News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by api on Thursday March 04, 2021 @08:10PM (#26351065)
I don't think that way, but that's the wider dynamic I've seen in play for years. On one hand you have 4chan /pol, and on the other hand you have "woke" Twitter mobs. The whole thing seems gamified and the participants all seem to be playing a video game where getting attention or scoring a kill (trolling, offending someone, getting someone cancelled, etc.) is the objective. Gamified social media seems to be increasingly pulling the whole culture along for a ride.

Of course maybe I am succumbing to the "the nuts are always the loudest" effect.

Edit: I don't think the Internet per se is at fault. I lay the blame squarely at the feet of the "algorithmic timeline." Social media isn't neutral. It's programmed to "engage" us, which usually means either offending us or luring us into some kind of cult.

Chan culture isn't algorithmic in this way, but it's organized primarily around influencing algorithmic social media from outside and as such operates within the same algorithmic attention-maximization game paradigm.

TL;DR: this is not discourse. It's a video game.

Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by eru on Thursday March 04, 2021 @08:23PM (#26351168)
I guess it helps not to spend any time on twitter and avoid most social media in general?
Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by tartoran on Thursday March 04, 2021 @09:07PM (#26351596)
It does and helps keep oneself sane but that doesn’t make the problem disappear. I think engaging IRL is what will get us out of this mess. I hope
Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by Glide on Friday March 05, 2021 @12:05AM (#26352962)
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it ramped up during COVID and it’s worse in western countries (actually would like to know if wokeness is affecting non-western locked down countries).
Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by api on Friday March 05, 2021 @08:53AM (#26356845)
Far left and far right identity politics both started ramping up around 2010. There are quantitative measurements based on word counts of some of this. See elsewhere in this thread.
Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by TheSpiceIsLife on Thursday March 04, 2021 @10:33PM (#26352267)
This always reads to me like it's suggesting the more moderate voices should log off, thereby leaving the platforms to the more extreme voices.

I'm not convinced that's helpful.

Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by eru on Friday March 05, 2021 @10:11AM (#26357650)
Leave twitter to cook in its own juice.

As a more moderate, I would suggest perhaps writing a blog, or commenting on something well moderated like HN or EconLog, or even certain subreddits?

No need to log off completely. Just avoid twitter, tumblr, most of reddit and other outrage platforms.

Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by malandrew on Thursday March 04, 2021 @11:38PM (#26352776)
You can leave Twitter and social media alone, but that's no guarantee that Twitter and social media will leave you alone. That's why I think it's so important for everyone who can speak out against this to do so before it metastasizes to the point where you can't say anything anymore.
Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by eru on Friday March 05, 2021 @10:12AM (#26357657)
Yes, but it doesn't mean that you have to speak up about twitter on twitter.
Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by refenestrator on Thursday March 04, 2021 @09:16PM (#26351663)
I think you're right and you're not succumbing to any effects. The nuts are the loudest and wiser people stay quiet, which gets worse when it causes the young and impressionable to think that the nuts have buy-in.
Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by User23 on Thursday March 04, 2021 @09:48PM (#26351918)
Unfortunately those small minorities of nuts have a way of taking charge[1].

[1] https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intolerant-wins-dictatorship...

Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by smegger001 on Thursday March 04, 2021 @10:13PM (#26352119)
yeah i am afraid of another Robespierre just as much as i am of another Mussolini. and at this point i am not sure which side is closer to taking over.
Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by api on Thursday March 04, 2021 @10:50PM (#26352418)
I’ve been saying for years that if inequality keeps growing then whether we get a far left or a far right totalitarian will depend on which side fields the most compelling demagogue first. The ideology won’t matter as long as pitchforks are being handed out.

I’ve been thinking this kind of thing since the 2008 bank bailouts. I’ve also wondered if that was when America collapsed and we are just living through a slow unwinding period.

The problem wasn’t the crash. Crashes happen. The problem was that banks were bailed out and the we pretended there was a recovery. There wasn’t. It was a largely paper recovery, basically fake. Yes unemployment went down but the quality of the jobs were poor, housing inflation ate any gains, and inequality exploded.

Trumpism was just a superficial symptom. If things don’t improve we will get someone much much worse.

Re:Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay by IG_Semmelweiss on Thursday March 04, 2021 @11:52PM (#26352876)
the wider dynamic at play is the loss of trust in institutions due to the internet and the massive information unleashed thru the web.

One can see that same dynamic when the printing press was invented. Suddenly, the old power structure did not control the narrative. Within 100 years of the invention of the printing press in 1450, and its spread by 1500, there was a major conflict all over Europe over very minor religious dogma differences of opinion (wars of religion).

We are about 2/3rds into that cycle with the internet, which was borne around 1960 and came into true widespread use around 2005 (Facebook, etc).

Lets hope we have learned our lessons.