6 ms·

Quick comment: people in the future will look back upon 1980-2009 as a barbaric era of unbelievable interpersonal nastiness. The truth about the matter is more

Quick comment: people in the future will look back upon 1980-2009 as a barbaric era of unbelievable interpersonal nastiness. The truth about the matter is more complicated. We're not really meaner than people of prior eras-- in fact, we've made a lot of progress as private individuals on racial/gender attitudes, even while social infrastructure has decayed-- but certain crass and mean elements of our society (casual sex, classism, internet harassment, homophobia and racism, so-called "irony", a heartless health insurance system) are being expressed loudly right now. Although we won't, at bottom, see the economic privations of the 1930s, 2001-2009(?) will be remembered as a difficult decade during which the future of civil society seemed uncertain. The 2000s have seemed like only a so-so decade to us, just as the 1930s appear to have been horrific in retrospect (people starved? no way!) but were still better, materially, than the 1900s and 1910s. The reason I predict an imminent and rather abrupt end to the "nasty era" is obvious. The people in charge of it have fallen from grace rather decisively, and we have a brilliant, inspiring president whose character is excellent by any standard, and downright heroic in comparison to what we've come to expect, and whose ascension represents a degree of triumph over centuries of racial bigotry.

time_management 18y ago
Can the person who downvoted me please criticize my post with a reply? I thought it was pretty solid. Feel free to downvote this post as well. Take it all the way to -50 if you care. Just let me know why, ok?
- dlytle 18y ago
  Probably the last bit talking about how you think Obama is awesome. (I didn't downvote you, btw, just my guess.) Also possibly mentioning casual sex in the same category as bigotry. It went somewhat over the top, and presented your comment in a light that made it seem very biased and unprofessional. That completely eradicated the point you were trying to make early on. Professionalism certainly isn't a requirement for posting, but a clear bias will make downvotes a lot more likely.
  - time_management 18y ago
    I have no idea whether or not Obama will be a great president, though I suspect he will. What makes him unusual, if not earth-shaking, as far as successful politicians go, is that he seems to be a truly great human being. I'm not pol-bashing; I don't think most of them are bad people. I just don't think many of them are great people either. Casual sex is an example of the crudeness and nastiness of the current era, and I cited it as such. Bigotry is much less appropriate as an example of the Reagan-through-Bush-2 era's nastiness, because even though it's a lot more evil than casual sex, it's been a problem more or less throughout this country's history.
    - dlytle 18y ago
      You asked for reasons why you got downvoted, which is what you got. Your reasons for posting those were fairly clear, the issue is that people disagree with you. I certainly don't see casual sex as being an example of "nastiness" or "evil", and it may be that this is what most downvoters are taking offense to. Plus, it's off-topic. The article is about being rude, callous, and insensitive towards others. Specifically, about the hypocrisy and cowardice involved in doing so anonymously. Your post was both off-topic and (potentially) offensive, and as such you're getting hit with two different sticks.
      - yters 18y ago
        While I don't agree with all his opinions, it is definitely not off topic. Plus, he should not be downvoted because he thinks casual sex is emotionally destructive. That, in fact, ties into his broader point. He thinks Obama will ease the polarization that leads to so many vehement disagreements, which he thinks bleed over to the online world. This goes hand in hand with the other poster's highly upvoted comment about PCness breeding repressed anger that is expressed online, of which the downvoting due to offense is a symptom.
        time_management 18y ago
        He thinks Obama will ease the polarization that leads to so many vehement disagreements, which he thinks bleed over to the online world. I think a lot of the nastiness will fade away, and we'll have a lot more pragmatic disagreements, and fewer mean-spirited, petty ones. Disagreement over bailout plans and solutions to economic problems is healthy. Impeaching a president over personal behavior (as caddish and comdemnable as that personal behavior was) is not good for the country.
- ii 18y ago
  Why? Because you mention casual sex and irony as something similar to racism and homophobia. I hate racism and homophobia while I don't see nothing wrong or "mean" with casual sex and irony.
  - time_management 18y ago
    My use of the word "irony" referred, in particular, to the hipster phenomenon and the general "fuck it" attitude toward life and other people. Hipster "irony" is often about making fun of the disadvantaged. It has nothing to do with literary irony. Casual sex is not nearly as evil as racism or homophobia, I agree. I didn't intend to make comparisons in that list. But I do think casual sex is impractical, and often an expression of latent misogyny. Does casual sex necessarily lead to misogyny, erosion respect between genders, lower self-esteem among the participants, and a permanently damaged ability to form lasting love relationships? No. In practice, does it almost always produce these things? Yes. Casual sex works in theory but not in practice; humans aren't meant to have their hormone levels and emotions jacked around like that.
    - ii 18y ago
      Whatever downsides "fuck it" attitudes and casual sex might have they are not comparable to racism or homophobia in any way IMHO.
      - time_management 18y ago
        I'm sorry if you thought I was trivializing the worse evils (which are orders of magnitude worse, in this case) by listing them in conjunction with petty ones. This was not my intention at all. I see all of these social illnesses as interlinked through a root disregard for humanity, but I didn't articulate this well and seem to have unintentionally offended a lot of people. My apologies.
    - riklomas 18y ago
      Don't be so moralizing, if you can't say anything nice...
- jerf 18y ago
  The idea that Bush caused internet incivility is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen attributed to Bush in a long line of stupid accusations. (I'm not saying they were all stupid, but there sure were a lot of stupid ones.) The internet was uncivil before Bush, the internet will be uncivil after Bush, and if Obama gives a speech tomorrow directly exhorting people to be more civil on the internet it won't do a damn thing, because the internet takes absolutely none of its tone from the US President. Drink a little less of the Kool-Aid, OK?
  - time_management 18y ago
    Bush is a symptom of the social illness more broadly described as the "neoconservative era" that began around 1980. The man himself had almost nothing to do with inciting internet incivility (aside from sometimes being a target of it) but certain civil erosions ushered in by the 1980s did.
    - rglullis 18y ago
      You're being USA-centric when dealing with the global phenomenon that is the Internet. Neither Bush (nor Obama) will ever be be a symptom of anything of that magnitude. I'll down-mod you not because I disagree, but because your reasoning is incomplete and one-sided.
      - unalone 18y ago
        It's not grammatically correct to put (nor) in parenthesis, because it makes your non-parenthetical statement grammatically incorrect. I think it's more important that his argument is encouraging discussion. He's not trolling. He's stating his beliefs. That's worth an upvote. He's wrong and he's not arguing well but he's genuinely trying to contribute. EDIT: And apparently, defending somebody else who has an earnest opinion and making a friendly grammar statement regarding a tricky bit of language is worth downvotes too. I'm sorry. :-(
- gojomo 18y ago
  I would never have downvoted it to 0; it wasn't a 'bad' comment needing censure. But, when it briefly reached +3, I just tried to downvote it, and hit upvote by mistake instead. Oops! So take that as a hint as to how arbitrary individual votes are, and why you shouldn't worry too much about them. Why didn't I want your long grandparent "quick comment" to be a +3 or higher? At one level, you almost seem to be implying "that nasty Bush and people like him are why Arrington was spit on, and now heroic Obama will fix everything". I think that's a simplistic and unhelpful worldview. (It doesn't even help Obama to treat him like a superhero.) You vent a laundry list of grievances with the past 30 years. Well, if you want to write hacker-themed analyses of 'casual sex', 'classism', 'internet harassment', 'homophobia', 'racism', 'so-called "irony"', the 'heartless health insurance system', or anything else, more power to you. But using the labels as shorthand slurs about how 'barbaric' our current 'era' is just makes the discussion partisan, impressionistic, and emotional. You're pressing buttons, and such threads degenerate quickly. Finally, while I was born before your 1980 cutoff when things started to go bad, I imagine most of the participants here have spent their whole lives in what you call "a barbaric era of unbelievable interpersonal nastiness." I can imagine them taking issue with that characterization, now and in the future when "people look back".

time_management 18y ago

Can the person who downvoted me please criticize my post with a reply? I thought it was pretty solid. Feel free to downvote this post as well. Take it all the way to -50 if you care. Just let me know why, ok?

dlytle 18y ago
Probably the last bit talking about how you think Obama is awesome. (I didn't downvote you, btw, just my guess.) Also possibly mentioning casual sex in the same category as bigotry. It went somewhat over the top, and presented your comment in a light that made it seem very biased and unprofessional. That completely eradicated the point you were trying to make early on. Professionalism certainly isn't a requirement for posting, but a clear bias will make downvotes a lot more likely.
- time_management 18y ago
  I have no idea whether or not Obama will be a great president, though I suspect he will. What makes him unusual, if not earth-shaking, as far as successful politicians go, is that he seems to be a truly great human being. I'm not pol-bashing; I don't think most of them are bad people. I just don't think many of them are great people either. Casual sex is an example of the crudeness and nastiness of the current era, and I cited it as such. Bigotry is much less appropriate as an example of the Reagan-through-Bush-2 era's nastiness, because even though it's a lot more evil than casual sex, it's been a problem more or less throughout this country's history.
  - dlytle 18y ago
    You asked for reasons why you got downvoted, which is what you got. Your reasons for posting those were fairly clear, the issue is that people disagree with you. I certainly don't see casual sex as being an example of "nastiness" or "evil", and it may be that this is what most downvoters are taking offense to. Plus, it's off-topic. The article is about being rude, callous, and insensitive towards others. Specifically, about the hypocrisy and cowardice involved in doing so anonymously. Your post was both off-topic and (potentially) offensive, and as such you're getting hit with two different sticks.
    - yters 18y ago
      While I don't agree with all his opinions, it is definitely not off topic. Plus, he should not be downvoted because he thinks casual sex is emotionally destructive. That, in fact, ties into his broader point. He thinks Obama will ease the polarization that leads to so many vehement disagreements, which he thinks bleed over to the online world. This goes hand in hand with the other poster's highly upvoted comment about PCness breeding repressed anger that is expressed online, of which the downvoting due to offense is a symptom.
      - time_management 18y ago
        He thinks Obama will ease the polarization that leads to so many vehement disagreements, which he thinks bleed over to the online world. I think a lot of the nastiness will fade away, and we'll have a lot more pragmatic disagreements, and fewer mean-spirited, petty ones. Disagreement over bailout plans and solutions to economic problems is healthy. Impeaching a president over personal behavior (as caddish and comdemnable as that personal behavior was) is not good for the country.
ii 18y ago
Why? Because you mention casual sex and irony as something similar to racism and homophobia. I hate racism and homophobia while I don't see nothing wrong or "mean" with casual sex and irony.
- time_management 18y ago
  My use of the word "irony" referred, in particular, to the hipster phenomenon and the general "fuck it" attitude toward life and other people. Hipster "irony" is often about making fun of the disadvantaged. It has nothing to do with literary irony. Casual sex is not nearly as evil as racism or homophobia, I agree. I didn't intend to make comparisons in that list. But I do think casual sex is impractical, and often an expression of latent misogyny. Does casual sex necessarily lead to misogyny, erosion respect between genders, lower self-esteem among the participants, and a permanently damaged ability to form lasting love relationships? No. In practice, does it almost always produce these things? Yes. Casual sex works in theory but not in practice; humans aren't meant to have their hormone levels and emotions jacked around like that.
  - ii 18y ago
    Whatever downsides "fuck it" attitudes and casual sex might have they are not comparable to racism or homophobia in any way IMHO.
    - time_management 18y ago
      I'm sorry if you thought I was trivializing the worse evils (which are orders of magnitude worse, in this case) by listing them in conjunction with petty ones. This was not my intention at all. I see all of these social illnesses as interlinked through a root disregard for humanity, but I didn't articulate this well and seem to have unintentionally offended a lot of people. My apologies.
  - riklomas 18y ago
    Don't be so moralizing, if you can't say anything nice...
jerf 18y ago
The idea that Bush caused internet incivility is one of the stupidest things I have ever seen attributed to Bush in a long line of stupid accusations. (I'm not saying they were all stupid, but there sure were a lot of stupid ones.) The internet was uncivil before Bush, the internet will be uncivil after Bush, and if Obama gives a speech tomorrow directly exhorting people to be more civil on the internet it won't do a damn thing, because the internet takes absolutely none of its tone from the US President. Drink a little less of the Kool-Aid, OK?
- time_management 18y ago
  Bush is a symptom of the social illness more broadly described as the "neoconservative era" that began around 1980. The man himself had almost nothing to do with inciting internet incivility (aside from sometimes being a target of it) but certain civil erosions ushered in by the 1980s did.
  - rglullis 18y ago
    You're being USA-centric when dealing with the global phenomenon that is the Internet. Neither Bush (nor Obama) will ever be be a symptom of anything of that magnitude. I'll down-mod you not because I disagree, but because your reasoning is incomplete and one-sided.
    - unalone 18y ago
      It's not grammatically correct to put (nor) in parenthesis, because it makes your non-parenthetical statement grammatically incorrect. I think it's more important that his argument is encouraging discussion. He's not trolling. He's stating his beliefs. That's worth an upvote. He's wrong and he's not arguing well but he's genuinely trying to contribute. EDIT: And apparently, defending somebody else who has an earnest opinion and making a friendly grammar statement regarding a tricky bit of language is worth downvotes too. I'm sorry. :-(
gojomo 18y ago
I would never have downvoted it to 0; it wasn't a 'bad' comment needing censure. But, when it briefly reached +3, I just tried to downvote it, and hit upvote by mistake instead. Oops! So take that as a hint as to how arbitrary individual votes are, and why you shouldn't worry too much about them. Why didn't I want your long grandparent "quick comment" to be a +3 or higher? At one level, you almost seem to be implying "that nasty Bush and people like him are why Arrington was spit on, and now heroic Obama will fix everything". I think that's a simplistic and unhelpful worldview. (It doesn't even help Obama to treat him like a superhero.) You vent a laundry list of grievances with the past 30 years. Well, if you want to write hacker-themed analyses of 'casual sex', 'classism', 'internet harassment', 'homophobia', 'racism', 'so-called "irony"', the 'heartless health insurance system', or anything else, more power to you. But using the labels as shorthand slurs about how 'barbaric' our current 'era' is just makes the discussion partisan, impressionistic, and emotional. You're pressing buttons, and such threads degenerate quickly. Finally, while I was born before your 1980 cutoff when things started to go bad, I imagine most of the participants here have spent their whole lives in what you call "a barbaric era of unbelievable interpersonal nastiness." I can imagine them taking issue with that characterization, now and in the future when "people look back".