5 ms·

tlwrl; Now that pg has more time to dive into the meta-er layers, guess we'll see some progress with the Arc language.

by diminish 13y ago

robobro 13y ago
This article was published in 2004.
- sirkneeland 13y ago
  But it is no less true now. If anything the explosion of ubiquitous and instantaneous social media has only exacerbated the tendencies towards branding unorthodox thinking as Thoughtcrime as a twittermob of snark and hatred can be summoned in hours if not minutes.
  - mattgreenrocks 13y ago
    Yeah I was thinking the same thing. Social media, at it's core, glorifies groupthink, rewarding you handsomely with stars and likes when you say the right thing. In time, you start thinking of what you should be saying, and then you start wondering what you should be posting so that you're perceived as a certain type of person. And when you start down that path, it feels like you become a bit more intellectually subservient. If your concern is always how to please people, how can you be expected to explore heresies? How can you plumb the depths of the unknown to explore and discover things when you concern yourself with safety? The immediacy of the medium rewards snark and off-the-cuff remarks instead of analysis, insight, and distance. It incentivizes heated discussion (as it garners more pageviews!) and cheap, "me too" posts. It generates a fear of missing out, which is used to manipulate visitors into consuming more and more content for less and less value, exactly like any addictive substance.
    - joyeuse6701 13y ago
      one would hope that granting an upvote/plus vs a downvote/minus would be objective. It is obviously not, and you're exactly right, it rewards group think.
    - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
      This happens here too. The downvote is a pretty big deal for such a tiny button. I'll admit to writing comments I never posted because I knew people would eviscerate me for going against the groupthink. It doesn't change my thoughts... I just don't say them "out loud".
      - mattgreenrocks 13y ago
        I admit I enjoy inciting things on here sometimes, especially in the face of groupthink, perhaps so I can self-righteously claim that the groupthink exists without giving time to fully think through the opposing side. It can come off as aggressive, for sure. I do think a healthy community needs skepticism and introspection to remain that way. But I do think people unintentionally reinforce the notion of the status quo needs to be reinforced/destroyed, which can affect the types of thoughts you'd think about sharing with a group.
        jack-r-abbit 13y ago
        > I admit I enjoy inciting things on here sometimes Yes... there are times I do just say fuck it and post it anyway. HNKarma is pretty worthless after all. :)
      - sirkneeland 13y ago
        Same here. Someday when I have a HN Karma score in the bazillions I will feel free to say what I really think. Until then I feel compelled to largely hew to the HN party line.
        declan 13y ago
        I hope this is tongue in cheek. Disagreeing with the majority your peers (as I've done frequently here) could still lead you the minority who agrees with you to upvote you. Unlike politics, it's not a winner-takes-all system. But more to the point, and the reason I hope this is tongue in cheek, I hope nobody here actually optimizes for or cares about a "HN Karma score in the bazillions." Last I checked you can't cash in HN Karma for a fiat $$$ check or happiness. There's a bigger world out there, folks.
drcode 13y ago
As someone foolish enough to build a production-grade tool with arc back in the day, I'd say that Clojure has taken most of the best ideas from arc already. I think arc still had few good tricks related to code brevity though that never got adopted by Clojurists (they would require a custom sexp reader to be bolted into Clojure to port them) but almost all of the other good stuff from arc made it into Clojure, and Clojure had many fantastic ideas that greatly improved on arc.

tlwrl; Now that pg has more time to dive into the meta-er layers, guess we'll see some progress with the Arc language.

robobro 13y ago

This article was published in 2004.

sirkneeland 13y ago
But it is no less true now. If anything the explosion of ubiquitous and instantaneous social media has only exacerbated the tendencies towards branding unorthodox thinking as Thoughtcrime as a twittermob of snark and hatred can be summoned in hours if not minutes.
- mattgreenrocks 13y ago
  Yeah I was thinking the same thing. Social media, at it's core, glorifies groupthink, rewarding you handsomely with stars and likes when you say the right thing. In time, you start thinking of what you should be saying, and then you start wondering what you should be posting so that you're perceived as a certain type of person. And when you start down that path, it feels like you become a bit more intellectually subservient. If your concern is always how to please people, how can you be expected to explore heresies? How can you plumb the depths of the unknown to explore and discover things when you concern yourself with safety? The immediacy of the medium rewards snark and off-the-cuff remarks instead of analysis, insight, and distance. It incentivizes heated discussion (as it garners more pageviews!) and cheap, "me too" posts. It generates a fear of missing out, which is used to manipulate visitors into consuming more and more content for less and less value, exactly like any addictive substance.
  - joyeuse6701 13y ago
    one would hope that granting an upvote/plus vs a downvote/minus would be objective. It is obviously not, and you're exactly right, it rewards group think.
  - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
    This happens here too. The downvote is a pretty big deal for such a tiny button. I'll admit to writing comments I never posted because I knew people would eviscerate me for going against the groupthink. It doesn't change my thoughts... I just don't say them "out loud".
    - mattgreenrocks 13y ago
      I admit I enjoy inciting things on here sometimes, especially in the face of groupthink, perhaps so I can self-righteously claim that the groupthink exists without giving time to fully think through the opposing side. It can come off as aggressive, for sure. I do think a healthy community needs skepticism and introspection to remain that way. But I do think people unintentionally reinforce the notion of the status quo needs to be reinforced/destroyed, which can affect the types of thoughts you'd think about sharing with a group.
      - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
        > I admit I enjoy inciting things on here sometimes Yes... there are times I do just say fuck it and post it anyway. HNKarma is pretty worthless after all. :)
    - sirkneeland 13y ago
      Same here. Someday when I have a HN Karma score in the bazillions I will feel free to say what I really think. Until then I feel compelled to largely hew to the HN party line.
      - declan 13y ago
        I hope this is tongue in cheek. Disagreeing with the majority your peers (as I've done frequently here) could still lead you the minority who agrees with you to upvote you. Unlike politics, it's not a winner-takes-all system. But more to the point, and the reason I hope this is tongue in cheek, I hope nobody here actually optimizes for or cares about a "HN Karma score in the bazillions." Last I checked you can't cash in HN Karma for a fiat $$$ check or happiness. There's a bigger world out there, folks.

drcode 13y ago

As someone foolish enough to build a production-grade tool with arc back in the day, I'd say that Clojure has taken most of the best ideas from arc already. I think arc still had few good tricks related to code brevity though that never got adopted by Clojurists (they would require a custom sexp reader to be bolted into Clojure to port them) but almost all of the other good stuff from arc made it into Clojure, and Clojure had many fantastic ideas that greatly improved on arc.