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In a rather well-timed yet coincidental counterpoint to Why we're Losing the Internet to the Culture of Hate, Milo Yiannopoulos over at Breitbart brings us this:
A warped currency today governs popular culture. Instead of creativity, talent and boldness, those who succeed are often those who can best demonstrate outrage, grievance and victimhood.
Even conservatives are buying into it. Witness, in the days since Breitbart executive chairman Stephen K. Bannon was announced as Donald Trump's campaign manager, how establishment stooges have bought into the worst smear-tactics of the left. As with the left, nothing is evaluated on its quality, or whether it's factually accurate, thought-provoking or even amusing: only whether it can be deemed sexist, racist or homophobic.
Campuses are where the illness takes its most severe form. Students running for safe spaces at the slightest hint of a challenge to their coddled worldview. Faculties and administrations desperately trying to sabotage visits from conservative speakers (often me!) to avoid the inevitable complaints from tearful lefty students.
In this maelstrom of grievance, there is one group boldly swimming against the tide: trolls.
Trolling has become a byword for everything the left disagrees with, particularly if it's boisterous, mischievous and provocative. Even straightforward political disagreement, not intended to provoke, is sometimes described as "trolling" by leftists who can't tell the difference between someone who doesn't believe as they do and an "abuser" or "harasser."
Yeah, you knew I wouldn't let that kinda SJW nonsense slide without comment.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @12:35PM
This started on Daily Kos. I was there. The admins decided to misuse "troll" as an excuse to get rid of anyone who argued against the Party Line. Oppose illegal immigration? Troll! Banned! Oppose killing the Jews, all of them? Troll! Banned! The same cancer is infecting Wikipedia now.
DCLeaks and minimal further research shows that the Center for American Progress is literally run by former Soviet agents recruited by Morton Halperin who literally support al-Qaeda and have been deliberately sabotaging US intelligence with bad information with the stated intent of eliminating all criticism of Islam. And the same exact people run Hillary Clinton's campaign. Right-wing extremists seem to have been spot on for a lot of things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @03:18PM
Oppose illegal immigration? Troll!
It's funny, but the opposite is true on IT sites like /., and to a lesser extent SN. Go check out some past threads.
On /., I suspect that some mods make it a point to look over the thread after it's been up for awhile to make sure that most or all the featured posts (expanded) would be anti-H1B and anti-new immigrants in general.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Sunday August 21 2016, @08:20PM
It bears mentioning that H1B and illegal immigration are really two completely separate issues. Only one of them directly impacts the "nerds" demographic that these sites cater to. Only one of them is actually illegal. And racism against Indians is not the same thing as racism against Hispanics.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @06:02PM
There's an amazing amount of projection in the people who use terms like that too, and what's even more amazing is that they don't see it.
Take the alt-left types who use "troll." That word is very, very revealing about the psychology of the user. It's taken from Swedish (mimicry is the best form of flattery), someone who is grotesque and lives in the dark. Usually under a bridge. I mean why so concerned about appearances? Haven't we had enough of unrealistic Western beauty standards? Not to mention the not so subtle implication that only left is enlightened, like a shining star bringing truth to the intellectual underclass that is forced to live under bridges. Yeah, well, that's sweet and all, but setting the bridge on fire isn't the most productive way of illuminating the area. Some spare change was all that was being asked for.
But to the people who actually think calling someone "troll" means anything in political context, what it reveals about the user is a set of 18th century ideas about everything from personal liberty to a post-post-post-post-post-post-modern noblesse oblige to a belief in ESP and mind-reading to their ideas about power and government (and who can be entrusted to the reigns of power). I can guarantee you its users are the classic "Authoritarian" stereotype, are likely to be disillusioned Hillary voters or worse, are probably superficially pro-gay rights (except for when homosexuals decide to have opinions of their own), are likely to see poor uneducated whites as stooges of the Republicans but poor uneducated blacks as having advanced political science degrees by virtue of being poor uneducated blacks, and so forth.
They're also projecting like mad. They see *themselves* as having been trolled by the DNC, with all the wounding to their "Feel the Bern" that implies, and are lashing out, thinking that by accusing someone *else* of being a troll, it will somehow magically wipe away their shame.
(Score: 2, Informative) by meustrus on Sunday August 21 2016, @08:29PM
Well actually (I'll be that guy this time) the word "troll" comes from fishing. Trolling is a fishing term that was adopted by people who were trying to start a flamewar by "trolling" for ideologues, getting one of them to say something that the other side would find highly offensive. It has been through a lot of transformations since then, with the latest one unfortunately turning it from "jerk that likes to stir up trouble" to "jerk I disagree with".
As for everything else you have to say about the word "troll"...well it's possible you've been around the internet a lot than I have, but I think it's more likely that you're projecting an excessively specific stereotype of everything you dislike onto every single person that you disagree with.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @08:44PM
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=15088&cid=390430#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday August 23 2016, @03:53PM
Thanks for that. I didn't really read through the other one because I only wanted to make a point about the two of them together, and this one happened later. What's interesting is that this GP then manages to expose something about the satirized comment that I may not have realized otherwise. I don't want to offend Azuma because I was starting to recognize her name and like her comments in general, but I think my second paragraph applies to the original comment as well, if not as obviously.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 21 2016, @08:49PM
You can 1) credit me properly when you steal my stuff and 2) think a little before you try that; there is NOT the kind of equivalency here you think there is, and your lazy, half-assed attempt to take someone else's point and try to turn it around makes you look very foolish indeed...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:45AM
communists? are you Retard Paul or what?