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How Reddit Got Obama

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Re: How Reddit Got Obama

#91

Post by iamdave »

noodle wrote: post #65
JohnsonB wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Okay, he answered top voted questions at the time Well, for example, he was asked if he'd consider raising the budget for NASA, his answer didn't directly respond or answer the question, just re-quote his campaign piece on the issue. He didn't answer if he'd consider raising the budget, he just gave some purposefully vague reply about the notion that "we should stay at the forefront of space exploration." >There wer…

So your complaint is the POTUS should've come to the AMA with more time to spend, hunted down "better" questions to answer, and then spent more time thoroughly answering the questions. Someone else's complaint is going to be, why is the POTUS wasting his time and our tax dollars with reddit? Someone else's complaint is going to be that reddit's lucky POTUS gave them any of his time and that reddit was not appropriate…

So your complaint is the POTUS should've come to the AMA with more time to spend, hunted down "better" questions to answer, and then spent more time thoroughly answering the questions.

You clearly are not reading the subtext of what (s)he's saying, or you're willfully ignoring it to appear steadfast in your dissent: it has been admitted and acknowledged that the POTUS had a limited amount of time with his interactions on Reddit. The complaint is that the answers given were reiterations of campaign points and political tent-poles.

The President took a unique and unheralded opportunity to interact with the voting population in a highly interactive way, and demonstrated a familiar ability among politicians to respond to a question without actually answering it. As citizens and by proxy a community that represents a base of voters likely to support a president keen on engaging his constituents on topics they're overtly concerned about, and responding to them in a fashion they find most accessible: he failed on both fronts. This is frustrating. This is our problem with Mr. Obama's appearance tonight.

"Time", which you seem so fixated on is not our problem with the President's appearance this evening; his lack of at least initiating a dialog by providing politically safe answers is.

Here, cliff notes-as it appears painfully obvious you have not even read the AMA itself: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4451556

Re: How Reddit Got Obama

#92

Post by lukevdp »

corin_ wrote: post #75
lukevdp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're giving him enough credit. He speaks in public forums all the time. He speaks for himself just fine there, why would an internet forum be any different?

While he obviously has to be and is good on his feat, do you realise that for much of his public speaking he has speechwriters working for him?

By public forums I meant Q and A with public audiences.

Re: How Reddit Got Obama

#93

Post by k-mcgrady »

JohnsonB wrote: post #36

They didn't "get" Obama at all. He has so far answered a total of 10 questions, all of them canned, standard set pieces from his campaign that you could have just as easily read off his website. And he wasn't even the one interacting with the community; it's questionable if he was involved with this AMA at all. This was essentially a complete abuse of the AMA system but no one's calling him on it because he's the POT…

You realise he's the President and has more important things to do with his time? Taking 30 minutes to answer questions on Reddit is probably an important chunk of his day. Answering 10 questions with mostly paragraph long answers in that time is good.

"it's questionable if he was involved with this AMA at all"

In the opening of the AMA he said it was him and posted a photo as proof (fair enough it could have been a lie but I don't see why they would do that).

"standard set pieces from his campaign that you could have just as easily read off his website"

What else would you expect? He's running for a second term. Just look at how much these people get berated when they make a simple slip of the tongue during a speech or side comment to a camera. Most of what he says has to be run through speech writers and staff to make sure he doesn't contradict policy or accidentally reveal non-public information.

Re: How Reddit Got Obama

#94

Post by epsylon »

derleth wrote: post #68
nacker wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What a disappointing AMA. He answers stupid questions about his favorite basketball player and the white house beer recipe, but completely ignores the important ones about decriminalization of marijuana." This. Do not vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy:_The_God_That_Failed http://mises.org/document/1092/Myth-of-National-Defense-The-...

> Do not vote. Wonderful way to be lazy while pretending to take a moral stand: Claim they're all crooks, that you can't see any difference between them, and that you refuse to participate. It's laziness mixed with condescension and moral outrage. Perfect!

Democracy != Elections

In Ancient Greece, elections were considered (rightfully) as oligarchic, and sortition was the true instrument of democracy. Sure, their democracy was flawed (not everyone was a citizen), but it's still better than our so called modern "democracies" where a closed oligarchy of influent and wealthy people rule the world while providing the illusion of freedom. Elections are the circuses of our times, a modern game used to distract the masses, where people get to support their champion and their party.

Re: How Reddit Got Obama

#95

Post by corin_ »

lukevdp wrote: post #92
corin_ wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While he obviously has to be and is good on his feat, do you realise that for much of his public speaking he has speechwriters working for him?

By public forums I meant Q and A with public audiences.

Speechwriters will still work on the answers for him to use in Q&A sessions, obviously it's not quite the same as a speech where he can give an exact word for word, but generally he'll still know big chunks before hand on a range of anticipated topics, then the skill to doing it live is being able to pivot slightly from the way the question was asked to the answer he wants to give.

Also just realised I spelled "feet" wrong in my previous comment and feel terrible about that.

Re: How Reddit Got Obama

#96

Post by EvilTerran »

nacker wrote: post #85
vecinu wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what's going on? I want to understand but I can't decipher your words.

Wait, do you really want to know? Really, really? OK, http://www.obamasrealfather.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s9StxsFllY

Haha, oh wow.

Crank-tastic.

Re: How Reddit Got Obama

#97

Post by [deleted] »

batiudrami wrote: post #90
kn0thing wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe me, this comes up every time we talk about product. A better onboarding experience is coming, with better subreddit discovery.

Back when reddit only had about 10 categories, I made a joke about how I wouldn't be surprised to see an xkcd category, because of how frequently the comics posted. When that actually happened, I rolled my eyes and wondered what these idiot admins had done, segregating the community into separate, yet very similar categories. In hindsight, it has shown itself to be a great idea, and by far reddit's greatest strength.…

[deleted]

Re: How Reddit Got Obama

#99

Post by mikeash »

CKKim wrote: post #53
mikeash wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's by far the least of the objections raised. 10 interesting, insightful answers that offered new information would have been fascinating. But we got 10 canned answers that told us nothing we already knew. That was the real problem here, although nobody should have been surprised.

"But we got 10 canned answers that told us nothing we already knew." What do you mean?

Sorry, that's missing a negative. They told us nothing we DIDN'T already know.

Re: How Reddit Got Obama

#100

Post by mikeash »

noodle wrote: post #65
JohnsonB wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Okay, he answered top voted questions at the time Well, for example, he was asked if he'd consider raising the budget for NASA, his answer didn't directly respond or answer the question, just re-quote his campaign piece on the issue. He didn't answer if he'd consider raising the budget, he just gave some purposefully vague reply about the notion that "we should stay at the forefront of space exploration." >There wer…

So your complaint is the POTUS should've come to the AMA with more time to spend, hunted down "better" questions to answer, and then spent more time thoroughly answering the questions. Someone else's complaint is going to be, why is the POTUS wasting his time and our tax dollars with reddit? Someone else's complaint is going to be that reddit's lucky POTUS gave them any of his time and that reddit was not appropriate…

In short, we can't complain, because if things went the way we want them to, other people would be unhappy?

That makes no fricking sense.

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