I would like to thank all the people who had a comment on this article, but did not post it. Truly, you improve the community with your silence. I'm aware of my own hypocrisy on this point, but logical consistency would prevent this sentiment from ever being expressed.
As it is, perhaps 5% of these comments know anything about what they are talking about. One of the biggest intellectual failings of the sort that frequents this place is mistaking being smart with being informed.
well cia and nsa has managed to create so many terrorists and destroy national reputation. that along with the direction fbi and local police is going now a days, i dont have much hope. i used to think USA was a good country. But the more I see how US grossly violates human rights, supports Israel destabilizing the middle east, massive surveillance even on its own citizens I wonder if its even a democracy. Everything is im secrecy now a days and wondering if US is still a democracy, as democracy is supposed to be of the people by the people for the people. sadly people are less aware of the situation they are in, like a frog in slowly boiling water. Too much power with far less accounting.
Given I commented, calling you out to explicitly state why you feel that my comments on this page somehow show that I don't know what I'm talking about.
I am also curious to hear why c2the3rd is so confident about the ignorance displayed here and why silence instead of noise is the solution. Hacker news seems to do a pretty good job of at least up voting the majority thoughts, and perhaps with some effort by all of us we can respond intelligently to those popular thoughts and also get up voted. Even if ignorant, isn't it worth discussing and responding to if that's what most people are thinking?
Only if you treat downvotes as bad. My own comments on this thread have received a fair number of both upvotes and downvotes. I consider when that happens (assuming I haven't been overly antagonistic, which I don't think I have been) that I've hit a raw nerve. I could be wrong, but alternatively I could've said something someone isn't willing to hear. That can be useful feedback in its own right (though I prefer the clarity of comments over votes).
Maybe it's me, but it's rare that my comments get more that 10 votes (up/down) - and as such, I don't make anything of votes to my comments; statistical significance, poor sample, puppet accounts, etc.
What I do make something of is meaningful responses to my comments.
Sure, such feedback is rare, it does require significant feedback in both directions, it doesn't work with single upvote/downvote swings.
It's also very obvious when you've said something that annoys one individual as you can get a string of downvotes in quick succession across multiple comments. Such feedback is easy to spot and see as childish, so I enjoy it for what it is instead.
That said, I much prefer comments, even those that disagree with me.
I'm aware I can say things that people don't like, yes, but in some cases it's more beneficial to have a respectful debate than to stay silent. If I'm not prepared to listen to opposing opinions then I'll be robbing myself of getting a deeper understanding.
A downvote is second best to a comment explaining the reason behind the disagreement. A comment is better feedback than a vote because you can get a clearer understanding from a comment.
Hm, is it an echo chamber if the dissent to the majority is also present and up voted? I feel like you didn't read the second half of my comment or I don't understand what you mean.
Perhaps it would be more charitable to assume the comments are not in the 95%. I mean a link to a report from March could suggest being out in front on this sort of story to a degree that isn't worth picking a fight over.
I comment when knowingly being uninformed because the resulting discussion is what helps me understand the topic better. The result of this, looking back on my comment history, is that I can come across as a bit of an asshole who's often wrong. That is why anonymity is important to me online, because my posting here is not really indicative of my real world behavior. It's a safe place to challenge ideas and opinions, and I feel like I've grown and learned a lot from it.
This is my long way of saying, maybe other people have different purposes for posting than you.
Commenting to learn is orthogonal to doing so in a way that "can come across as a bit of an asshole". The first tends to make Hacker News better. The second more than negates any benefit.
Have you considered the harm you cause by posting with confidence when you are secretly aware of your own ignorance? The behavior of the average human is to take confident-sounding things as truth, even if they consciously try not to. You might be coming off as an asshole due to the harm you're causing like this, and could reframe your posts as asking for more info and not just saying random things to get a response.
Yes, the media manufactures outrage for attention. This is not the problem. The media has done the same for as long as it has existed. The problem is that real people are willing to believe and act upon this "outrage", sometimes in an extreme manner, to avoid being on the "wrong side".
The action I care about isn't the media writing a libellous "story" about how "outraged" people are at some action of mine, though they are scum for it. What I care about is when people use it as justification to call my boss/family/friends and go after me personally.
It's not the media that doxxes, makes death threats, and gets people fired. Who does that is a population that increasingly cannot tell the difference between words and violence, a population that sees bad thoughts as assault and disagreement as evil. Even the smallest infraction is justification for ruining lives.
Brendan Eich was ousted from his position at Mozilla for his donation years ago. A pizzeria owner was threatened with death for merely saying he wouldn't serve gays. The mob retaliations are completely disproportionate to the "crime".
That's why people are afraid of the new outrage. They know one violation of the ever changing set of rules can now cause a mob to go nuclear on everything they hold dear.
The article is mostly about the backlash, which is not pretty either.
Historically, internet users were young, educated, and urban (or old, and working in a research lab, tech company, or university) - probably mostly Democrats in the US.
Over the last few years (as you now need the internet to do banking and pretty much anything else) it's now roughly equalised. It wasn't that long ago that people were shocked that "Mom" was on Facebook. In 2010-2013, the conservative networks (news sites, social network cliques, forums, etc.) really started to form. As an example, Twitchy (a fairly popular conservative "news" site made up of embedded tweets and commentary) was founded in 2012.
There's always been Libertarian and right-wing internet users, but now it's reached the same fever pitch as the left-wing outrage machine. It's no longer just Libertarians talking about how the government is the source of all evil, or an alt-right conspiracy theorist, it's that Jane Sixpack can now access the internet just as easily as a college kid.
I suspect the bulk of people on the internet used to think the outrage machine was a bunch of well-meaning idiots. But when it's the extreme Republicans (who were previously a tiny minority on the internet) pulling the same shit, it starts to be obvious why this is a problem.
> Yes, the media manufactures outrage for attention. This is not the problem. The media has done the same for as long as it has existed. The problem is that real people are willing to believe and act upon this "outrage", sometimes in an extreme manner, to avoid being on the "wrong side".
This diagnosis is also too shallow. Just like people's belief and actions in response to "outrage" has varied over time, the media's sensationalism has varied over time, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
> Even the smallest infraction is justification for ruining lives. [...] Brendan Eich was ousted from his position at Mozilla for his donation years ago. A pizzeria owner was threatened with death for merely saying he wouldn't serve gays. The mob retaliations are completely disproportionate to the "crime".
These don't strike me as compelling examples. Brendan Eich (whom, for the record, I did not think should be ousted and said so at the time in HN discussions) was not ousted for minding his own business making a private donation, that is a misrepresentation. He was ousted because of his defense of his donation, and even if that ruined his life, he was in a position to affect a lot of lives, and it's reasonable (even if we disagree with them) for people to think it's unfortunate but necessary.
As for "A pizzeria owner was threatened with death for merely saying he wouldn't serve gays."---gays receive threats of death and violence, and actual death and violence, for merely being gay, and while there've been spikes in response to e.g. Obergefell, this has generally been decreasing, fortunately. So, a death threat in response to explicit prejudice doesn't really make the point that the mob is worsening.
I dug through Eich's story. He was ousted for his donation. I saw no mention of a defense and only people calling for his head because of the donation. Would you have links for reactions to his defense?
Also, the parent argument is that death threats are a disproportionate response, not that they're new.
[Eich] was ousted for his donation. I saw no mention of a defense and
only people calling for his head because of the donation.
You're right, I was oversimplifying, because he was very careful not to actually say anything of substance when he defended his donation. I think my point stands, however: he wasn't ousted in retaliation for the donation. People called for his ousting because of how the donation and more importantly, subsequent non-apology non-defense reflected on his current, at-the-time-of-being-promoted-to-CEO views, and how they'd affect his performance: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7460030
That's not retaliation or outrage, that's relevant and important concern about his ability to do his job as CEO of Mozilla.
Also, the parent argument is that death threats are a disproportionate response, not that they're new.
Also, I think it's very clear the grandparent was talking about a new/increasing level of disproportionate.
> a population that increasingly cannot tell the difference between words and violence
> That's why people are afraid of the new outrage.
And, of course, the grandparent was a direct response to the original article where "new"-ness was part of the main point:
Tagline:
> People are so sensitive these days!
Opening sentence:
> Is the world more easily “outraged” than it used to be?
Conclusion:
> So is the world any more “outraged” than it’s always been?
While they aren't banning DD-WRT, they are creating restrictions for manufacturers. The easiest way for a manufacturer to meet the new rules is simply to not allow flashing third-party software.
Even if they don't intend to ban DD-WRT, their rules may indirectly eliminate consumer ability to use it.
I think there might me a simple explanation for this.
Nonreligious children tend to be richer and come from richer countries. Having more wealth means they do not attach as much value to material goods, so they are more "altruistic". Likewise, wealth shields them from the consequences of negative actions, so they are less "punitive".
I think that people are now using overt racism and sexism as protest against Social Justice. Since a Social Justice Warrior will define anyone who doesn't agree with them as a racist or sexist anyway, people make it as obvious as possible because there is no escape. The only thing left is to piss them off.
I agree, although I find it to be a copout. It's like when someone is losing an argument so they say "oh, I'm not talking about morality, I'm just saying how the world is".
The task for anti-progressives is to deconstruct the progressive narrative. Just as anti-racists aims to deconstruct "Whiteness", we need to deconstruct "racism". That doesn't mean claiming racism is good, or racism doesn't exist, but rather showing that the way progressives conceptualize racism is wrong and exaggerated.
The inverse happens too. Racists and sexists define everyone who they don't agree with as Social Justice Warriors. Of course, neither end of the spectrum think that the corresponding label applies to them.
Since a ____ will ____. Do you not understand what is wrong with that? This whole SJW concept was made up by people who were being accused of being socially inept. Ie, sexist. Inept!
One thing to remember about Krugman is that his specialty in college was trade theory. That is what he studied as a graduate and what his thesis was about. He made landmark advances in that field, and I respect him for it. However, this also means he is not an authority on monetary or fiscal policy and his views on these things do not have the weight some think they do. He is widely published in mainstream news only because he is an talented writer.
Yup. If anyone wants to read some high quality Krugman, check out his recent posts on TPP. I think he does a great disservice to his intellect by wading into political economy and his constant partisan mudslinging. I think it's the one thing standing in the way of him taking the baton from Milton Friedman.
However beware the anointed authority; Greenspan was certainly that, and he denied the recession was coming, was already underway, and to this day has only grudgingly admitted that it happened. Krugman, among others, saw the danger early and tried to warn us.
The current mac owners have no real reason to buy newer versions.