4 ms·

I think it's also just modern internet reactive culture. I see it in other areas too. If I watch a video game review, sometimes the reviewer will spend a minute

by hnick 5y ago

I think it's also just modern internet reactive culture. I see it in other areas too. If I watch a video game review, sometimes the reviewer will spend a minute or more (in a <10 minute review) telling people this is just an opinion, reviews are subjective, this is just for me, maybe you will like it, it's OK to like things if I don't like them. It's really obnoxious, distracting, and even feels pandering sometimes. All these statements should be implicit, but here we are.

mannykannot 5y ago
This sort of thing has been going on since well before the internet. J. K. Galbraith wrote about how, during McCarthy's red scare, one had to put all sorts of caveats in parenthetical phrases to break up anything that might be quoted out of context (it still would be, but one could at least point out the elided text.) This was hardly new then - see Cardinal Richelieu's well-known epigram "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." It is probably as old as language. If there is anything new here, the internet and talk radio has shown a lot of people how to do this. Some of them mistake it for wisdom, and others just like to annoy people who hold nuanced views. Don't blame the victims for the fact that it is no longer possible to assume anything reasonable is implicit.
- hnick 5y ago
  It is old but I think the modern aspect is that is it much more of a 2-way communication medium. Yes, in previous eras you could get angry letters or phone calls. But today you can have hundreds of thousands of people respond directly on the channel that you are using to communicate. It makes it a lot harder to fire and forget with an opinion, so I don't blame them for including caveats, but it makes the content annoying. I am not annoyed at them personally for including these CYA spiels, I am annoyed that it has to be included.
  - mannykannot 5y ago
    You are right, and in particular, the quick-fire 2-way communication really ramps it up.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

by hnick 5y ago

mannykannot 5y ago

This sort of thing has been going on since well before the internet. J. K. Galbraith wrote about how, during McCarthy's red scare, one had to put all sorts of caveats in parenthetical phrases to break up anything that might be quoted out of context (it still would be, but one could at least point out the elided text.) This was hardly new then - see Cardinal Richelieu's well-known epigram "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." It is probably as old as language. If there is anything new here, the internet and talk radio has shown a lot of people how to do this. Some of them mistake it for wisdom, and others just like to annoy people who hold nuanced views. Don't blame the victims for the fact that it is no longer possible to assume anything reasonable is implicit.

hnick 5y ago
It is old but I think the modern aspect is that is it much more of a 2-way communication medium. Yes, in previous eras you could get angry letters or phone calls. But today you can have hundreds of thousands of people respond directly on the channel that you are using to communicate. It makes it a lot harder to fire and forget with an opinion, so I don't blame them for including caveats, but it makes the content annoying. I am not annoyed at them personally for including these CYA spiels, I am annoyed that it has to be included.
- mannykannot 5y ago
  You are right, and in particular, the quick-fire 2-way communication really ramps it up.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]