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The Internet was how I really learned what people really thought about others, and it wasn't a nice thing to realize but it was necessary. My whole life I was s

The Internet was how I really learned what people really thought about others, and it wasn't a nice thing to realize but it was necessary. My whole life I was suckered into this idea that people will treat you fairly regardless of your skin color, your gender, your ethnicity, the country you come from, etc. It was easy when no one would say to your face that they judged you on these things. It became difficult when you would go online and see just how many people iterated these sentiments behind a veil of anonymity. We all thought, like the author, that access to the Internet will put people in connection who otherwise don't hear from each other, that we will be exposed to new views, be more open-minded, etc. And the opposite has happened. We forgot that the traditional barriers to intercultural understanding are still there: language, tribal sentiment, political and economic power structures, etc. At the end of the day, in a democracy the majority can do anything it wants, even if what it wants is to punish the minority. The Internet has had all the failings of a total democracy in that sense. I also love the point the author makes at the end. Silicon Valley loves to think of itself as a bastion of rationality. But like every group and every ideological movement and every person, it has a set of core beliefs taken on faith and not on evidence. It's very possible that the core beliefs and faith on which the Internet as a radically open, radically free, nearly anarchic space was founded, are...wrong...

neveroffensive 9y ago
> It's very possible that the core beliefs and faith on which the Internet as a radically open, radically free, nearly anarchic space was founded, are...wrong... I don't really understand this sentiment. If we admit that we all hold beliefs that could be wrong, isn't the ultimate conclusion radical freedom? The radical freedom of the internet isn't a result of a set of beliefs, it's the result of evicting belief and allowing all ideas to stand on their own merit. > We all thought, like the author, that access to the Internet will put people in connection who otherwise don't hear from each other, that we will be exposed to new views, be more open-minded, etc. And the opposite has happened. I think you're wrong here. The world is becoming an exponentially more peaceful and tolerant place in my experience. There is still a vocal minority which gets attention thanks to the open platform, but the overall result of this openness seems to be growing disdain for beliefs which we now know are founded in hate, not logic or science. Do you really feel that the world is in a worse place than it was in the 70's or even in 2010? In what ways? > It became difficult when you would go online and see just how many people iterated these sentiments behind a veil of anonymity. Genuine question, what percentage of 4chan do you believe is racist? Do you feel that racist memes genuinely come from a place of racism? What large anonymous groups do you believe consist of genuine racists? Do you consider me a racist if I make the statement, "more crime in America is committed by people with dark skin, relatively", even if I make no attempt to suggest a correlation or reason for this statistic?
- denom 9y ago
  1) Yes to ideas on the own merits, but not if those ideas ingratiate themselves vis an unwholesome, saccharine, aptitude that pits human nature against itself. 2) this is debatable, but instability is present in our political system from top to bottom which I believe is due to these transformative tech movements. We should not assume that the sun will rise tomorrow (as in some occasions it will not). 3) your discussion about 4chan lacks some precept or basis of intelligibility. Imagine a similar question as being “what percentage of a psychotic mood is racist”. It’s a non sequitor and doesn’t address the substance of the problem. Similarly, your posited question about ‘dark skin’ lacks traction for similar reasons and illustrates the baseless nature of the internet meme-culture.
  - neveroffensive 9y ago
    > your discussion about 4chan lacks some precept or basis of intelligibility. The poster clearly feels there are large groups of racists on the internet. I'm trying to ascertain where they think these groups are, and exactly what they feel these groups believe. The 4chan mention was a guess. > Imagine a similar question as being “what percentage of a psychotic mood is racist”. It’s a non sequitor and doesn’t address the substance of the problem. I stand by my question. I think the poster has misconceptions about internet culture, and wish to reach the root of them to either correct them, or my own misconceptions. You're assertion here dose not make sense to me. > Similarly, your posited question about ‘dark skin’ lacks traction for similar reasons and illustrates the baseless nature of the internet meme-culture. Once again, I'm trying to understand how the poster conceptualizes racism both within the context of the internet, and society as a whole. Forgive me, but if someone is seeing pervasive racism in society I want to know where and why. I fail to see how this is me parroting a baseless meme-culture. I'm sorry if talking about skin color and crime offends you, but that is no excuse to disregard me as some sort of troll. I have a genuine desire to engage with the poster on their opinions about the nature of the internet/racism/social progress, and being dismissed in such a pedantic manner seems uncalled for. Edit: My larger point here is, in my experience racists are a dwindling minority. However, people have begun to conflate certain types of discussion, and forms of comedy (namely absurdist), with genuine racism. These misconceptions are leading them to feel that the internet is somehow heavily racist. True racism is a serious issue, and deserves a heavy handed response. We need to be careful that the racism we point out is true racism, not just an opinion we disagree with, or a joke we don't find funny.
kbenson 9y ago
> Silicon Valley loves to think of itself as a bastion of rationality. But like every group and every ideological movement and every person, it has a set of core beliefs taken on faith and not on evidence. The biggest problem I've found with people that purport to be rationalists (and I include myself) is the propensity to believe they have enough inputs to make definitive statements, when in truth they are just discounting the unknown unknowns. When dealing with people, even on the individual level but it's much worse in groups, the complex motivations and constraints make every statement along the lines of "a rational person would do X" sound hopelessly naive. That some core beliefs are not examined or are believed to be the truth without evidence does not surprise me, even if it still makes me sad.
- opportune 9y ago
  I was thinking about this today. It is sad how far people will go to rationalize beliefs for the sake of simplicity. It seems people prefer simplicity because it makes the world make sense: people are uncomfortable with nuance because it makes the world so complex and uncertain, and in a way, scary. I think it's the same line of reasoning that draws people towards certain conspiracies (e.g. lizard people, Jews controlling the world). People want to feel like the world can be explained in just a few sentences. Otherwise, I think people feel utterly helpless.
l33tbro 9y ago
I think you may be subject to a cognitive bias where you overestimate how representative racist, sexist, etc people are of the larger population. Anonymous communications technology that enables avatars are always going to attract these kinds of malcontents, lending to a perception that most people are bad actors. This isn't to say there are not depressingly high numbers of these kinds of people, but the conclusion you've arrived at comes from a typical group attribution error.
- abusoufiyan 9y ago
  My saying "It became difficult when you would go online and see just how many people iterated these sentiments behind a veil of anonymity." does not mean I am overestimating how many people this online group represents in the real world. Even if I underestimated it, it was a sentiment I was not at all exposed to in real life, ever. "Anonymous communications technology that enables avatars are always going to attract these kinds of malcontents, lending to a perception that most people are bad actors." Why then, was this not something realized by the "prophets" of the Internet 2.0? That's what the author is asking. What conclusion did I arrive at which came from error? Please kindly point that out to me.
  - l33tbro 9y ago
    I find it difficult to understand when you say "it was a sentiment I was not at all exposed to in real life, ever". Even if I were extremely mollycoddled by my parents, I fail to grasp how I would not be exposed to such attitudes - however slight or fleeting - in my pampered upbringing. As for the prophets of Internet 2.0 (not sure why you're adding 2.0 here, we're discussing Brand and Kelly who were prophets of the intial web), I'd hazard a guess that their blindness came from a combination of good old-fashioned wishful thinking mixed with 'the shock of the new' that the web had in spades back then, galvanising them into becoming the 'egg-meet-face' cyber-utopianist proselytizers that the author of this article is deriding.
jhiska 9y ago
>My whole life I was suckered into this idea that people will treat you fairly regardless of your skin color, your gender, your ethnicity, the country you come from, etc. As usual in American discussions, class is forgotten. A heterosexual, "white", cisman can also be working class or bourgeois, but for some reason -- probably because of the annihilation of Marxism in the US -- it's never brought up and this despite its modern relevance screaming at us. Without class, one can't understand why Trump got the vote of so many working class people. Ethnicity (Caucasians are ethnic people from the Caucus region; modern biology only accepts one race and that is the human race; "white" is a culture, not a "race" or ethnicity, since Middle-Eastern Caucasians aren't considered "white"; "white" is better defined as a Caucasian of European origin that accepts Western culture), sexuality, sex and gender, religion... None of these explain the working class animosity towards the "ultra-wealthy elites" that are "out of touch with the common person" or why the promise of bringing back working class jobs was so tempting. Trump, while being a liar and actually damaging to the working class, played to their class heartstrings. Social justice without class consciousness creates injustice, and that injustice is being exploited by the extreme alt-right. One can't also understand why Bernie Sanders was as appealing as Trump unless one understands that both Bernie and Trump appealed to anti-bourgeois sentiment and both promised to help the working class. It was class rebellion, and unfortunately it turned out as badly as it did because Bernie was never put on the voting ballots.

neveroffensive 9y ago

> It's very possible that the core beliefs and faith on which the Internet as a radically open, radically free, nearly anarchic space was founded, are...wrong... I don't really understand this sentiment. If we admit that we all hold beliefs that could be wrong, isn't the ultimate conclusion radical freedom? The radical freedom of the internet isn't a result of a set of beliefs, it's the result of evicting belief and allowing all ideas to stand on their own merit. > We all thought, like the author, that access to the Internet will put people in connection who otherwise don't hear from each other, that we will be exposed to new views, be more open-minded, etc. And the opposite has happened. I think you're wrong here. The world is becoming an exponentially more peaceful and tolerant place in my experience. There is still a vocal minority which gets attention thanks to the open platform, but the overall result of this openness seems to be growing disdain for beliefs which we now know are founded in hate, not logic or science. Do you really feel that the world is in a worse place than it was in the 70's or even in 2010? In what ways? > It became difficult when you would go online and see just how many people iterated these sentiments behind a veil of anonymity. Genuine question, what percentage of 4chan do you believe is racist? Do you feel that racist memes genuinely come from a place of racism? What large anonymous groups do you believe consist of genuine racists? Do you consider me a racist if I make the statement, "more crime in America is committed by people with dark skin, relatively", even if I make no attempt to suggest a correlation or reason for this statistic?

denom 9y ago
1) Yes to ideas on the own merits, but not if those ideas ingratiate themselves vis an unwholesome, saccharine, aptitude that pits human nature against itself. 2) this is debatable, but instability is present in our political system from top to bottom which I believe is due to these transformative tech movements. We should not assume that the sun will rise tomorrow (as in some occasions it will not). 3) your discussion about 4chan lacks some precept or basis of intelligibility. Imagine a similar question as being “what percentage of a psychotic mood is racist”. It’s a non sequitor and doesn’t address the substance of the problem. Similarly, your posited question about ‘dark skin’ lacks traction for similar reasons and illustrates the baseless nature of the internet meme-culture.
- neveroffensive 9y ago
  > your discussion about 4chan lacks some precept or basis of intelligibility. The poster clearly feels there are large groups of racists on the internet. I'm trying to ascertain where they think these groups are, and exactly what they feel these groups believe. The 4chan mention was a guess. > Imagine a similar question as being “what percentage of a psychotic mood is racist”. It’s a non sequitor and doesn’t address the substance of the problem. I stand by my question. I think the poster has misconceptions about internet culture, and wish to reach the root of them to either correct them, or my own misconceptions. You're assertion here dose not make sense to me. > Similarly, your posited question about ‘dark skin’ lacks traction for similar reasons and illustrates the baseless nature of the internet meme-culture. Once again, I'm trying to understand how the poster conceptualizes racism both within the context of the internet, and society as a whole. Forgive me, but if someone is seeing pervasive racism in society I want to know where and why. I fail to see how this is me parroting a baseless meme-culture. I'm sorry if talking about skin color and crime offends you, but that is no excuse to disregard me as some sort of troll. I have a genuine desire to engage with the poster on their opinions about the nature of the internet/racism/social progress, and being dismissed in such a pedantic manner seems uncalled for. Edit: My larger point here is, in my experience racists are a dwindling minority. However, people have begun to conflate certain types of discussion, and forms of comedy (namely absurdist), with genuine racism. These misconceptions are leading them to feel that the internet is somehow heavily racist. True racism is a serious issue, and deserves a heavy handed response. We need to be careful that the racism we point out is true racism, not just an opinion we disagree with, or a joke we don't find funny.

kbenson 9y ago

> Silicon Valley loves to think of itself as a bastion of rationality. But like every group and every ideological movement and every person, it has a set of core beliefs taken on faith and not on evidence. The biggest problem I've found with people that purport to be rationalists (and I include myself) is the propensity to believe they have enough inputs to make definitive statements, when in truth they are just discounting the unknown unknowns. When dealing with people, even on the individual level but it's much worse in groups, the complex motivations and constraints make every statement along the lines of "a rational person would do X" sound hopelessly naive. That some core beliefs are not examined or are believed to be the truth without evidence does not surprise me, even if it still makes me sad.

opportune 9y ago
I was thinking about this today. It is sad how far people will go to rationalize beliefs for the sake of simplicity. It seems people prefer simplicity because it makes the world make sense: people are uncomfortable with nuance because it makes the world so complex and uncertain, and in a way, scary. I think it's the same line of reasoning that draws people towards certain conspiracies (e.g. lizard people, Jews controlling the world). People want to feel like the world can be explained in just a few sentences. Otherwise, I think people feel utterly helpless.

l33tbro 9y ago

I think you may be subject to a cognitive bias where you overestimate how representative racist, sexist, etc people are of the larger population. Anonymous communications technology that enables avatars are always going to attract these kinds of malcontents, lending to a perception that most people are bad actors. This isn't to say there are not depressingly high numbers of these kinds of people, but the conclusion you've arrived at comes from a typical group attribution error.

abusoufiyan 9y ago
My saying "It became difficult when you would go online and see just how many people iterated these sentiments behind a veil of anonymity." does not mean I am overestimating how many people this online group represents in the real world. Even if I underestimated it, it was a sentiment I was not at all exposed to in real life, ever. "Anonymous communications technology that enables avatars are always going to attract these kinds of malcontents, lending to a perception that most people are bad actors." Why then, was this not something realized by the "prophets" of the Internet 2.0? That's what the author is asking. What conclusion did I arrive at which came from error? Please kindly point that out to me.
- l33tbro 9y ago
  I find it difficult to understand when you say "it was a sentiment I was not at all exposed to in real life, ever". Even if I were extremely mollycoddled by my parents, I fail to grasp how I would not be exposed to such attitudes - however slight or fleeting - in my pampered upbringing. As for the prophets of Internet 2.0 (not sure why you're adding 2.0 here, we're discussing Brand and Kelly who were prophets of the intial web), I'd hazard a guess that their blindness came from a combination of good old-fashioned wishful thinking mixed with 'the shock of the new' that the web had in spades back then, galvanising them into becoming the 'egg-meet-face' cyber-utopianist proselytizers that the author of this article is deriding.

jhiska 9y ago

>My whole life I was suckered into this idea that people will treat you fairly regardless of your skin color, your gender, your ethnicity, the country you come from, etc. As usual in American discussions, class is forgotten. A heterosexual, "white", cisman can also be working class or bourgeois, but for some reason -- probably because of the annihilation of Marxism in the US -- it's never brought up and this despite its modern relevance screaming at us. Without class, one can't understand why Trump got the vote of so many working class people. Ethnicity (Caucasians are ethnic people from the Caucus region; modern biology only accepts one race and that is the human race; "white" is a culture, not a "race" or ethnicity, since Middle-Eastern Caucasians aren't considered "white"; "white" is better defined as a Caucasian of European origin that accepts Western culture), sexuality, sex and gender, religion... None of these explain the working class animosity towards the "ultra-wealthy elites" that are "out of touch with the common person" or why the promise of bringing back working class jobs was so tempting. Trump, while being a liar and actually damaging to the working class, played to their class heartstrings. Social justice without class consciousness creates injustice, and that injustice is being exploited by the extreme alt-right. One can't also understand why Bernie Sanders was as appealing as Trump unless one understands that both Bernie and Trump appealed to anti-bourgeois sentiment and both promised to help the working class. It was class rebellion, and unfortunately it turned out as badly as it did because Bernie was never put on the voting ballots.