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Those conversations still happen, under those posts. They might even happen more often now. I also vastly prefer those. I'm on here a bunch and I don't see wha

Those conversations still happen, under those posts. They might even happen more often now. I also vastly prefer those. I'm on here a bunch and I don't see what you mean with the ad hominems. Why guess at peoples motives anyways? Even if they are indeed just jealous, I'm not sure skepticism becomes invalidated when a bad motive is established. "You almost had me convinced I was wrong but then I realized you were simply jealous." Surely we live in a world where lots of good and true things can be attributed to shit motives. That also applies to skepticism.

benreesman 4y ago
I think you’ve made a fair criticism: my argument is sort of “two-wrongs-not-making-a-right” at worst and badly under-contextualized at best. There’s been a shift in tone on here over a period of time I couldn’t precisely identify, years at least. The technical debates always got, uh, quite spirited at times, but there was a sort of “hey, so-and-so did well, good for them. With a little luck it’ll be my turn before long.” A kind of recognition that while a little envy is only human, it’s still in the best interest of everyone to build rungs on the ladder rather than kick them out. And that’s not completely gone, but there is this creeping zero-sum kind of sentiment that just seems to be growing over time. This kind of narrowing of all bad feelings onto lucrative/prosperous people and ventures. There are some godawful industries in the world: finance, pharma, health insurance, big agribusiness, lobbyism, the friggin Sackler family, whatever Blackwater/Xe is calling themselves now. But that stuff is discussed quite rationally. OTOH recommender systems, internet ads, crypto-money: people get really, really heated up about that stuff. I’m open to alternative theories than the one I’ve presented, but the way I see it mass murder via OxyContin is a way bigger deal than cryptocurrency and FB ads put together.

benreesman 4y ago

I think you’ve made a fair criticism: my argument is sort of “two-wrongs-not-making-a-right” at worst and badly under-contextualized at best. There’s been a shift in tone on here over a period of time I couldn’t precisely identify, years at least. The technical debates always got, uh, quite spirited at times, but there was a sort of “hey, so-and-so did well, good for them. With a little luck it’ll be my turn before long.” A kind of recognition that while a little envy is only human, it’s still in the best interest of everyone to build rungs on the ladder rather than kick them out. And that’s not completely gone, but there is this creeping zero-sum kind of sentiment that just seems to be growing over time. This kind of narrowing of all bad feelings onto lucrative/prosperous people and ventures. There are some godawful industries in the world: finance, pharma, health insurance, big agribusiness, lobbyism, the friggin Sackler family, whatever Blackwater/Xe is calling themselves now. But that stuff is discussed quite rationally. OTOH recommender systems, internet ads, crypto-money: people get really, really heated up about that stuff. I’m open to alternative theories than the one I’ve presented, but the way I see it mass murder via OxyContin is a way bigger deal than cryptocurrency and FB ads put together.