4 ms·

> I’d cut them some slack, because we’re all bad at that, It's really not that difficult a skill to build though. The trick is not to get perfect at detecting

> I’d cut them some slack, because we’re all bad at that, It's really not that difficult a skill to build though. The trick is not to get perfect at detecting sarcasm or trolls but to realize that if you're talking about an individual or a minuscule group of people online (like the 57 members of the "bounty hunter ring"), it's almost never worth paying attention to regardless of its trolling status. Best-case they're trolling, worst-case they're a little nuts and talking shit. Even in the worst case, "I found an infinitesimal amount of nutty people on the internet" is not useful information for either a journalist or your personal model of the world. I'm serious, it's really, really easy not to get taken in by bias-confirming dumb things. In fact, there's a force running counter to your framing, in which the average person has _less_ excuse to be taken in by trolls. Journalists have an economic incentive to jump on a story, while an individual is free to avoid having an opinion until there's enough usable information to shift your priors.

ryandrake 5y ago
> Even in the worst case, "I found an infinitesimal amount of nutty people on the internet" is not useful information for either a journalist or your personal model of the world. Careful though, QAnon was once an infinitesimally small amount of nutty people, and now they have at least two[1], likely more, sitting US Congressional representatives, with 36 running next year[2]. 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/11/04/congress-will-get-its-second-qanon-supporter-as-boebert-wins-colorado-house-seat/?sh=62b11c96568f https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/11/04/congres... 2: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-36-qanon-supporters-running-congress-in-the-2022-midterms-2021-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-36-qanon-supporters-runn...
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  Sure, I'm not suggesting there's 0% signal. I'm suggesting that the SNR of "someone said something crazy" is so close to zero as to be useless. Hell, crying wolf about it isnt just useless, it's counterproductive.
shephardjhon 5y ago
"worst-case they're a little nuts and talking shit" That is NOT the worst case. If they were serious in the bounty case it could result in punishment for multiple people and reward of $10000 for the "trolls". In the trans case, it could result in child abuse or animal abuse. And this would be true if even ONE of those posts were serious. Not to mention it could give actual crazy people some horrible ideas. In light of today's date,remember that Sudan offered up Osama Bin Ladin to the US in the 90s before shipping him off to Afghanistan. Imagine if the US didn't dismiss the offer as "well you are just offering us one crazy guy and we don't care". 3000+ people in NYC and millions in the Middle East and South East Asia would be safer.

ryandrake 5y ago

> Even in the worst case, "I found an infinitesimal amount of nutty people on the internet" is not useful information for either a journalist or your personal model of the world. Careful though, QAnon was once an infinitesimally small amount of nutty people, and now they have at least two[1], likely more, sitting US Congressional representatives, with 36 running next year[2]. 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/11/04/congress-will-get-its-second-qanon-supporter-as-boebert-wins-colorado-house-seat/?sh=62b11c96568f https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/11/04/congres... 2: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-36-qanon-supporters-running-congress-in-the-2022-midterms-2021-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-36-qanon-supporters-runn...

wutbrodo 5y ago
Sure, I'm not suggesting there's 0% signal. I'm suggesting that the SNR of "someone said something crazy" is so close to zero as to be useless. Hell, crying wolf about it isnt just useless, it's counterproductive.

shephardjhon 5y ago

"worst-case they're a little nuts and talking shit" That is NOT the worst case. If they were serious in the bounty case it could result in punishment for multiple people and reward of $10000 for the "trolls". In the trans case, it could result in child abuse or animal abuse. And this would be true if even ONE of those posts were serious. Not to mention it could give actual crazy people some horrible ideas. In light of today's date,remember that Sudan offered up Osama Bin Ladin to the US in the 90s before shipping him off to Afghanistan. Imagine if the US didn't dismiss the offer as "well you are just offering us one crazy guy and we don't care". 3000+ people in NYC and millions in the Middle East and South East Asia would be safer.