5 ms·

My favorite line: "...the [social media] experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule."

by calvin 17y ago

pg 17y ago
I think that's just the result of version 1.
- tdavis 17y ago
  We're on a version way past 1... that has been the result for many years now. The second person on the Internet was probably a troll.
  - vaksel 17y ago
    I saw this youtube video of an early 90s broadcast about this thing called internet, and they pretty much talked about how great it is to have a civilized conversation, without trolls. So early on it wasn't a problem, my guess is that trolls probably didn't really appear until AOL.
    - inerte 17y ago
      I remember this story about a psychologist who pretented to be a woman, and I don't remember exactly who, or where, but it was in a movie about the net beginnings... Found... don't know if it counts as a troll, tough: Google for "The Strange Case of the Electronic Lover"
      - cLive 17y ago
        You are talking about the student researcher Selena Sol: http://selenasol.com/selena/ http://selenasol.com/selena/
    - gaius 17y ago
      Specifically, on the Internet, when AOL got a Usenet gateway. No-one cared when they stayed within AOL, not least because AOL had moderators. The real Internet is not HN, it's not Facebook or Livejournal. It's 4chan and the comments on Youtube. That's what we built, that's the glorious future, the pinnacle of high tech, the global collective consciousness. How proud should we be?
      - bdr 17y ago
        How did you decide what counts as the real Internet?
      - anigbrowl 17y ago
        Honestly, 4chan just reminds me of alt.* in Septembers. I'm not a regular visitor, but at least 4chan doesn't pretend to be anything other than the filthy underbelly of the net, and the community there has both a sense of humor about itself and genuinely likes kittehs...plus it has the merit of being funny if you're willing to accept the possibility of being offended. What's really depressing to me is going to visit the San Francisco Chronicle website, CNN or wherever, and seeing the comment space overrun by arrogant idiots who think they're superior to 4chan, or would if they knew about it. I would far rather be trapped in a lift with a bunch of /b/tards than the over-earnest moralists (of all political stripes) that attach themselves like limpets to the mainstream news and political sites.
        samlittlewood 17y ago
        4chan vs. Trent Reznor would be an epic, and (I suspect) enjoyable challenge for both sides.
      - sho 17y ago
        Why the 4chan hate? It is what it is, doesn't pretend to be anything else, and there's a place for it. At its best, 4chan can be great. You can't compare that to YouTube comments at all. 4chan's about lulz, not pure unadulterated stupidity. They're not the same at all.
        gchpaco 17y ago
        I'm from the old guard, used to be real thrilled with Usenet. Trolls are The Great Enemy, and 4chan is real big on trolling.
        sho 17y ago
        Only a subset, which is called /b/. The rest hang out there, and a few related sites, and basically troll themselves. Better to have them (more or less) all in one place than randomly distributed everywhere else, no? And anyway - not all "trolling" is created equal, IMO. Smart, organised, (dare I say) funny trolling beats random hate and idiocy anyday. I haven't noticed 4chan moving with any particular malicious intent; they just try to amuse themselves, and the causes are as often defensible (Scientology, Sarah Palin mails) as not. We're always going to have trolls. If 4chan sets the standard for trolling I think we've done pretty well actually. At least they're intelligent.
    - TJensen 17y ago
      Yeah, I don't buy it. I was on the intertubes in the early nineties, and I distinctly remember trolls running around Usenet. That said, the caliber of trolling may have been slightly higher. :)
    - tokenadult 17y ago
      my guess is that trolls probably didn't really appear until AOL. I'm old enough to remember that there were trolls on Usenet before AOL built its gateway to Usenet. I'm pretty sure that verifying the earliest use of "troll" in the sense of this thread and comparing that with the date of AOL's gateway opening would confirm this.
  - jmatt 17y ago
    I agree. For me version one would have been usenet, FidoNet and BBS chat circa late 80s or early 90s. I knew then what Trent has finally figured out. Sounds like he really is "living next" to us.
johnyzee 17y ago
Idiots rule our countries. Why would online be any different? (Not being snide - wherever you look, politicians seem to unfailingly be raping and making a mockery of the democratic system. I may be slightly more cynical than usual as we discussed Berlusconi at lunch today, though). Does anyone have good real-world examples of the the kind of communities we would like to see online? I'd like to hope that degeneration into idiocracy as communities grow is not some kind of natural law.
- jnorthrop 17y ago
  Here is a good one: http://news.ycombinator.com http://news.ycombinator.com
- pmorici 17y ago
  I've always thought the degradation into idiocracy happened when people felt like they were anonymous which often times is correlated to the size of the community.
- froo 17y ago
  Does anyone have good real-world examples of the the kind of communities we would like to see online? Well, I'll give a fairly decent example. I occasionally played tabletop wargames in the past locally and we have a statewide forum dedicated to it. http://www.westgamer.com http://www.westgamer.com I've seen disagreements before on the forum, but have never seen anything that would constitute trolling or abusive behaviour. I think this stems from the fact that everyone pretty much knows everyone outside of the forums and so idiotic behaviour can have real-world consequences (eg, not being able to set up games with others) There is little to no anonymity on those forums and so everyone is quite civil. I suspect that if you make people responsible for their actions that they end up being quite responsible on the forums. That's not to say there hasn't been the occasional piece of drama, it's just normally localised and doesn't make its way to the forums for everyone to read.
  - ThomPete 17y ago
    The Well is fantastic
snorkel 17y ago
It's not that social media has failed but rather Trent is realizing that his audience contains many antisocial malcontents and now he's recoiling in horror.
- roc 17y ago
  On the unfiltered internet -every- audience gets quickly dominated by antisocial malcontents. So there's no way to infer from their presence whether they're a representative sample. I mean, people troll and spew racial slurs on -home improvement sites-. I don't think that means Whirlpool and Bob Villa themselves attract the dregs.
c00p3r 17y ago
That is good, because it is so easy to sell to them.

My favorite line: "...the [social media] experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule."

by calvin 17y ago

My favorite line: "...the [social media] experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule."

pg 17y ago

I think that's just the result of version 1.

tdavis 17y ago
We're on a version way past 1... that has been the result for many years now. The second person on the Internet was probably a troll.
- vaksel 17y ago
  I saw this youtube video of an early 90s broadcast about this thing called internet, and they pretty much talked about how great it is to have a civilized conversation, without trolls. So early on it wasn't a problem, my guess is that trolls probably didn't really appear until AOL.
  - inerte 17y ago
    I remember this story about a psychologist who pretented to be a woman, and I don't remember exactly who, or where, but it was in a movie about the net beginnings... Found... don't know if it counts as a troll, tough: Google for "The Strange Case of the Electronic Lover"
    - cLive 17y ago
      You are talking about the student researcher Selena Sol: http://selenasol.com/selena/ http://selenasol.com/selena/
  - gaius 17y ago
    Specifically, on the Internet, when AOL got a Usenet gateway. No-one cared when they stayed within AOL, not least because AOL had moderators. The real Internet is not HN, it's not Facebook or Livejournal. It's 4chan and the comments on Youtube. That's what we built, that's the glorious future, the pinnacle of high tech, the global collective consciousness. How proud should we be?
    - bdr 17y ago
      How did you decide what counts as the real Internet?
    - anigbrowl 17y ago
      Honestly, 4chan just reminds me of alt.* in Septembers. I'm not a regular visitor, but at least 4chan doesn't pretend to be anything other than the filthy underbelly of the net, and the community there has both a sense of humor about itself and genuinely likes kittehs...plus it has the merit of being funny if you're willing to accept the possibility of being offended. What's really depressing to me is going to visit the San Francisco Chronicle website, CNN or wherever, and seeing the comment space overrun by arrogant idiots who think they're superior to 4chan, or would if they knew about it. I would far rather be trapped in a lift with a bunch of /b/tards than the over-earnest moralists (of all political stripes) that attach themselves like limpets to the mainstream news and political sites.
      - samlittlewood 17y ago
        4chan vs. Trent Reznor would be an epic, and (I suspect) enjoyable challenge for both sides.
    - sho 17y ago
      Why the 4chan hate? It is what it is, doesn't pretend to be anything else, and there's a place for it. At its best, 4chan can be great. You can't compare that to YouTube comments at all. 4chan's about lulz, not pure unadulterated stupidity. They're not the same at all.
      - gchpaco 17y ago
        I'm from the old guard, used to be real thrilled with Usenet. Trolls are The Great Enemy, and 4chan is real big on trolling.
        sho 17y ago
        Only a subset, which is called /b/. The rest hang out there, and a few related sites, and basically troll themselves. Better to have them (more or less) all in one place than randomly distributed everywhere else, no? And anyway - not all "trolling" is created equal, IMO. Smart, organised, (dare I say) funny trolling beats random hate and idiocy anyday. I haven't noticed 4chan moving with any particular malicious intent; they just try to amuse themselves, and the causes are as often defensible (Scientology, Sarah Palin mails) as not. We're always going to have trolls. If 4chan sets the standard for trolling I think we've done pretty well actually. At least they're intelligent.
  - TJensen 17y ago
    Yeah, I don't buy it. I was on the intertubes in the early nineties, and I distinctly remember trolls running around Usenet. That said, the caliber of trolling may have been slightly higher. :)
  - tokenadult 17y ago
    my guess is that trolls probably didn't really appear until AOL. I'm old enough to remember that there were trolls on Usenet before AOL built its gateway to Usenet. I'm pretty sure that verifying the earliest use of "troll" in the sense of this thread and comparing that with the date of AOL's gateway opening would confirm this.
- jmatt 17y ago
  I agree. For me version one would have been usenet, FidoNet and BBS chat circa late 80s or early 90s. I knew then what Trent has finally figured out. Sounds like he really is "living next" to us.

johnyzee 17y ago

Idiots rule our countries. Why would online be any different? (Not being snide - wherever you look, politicians seem to unfailingly be raping and making a mockery of the democratic system. I may be slightly more cynical than usual as we discussed Berlusconi at lunch today, though). Does anyone have good real-world examples of the the kind of communities we would like to see online? I'd like to hope that degeneration into idiocracy as communities grow is not some kind of natural law.

jnorthrop 17y ago
Here is a good one: http://news.ycombinator.com http://news.ycombinator.com
pmorici 17y ago
I've always thought the degradation into idiocracy happened when people felt like they were anonymous which often times is correlated to the size of the community.
froo 17y ago
Does anyone have good real-world examples of the the kind of communities we would like to see online? Well, I'll give a fairly decent example. I occasionally played tabletop wargames in the past locally and we have a statewide forum dedicated to it. http://www.westgamer.com http://www.westgamer.com I've seen disagreements before on the forum, but have never seen anything that would constitute trolling or abusive behaviour. I think this stems from the fact that everyone pretty much knows everyone outside of the forums and so idiotic behaviour can have real-world consequences (eg, not being able to set up games with others) There is little to no anonymity on those forums and so everyone is quite civil. I suspect that if you make people responsible for their actions that they end up being quite responsible on the forums. That's not to say there hasn't been the occasional piece of drama, it's just normally localised and doesn't make its way to the forums for everyone to read.
- ThomPete 17y ago
  The Well is fantastic

snorkel 17y ago

It's not that social media has failed but rather Trent is realizing that his audience contains many antisocial malcontents and now he's recoiling in horror.

roc 17y ago
On the unfiltered internet -every- audience gets quickly dominated by antisocial malcontents. So there's no way to infer from their presence whether they're a representative sample. I mean, people troll and spew racial slurs on -home improvement sites-. I don't think that means Whirlpool and Bob Villa themselves attract the dregs.

c00p3r 17y ago

That is good, because it is so easy to sell to them.