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What I find amusing about all these "solutions" to "online outrage" is that they are invariably made by comfortable centrists, with a smattering of libertarians

What I find amusing about all these "solutions" to "online outrage" is that they are invariably made by comfortable centrists, with a smattering of libertarians. I can say this with some authority as both of these terms would have aptly described myself, before I lost my career, my home, and everything else in gender transition, and ended up working three minimum wage jobs instead of coding for 2 years. Let me tell you where the outrage is coming from. It's not coming from UX decisions. It's coming from mind boggling suffering. It's coming from exhausted and starving bodies who are disrespected and discarded, repeatedly. It's coming from a lack of opportunity and a lack of services necessary for survival. It's coming from a parlous minimum wage and no safety net. It's coming from addiction and the homelessness and precariousness that so often drive it. Those prone to conservatism interpret their pain as an attack on them from people who look different. Those prone, like myself, to systems level thinking about social structures view it (correctly) as an induced state, effectively selected for because the alternative was selected against. The pain and outrage leaks onto social media, but it is not from there. It is all around you, and it is nearly big enough to blot out the sun. Get ready.

dredmorbius 8y ago
Mastodon has a very large and thriving gender-nonbinary / non-normative population. There's a very large East Asian population (mostly Japan, though with Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, and China represented). I've seen Indian, Indonesian, Arabic, and other voices. European representation is strongly weighted to France, though with numerous countries and languages represented. North-American usage tends to tech-early adopters (male, white,some others), and tends to be light on traditional minorities that I've observed (note; personal observation on social networks tends to be exceedingly self-selective and nonrepresentitive). Libertarian viewpoints don't seem particularly prevalent, or well-received.
- undoware 8y ago
  I'm sure it does. I was not replying to Mastodon-the-platform, I was commenting on the cognitive bias present in the OP. Mastodon may well be the cat's pajamas, but not for the reasons given; namely, that centralized social media somehow synthesize outrage ex nihilo. Which got downvoted, because pointing out that class and privilege are lens aberrations in the minds of technologists does not sit well with technologists.
  - undoware 8y ago
    Dorsey's response has to be the funniest; showing folks countervailing views in their feeds via sentiment analysis is a hysterically funny move, equivalent to trying to put out a fire by spraying it with gasoline. I can't wait to get doxxed.
quadrangle 8y ago
I can get behind or at least validate the concerns of everything here except "…bodies who…" If this language aims to show the blunt physical way that others dehumanize the people in question… well, that's not clear. Maybe exploitive actors see others as just "bodies", but that's not a good way to see people. The concept of a "person" is bigger than just their physical body, in the same way that this sentence is bigger than just a bunch of binary numbers. If you want to highlight the dehumanizing, objectifying way that power sees people, it would be "…bodies that…" Using "who" makes it seem like you think you can refer to people as "bodies" in a way that is non-objectifying…
- undoware 8y ago
  I used 'bodies' specifically, because that is what we, the precariat, are to the systems that govern our lives. We are warm bodies. Useful for interfacing with other warm bodies. When those bodies cool, they are discarded. Yes, it really is like this. If you doubt me, by all means, come check it out.
  - quadrangle 8y ago
    Thanks for clarifying. So, if you are writing from the perspective of the dehumanizing system that sees the precariat as mere "bodies", then it is "bodies that…" not "bodies who…"
Grue3 8y ago
>Let me tell you where the outrage is coming from. It's not coming from UX decisions. It's coming from mind boggling suffering. Oh please. It's like you don't even recognize how privileged you have to be to spend all day on Twitter whining about stuff.

dredmorbius 8y ago

Mastodon has a very large and thriving gender-nonbinary / non-normative population. There's a very large East Asian population (mostly Japan, though with Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, and China represented). I've seen Indian, Indonesian, Arabic, and other voices. European representation is strongly weighted to France, though with numerous countries and languages represented. North-American usage tends to tech-early adopters (male, white,some others), and tends to be light on traditional minorities that I've observed (note; personal observation on social networks tends to be exceedingly self-selective and nonrepresentitive). Libertarian viewpoints don't seem particularly prevalent, or well-received.

undoware 8y ago
I'm sure it does. I was not replying to Mastodon-the-platform, I was commenting on the cognitive bias present in the OP. Mastodon may well be the cat's pajamas, but not for the reasons given; namely, that centralized social media somehow synthesize outrage ex nihilo. Which got downvoted, because pointing out that class and privilege are lens aberrations in the minds of technologists does not sit well with technologists.
- undoware 8y ago
  Dorsey's response has to be the funniest; showing folks countervailing views in their feeds via sentiment analysis is a hysterically funny move, equivalent to trying to put out a fire by spraying it with gasoline. I can't wait to get doxxed.

quadrangle 8y ago

I can get behind or at least validate the concerns of everything here except "…bodies who…" If this language aims to show the blunt physical way that others dehumanize the people in question… well, that's not clear. Maybe exploitive actors see others as just "bodies", but that's not a good way to see people. The concept of a "person" is bigger than just their physical body, in the same way that this sentence is bigger than just a bunch of binary numbers. If you want to highlight the dehumanizing, objectifying way that power sees people, it would be "…bodies that…" Using "who" makes it seem like you think you can refer to people as "bodies" in a way that is non-objectifying…

undoware 8y ago
I used 'bodies' specifically, because that is what we, the precariat, are to the systems that govern our lives. We are warm bodies. Useful for interfacing with other warm bodies. When those bodies cool, they are discarded. Yes, it really is like this. If you doubt me, by all means, come check it out.
- quadrangle 8y ago
  Thanks for clarifying. So, if you are writing from the perspective of the dehumanizing system that sees the precariat as mere "bodies", then it is "bodies that…" not "bodies who…"

Grue3 8y ago

>Let me tell you where the outrage is coming from. It's not coming from UX decisions. It's coming from mind boggling suffering. Oh please. It's like you don't even recognize how privileged you have to be to spend all day on Twitter whining about stuff.