wrote: post #93
saulrh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For last couple of centuries or so, each generation grows up with unprecedented change in their lifetime. I'd argue that this generation's changes aren't just unprecedented, but in an entirely different category. Not just in size, but in speed and extent. The cell phone alone is the most fundamental change in society in human history; suddenly, every person on earth can communicate instantly with almost any other per…

Consider someone who died in 1955 at the age of 70. In their life they saw the introduction of: home electric providers, telephones, radio, movies, automobile, air travel (from nothing to the jet age!), nuclear energy, the polio vaccine, penicillin, color photography, frozen food, and more. There are also less known changes with deep impact: the introduction of municipal garbage service cleaned up our cities and impr…

(typo: "even when compared to the 1980s", not 1800s. The polio vaccine "reduced the worldwide incidence from an estimated 350,000 cases in 1988 to 1,652 cases in 2007"; Wikipedia: Polio)

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#105

Post by scott_s »

dalke wrote: post #93
saulrh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For last couple of centuries or so, each generation grows up with unprecedented change in their lifetime. I'd argue that this generation's changes aren't just unprecedented, but in an entirely different category. Not just in size, but in speed and extent. The cell phone alone is the most fundamental change in society in human history; suddenly, every person on earth can communicate instantly with almost any other per…

Consider someone who died in 1955 at the age of 70. In their life they saw the introduction of: home electric providers, telephones, radio, movies, automobile, air travel (from nothing to the jet age!), nuclear energy, the polio vaccine, penicillin, color photography, frozen food, and more. There are also less known changes with deep impact: the introduction of municipal garbage service cleaned up our cities and impr…

These are all excellent points, but I personally think that Facebook is a fundamental change on the order of phones in everyone's homes. That is, it is changing the way that most people communicate.

But, yes, overall, I think people tend to underestimate the radical changes that happened during the first half of the 20th century. By 1950, the "structure" of daily life was much closer to it was in 2000 than it was in 1900.

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#106

Post by scott_s »

iliis wrote: post #64
timthorn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cell phone alone is the most fundamental change in society in human history What about the railways?

Oh, trains are pretty fundamental and changed a lot. But a device so small it fits into your pocket, let's you communicate in real time with almost everybody, takes pictures and even movies (and sends them around the world), precisely calculates not only time but your location on the whole earth, can recognize speech, songs, books and other stuff, is able to translate fast between common languages, oh, and it let's y…

Railways were more of a fundamental change than where smart phones are now. (Note I'm allowing them to be a more fundamental change in the future.) Not because of individuals taking the train, but because it allowed goods to be mass transported easier - it built fundamental infrastructure. Smart phones aren't part of fundamental infrastructure (yet!).

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#107

Post by brown9-2 »

jerfelix wrote: post #59

I thought that Stewart made the congresspersons on the Nerds clip look all look like ignorant supporters of SOPA. The last speaker, Jason Chaffetz, who said "maybe we ought to ask some nerds what this really does" was in opposition to SOPA. Chaffetz has spoken out against SOPA since at least December 7th. See this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQJrNpAcT84 , where he also uses the term "nerds", but he's saying…

I disagree. It doesn't make Chaffetz look like a SOPA supporter. It just makes him look like someone who believes in stereotypes and put-downs.

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#108

Post by jordan0day »

DTanner wrote: post #80
ck2 wrote: post #26

Is "geek" too cool of a word now that they have to reach for the calculated more insulting "nerd"? (my apologies to proud nerds - but my point is that's not how they were using it) So if people who know what they are doing with computers are the equal of geeks, do politicians think they are the dumb jocks in this high school infantile throwdown?

If you watch SC2 on GSL with Tasteless and Artosis, you'll see that even "nerd" is no longer pejorative. The greatest compliment they know is "nerd baller". They refer to themselves and the audience as "nerds" all the time, but in a totally friendly way. It's almost a badge of pride.

Do you really think the congresspeople saying "Well I don't know how it works!? I'm not a nerd!" We're really using it as a compliment, though? And as the Stewart clip points out, why couldn't they have just said "expert"? It's clear they were at best making backhanded compliments -- at worst they were intentionally framing it as "here's some weird arcane thing that only nerds care about, not normal people like us!"

"If you watch SC2 on GSL with Tasteless and Artosis" I haven't the slightest clue what that even means, you nerd.

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#109

Post by dhughes »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #83

Canadian link: http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheDailyShow?videoPacka...

Ironic and sad having to do this has become so commonplace nobody even blinks even more so considering the subject.

I refuse to use region specific links like that. Sure the two are separate channels but breaking up the world into specific regions just segregates the Internet into castes of countries. There's no reason I a Canadian shouldn't be able to click that link and view Comedy Central a website on the world wide web.

Re: Jon Stewart calls out congressional nerd bashing over SOPA

#110

Post by RyanMcGreal »

dhughes wrote: post #109
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #83

Canadian link: http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheDailyShow?videoPacka...

Ironic and sad having to do this has become so commonplace nobody even blinks even more so considering the subject. I refuse to use region specific links like that. Sure the two are separate channels but breaking up the world into specific regions just segregates the Internet into castes of countries. There's no reason I a Canadian shouldn't be able to click that link and view Comedy Central a website on the world wi…

All I can say is that the irony of my comment wasn't lost on me. :(
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