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There will always be garbage people in "your camp", whatever that camp might be. Hell, for some people in "your camp" you'll be the nasty one. The big problem

by simias 8y ago

There will always be garbage people in "your camp", whatever that camp might be. Hell, for some people in "your camp" you'll be the nasty one. The big problem with the internet and modern social networks is that they suck at filtering the noise and getting the interesting bits. In the end if we're not careful we only hear those who shout the loudest and most provocative things. A well researched essay on gender studies will have a hard time getting traction, however a single "I drink white male tears" tweet is sure to get a ton of attention from people on either of the fence even though it's effectively void of meaning. My solution is to spend less time focusing on people and more time focusing on ideas. You'll find that the vast majority of people are vastly less extreme than what twitter and reddit would have you believe.

DanielBMarkham 8y ago
>You'll find that the vast majority of people are vastly less extreme than what twitter and reddit would have you believe. Yep. The medium itself makes everybody look about 100 times more radical than they actually are. Look at it this way: if you're busy working on a small technical detail, your conversation will be around that detail, right? You may be an asshole, and it looks like he's working on that, but you're an asshole trying to make something useful. That is, you have a goal that you can be measured against. "I am not able to fix this problem because I cannot talk to people online without pissing them off" is a problem with delivering tech that you can identify and fix. Sounds like your filter works for a while, as long as everybody agrees on some larger value structure. Where all of this falls apart is when there's no larger structure that agreed upon. You see this in startups or academic/political discussions. Sometimes you know something's wrong, and you feel strongly about it -- but you're unable to articulate it in a manner that can be easily consumed. That's almost always going to come out wrong. But it needs to come out. Contrast this with the rest of the internet, where people are not creating a small detail inside an agreed-upon value structure. There's no evaluation criteria except for bike-shedding. They've got nothing to do but to look at whatever your communication is in the abstract. There's no overall gain that might be weighed against bad phrasing. It's all downside. "I don't think that was a very nice thing to say" This can be both a true and non-productive thing to say in certain circumstances. That reality sucks, because people don't want to hear it -- after all, they don't share your value structure -- add to that plenty of time on their hands and an unlimited ability to look back on anything you've written. The system itself has problems.
- ethbro 8y ago
  > Sometimes you know something's wrong, and you feel strongly about it -- but you're unable to articulate it in a manner that can be easily consumed. When I think about effective leaders I've known in my career, this is as good of a description of their defining skill as I've heard. They have the ability to correctly identify an issue and then communicate it in a way that others also recognize it.
  - DanielBMarkham 8y ago
    Completely agree. They don't flub around trying to figure out and contextualize issues. They're able to both categorize the issue and the disagreement and present in ways that everybody can consume.* We're not all so lucky, though. Many times I've had to tell teams "This is going to sound right. Please forgive me because I'm concerned about X". You can't replace that kind of give-and-take with wordsmithing. The second skill I've noticed is to be a storytelling master. Great leaders tell engaging stories that emotionally draw you into their way of seeing things. *A problem occurs when the leader thinks they know what's going on but they are mistaken. In this case better leadership skills can actually lead to poorer overall results. I've seen good people with mission-critical ideas get "facilitated" out of them by well-meaning, nice, and intelligent people who don't know what the hell they're talking about and are unable to accept that fact. Obligatory link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
Vinnl 8y ago
I wish there was a way to get more of those ideas to me, and people in general, and less of the "I drink white male tears".
- trukterious 8y ago
  I don't think that there are any garbage people. Everybody has some good in them. (This doesn't imply we shouldn't set some boundaries).
  - gdy 8y ago
    Even Hitler has killed Hitler after all.
    - obscurantist 8y ago
      He made pretty okay art and cared about the suffering of animals.
  - tuesdayrain 8y ago
    Even literal garbage has some good in it. It's just usually not worth the effort of extracting it.
    - trukterious 8y ago
      People aren't like resources to be harvested: they are 'ends in themselves', i.e. with their own lives and perspectives. Also, unlike an extractable resource, their goodness is variegated.
  - Vinnl 8y ago
    I agree, and I think even the "I drink white male tears" people probably have good intentions. I just don't care about hearing them say they drink white male tears. Perhaps a better wish would be to be able to hear what insights they have that I don't, without it being wrapped in a package that makes me angry.
- 8y ago
notacoward 8y ago
> for some people in "your camp" you'll be the nasty one. I'll go one further. "The nasty one" is a role that usually begs to be filled, even in a good cause. Sometimes it's even essential to progress. "Good cop, bad cop" works. I'm more likely to play "bad cop" myself, though at least I'm usually aware of it being a situational role. I've definitely said things that would have violated a CoC if there had been one in those situations, so I do understand the fear of them, but here's why I chose that particular metaphor: even the bad cop is usually working within limits. That dynamic can still exist, and still be effective, even within the limits of a CoC. People can still be demanding, critical, even abrasive ... and they will. They just can't be bigots or harassers and expect to keep getting away with it.
- daveFNbuck 8y ago
  The problem with your metaphor is that "good cop, bad cop" is something you do to someone you're trying to deceive in order to further your own agenda at their expense. It's a way to behave toward an adversary, not someone who you're trying to work with.
  - notacoward 8y ago
    > "good cop, bad cop" is something you do to someone you're trying to deceive That's funny, because the goal is often to get at the truth. Is that an agenda you find objectionable? Do you see something noble in people who are harmed by the truth becoming known? "Bad cop" is not far from "devil's advocate" and the tension either creates is often useful to all involved. Is role-playing the same as deception? > It's a way to behave toward an adversary "Adversary" is very situational, and doesn't necessarily imply ill feeling - certainly not to the game theorists or jurists who often use the term. It's pretty common to have someone you generally want to work with be an adversary in a particular context. It's a role, and civil people get over it. In fact, codes of conduct - formal or otherwise - are often the very thing making that possible. They keep the adversarial role "in scene" and prevent it from turning it into permanent antipathy. Again, consider the "adversarial" nature of our justice system, one of the most formal and rules-bound environments most of us will ever see, whose participants are often on quite cordial terms outside the courtroom.
Consultant32452 8y ago
>The big problem with the internet and modern social networks is that they suck at filtering the noise and getting the interesting bits. I think the issue is that you are measuring value differently than the social networks. What you're calling "noise" is grouped under what they measure as "success." If a million people retweet an epic burn, that's "success" from Twitter's perspective, even if it doesn't add any value to the discourse. In fact, the more it damages discourse the better, because the feedback loop means you're more likely to retweet the next epic burn. More people are inclined to try to post epic burns so they can get those retweets/credibility.
blihp 8y ago
Your 'problem' is their 'opportunity'. On social networks what you call 'noise' they call 'engagement'... it's how they make their money. The more outraged/pissed off you are, the more engaged you are. They probably view the 'interesting bits' more as you would view commercials on TV: a necessary evil. (i.e. with the interesting bits, one gets on, does their business and goes away. With outrage, one tends to stay engaged.)

by simias 8y ago

DanielBMarkham 8y ago

>You'll find that the vast majority of people are vastly less extreme than what twitter and reddit would have you believe. Yep. The medium itself makes everybody look about 100 times more radical than they actually are. Look at it this way: if you're busy working on a small technical detail, your conversation will be around that detail, right? You may be an asshole, and it looks like he's working on that, but you're an asshole trying to make something useful. That is, you have a goal that you can be measured against. "I am not able to fix this problem because I cannot talk to people online without pissing them off" is a problem with delivering tech that you can identify and fix. Sounds like your filter works for a while, as long as everybody agrees on some larger value structure. Where all of this falls apart is when there's no larger structure that agreed upon. You see this in startups or academic/political discussions. Sometimes you know something's wrong, and you feel strongly about it -- but you're unable to articulate it in a manner that can be easily consumed. That's almost always going to come out wrong. But it needs to come out. Contrast this with the rest of the internet, where people are not creating a small detail inside an agreed-upon value structure. There's no evaluation criteria except for bike-shedding. They've got nothing to do but to look at whatever your communication is in the abstract. There's no overall gain that might be weighed against bad phrasing. It's all downside. "I don't think that was a very nice thing to say" This can be both a true and non-productive thing to say in certain circumstances. That reality sucks, because people don't want to hear it -- after all, they don't share your value structure -- add to that plenty of time on their hands and an unlimited ability to look back on anything you've written. The system itself has problems.

ethbro 8y ago
> Sometimes you know something's wrong, and you feel strongly about it -- but you're unable to articulate it in a manner that can be easily consumed. When I think about effective leaders I've known in my career, this is as good of a description of their defining skill as I've heard. They have the ability to correctly identify an issue and then communicate it in a way that others also recognize it.
- DanielBMarkham 8y ago
  Completely agree. They don't flub around trying to figure out and contextualize issues. They're able to both categorize the issue and the disagreement and present in ways that everybody can consume.* We're not all so lucky, though. Many times I've had to tell teams "This is going to sound right. Please forgive me because I'm concerned about X". You can't replace that kind of give-and-take with wordsmithing. The second skill I've noticed is to be a storytelling master. Great leaders tell engaging stories that emotionally draw you into their way of seeing things. *A problem occurs when the leader thinks they know what's going on but they are mistaken. In this case better leadership skills can actually lead to poorer overall results. I've seen good people with mission-critical ideas get "facilitated" out of them by well-meaning, nice, and intelligent people who don't know what the hell they're talking about and are unable to accept that fact. Obligatory link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

Vinnl 8y ago

I wish there was a way to get more of those ideas to me, and people in general, and less of the "I drink white male tears".

trukterious 8y ago
I don't think that there are any garbage people. Everybody has some good in them. (This doesn't imply we shouldn't set some boundaries).
- gdy 8y ago
  Even Hitler has killed Hitler after all.
  - obscurantist 8y ago
    He made pretty okay art and cared about the suffering of animals.
- tuesdayrain 8y ago
  Even literal garbage has some good in it. It's just usually not worth the effort of extracting it.
  - trukterious 8y ago
    People aren't like resources to be harvested: they are 'ends in themselves', i.e. with their own lives and perspectives. Also, unlike an extractable resource, their goodness is variegated.
- Vinnl 8y ago
  I agree, and I think even the "I drink white male tears" people probably have good intentions. I just don't care about hearing them say they drink white male tears. Perhaps a better wish would be to be able to hear what insights they have that I don't, without it being wrapped in a package that makes me angry.
8y ago

notacoward 8y ago

> for some people in "your camp" you'll be the nasty one. I'll go one further. "The nasty one" is a role that usually begs to be filled, even in a good cause. Sometimes it's even essential to progress. "Good cop, bad cop" works. I'm more likely to play "bad cop" myself, though at least I'm usually aware of it being a situational role. I've definitely said things that would have violated a CoC if there had been one in those situations, so I do understand the fear of them, but here's why I chose that particular metaphor: even the bad cop is usually working within limits. That dynamic can still exist, and still be effective, even within the limits of a CoC. People can still be demanding, critical, even abrasive ... and they will. They just can't be bigots or harassers and expect to keep getting away with it.

daveFNbuck 8y ago
The problem with your metaphor is that "good cop, bad cop" is something you do to someone you're trying to deceive in order to further your own agenda at their expense. It's a way to behave toward an adversary, not someone who you're trying to work with.
- notacoward 8y ago
  > "good cop, bad cop" is something you do to someone you're trying to deceive That's funny, because the goal is often to get at the truth. Is that an agenda you find objectionable? Do you see something noble in people who are harmed by the truth becoming known? "Bad cop" is not far from "devil's advocate" and the tension either creates is often useful to all involved. Is role-playing the same as deception? > It's a way to behave toward an adversary "Adversary" is very situational, and doesn't necessarily imply ill feeling - certainly not to the game theorists or jurists who often use the term. It's pretty common to have someone you generally want to work with be an adversary in a particular context. It's a role, and civil people get over it. In fact, codes of conduct - formal or otherwise - are often the very thing making that possible. They keep the adversarial role "in scene" and prevent it from turning it into permanent antipathy. Again, consider the "adversarial" nature of our justice system, one of the most formal and rules-bound environments most of us will ever see, whose participants are often on quite cordial terms outside the courtroom.

Consultant32452 8y ago

>The big problem with the internet and modern social networks is that they suck at filtering the noise and getting the interesting bits. I think the issue is that you are measuring value differently than the social networks. What you're calling "noise" is grouped under what they measure as "success." If a million people retweet an epic burn, that's "success" from Twitter's perspective, even if it doesn't add any value to the discourse. In fact, the more it damages discourse the better, because the feedback loop means you're more likely to retweet the next epic burn. More people are inclined to try to post epic burns so they can get those retweets/credibility.

blihp 8y ago

Your 'problem' is their 'opportunity'. On social networks what you call 'noise' they call 'engagement'... it's how they make their money. The more outraged/pissed off you are, the more engaged you are. They probably view the 'interesting bits' more as you would view commercials on TV: a necessary evil. (i.e. with the interesting bits, one gets on, does their business and goes away. With outrage, one tends to stay engaged.)