6 ms·

Some people are going to say that he was in the right, and some will argue this is a consequence of being wrong, but this doesn't matter. What this illustrates

Some people are going to say that he was in the right, and some will argue this is a consequence of being wrong, but this doesn't matter. What this illustrates is the dangerous precipice that the world of blogging is hanging on to, where the violent hatred that spews forth when anyone writes a remotely controversial opinion threatens to silence any opinion that sways too far from mainstream consciousness. The fact that the first comment that was posted here was just more critique about the original blog post and how supposedly "wrong" it was illustrates how much of a problem this has become. Whether or not his opinion is wrong doesn't matter. What matters is that he expresses it as an alternative perspective to mainstream conciousness. Problems are solved and society is moved forward by a multitude of various opinions, all right and wrong in their own ways, interacting with each other. Each perspective provides a unique method of solving a problem which may not yet exist. The more perspectives we have, the more ideas we have to work from when we try to solve a problem. By violently critiquing such controversial stances, we are indirectly silencing those voices, and ultimately destroying our own ability to find progressively better solutions to problems, because we get stuck inside a single point of view and refuse to move outside of it. It is not simply a matter of ignoring trolls either, because many of the most hurtful comments, at least in my experience, are otherwise highly intelligent people who completely missed the point of what you were trying to say, and have spent 10 minutes writing a scathing critique against a nonexistent problem. If we continue to censor ourselves, it will destroy us. "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire

ahelwer 14y ago
I see this from a different perspective. We are finally getting to the point where a critical mass of people are not going to tolerate sexist misinformed crap as they encounter it, and will instead speak out en masse. The blog post on sexism wasn't a "controversial opinion." The author wasn't bravely standing up to the mainstream. It was just his crappy opinion that tech needs to continue to try very hard to move past. Most importantly, his opinion was NOT silenced. Why do people in this arena of conversation seem to consistently misinterpret the meaning of free speech? He espoused his opinion, and then a whole bunch of other people espoused theirs. Nobody was silenced. Quite the opposite, actually.
- PuerkitoBio 14y ago
  He was silenced with thousands of page views on his blog. He was silenced with hundreds or thousands of tweets. He was silenced by making HN front page. Yeah "controversial" opinions are really in danger.
- king_jester 14y ago
  > The blog post on sexism wasn't a "controversial opinion." The author wasn't bravely standing up to the mainstream. So very much this. The author wasn't deviating from the mainstream, he was promoting mainstream, sexist points of view regarding women and work. That many people took offense to this and called him out on it is to be expected.
  - brianchu 14y ago
    Can you point out exactly where he promoted "sexist points of view regarding women and work?" Because as far as I can tell, regardless of whether he is right or wrong (I think he is wrong), his blog post had very little to do with expressing a sexist point of view of women, and was more of a critique of how we currently judge discrimination and how the current dialogue around sexism is framed.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  > "We are finally getting to the point where a critical mass of people are not going to tolerate sexist misinformed crap as they encounter it, and will instead speak out en masse." Except this critical mass of people behave more like an angry mob with pitchforks and torches, rather than a room full of shouting retorts. The internet has given us a remarkable freedom in expression - it has also lowered the floor for discourse. Instead of writing an angry email explaining how you're wrong, there are more people who will post your address, take satellite pictures of your home, threaten to kill/rape you... I could go on. I don't think this post was about the people who disagreed with him (for the record, I do disagree with his first blog post), but rather the extreme, vitriolic, disturbingly violent blowback that we see so much these days. And this applies to all subjects and all sides. On the internet it seems if you say something sufficiently controversial, you will be deluged by a flood of extreme sociopathic behavior. We're talking well beyond just ad hominem attacks and insults - many a blogger have been entirely silenced from blogging due to personal threats, mob outrage, incitement, and simply inhuman levels of anonymous cruelty that, prior to the internet, were the sole territory of deranged psychopaths. > "He espoused his opinion, and then a whole bunch of other people espoused theirs. Nobody was silenced. Quite the opposite, actually." I don't think the mild, "I think you're stupid and wrong" responses are why he's quitting Twitter.
_delirium 14y ago
> "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire Wouldn't you then likewise defend the right of people to criticize the post, including to criticize it harshly, even if you disagree with he criticisms or the way they're phrased? edit: That said, I can see a case for communities maintaining discourse norms, in order to promote discussion/etc. But to me that's precisely the opposite of a free-speech absolutist view, because discourse norms are limits on what/how/when to say things.
- waratuman 14y ago
  People did not criticize the post but the person.
  - dmix 14y ago
    Free speech still applies even if it's offending another person.
    - zaptheimpaler 14y ago
      No, thats defamation/libel, and it is a civil offense, even a criminal offense in some cases. Free speech is not an unconditional right, it places responsibilities on those who exercise it.
      - dmix 14y ago
        Defamation laws are one of those laws that skirt on a thin-line of interfering with free speech rights (similar to hate crime laws). It's also not simply offending language that equals defamation. From wikipedia: "Opinion is a defence recognized in nearly every jurisdiction. If the allegedly defamatory assertion is an expression of opinion rather than a statement of fact, defamation claims usually cannot be brought because opinions are inherently not falsifiable." also "In Common Law it is usually a requirement that this claim be false." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#Defences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#Defences
ChuckMcM 14y ago
The difference between opinion on the editorial page of the paper and opinion in the world of zero filters. Perhaps one in a million people is a flaming loon but that's over 7,000 people given the world population. Sadly a lot of them have Internet access. So the folks who are moderate and make up the bulk of the population don't respond, and the ones who are most easily incensed do. In a newspaper the editor would get all the letters that came in as rebuttals to an opinion and print the ones that were insightful or made a reasoned argument, and they would simply throw away all of the letters from folks who were ranting. This allowed for reasoned (if heated) debate to be carried out in the opinion section of the daily paper. Twitter doesn't 'fix' this, I don't think they see it as a problem, but a bit of moderation goes a long way toward providing a better environment. It is an unsolved problem to date, perhaps App.net or identi.ca or some other micro-blogging service will take it on and make things better. I expect it would attract quality posts and quickly gain a solid base.
kefs 14y ago
> If we continue to censor ourselves, it will destroy us. Hence, the title of OP's post. It was all really inevitable though.. The collective code we write spawned this. We make it increasingly simple for humans to share.. and equally as easy for humans to collaborate. These forces will combine for good and/or evil. Take this past week on reddit as an example... If you don't know it, one of their most prolific users, Violentacrez was forced to close his account for simply sharing controversial photos. As a result, he became a target of ShitRedditSays, Project Panda, and RedditBomb. He was doxxed and threatened IRL.. He is now offline. If we were to listen to Voltaire unequivocally, then the same should go for OP, and Violentacrez. How would you respond? http://i.imgur.com/AL52y.png http://i.imgur.com/AL52y.png
- ahelwer 14y ago
  "Simply sharing controversial photos"... nice disingenuous way to say "creating a platform and framework for sharing sexualized pictures of preteens and photos of women taken without their consent, for years, while doing everything in his power (and mostly succeeding) in normalizing the process". Honestly, it's like when people say "free speech" they really mean "be able to do anything I want no matter how horrible with zero consequences or criticism." I'm glad VA is gone. I hope he gets thrown in a jail cell.
  - kefs 14y ago
    If it's against the law, report it to the police; Don't take the law into your own hands. It makes you no better than what you're trying to expunge.
    - _delirium 14y ago
      I don't think we have to behave positively towards all behavior that falls short of illegality. In Violentacrez's case, he was long-term harassing people, posting creepy photos without their consent, etc. It may not have risen to the level of a crime, but I don't see any reason people shouldn't strongly criticize his behavior, including criticizing him by his real name, if they can discover that name through legal means. Why should him posting sexualized photos of people (including kids) without their consent be tolerated, but suddenly one violates some threshold of civility to say: "I've discovered that the guy posting these photos is Michael Brutsch, and I would like him to stop."
lmm 14y ago
Letting such perspectives pass without criticism does not help us solve problems; quite the opposite. A few outlandish suggestions are amazingly useful insights, but most of them are outlandish for a reason; it's not a case of every idea being right and wrong in different ways, there really are objectively good and bad ideas, and being able to cull bad ideas quickly is vital to progress. To my mind this is a case of "if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen". If you're deliberately offering an unusual perspective, you should be prepared for it to be rapidly shot down. If it's on an emotionally charged issue, you should be prepared to be shot down viciously. The author can't have been unaware that his original post was going to offend a great many people. Do people's emotional reactions get in the way of solving sexism? Maybe. But if you've found a way to take the emotion out of it, you're probably 9/10 of the way to a full solution already; if not, complaining that people treat the issue emotionally without offering a solution is rather empty.
- KevinEldon 14y ago
  Summary: Vicious responses are lazy and should be considered ignorant until proven otherwise. I agree with you that vicious responses to different positions on emotionally charged issues are common. The word 'vicious' bothers me though; it's not ok to use non-arguments and threats or insults to respond to an argument. If someone told me that Abraham Lincoln was the current President of the United States I don't think I'd respond viciously... I'd tell him he was an idiot and show him some evidence on my phone. If he kept it up I think I'd just leave because I'm not responsible for someone else's idiocy. If someone argues with a more complicated position that I hold dear, then I can see how I might respond viciously if I had no actual counter-argument or if I didn't want to spend time to argue with this person. I think you're recognizing how the world works, for complex issues with a bunch of ignorant people you're likely to see very vicious responses because most people cannot articulate the reasoning behind their position or choose not to spend the time to and instead use violence (virtual or otherwise). Perhaps some have real counter-arguments and choose not to present them and instead just respond with arrogance; if so that's sad because no one is informed by better understanding. My initial thought after reading your post was that your view is practical and accurate, that people like Antirez who care more about their primary work (Redis in this case) and not some other issue they have a perspective on (sexism in software) will be drowned out and crushed under the common view and those who choose to elevate a particular view or cause to their primary purpose. I think (with disdain) about "pundits" whose job is to promote some position regardless of its merit; people who spend their lives arguing passionately for whatever pays the most... that is ugly and works against adapting a culture to handle new ideas and situations. EDIT: Spelling only.
Jach 14y ago
This isn't about censorship, but sensitivity. I don't see how you drew from this that the world of blogging is in peril--if you write things that generate tons of hate comments, and you don't want to read those comments, disable comments. The discussion will continue elsewhere regardless. The haters aren't even censoring themselves (I guess you could make a case that their existing biases prevent them from seriously considering opposing views, but that's not exactly "self-censorship"). If you want to solve some of the problems exemplified by this article and its responses, talking about censorship isn't the way; instead, encourage people to grow thicker skins.
- antirez 14y ago
  I'm not closing my blog, where I think I'll post more controversial stuff, as I've a controversial indole. Also I'm not sensible at all, the problem is, I'm realising that Twitter is becoming mostly low content replies. Among the trolling replies I got, a lot were from respectable developers, sometimes even of products somewhat related to Redis. If it's so low quality why should I stay in an environment where that's the level? I'm quitting based on quality, not as I'm offended or alike.
  - Jach 14y ago
    My comment about sensitivity was mostly directed at the people flipping out about what you wrote, but it's nice to have confirmation that you too aren't so sensitive that you stop writing altogether. It makes sense for you to ditch Twitter.
  - zokier 14y ago
    > I'm realising that Twitter is becoming mostly low content replies I'm more surprised that it took you this long to realize that. That statement sounds bit like realizing that 4chan has mostly low quality comments.
jerf 14y ago
"What this illustrates is the dangerous precipice that the world of blogging is hanging on to" If I may... this wasn't the world of "blogging". This was the world of Twitter et al. Blogging itself actually has a very interesting property, which is that even if somebody tears you a new one in their own blog post, you don't actually have to know unless you go looking for it. It's a lot easier to blog a controversial opinion than it is to twit it, Facebook it, or post it here or in a forum, because they all have the characteristic that any body with a pulse and a computer anywhere in the world can essentially stick their reply in your face. After the first couple of thousand nasty replies, this can start to wear on a person. When it first got going around 2000, I found this very interesting, and I still think that there's something about that model that we need to find a way to recover in the Next Great Social Medium. It isn't perfect, because you don't get that immediacy that you get in a forum, and it's easy to end up feeling like a lone voice in the wilderness due to lack of feedback, and presumably that's why this medium faded as a means of generating community, killed by the immediacy and quick feedback hits of the more popular community mechanisms. To me it's pretty abundantly clear that all the "any idiot in your face" community technologies ultimately start falling apart (requiring either an inhumanly thick skin or flat-out sociopathy), and somehow I'd love to see if there's a way to build something a little more immediate and a little less likely to isolate people entirely, while at the same time retaining the fact that you aren't assaulted by what feels like an entire Internet of knaves and fools every time you open your browser.
- bsg75 14y ago
  Unfortunately bloggers who thrive on page views, but don't have any actual knowledge to share use Twitter to locate the Mass Indignation Of The Day, and spin off 10-100 times 140 characters to feed the trolls.
tomasien 14y ago
As the first poster you're referring to, my post was a direct response to THIS post. It was to say "I agree the vitriol toward you was uncalled for, please don't let it take away from the serious critiques of your post". What is wrong with that? I was defending both his right to speech suggesting people shouldn't shit on him for his views and also the need for conversations to be two-way and for him to consider the contrarian viewpoints that were too often expressed hatefully. I'm encouraged that I've received net-upvotes for that comment, but I worry that EITHER I didn't express myself clearly enough or that people on HN are really committed to not re-thinking their views on sexism given how many downvotes it received. I'll fully accept that it's likely that it was my poor wording.
matthewlyle 14y ago
Just as an aside: that's a misattributed quotation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall
OverlordXenu 14y ago
I'm sorry, but, what? Critique is not censorship. The spread and evolution of ideas necessitates a dialog--critique, further reform of your idea, more critique, etc. etc. etc. This is how pretty much all intellectual expression works. Ideas do not exist in a vacuum, they exist among all other ideas and opinions and among data and personal anecdote and so on. Without critique, ideas fail. Edit: If you think someone is wrong, you should tell them (if you can articulate it in a well-reasoned, well-supported manner). Controversial ideas especially shouldn't get a free pass from critique just because they're on the dubside of mainstream thought. How does that even make any sense? Mainstream ideas are, by definition, more popular. While this popularity could lead to less (direct) critique, it still leads to more people thinking about the idea, refining it, etc. There's more brainpower behind a mainstream idea than behind a controversial one. All ideas are deserving of critique, but the ones that have been built with less human hours should probably be looked at a little more closely.

ahelwer 14y ago

I see this from a different perspective. We are finally getting to the point where a critical mass of people are not going to tolerate sexist misinformed crap as they encounter it, and will instead speak out en masse. The blog post on sexism wasn't a "controversial opinion." The author wasn't bravely standing up to the mainstream. It was just his crappy opinion that tech needs to continue to try very hard to move past. Most importantly, his opinion was NOT silenced. Why do people in this arena of conversation seem to consistently misinterpret the meaning of free speech? He espoused his opinion, and then a whole bunch of other people espoused theirs. Nobody was silenced. Quite the opposite, actually.

PuerkitoBio 14y ago
He was silenced with thousands of page views on his blog. He was silenced with hundreds or thousands of tweets. He was silenced by making HN front page. Yeah "controversial" opinions are really in danger.
king_jester 14y ago
> The blog post on sexism wasn't a "controversial opinion." The author wasn't bravely standing up to the mainstream. So very much this. The author wasn't deviating from the mainstream, he was promoting mainstream, sexist points of view regarding women and work. That many people took offense to this and called him out on it is to be expected.
- brianchu 14y ago
  Can you point out exactly where he promoted "sexist points of view regarding women and work?" Because as far as I can tell, regardless of whether he is right or wrong (I think he is wrong), his blog post had very little to do with expressing a sexist point of view of women, and was more of a critique of how we currently judge discrimination and how the current dialogue around sexism is framed.
potatolicious 14y ago
> "We are finally getting to the point where a critical mass of people are not going to tolerate sexist misinformed crap as they encounter it, and will instead speak out en masse." Except this critical mass of people behave more like an angry mob with pitchforks and torches, rather than a room full of shouting retorts. The internet has given us a remarkable freedom in expression - it has also lowered the floor for discourse. Instead of writing an angry email explaining how you're wrong, there are more people who will post your address, take satellite pictures of your home, threaten to kill/rape you... I could go on. I don't think this post was about the people who disagreed with him (for the record, I do disagree with his first blog post), but rather the extreme, vitriolic, disturbingly violent blowback that we see so much these days. And this applies to all subjects and all sides. On the internet it seems if you say something sufficiently controversial, you will be deluged by a flood of extreme sociopathic behavior. We're talking well beyond just ad hominem attacks and insults - many a blogger have been entirely silenced from blogging due to personal threats, mob outrage, incitement, and simply inhuman levels of anonymous cruelty that, prior to the internet, were the sole territory of deranged psychopaths. > "He espoused his opinion, and then a whole bunch of other people espoused theirs. Nobody was silenced. Quite the opposite, actually." I don't think the mild, "I think you're stupid and wrong" responses are why he's quitting Twitter.

_delirium 14y ago

> "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire Wouldn't you then likewise defend the right of people to criticize the post, including to criticize it harshly, even if you disagree with he criticisms or the way they're phrased? edit: That said, I can see a case for communities maintaining discourse norms, in order to promote discussion/etc. But to me that's precisely the opposite of a free-speech absolutist view, because discourse norms are limits on what/how/when to say things.

waratuman 14y ago
People did not criticize the post but the person.
- dmix 14y ago
  Free speech still applies even if it's offending another person.
  - zaptheimpaler 14y ago
    No, thats defamation/libel, and it is a civil offense, even a criminal offense in some cases. Free speech is not an unconditional right, it places responsibilities on those who exercise it.
    - dmix 14y ago
      Defamation laws are one of those laws that skirt on a thin-line of interfering with free speech rights (similar to hate crime laws). It's also not simply offending language that equals defamation. From wikipedia: "Opinion is a defence recognized in nearly every jurisdiction. If the allegedly defamatory assertion is an expression of opinion rather than a statement of fact, defamation claims usually cannot be brought because opinions are inherently not falsifiable." also "In Common Law it is usually a requirement that this claim be false." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#Defences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#Defences

ChuckMcM 14y ago

The difference between opinion on the editorial page of the paper and opinion in the world of zero filters. Perhaps one in a million people is a flaming loon but that's over 7,000 people given the world population. Sadly a lot of them have Internet access. So the folks who are moderate and make up the bulk of the population don't respond, and the ones who are most easily incensed do. In a newspaper the editor would get all the letters that came in as rebuttals to an opinion and print the ones that were insightful or made a reasoned argument, and they would simply throw away all of the letters from folks who were ranting. This allowed for reasoned (if heated) debate to be carried out in the opinion section of the daily paper. Twitter doesn't 'fix' this, I don't think they see it as a problem, but a bit of moderation goes a long way toward providing a better environment. It is an unsolved problem to date, perhaps App.net or identi.ca or some other micro-blogging service will take it on and make things better. I expect it would attract quality posts and quickly gain a solid base.

kefs 14y ago

> If we continue to censor ourselves, it will destroy us. Hence, the title of OP's post. It was all really inevitable though.. The collective code we write spawned this. We make it increasingly simple for humans to share.. and equally as easy for humans to collaborate. These forces will combine for good and/or evil. Take this past week on reddit as an example... If you don't know it, one of their most prolific users, Violentacrez was forced to close his account for simply sharing controversial photos. As a result, he became a target of ShitRedditSays, Project Panda, and RedditBomb. He was doxxed and threatened IRL.. He is now offline. If we were to listen to Voltaire unequivocally, then the same should go for OP, and Violentacrez. How would you respond? http://i.imgur.com/AL52y.png http://i.imgur.com/AL52y.png

ahelwer 14y ago
"Simply sharing controversial photos"... nice disingenuous way to say "creating a platform and framework for sharing sexualized pictures of preteens and photos of women taken without their consent, for years, while doing everything in his power (and mostly succeeding) in normalizing the process". Honestly, it's like when people say "free speech" they really mean "be able to do anything I want no matter how horrible with zero consequences or criticism." I'm glad VA is gone. I hope he gets thrown in a jail cell.
- kefs 14y ago
  If it's against the law, report it to the police; Don't take the law into your own hands. It makes you no better than what you're trying to expunge.
  - _delirium 14y ago
    I don't think we have to behave positively towards all behavior that falls short of illegality. In Violentacrez's case, he was long-term harassing people, posting creepy photos without their consent, etc. It may not have risen to the level of a crime, but I don't see any reason people shouldn't strongly criticize his behavior, including criticizing him by his real name, if they can discover that name through legal means. Why should him posting sexualized photos of people (including kids) without their consent be tolerated, but suddenly one violates some threshold of civility to say: "I've discovered that the guy posting these photos is Michael Brutsch, and I would like him to stop."

lmm 14y ago

Letting such perspectives pass without criticism does not help us solve problems; quite the opposite. A few outlandish suggestions are amazingly useful insights, but most of them are outlandish for a reason; it's not a case of every idea being right and wrong in different ways, there really are objectively good and bad ideas, and being able to cull bad ideas quickly is vital to progress. To my mind this is a case of "if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen". If you're deliberately offering an unusual perspective, you should be prepared for it to be rapidly shot down. If it's on an emotionally charged issue, you should be prepared to be shot down viciously. The author can't have been unaware that his original post was going to offend a great many people. Do people's emotional reactions get in the way of solving sexism? Maybe. But if you've found a way to take the emotion out of it, you're probably 9/10 of the way to a full solution already; if not, complaining that people treat the issue emotionally without offering a solution is rather empty.

KevinEldon 14y ago
Summary: Vicious responses are lazy and should be considered ignorant until proven otherwise. I agree with you that vicious responses to different positions on emotionally charged issues are common. The word 'vicious' bothers me though; it's not ok to use non-arguments and threats or insults to respond to an argument. If someone told me that Abraham Lincoln was the current President of the United States I don't think I'd respond viciously... I'd tell him he was an idiot and show him some evidence on my phone. If he kept it up I think I'd just leave because I'm not responsible for someone else's idiocy. If someone argues with a more complicated position that I hold dear, then I can see how I might respond viciously if I had no actual counter-argument or if I didn't want to spend time to argue with this person. I think you're recognizing how the world works, for complex issues with a bunch of ignorant people you're likely to see very vicious responses because most people cannot articulate the reasoning behind their position or choose not to spend the time to and instead use violence (virtual or otherwise). Perhaps some have real counter-arguments and choose not to present them and instead just respond with arrogance; if so that's sad because no one is informed by better understanding. My initial thought after reading your post was that your view is practical and accurate, that people like Antirez who care more about their primary work (Redis in this case) and not some other issue they have a perspective on (sexism in software) will be drowned out and crushed under the common view and those who choose to elevate a particular view or cause to their primary purpose. I think (with disdain) about "pundits" whose job is to promote some position regardless of its merit; people who spend their lives arguing passionately for whatever pays the most... that is ugly and works against adapting a culture to handle new ideas and situations. EDIT: Spelling only.

Jach 14y ago

This isn't about censorship, but sensitivity. I don't see how you drew from this that the world of blogging is in peril--if you write things that generate tons of hate comments, and you don't want to read those comments, disable comments. The discussion will continue elsewhere regardless. The haters aren't even censoring themselves (I guess you could make a case that their existing biases prevent them from seriously considering opposing views, but that's not exactly "self-censorship"). If you want to solve some of the problems exemplified by this article and its responses, talking about censorship isn't the way; instead, encourage people to grow thicker skins.

antirez 14y ago
I'm not closing my blog, where I think I'll post more controversial stuff, as I've a controversial indole. Also I'm not sensible at all, the problem is, I'm realising that Twitter is becoming mostly low content replies. Among the trolling replies I got, a lot were from respectable developers, sometimes even of products somewhat related to Redis. If it's so low quality why should I stay in an environment where that's the level? I'm quitting based on quality, not as I'm offended or alike.
- Jach 14y ago
  My comment about sensitivity was mostly directed at the people flipping out about what you wrote, but it's nice to have confirmation that you too aren't so sensitive that you stop writing altogether. It makes sense for you to ditch Twitter.
- zokier 14y ago
  > I'm realising that Twitter is becoming mostly low content replies I'm more surprised that it took you this long to realize that. That statement sounds bit like realizing that 4chan has mostly low quality comments.

jerf 14y ago

"What this illustrates is the dangerous precipice that the world of blogging is hanging on to" If I may... this wasn't the world of "blogging". This was the world of Twitter et al. Blogging itself actually has a very interesting property, which is that even if somebody tears you a new one in their own blog post, you don't actually have to know unless you go looking for it. It's a lot easier to blog a controversial opinion than it is to twit it, Facebook it, or post it here or in a forum, because they all have the characteristic that any body with a pulse and a computer anywhere in the world can essentially stick their reply in your face. After the first couple of thousand nasty replies, this can start to wear on a person. When it first got going around 2000, I found this very interesting, and I still think that there's something about that model that we need to find a way to recover in the Next Great Social Medium. It isn't perfect, because you don't get that immediacy that you get in a forum, and it's easy to end up feeling like a lone voice in the wilderness due to lack of feedback, and presumably that's why this medium faded as a means of generating community, killed by the immediacy and quick feedback hits of the more popular community mechanisms. To me it's pretty abundantly clear that all the "any idiot in your face" community technologies ultimately start falling apart (requiring either an inhumanly thick skin or flat-out sociopathy), and somehow I'd love to see if there's a way to build something a little more immediate and a little less likely to isolate people entirely, while at the same time retaining the fact that you aren't assaulted by what feels like an entire Internet of knaves and fools every time you open your browser.

bsg75 14y ago
Unfortunately bloggers who thrive on page views, but don't have any actual knowledge to share use Twitter to locate the Mass Indignation Of The Day, and spin off 10-100 times 140 characters to feed the trolls.

tomasien 14y ago

As the first poster you're referring to, my post was a direct response to THIS post. It was to say "I agree the vitriol toward you was uncalled for, please don't let it take away from the serious critiques of your post". What is wrong with that? I was defending both his right to speech suggesting people shouldn't shit on him for his views and also the need for conversations to be two-way and for him to consider the contrarian viewpoints that were too often expressed hatefully. I'm encouraged that I've received net-upvotes for that comment, but I worry that EITHER I didn't express myself clearly enough or that people on HN are really committed to not re-thinking their views on sexism given how many downvotes it received. I'll fully accept that it's likely that it was my poor wording.

matthewlyle 14y ago

Just as an aside: that's a misattributed quotation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall

OverlordXenu 14y ago

I'm sorry, but, what? Critique is not censorship. The spread and evolution of ideas necessitates a dialog--critique, further reform of your idea, more critique, etc. etc. etc. This is how pretty much all intellectual expression works. Ideas do not exist in a vacuum, they exist among all other ideas and opinions and among data and personal anecdote and so on. Without critique, ideas fail. Edit: If you think someone is wrong, you should tell them (if you can articulate it in a well-reasoned, well-supported manner). Controversial ideas especially shouldn't get a free pass from critique just because they're on the dubside of mainstream thought. How does that even make any sense? Mainstream ideas are, by definition, more popular. While this popularity could lead to less (direct) critique, it still leads to more people thinking about the idea, refining it, etc. There's more brainpower behind a mainstream idea than behind a controversial one. All ideas are deserving of critique, but the ones that have been built with less human hours should probably be looked at a little more closely.