It's been almost a year since I quit Reddit outside of basically one isolated subreddit because I couldn't take the horrible community anymore. Well today I accidentally clicked on the logo bringing me to the home page, and this was literally the first post
Yes, that's blackface. Next time you see acronyms like SJW (Social Justice Warrior) as some sort of pejorative, keep in mind this is where it's coming from. Racist, misogynistic, homophobic, bigots with cognitive dissonance so enveloping that they should be used as a case-study for anti-matter. It's the same kind of community that permeates tech culture and the Internet at large as is an embarrassment to even be apart of the field. Here, let me Google "slashdot women" and click I'm Feeling Lucky and take a look at the comments
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/10/26/2137245/solving-the-mystery-of-declining-female-cs-enrollment
Oh cool, it's people complaining that investigating why women are an abysmal percentage of CS grads, and even fewer in software engineering is an affront on men, and is basically a collection of men telling each other how women think. As opposed to, you know, science, empirical studies, statistics and anything other than arbitrary defensive opinions of people so terrible at their jobs that they're threatened by the prospect of anyone else getting hired ever.
It's a sad point whenever someone passes the Poe line of not being possible to parody because the absurdist position is already too typical to distinguish from parody.
Yes, that's blackface. Next time you see acronyms like SJW (Social Justice Warrior) as some sort of pejorative, keep in mind this is where it's coming from. Racist, misogynistic, homophobic, bigots with cognitive dissonance so enveloping that they should be used as a case-study for anti-matter. It's the same kind of community that permeates tech culture and the Internet at large as is an embarrassment to even be apart of the field. Here, let me Google "slashdot women" and click I'm Feeling Lucky and take a look at the comments
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/10/26/2137245/solving-the-mystery-of-declining-female-cs-enrollment
Oh cool, it's people complaining that investigating why women are an abysmal percentage of CS grads, and even fewer in software engineering is an affront on men, and is basically a collection of men telling each other how women think. As opposed to, you know, science, empirical studies, statistics and anything other than arbitrary defensive opinions of people so terrible at their jobs that they're threatened by the prospect of anyone else getting hired ever.
It's a sad point whenever someone passes the Poe line of not being possible to parody because the absurdist position is already too typical to distinguish from parody.
Recently Spotted:
*crickets*
I agree whole heartedly. And in the whole it is greatly troubling.
There is not a week that goes by where I wish the internet did not exist. I am not a fan of technology in generally really. It's a jobs killer and the bottom line is it only helps the man squeeze more productivity out of fewer people.
The internet is also the greatest propellant the mob has had access to since lynching and witch hunting was banned.
I look forward to the time where I can turn all this shit off forever, but until that time I am happy to do the podcast.
However, I do think that being on the right side of an argument does not automatically make you not an idiot (as it relates to the citizens of mount pious).
A now irrelevent taboo losing its power? Good.
A propellant to do what? To organise lynching and witch hunts? Well, the closest thing to a lynching to take place recently in America would be the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown (that was reported in the mainstream media, at least). In general public forums on the internet, the majority reaction was one of condemnation.
I honestly don't understand why you don't do this: check your e-mail, visit thevgpress, and do nothing else on the internet. The only time I'm unwillingly exposed to this bullshit on the internet is here at thevgpress when it bleeds over. Otherwise, unless I feel like it, why would I expose myself to this sort of thing? Just. Don't. Do. It.
Because I still follow politics and tech news I am probably conflating the demise of rationality in those marketplaces with the rise of the internet.
I really do only check my e-mail (barely, as you know), check in here (barely) and download podcasts to keep my mind from turning on itself -- and that is all I currently use the internet for. I don;t read comments, I don't go to partisan sites, I barely go to news sites even.
My opposition to technology follows purley luddite lines. It kills jobs, so I am against it.
And no, you completley misunderstood and then misrepresented, my propellant comment (my fault not yours). I am anti-mob. That's all I intended to say.
Not everyone can be a mechanic, not everyone can be a top-tier athlete, not everyone can be a philosopher or commentator, and yet the internet lends everyone who can type and read the imprimatur of the latter two forms, (and I am aware that I fall into that category myself).
The demise of rationality began before the decline of the internet (rationality is a highly amusing word to use here) so I think it's unfair to blame the internet. It has certainly accelerated since the proliferation of the internet, so you could probably make a good argument for it being a...propellant.
I didn't misunderstand or misrepresent your propellant statement; I asked for clarification, and in the meantime considered scenarios; facetiously using concepts from your post.
(Before clarification: I could not comment on the propellant statement due to its nebulousness; but post-clarification: cool.)
This is true of all forms of communication. And you can just as easily avoid this form of communication as you can any other. More easily than many any others, in fact. The internet does not come to you: you must go to the internet to access it; your obligations do not expose you to the bad parts.
Like George Carlin once said, the public sucks. Fuck hope.
Of course, people act worse online than they do in "real life". But its all still going on inside Johnny Internet's brain as you pass him on the street. Only there, he keeps it to himself.
Also the mob has power without physical representation. Aside from the subtle but powerful manipulation of cultural perspective of those who get engulfed by it, the sheer ability to overwhelm public image by spamming hate via meme, writing campaigns en masse to sponsors, or simply direct harassment over social media.
I consider the Internet, in principle, the greatest achievement in human history. Knowledge is the most valuable commodity, and via the Internet, we've amalgamated and amassed more than otherwise possible. With smartphones and an Internet connection, you effectively have the sum-total of human knowledge at your fingertips at all times. It comes at a cost, however, and I agree it's troubling to consider youth growing up in online communities with clear social biases towards various forms of bigotry and hate, and perhaps even moreso, are totally self-unaware of it.
I agree with this post.
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/14/11/11/1613204/black-it-pros-on-lack-of-racial-diversity-in-tech
And the disconcerting part about the comments isn't so much the bias, but as I've repeated, the ability to doso without recognition is any way shape or from.
The first comment with enough mod up points to be visible is one saying that black kids don't try hard enough. When people use the word "privilege" it's not meant to say you're doing something wrong, or that you don't have to try hard yourself in life; it means you enjoy benefits or avoid hardships that are invisible to you and consequently fail to relate to the problems facing your outgroup. Case-and-point here, if we just outright accept the premise that it was a matter of "not trying", you may consider that a society that perpetually makes it harder on you at just about every impasse because of how you look may cause a culture of not trying to scale the corporate ladder.
Similarly other comments jump in to throw in their own pet theory and anecdotal evidence of explaining the problem are the minorities themselves and it's not a problem.
All of this with complete disregard for the content of the article
Note in the article
"A recent study from Pepperdine University suggested that minority-owned businesses are 22 percent less likely to raise venture capital and get private equity investors than firms run by white men. CB Insights also found that the median amount of funding secured by an all-black founding team was $1.3 million, as compared to $2.2 million for a racially mixed team, and $2.3 million for an all-white team."
and
"A study into H-1B visas by the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) also found that black Americans in IT made, on average, $3,656 less than white workers."
These are complicated metrics, and singular studies don't provide enough evidence to be conclusive unto themselves, but the topic of discussion isn't the actual evidence presented, but jumping immediately to complete disregard for a topic they find uncomfortable.
Technology kills jobs. I know, I am the leading public executioner in this regard. Just because you have a job created by tech doesn't mean that your productivity increasing job isn't killing off the jobs of 4-5 people who formerly would have been filing paper or typing carbon copies. I have seen hundreds of jobs elimenated through the use of technology from my direct experience, and while the educated class may say, "well too bad those are jobs no one would want" for the people who held the jobs, they were jobs that they wanted.
Seperate from that topic, the internet is the single largest failure of human development since the creation of the nuclear bomb.
One day I will, but for now I love games, politics and baseball enough to keep going to the internet.