5 ms·

"These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's ov

by api 13y ago

"These are Burning Man hippies, self-styled artists, people who graduated from great schools with useless majors, and the usual constituent of the Bay Area's overprivileged poverty tourists: 20-30 y/o white kids from middle class families." That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mostly activism-as-entertainment for trustafarians.

thisiswrong 13y ago
> That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mostly activism-as-entertainment for trustafarians. The irony is that your comment only emphasizes the severe disconnect between relatively wealthy & employable 'techies' versus the rest of the struggling recession-hit population. It's hard to understand how life has changed since 2007 when, coming from a tech-related field, one generally doesn't suffer the everyday hardships that most Americans endure [1]. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/02/poverty-in-america-is-mainstream/?_r=0 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/02/poverty-in-a...
- api 13y ago
  You're right that techies haven't experienced the great recession... or at least have avoided the worst of it. But the group I am referring to -- overprivileged over-educated trust fund kids engaging in faux-outrage as a form of entertainment -- are also isolated from the realities you mention... perhaps even more so, since techies have to actually work. What these people are doing is basically LARPing. IndyMedia is their big LARPing portal site where they pretend to be radicals. Fuck these people.
- ye 13y ago
  The irony of your comment only emphasizes how little you understand that NONE of it is techies' fault. Is it their fault they thought about the future and picked tough but useful majors? Is it their fault that hipsters chose art, history, women studies and other (financially) useless stuff, just because that's what they liked to do? Is it their fault that hipsters feel entitled to a high paying job?
  - thomasz 13y ago
    Not everybody can be part of the glorious STEM master race!
    - null_ptr 13y ago
      Nor does everyone need to be. Taking a walk through any city in the United States, one will observe millions of people leading healthy, productive lives doing work in a variety of fields, both blue and white collar.
    - ye 13y ago
      Sure, I have no problem with people doing art or studying history or women or philosophy. My problem is with the entitlement and the attacks on the people who chose financially more successful professions. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE LOVE LOVE art. I just don't think our society has so many gifted artists. I've taken many art classes in college and most art students sucked, truly sucked at art. There were objectively great artists among them, but I'd say fewer than 10%.
  - jacalata 13y ago
    As a techie, I'm not sure most of them 'thought about the future and picked a tough but useful major'. More like, most of them (including myself) picked the most interesting major, and tada, it's worth money!
    - ye 13y ago
      I partially agree with you. I think ALL college/uni students must be forced to go through career counselling once a year. Too many young people are fed "you're a special snowflake, you can be whatever you want to be" bullsh*t for years, and most fall for it.
  - etjossem 13y ago
    > art, history, women studies and other (financially) useless stuff The average salary expectation for someone who does calligraphy for four years is much lower than a CS major. On the other hand, I can name several large companies in the area that succeeded by not dismissing the humanities as useless. http://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Apple-Tech-LiberalArts.SteveJobs.jpg http://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Apple-Tech...
unclebucknasty 13y ago
But, how is it that we recognize "many things in the world sucking" and criticize today's activism as lacking; yet have not done more ourselves to reduce the world's suckage?
- api 13y ago
  I used to live somewhere where I constantly saw these sorts of "activists" protesting: GMO foods, "chemtrails" (which probably don't exist), all kinds of trendy things to protest. I never once saw them protesting for higher wages for the underprivileged, health care, or anything else that actually matters to poor people. They were for the most part not poor. They were white middle class pseudo-artists engaged in an entertainment activity. I love the phrase "poverty tourism."
  - unclebucknasty 13y ago
    Well, I don't know that I would say chemtrails don't exist. I think there's pretty compelling evidence that they do apart from contrails (have no idea what they are or whether they matter though). I am also a proponent of labeling food so that people have the information to decide for themselves what they ingest. I realize that you were just giving examples, and I'm not doubting that these poverty tourists exist. I am just saying that we (and many others) agree that there are enough things in the world that suck, including the state of the issues that you mentioned, like healthcare for the poor. So, my question is: if we find the current crop of activists to be lacking, then why aren't we doing better or more ourselves? Where is the "true" activism? Reminds me of the response to Occupy. Everyone stood back and criticized their lack of organization, cleanliness, etc. Yet, nearly everyone agreed that things sucked (including banksters, bailouts, etc.). How is it that an entire potential movement was derailed by such trivial matters as where these guys were pooping? How did the collective energy of so many end up redirected away from "better" activism and into criticism of the activists?
    - api 13y ago
      The only plausible theory I've read on why chemtrails might exist is that they're tests of some kind of anti-global-warming geo-engineering tech that involves spraying of nano particles to increase the Earth's albedo. So they either don't exist or don't really matter to anyone. My point is that these and some of the other examples I gave are clueless bullshit LARPing issues of the faux-left and are not relevant to actual disadvantaged people, poor people, or minorities. The faux-left does these groups harm by stealing the spotlight and bogarting the discussion, drowning out any actual protest from people who are really struggling with issues that matter to them.
pasquinelli 13y ago
i wonder how much it matters how seriously you do or don't take today's activism.
bonemachine 13y ago
That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, A rather untenable assertion, based on my own lengthy and up-close observation of e.g. Occupy at its peak.
- api 13y ago
  Occupy was a brief but larger mass movement that drew in a much larger cross-section of folks.
  - bonemachine 13y ago
    Which is exactly what "they" are afraid of.

by api 13y ago

thisiswrong 13y ago

> That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, which is why despite many things in the world sucking I rarely take today's "activism" very seriously. It's mostly activism-as-entertainment for trustafarians. The irony is that your comment only emphasizes the severe disconnect between relatively wealthy & employable 'techies' versus the rest of the struggling recession-hit population. It's hard to understand how life has changed since 2007 when, coming from a tech-related field, one generally doesn't suffer the everyday hardships that most Americans endure [1]. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/02/poverty-in-america-is-mainstream/?_r=0 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/02/poverty-in-a...

api 13y ago
You're right that techies haven't experienced the great recession... or at least have avoided the worst of it. But the group I am referring to -- overprivileged over-educated trust fund kids engaging in faux-outrage as a form of entertainment -- are also isolated from the realities you mention... perhaps even more so, since techies have to actually work. What these people are doing is basically LARPing. IndyMedia is their big LARPing portal site where they pretend to be radicals. Fuck these people.
ye 13y ago
The irony of your comment only emphasizes how little you understand that NONE of it is techies' fault. Is it their fault they thought about the future and picked tough but useful majors? Is it their fault that hipsters chose art, history, women studies and other (financially) useless stuff, just because that's what they liked to do? Is it their fault that hipsters feel entitled to a high paying job?
- thomasz 13y ago
  Not everybody can be part of the glorious STEM master race!
  - null_ptr 13y ago
    Nor does everyone need to be. Taking a walk through any city in the United States, one will observe millions of people leading healthy, productive lives doing work in a variety of fields, both blue and white collar.
  - ye 13y ago
    Sure, I have no problem with people doing art or studying history or women or philosophy. My problem is with the entitlement and the attacks on the people who chose financially more successful professions. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE LOVE LOVE art. I just don't think our society has so many gifted artists. I've taken many art classes in college and most art students sucked, truly sucked at art. There were objectively great artists among them, but I'd say fewer than 10%.
- jacalata 13y ago
  As a techie, I'm not sure most of them 'thought about the future and picked a tough but useful major'. More like, most of them (including myself) picked the most interesting major, and tada, it's worth money!
  - ye 13y ago
    I partially agree with you. I think ALL college/uni students must be forced to go through career counselling once a year. Too many young people are fed "you're a special snowflake, you can be whatever you want to be" bullsh*t for years, and most fall for it.
- etjossem 13y ago
  > art, history, women studies and other (financially) useless stuff The average salary expectation for someone who does calligraphy for four years is much lower than a CS major. On the other hand, I can name several large companies in the area that succeeded by not dismissing the humanities as useless. http://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Apple-Tech-LiberalArts.SteveJobs.jpg http://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Apple-Tech...

unclebucknasty 13y ago

But, how is it that we recognize "many things in the world sucking" and criticize today's activism as lacking; yet have not done more ourselves to reduce the world's suckage?

api 13y ago
I used to live somewhere where I constantly saw these sorts of "activists" protesting: GMO foods, "chemtrails" (which probably don't exist), all kinds of trendy things to protest. I never once saw them protesting for higher wages for the underprivileged, health care, or anything else that actually matters to poor people. They were for the most part not poor. They were white middle class pseudo-artists engaged in an entertainment activity. I love the phrase "poverty tourism."
- unclebucknasty 13y ago
  Well, I don't know that I would say chemtrails don't exist. I think there's pretty compelling evidence that they do apart from contrails (have no idea what they are or whether they matter though). I am also a proponent of labeling food so that people have the information to decide for themselves what they ingest. I realize that you were just giving examples, and I'm not doubting that these poverty tourists exist. I am just saying that we (and many others) agree that there are enough things in the world that suck, including the state of the issues that you mentioned, like healthcare for the poor. So, my question is: if we find the current crop of activists to be lacking, then why aren't we doing better or more ourselves? Where is the "true" activism? Reminds me of the response to Occupy. Everyone stood back and criticized their lack of organization, cleanliness, etc. Yet, nearly everyone agreed that things sucked (including banksters, bailouts, etc.). How is it that an entire potential movement was derailed by such trivial matters as where these guys were pooping? How did the collective energy of so many end up redirected away from "better" activism and into criticism of the activists?
  - api 13y ago
    The only plausible theory I've read on why chemtrails might exist is that they're tests of some kind of anti-global-warming geo-engineering tech that involves spraying of nano particles to increase the Earth's albedo. So they either don't exist or don't really matter to anyone. My point is that these and some of the other examples I gave are clueless bullshit LARPing issues of the faux-left and are not relevant to actual disadvantaged people, poor people, or minorities. The faux-left does these groups harm by stealing the spotlight and bogarting the discussion, drowning out any actual protest from people who are really struggling with issues that matter to them.

pasquinelli 13y ago

i wonder how much it matters how seriously you do or don't take today's activism.

bonemachine 13y ago

That describes a huge fraction of today's protestors and activists, A rather untenable assertion, based on my own lengthy and up-close observation of e.g. Occupy at its peak.

api 13y ago
Occupy was a brief but larger mass movement that drew in a much larger cross-section of folks.
- bonemachine 13y ago
  Which is exactly what "they" are afraid of.