‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’ • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#591

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 9:34 PM UTC

camgunz wrote: post #559

naasking wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The extreme right is deeply racist/homophobic/sexist, denies science, advocates for a theocracy and for the shutting down of government services to the extent that millions of people will die. Would you like me to point you to the videos of extreme left protests assaulting professors on campuses for wanting to host an open debate on topics they find offensive? Or videos on extreme left protestors trying to shut dow…

> I can also show you the recent amendments to the Ontario law in which it is now illegal to not use non-gendered pronouns. No need, I'm familiar with it. Here's what they themselves say about it: --- Is it a violation of the Code to not address people by their choice of pronoun? The law recognizes that everyone has the right to self-identify their gender and that “misgendering” is a form of discrimination. As one hu…

[deleted]

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#592

Post by leereeves » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 10:36 PM UTC

elguyosupremo wrote: post #547

leereeves wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Civilians can't buy assault rifles in the US. What civilians buy is a hunting rifle that looks like an assault rifle.

I love guns and have no wish to see them further restricted but this is a terrible argument. The features that are used to define a civilian 'assault rifle' unquestionably make them more dangerous than a hunting rifle. The military didn't decide to start having pistol grips on their rifles because it looks cool, vertical foregrips originated in the military and it wasn't because they look cool. I own a .308 rifle wit…

I agree that the 2nd amendment is not about hunting, but I also think it's important to point out that "assault weapons" are a political target because they look like military assault rifles, not because of their features. People who know nothing about guns are judging them by their superficial appearance.

The features you mentioned:

A 20 round magazine is unrelated to "assault weapons". Those are available for handguns and for hunting rifles without pistol grips as well.

The deadliest war in history, WW2, was fought with rifles without pistol grips (only a few thousand were produced near the end). Not having pistol grips didn't stop soldiers from killing unprecedented numbers of people.

And how many mass killers actually used bayonets or a folding stock?

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#593

Post by leereeves » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

aplummer wrote: post #551

leereeves wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've already tried to ban guns in (many) cities while allowing them outside those cities. Criminals just leave the city to buy guns. Now people in cities want to solve that by forbidding people outside the cities from owning guns.

Nobody in any sane country has or city has banned guns. It’s just regulation like cars or planes or doing electrical work or cutting up fugu

How shall we define banned? Obviously no government anywhere has completely banned guns - they all arm at least some portion of their police and most allow bodyguards to carry guns to protect the wealthy and powerful.

I used the word banned meaning "made impossible for a large number of people to own legally". Governments that theoretically allow permits but rarely grant those permits in practice have effectively banned guns.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#594

Post by VectorLock » Fri, Apr 20, 2018, 11:18 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #459

LordHumungous wrote: post #343

>Were there moments in which Reddit chose to double down on something and made it that much harder to work toward a solution? >> I don’t know. I’m trying to think about your question. >Is there something recent that you’re thinking of? >> I can’t remember the specific instances right now, but there was a bunch of press about things that were going on on Reddit and Discord, and they both reacted and banned the subredd…

That's an uncharitable interpretation of what are, I think, pretty clear words on his part. He says he doesn't know how to fix existing broken entrenched sites like Reddit and Twitter but does have suggestions for sites that are just getting started.

How well did those things work out for him?

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#595

Post by abritinthebay » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 4:35 AM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #589

abritinthebay wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might be confused as to what I meant by gaming mechanics. I'm not positing a vast network of deliberate bots or bad actors or anything. I'm talking about gaming in the abstract psychological and problem theory sense.

Yes I'm very confused but since you can't explain I won't worry about it.

Well I did, in the previous comment.

Feel free to research & teach yourself basic game theory if you like but it’s too much to fit into a HN comment either way.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#596

Post by aplummer » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 6:00 AM UTC

elguyosupremo wrote: post #547

leereeves wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Civilians can't buy assault rifles in the US. What civilians buy is a hunting rifle that looks like an assault rifle.

I love guns and have no wish to see them further restricted but this is a terrible argument. The features that are used to define a civilian 'assault rifle' unquestionably make them more dangerous than a hunting rifle. The military didn't decide to start having pistol grips on their rifles because it looks cool, vertical foregrips originated in the military and it wasn't because they look cool. I own a .308 rifle wit…

The backwards thing about the second amendment is that the USA is easily the closest western country I’ve been to to a police state. Contrast the militarisation of the police in the USA with a far more “free” country like New Zealand (with significant gun regulation).

Just like the 2nd amendment militia arming would have been useless against the German government (like the BEF which had many tanks and planes and heavy weapons) it’s useless today against heavily armed state and modern military equipment (drones, tanks).

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#597

Post by drak0n1c » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 7:02 AM UTC

loup-vaillant wrote: post #557

drak0n1c wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correlation does not prove causation. Maybe people with those lifestyles happen to enjoy TV more than others.

> Correlation does not prove causation The host of scientists who conducted their studies know this. Which is why they did many such studies (some of them very large scale), controlled for confounding variables, modified the parameters across time in both direction (watching more and watching less this and that kind of show), and of course reproduced most of the results. Go tell them "correlation does not prove causa…

Thanks for the explanation, I will look into it. I could see how media may be a reinforcing cycle for some, similar to how people may be susceptible to alcoholism differently.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#598

Post by leereeves » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 10:05 AM UTC

aplummer wrote: post #596

elguyosupremo wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love guns and have no wish to see them further restricted but this is a terrible argument. The features that are used to define a civilian 'assault rifle' unquestionably make them more dangerous than a hunting rifle. The military didn't decide to start having pistol grips on their rifles because it looks cool, vertical foregrips originated in the military and it wasn't because they look cool. I own a .308 rifle wit…

The backwards thing about the second amendment is that the USA is easily the closest western country I’ve been to to a police state. Contrast the militarisation of the police in the USA with a far more “free” country like New Zealand (with significant gun regulation). Just like the 2nd amendment militia arming would have been useless against the German government (like the BEF which had many tanks and planes and heav…

> it’s useless today against heavily armed state and modern military equipment (drones, tanks).

Tell that to the Afghans.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#599

Post by crowbahr » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 5:37 PM UTC

FeepingCreature wrote: post #213

crowbahr wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/r/Polandball being a shining example to the contrary. There's a whole other discussion to be had about the importance of strict moderation and rules to improving a subreddit's quality.

Note that this is how Reddit is fundamentally supposed to work - there's a reason that founders get full control over rules and banning.

It's just not how the majority of subs shook out, unfortunately.

Oh well.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#600

Post by grkvlt » Sat, Apr 21, 2018, 8:12 PM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #235

Many of the comments here are picking apart pieces of subreddit drama or are discussing specific Reddit positions, but I think that's missing the forest for the trees. The VC grow-at-all-costs model seems to be resulting in monopolistic business practices and more negative externalities than positive ones. Msatodon/GNU Social/Qvitter right now is a thriving social network run by instance owners that federate their in…

> Mastodon/GNU Social/Quitter right now is a thriving social network

I'm going to have to disagree with this. Compared to Twitter, Facebook, even G+, they are miniscule. Are my friends there? How do I know which of these federated instances to check for my friends in the first place. And what about my company's CEO? Or IBM's blockchain engineering team? Or British Airways customer services? Or the actors in the TV series I like? NONE of them are there! So lets not pretend that these are going to replace social media - they will be the playthings of a handful of starry eyed geeks and FSF libertarians, nothing more.