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Game Over

antirez.com

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Re: Game Over

#71

Post by _delirium »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #67
dmix wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defamation laws are one of those laws that skirt on a thin-line of interfering with free speech rights (similar to hate crime laws). It's also not simply offending language that equals defamation. From wikipedia: "Opinion is a defence recognized in nearly every jurisdiction. If the allegedly defamatory assertion is an expression of opinion rather than a statement of fact, defamation claims usually cannot be brought b…

>It's also not simply offending language that equals defamation. Based on the post, many of the tweets were insult - direct attacks against the author, and not simply criticism/opinions. All but 4 states in the US also recognize cases of defamation per se, where the truth of the claims is irrelevant, and the damages are predetermined. Claims which impute the following fall under that category (I've omitted 2 of the 4…

Defamation per se is very limited under the First Amendment, and mostly historical at this point, dating from an era when courts would entertain prosecutions for calling someone's honor into question. To the extent it survives, it's been limited mostly to where "regular" defamation would also apply, to false statements of fact. For example, "injurious to another in their trade" can't be used to prosecute any comment that could harm someone's business, but only false factual statements that could do so, such as accusing someone of selling counterfeit parts. Nowadays the only real distinction is in showing damages: in a per se category, once defamation is proven, the plaintiff doesn't have to further prove that they were harmed, because harm is assumed in those categories.

I think mostly we're discussing something else here, angry and vitriolic "piling-on" responses, which is a different issue from defaming someone.

Re: Game Over

#72

Post by mcantelon »

powera wrote: post #29

Just from reading the blog posts, it seems like this is a bit of an overreaction to some mild criticism of a mediocre blog post. Then I looked at Twitter. If there are multiple people tweeting basically "you're stupid" dozens of times ( https://twitter.com/kendall seems particularly egregious) it's not being in any way productive, it's a bunch of people being assholes and claiming "you're sexist" as a shield against…

The thing to do is just tweet that you're going to be taking a vacation from Twitter for a few days. By then the tweets will have died down.

Re: Game Over

#73

Post by Karunamon »

venus wrote: post #48

There seems to be a very specific pattern where someone says a problem is not as bad as it's made out to be, and they are immediately jumped on as an enemy who is not "serious" about the issue by those wishing to position themselves as being "tough on X" for whatever reason. It doesn't seem to happen in the other direction much, ie there seems to be little negative consequence about getting too excited about a partic…

I've ended up defining it as a kind of poisoning the well. I posted on both Reddit and HN about this and got some interesting responses:

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/r5zrf/is_there_a_...

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3732508

Re: Game Over

#74

Post by _delirium »

jhickner wrote: post #54

Anyone smart enough to have an interesting opinion on this topic is probably also smart enough to see that there's absolutely no upside to expressing that opinion. It either parallels the mainstream (in which case it's redundant) or it differs in some way, in which case it invites a retaliatory shitstorm. In a nutshell Salvatore said that he prefers to raise the level of abstraction (as programmers are wont to do) fr…

I think it's fairly natural for some topics to become third rails, if they attack views people hold strongly, or are seen to be outside the acceptable range of debated opinion. You even occasionally see it at HN: I recall a thread some months ago where someone expressed a leftist, vaguely anarcho-communist viewpoint on something, and got a flurry of replies that weren't really engaging the comment's content in debate on an intellectual level (if you don't like capitalism you shouldn't be typing this on a computer, accusing him of ignoring gulags, etc.). Certain opinions are just outside various communities' "ok to debate" range, which varies by community, and will get you piled on if you cross a particular community's line (trickier these days because web communities are very fluid and stuff criss-crosses between them).

Re: Game Over

#75

Post by basman »

ahelwer wrote: post #20
blackhole wrote: post #8

Some people are going to say that he was in the right, and some will argue this is a consequence of being wrong, but this doesn't matter. What this illustrates is the dangerous precipice that the world of blogging is hanging on to, where the violent hatred that spews forth when anyone writes a remotely controversial opinion threatens to silence any opinion that sways too far from mainstream consciousness. The fact th…

I see this from a different perspective. We are finally getting to the point where a critical mass of people are not going to tolerate sexist misinformed crap as they encounter it, and will instead speak out en masse. The blog post on sexism wasn't a "controversial opinion." The author wasn't bravely standing up to the mainstream. It was just his crappy opinion that tech needs to continue to try very hard to move pas…

This blog post? http://antirez.com/post/different-take-sexism-it.html

I'd be curious how many people here find this beyond the pale. As a data point, I didn't. I don't agree with all of it, but I don't see what part of it counts as sexist, in the sense of advocating discrimination based on gender.

Re: Game Over

#76

Post by ahelwer »

basman wrote: post #75
ahelwer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this from a different perspective. We are finally getting to the point where a critical mass of people are not going to tolerate sexist misinformed crap as they encounter it, and will instead speak out en masse. The blog post on sexism wasn't a "controversial opinion." The author wasn't bravely standing up to the mainstream. It was just his crappy opinion that tech needs to continue to try very hard to move pas…

This blog post? http://antirez.com/post/different-take-sexism-it.html I'd be curious how many people here find this beyond the pale. As a data point, I didn't. I don't agree with all of it, but I don't see what part of it counts as sexist, in the sense of advocating discrimination based on gender.

"Sexist" is advocating discrimination based on gender in the same sense that "theory" is used to trivialize evolution. Both mean a whole lot more than a brief look at them outside of the context in which they are rooted leads one to believe.

Re: Game Over

#77

Post by _pius »

ynniv wrote: post #38
_delirium wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire Wouldn't you then likewise defend the right of people to criticize the post, including to criticize it harshly, even if you disagree with he criticisms or the way they're phrased? edit: That said, I can see a case for communities maintaining discourse norms, in order to promote discussion/etc. But to me that's preci…

Most responses were zingers or did not show a basic understanding for what he said. They are noise, and noise is not worth defending. I take his argument as supporting individual merit, and condemning praise for the seemingly meritless based on being a minority (what is often called affermative action). A proper disagreement with this position might be based around a purposeful cultivation of the minority to overcome…

Most responses were zingers or did not show a basic understanding for what he said. They are noise, and noise is not worth defending.

Surely you see the problem with that line of argument.

His piece was hardly insightful. In fact, he did not show a basic understanding of the issues he was pontificating on and the piece was mere noise, not worth defending by anyone.

Once you start trying to parse out who's right, you're missing the point of free speech aren't you?

Re: Game Over

#79

Post by tlear »

Following antirez on twitter was one of the few really worthwhile sources of real signal there for me. Honestly it is really sad to see him leave, I learned a ton from just reading his feed over time.

Re: Game Over

#80

Post by ynniv »

_pius wrote: post #77
ynniv wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most responses were zingers or did not show a basic understanding for what he said. They are noise, and noise is not worth defending. I take his argument as supporting individual merit, and condemning praise for the seemingly meritless based on being a minority (what is often called affermative action). A proper disagreement with this position might be based around a purposeful cultivation of the minority to overcome…

Most responses were zingers or did not show a basic understanding for what he said. They are noise, and noise is not worth defending. Surely you see the problem with that line of argument. His piece was hardly insightful. In fact, he did not show a basic understanding of the issues he was pontificating on and the piece was mere noise, not worth defending by anyone. Once you start trying to parse out who's right, you'…

You're pandering, but you do raise the point that I should have said "worth considering". All speech is worth defending as free, but our time in life is limited and we must each be selective about what we spend it on. Whether or not you appreciated his post, it is probably a waste of your time to make shallow, unsubstantiated comments regarding it.
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