3 ms·

I've been wondering what's been going thru moots mind from 2015-now regarding it.

by s5300 5y ago

arsome 5y ago
I think 4chan managed to distance themselves quite a bit from the worst of it - that went to 8chan, Gab, etc.
- meowface 5y ago
  That's true, and moot left right before things took their major turn (possibly precipitated by Gamergate, which moot soon banned all discussion of; he left about 6 months later), but 4chan /pol/ is still more extremist than even Stormfront, and nearly as uniform in terms of beliefs. It's not quite as bad as 8chan /pol/, but 8chan /pol/ is as bad as or perhaps even more extreme than Nazi Germany's actual "Der Stürmer", and is where a lot of the far-right mass shooters have posted. Other boards have varying concentrations of /pol/ injected, with /mu/ ("Music") having a spread of far-left, left-leaning, right-leaning, and far-right posters, and /tv/ ("TV / Movies") and /biz/ ("Business / Finance", but mostly just cryptocurrency gambling/scams) being almost exclusively right-leaning, and mostly far-right.
mrspeaker 5y ago
Perhaps related, on this page musing about Wikipedia (https://shii.bibanon.org/shii.org/knows/Wikipedia.html https://shii.bibanon.org/shii.org/knows/Wikipedia.html): "It is founded on the unfortunate belief that people will always do good things and be nice to each other, and after a few spectacular years that everyone involved will remember, it falls apart in a miserable, unhappy mess, which everyone will later insist they had no hand in."
- noduerme 5y ago
  That belief isn't unfortunate - technological optimism or what Wired once called "extropianism" is just the same as every other kind of utopian fantasy. And when you're young, and kind, and full of love, and think the world can be fixed if only everyone had the tools and the motivation to express their best selves, it's seductive. And it should be. Because if teenagers and twentysomethings were as cynical and resigned as the rest of us, we'd be doomed. Every generation architects some new utopian paradigm, and has to go through its own process of disillusionment as they watch the mob tear it limb from limb. Ultimately, the best you can hope for is that people learn from history and don't repeat the same mistakes.
  - fapjacks 5y ago
    But that is exactly what happens: Human civilization is a generational loop of genocide and treachery. All of these wonderful things we enjoy exist in spite of everything we are.
    - noduerme 5y ago
      Yeah, but I see some incremental progress. Legal systems, institutions, human rights, technology that alleviates misery (as opposed to gadgetry, or worse, tech that enalaves people). It's definitely been two steps forward and one step back. Unfortunately, we seem to have entered the back step. Friend said to me the other day "we peaked so hard in the early 90s". Hard to argue with that.

I've been wondering what's been going thru moots mind from 2015-now regarding it.

by s5300 5y ago

I've been wondering what's been going thru moots mind from 2015-now regarding it.

arsome 5y ago

I think 4chan managed to distance themselves quite a bit from the worst of it - that went to 8chan, Gab, etc.

meowface 5y ago
That's true, and moot left right before things took their major turn (possibly precipitated by Gamergate, which moot soon banned all discussion of; he left about 6 months later), but 4chan /pol/ is still more extremist than even Stormfront, and nearly as uniform in terms of beliefs. It's not quite as bad as 8chan /pol/, but 8chan /pol/ is as bad as or perhaps even more extreme than Nazi Germany's actual "Der Stürmer", and is where a lot of the far-right mass shooters have posted. Other boards have varying concentrations of /pol/ injected, with /mu/ ("Music") having a spread of far-left, left-leaning, right-leaning, and far-right posters, and /tv/ ("TV / Movies") and /biz/ ("Business / Finance", but mostly just cryptocurrency gambling/scams) being almost exclusively right-leaning, and mostly far-right.

mrspeaker 5y ago

Perhaps related, on this page musing about Wikipedia (https://shii.bibanon.org/shii.org/knows/Wikipedia.html https://shii.bibanon.org/shii.org/knows/Wikipedia.html): "It is founded on the unfortunate belief that people will always do good things and be nice to each other, and after a few spectacular years that everyone involved will remember, it falls apart in a miserable, unhappy mess, which everyone will later insist they had no hand in."

noduerme 5y ago
That belief isn't unfortunate - technological optimism or what Wired once called "extropianism" is just the same as every other kind of utopian fantasy. And when you're young, and kind, and full of love, and think the world can be fixed if only everyone had the tools and the motivation to express their best selves, it's seductive. And it should be. Because if teenagers and twentysomethings were as cynical and resigned as the rest of us, we'd be doomed. Every generation architects some new utopian paradigm, and has to go through its own process of disillusionment as they watch the mob tear it limb from limb. Ultimately, the best you can hope for is that people learn from history and don't repeat the same mistakes.
- fapjacks 5y ago
  But that is exactly what happens: Human civilization is a generational loop of genocide and treachery. All of these wonderful things we enjoy exist in spite of everything we are.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    Yeah, but I see some incremental progress. Legal systems, institutions, human rights, technology that alleviates misery (as opposed to gadgetry, or worse, tech that enalaves people). It's definitely been two steps forward and one step back. Unfortunately, we seem to have entered the back step. Friend said to me the other day "we peaked so hard in the early 90s". Hard to argue with that.