4 ms·

Is there a deeper meaning to take from this? Some people block anyone negative on Twitter. He's free to use the platform as he pleases, I see no reason why some

Is there a deeper meaning to take from this? Some people block anyone negative on Twitter. He's free to use the platform as he pleases, I see no reason why someone should feel obligated to have or present an externally valid reason for blocking others.

cwmma 5y ago
Stross just blocks nazis and terfs even when they are polite about it. This pisses some people off who see JUST ASKING QUESTIONS!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- lazyasciiart 5y ago
  Polite about……being nazis? Good for him for not lending credence to the idea that civility makes anything acceptable.
maxerickson 5y ago
No, I'm just petty and small minded. On the other hand, when someone confidently opines about a lot of things and then rejects mild corrections (I literally just said something like "thing isn't part of B, it's owned by the same parent company"), you wonder what facts are feeding into those opinions.
- lazyasciiart 5y ago
  You didn’t though, you said something much much less useful than that -“you’re slightly wrong, here’s a Wikipedia article for you to read”
toyg 5y ago
Some people also have a quixotic definition of "facts", and figuring out if that's the case can be exhausting for popular users with thousands of followers.
- bigiain 5y ago
  And you know, from random strangers, who gives a fuck even if their facts are correct? You owe them precisely nothing for their “contribution” to your discussion. If you block them, it means you don’t want to hear from them any more. They can go butt into someone else’s discussion and see if they are more receptive to “corrections”.
  - Uhhrrr 5y ago
    I think it's nice to thank strangers who offer corrections. I'd rather be corrected than have a false feeling that I'm always correct.
    - bigiain 5y ago
      Thats fine. Go forth and find your circle of Twitter users who share that view and correct them and receive corrections from them and be happy. Mr Stross seems not share that view. That's fine too.
      - Uhhrrr 5y ago
        I'm making the point because I'm selfish. If there are more people in touch with reality, then that benefits me.
Barrin92 5y ago
because free expression is increasingly confused with a "right to be in your face" by a certain segment of the population. People confuse the right to speak with the others having the obligation to host or listen to them. Personally, strongly curating something like Twitter with all the tools they give you is pretty much the only way to keep somewhat high quality of conversation.
- bigiain 5y ago
  And hardly surprisingly, the “I have an inalienable right to get in your face” crowd are also very much in the overlap of the Venn diagram with the “dog pile this guy, he has different opinions to us” crowd. There are tools that are even more powerful than Twitters kinda lame (we’ll give you just enough control so you can’t reduce our engagement metrics” ones. A certain Mozilla founder who you can’t link to from here blogged about being dogpiled by the cryptobros, and mentioned https://megablock.xyz/ https://megablock.xyz/ as a useful tool. Way too many people think they have some right to the time of other people. They don’t. I can choose to never hear from you or anybody else at any time, there’s no legal or moral or ethical or even politeness problems with me doing that. The way you choose to use Twitter has zero impact on the way I choose to use Twitter, and if I want to be Blocky McBlockface for any reason at all, that’s just fine. You can go and r random stranger nit picky arguments with someone else. I wouldn’t put up with it in person, and I don’t have to put up with it online. And if you’re behaving in a way that even slightly annoys me, I will block not only you, but all the people who seem to be your friends or entourage. Sucks to be them if they actually wanted to talk with me, but you know what, I get to choose who I’m friends with, and if you hang out with people who are annoying to other people in public, you get tarred with the same brush. If your friend is a jerk in a bar, expect the bouncers to eject the whole group. Especially if it’s a certain SF SOMA nightclub…

cwmma 5y ago

Stross just blocks nazis and terfs even when they are polite about it. This pisses some people off who see JUST ASKING QUESTIONS!

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lazyasciiart 5y ago
Polite about……being nazis? Good for him for not lending credence to the idea that civility makes anything acceptable.

maxerickson 5y ago

No, I'm just petty and small minded. On the other hand, when someone confidently opines about a lot of things and then rejects mild corrections (I literally just said something like "thing isn't part of B, it's owned by the same parent company"), you wonder what facts are feeding into those opinions.

lazyasciiart 5y ago
You didn’t though, you said something much much less useful than that -“you’re slightly wrong, here’s a Wikipedia article for you to read”

toyg 5y ago

Some people also have a quixotic definition of "facts", and figuring out if that's the case can be exhausting for popular users with thousands of followers.

bigiain 5y ago
And you know, from random strangers, who gives a fuck even if their facts are correct? You owe them precisely nothing for their “contribution” to your discussion. If you block them, it means you don’t want to hear from them any more. They can go butt into someone else’s discussion and see if they are more receptive to “corrections”.
- Uhhrrr 5y ago
  I think it's nice to thank strangers who offer corrections. I'd rather be corrected than have a false feeling that I'm always correct.
  - bigiain 5y ago
    Thats fine. Go forth and find your circle of Twitter users who share that view and correct them and receive corrections from them and be happy. Mr Stross seems not share that view. That's fine too.
    - Uhhrrr 5y ago
      I'm making the point because I'm selfish. If there are more people in touch with reality, then that benefits me.

Barrin92 5y ago

because free expression is increasingly confused with a "right to be in your face" by a certain segment of the population. People confuse the right to speak with the others having the obligation to host or listen to them. Personally, strongly curating something like Twitter with all the tools they give you is pretty much the only way to keep somewhat high quality of conversation.

bigiain 5y ago
And hardly surprisingly, the “I have an inalienable right to get in your face” crowd are also very much in the overlap of the Venn diagram with the “dog pile this guy, he has different opinions to us” crowd. There are tools that are even more powerful than Twitters kinda lame (we’ll give you just enough control so you can’t reduce our engagement metrics” ones. A certain Mozilla founder who you can’t link to from here blogged about being dogpiled by the cryptobros, and mentioned https://megablock.xyz/ https://megablock.xyz/ as a useful tool. Way too many people think they have some right to the time of other people. They don’t. I can choose to never hear from you or anybody else at any time, there’s no legal or moral or ethical or even politeness problems with me doing that. The way you choose to use Twitter has zero impact on the way I choose to use Twitter, and if I want to be Blocky McBlockface for any reason at all, that’s just fine. You can go and r random stranger nit picky arguments with someone else. I wouldn’t put up with it in person, and I don’t have to put up with it online. And if you’re behaving in a way that even slightly annoys me, I will block not only you, but all the people who seem to be your friends or entourage. Sucks to be them if they actually wanted to talk with me, but you know what, I get to choose who I’m friends with, and if you hang out with people who are annoying to other people in public, you get tarred with the same brush. If your friend is a jerk in a bar, expect the bouncers to eject the whole group. Especially if it’s a certain SF SOMA nightclub…