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from the Garbage-in-garbage-in-garbage-in-and-more-garbage-in dept.
At the The Verge:
Today, The Verge is publishing an interim edition of Sarah Jeong's The Internet of Garbage, a book she first published in 2015 that has since gone out of print. It is a thorough and important look at the intractable problem of online harassment.
After a year on The Verge's staff as a senior writer, Sarah recently joined The New York Times Editorial Board to write about technology issues. The move kicked off a wave of outrage and controversy as a group of trolls selectively took Sarah's old tweets out of context to inaccurately claim that she is a racist. This prompted a further wave of unrelenting racist harassment directed at Sarah, a wave of coverage examining her tweets, and a final wave of coverage about the state of outrage generally. This is all deeply ironic because Sarah laid out exactly how these bad-faith tactics work in The Internet of Garbage.
[...] The Internet of Garbage provides an immediate and accessible look at how online harassment works, how it might be categorized and distinguished, and why the structure of the internet and the policies surrounding it are overwhelmed in fighting it. Sarah has long planned to publish an updated and expanded second edition, but in this particular moment, I am pleased that she's allowed us to publish this interim edition with a new preface.
In that new preface, Sarah stresses that her original text was written from a place of optimism. But the years since have not been kind to internet culture. She writes that the tactics of Gamergate, so clearly on display during the harassment campaign waged against her over the last few weeks, have "overtaken our national political and cultural conversations." That new culture is driven by the shape of the internet and the interactions it fosters. "We are all victims of fraud in the marketplace of ideas," she writes.
I hope everyone with a true and sincere interest in improving our online communities reads The Internet of Garbage and contends with the scope of the problem Sarah lays out in its pages. We are making the entire text of The Internet of Garbage 1.5 available for free as a PDF, ePub, and .mobi ebook file, and for the minimum allowed price of $.99 in the Amazon Kindle store. Below, we have excerpted Chapter 3, "Lessons from Copyright Law."
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Friday August 31 2018, @04:29PM (40 children)
Hey look, more of the same purposeful intellectual dishonesty.
I'm gonna reply to each of you dishonest fucks who buy into any narrative that plays the race card against minorities, and point out each time that the shit you're most aggrieved about were direct parodies of actual racists who are now the ones calling for her to be fired [twitter.com].
You side with nazis over shit you wouldn't give two fucks about if it was by a white person and sincere.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Sulla on Friday August 31 2018, @04:52PM (36 children)
Scenario 1: White hiring manager has two identical candidates with one being black and one being white, he turns the black guy down specifically because he is black
Scenario 2: Black hiring manager has two identical candidates with one being black and one being white, he turns the white guy down specifically because he is white
Both are racist.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Friday August 31 2018, @05:05PM (24 children)
Thing that happens.
Thing that doesn't happen.
"Both are bad". yes, congratulations on your single standard. If it were relevant, you'd be doing okay.
But it's not really relevant at all to what I'm saying you weirdo fuck.
The case I'm highlighting went like this
A: Black people are low IQ and should maybe be segregated (stated in way that makes it clear it's their actual belief)
B: White people sunburn easily and should be buried underground(stated in a way that's clearly mocking A's racism)
A: B IS RACIST FIRE HER FIRE HER FIRE HER
You: I'm a genius and these are the same.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @05:14PM (17 children)
The claim made in A is only true in statistical aggregate and most of the calls for racial segregation appear to be coming from BLM. [nationalreview.com] After the civil rights struggles of the '60s, that is ripe for satire. Who is mocking who in your example? Why does the left with their silly ideas around "hate speech" and privilege not practice what they preach?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Friday August 31 2018, @05:22PM (16 children)
I see we've moved on to the "his explicit racism is true, only racism I don't personally believe is bad." He clearly made a (explicitly genetic, explicitly racial) bioessentiallist argument for it.
AND it's NOT "true". It is not established by anything resembling controlled experimental science. It's a thing racists jump to believe in after seeing large scale correlations, and immediately go "socioeconomic factors? whoneedsem, that's soft science, and I only believe in things that oversimplify the world to the point where I don't gotta think" Spearman's hypothesis has been repeatedly shown to be bunk. No attempt at finding an actual genetic(via SNPs or any other method I've looked at) correlation to IQ has succeeded.
It's bunk. It's bunk and racists believe it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @06:22PM (13 children)
Commonly called statistical facts. [worlddata.info]
Social sciences are soft science and have a habit of ignoring statistical based evidence when it doesn't fit the desired hypothesis.
We're only just beginning to study RNA. [sciencedaily.com] You should read more. [newscientist.com]
The statistics are across populations and that isn't racist. There's much to criticize in IQ tests but we look at other correlations and see they often indicate success. They also reliably correlate with cognitive impairment and we in Western society recognizes that some people cannot function in our society without assistance. Review the psychiatric IQ classifications [assessmentpsychology.com] and tell us where the prejudice is in identifying and providing social assistance to those in the retardation range. When it comes to sub-Saharan Africa, if only the West had sold them text-books instead of guns all these years.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Friday August 31 2018, @06:54PM (12 children)
"We're only just beginning to study RNA"
What the ever loving fuck are you talking about. I've personally run software analyses 24 NovaSeq runs of tumor transcriptomes just this week. Correlating Single Nucleotide Polymorhpisms(SNPs) to IQ should be trivial if the eugenics/racist/bioessentialist assumptions about IQ are even remotely correct. Tens of thousands of them associated with regions in proteins involved in brain development have been examined in healthy populations, and no significant correlations have been found.
You're not "right". You're just a racist with racist assumptions and bad opinions about science.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @07:03PM (4 children)
I love the attitudes the morons you're arguing with show towards science.
Climate science = it's not true (and watts up with that?!) because the conclusions make me feel uncomfortable!
Science showing that the brain may be a gendered organ = it's not true (and brain imaging studies have no credibility!) because the conclusions make me feel uncomfortable! (Ok, I'm beating my dead hobby horse here. If humans can't stop shitting where they sleep--their very own perfect class M planet--there's no hope for them.)
Science fails to show any truth in racialist theories = science is important and more research is needed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @08:07PM (3 children)
Never said that.
Never said that, only that it contradicts the claim that men and women are the same.
What racial theories? It's not me conflating scientific racism with measurable differences between populations. Neither did i bring the subject up.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @02:15AM (2 children)
No shit, Sherlock! If men and women weren't different, why the fuck would anybody bother with gender transition?! If anybody says that men and women are the same, tell them to go to fucking hell! Especially if they're a feminist--oh men and women are the same when it's convenient for my Diane-worshipping cisfemale supremacist bullshit but different when that's convenient for my Diane-worshipping cisfemale supremacist bullshit. Gender is a social construct but only when it's convenient! Gender is biological when we get down to the implementation of gross violations of Title IX in public education and the Fourteenth Amendment elsewhere!!!
argh!
i'm gonna beat that dead hobby horse to death!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @03:19PM (1 child)
Save your scorn for the "gender is a social construct" crowd.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @04:38PM
Ah. My sarcasm detector must have given a false positive. As long as you don't then go and say "Ok, gender is not a social construct, so that disproves that brain sex could possibly exist."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @07:04PM (3 children)
Welcome to SN, where all the shitty trolls from /. found a home. Their vitriol has already driven away a good amount of the centrist user base. Not to mention the number of times users have bothered to dredge up facts only to have others toss them out and continue with their belief based reality.
le sigh, must the trolls ruin everything?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Friday August 31 2018, @07:08PM (2 children)
Ironically, I left slashdot because of the racist libertarians, and I figured a smaller community would have less room for them to hide.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @08:13PM
True, there is less room for them to hide which makes them even more visible! They've driven off a lot of other users by brigading heavily. If they can't win on merit they'll "win" by spamming and shitposting until the dissenting voices are gone.
I don't want to see this site die as I believe in the original goals, but until the more moderate libertarians / conservatives push back against the trolls then those trolls will feel comfortable here. Clean up your house SN conservatives, just ACCEPT that you have a serious infestation of TERRIBLE people and start standing against them. The rest of us are just tired of the same old garbage defending propaganda and ignorance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @11:09PM
You honestly think Libertarians are racist? After our to and fro, I think you're racist! [youtube.com] Progressive outlets like Vox (who own the verge) are undeniably racist. [youtube.com] You doth protest too much, I think that you ikanreed are a racist!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @07:14PM (2 children)
The historical timeline of study.
Now what the ever loving fuck are you talking about? I thought I told you to read more. [cell.com]
Check you. You're seriously claiming that evolutionary differences do not manifest across different populations? Do you have this astounding revelation published in a peer reviewed paper?
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday August 31 2018, @10:04PM (1 child)
He also probably refuses to accept the differences in the types of medications available to people due to differences in blood types. When it comes to blood pressure there are drugs that can be given to people of European and East Asian decent that cannot and must not be given to people of African descent. First line drugs available to the first two groups can cause significant complications in the last group.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @11:27PM
I doubt it, the guy probably has an IQ 2 standard deviations above the median although you wouldn't guess based on the constant "nazi" slurs. Tim Pool touches on these exact topics in a youtube video today. [youtube.com] Curious then that ikanreed (who should read more ;) brought IQ into the discussion here. As Bret Weinstein [wikipedia.org] has said, evolutionary biology is not politically correct and that's a big problem for those working in the field.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @08:24PM (1 child)
It's true only mostly because of the circumstances that surround a given population. It has been documented that IQ scored in Texas rose more than 10 points simply due to de-worming campaigns in the early 1900s. Turns out parasites not good for intelligence? Also, look at how everyone was saying how east asians were "clearly not as intelligent" as europeans, back in the 1800s. And today, the IQ scores are higher in east asian populations than in the so called europeans.
So anyway, something that is true doesn't mean there is correlation to the racist arguments. But it also doesn't mean that reality is not fair either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @09:57PM
Indeed [observer.com]
Heritability studies have been done [nih.gov] (Not to be discounted [discovermagazine.com]) and cultural influences identified. [scientificamerican.com]
19th Century scientific racism is discredited pseudoscience.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday August 31 2018, @05:21PM (3 children)
Never did I say to fire her, I think she should keep her job. Unlike leftists I believe in free speech and I can just ignore what she says. Any time you take an action against someone when the only basis of your judgement is the color of their skin you are being racist, regardless of what color your skin is or what color their skin is. You don't get to hate just because you are white, you don't get to hate just because you aren't white.
I don't know enough about this specific case to care either way, I am just arguing that there is racism and that people of all colors commit it. Did Sarah? Don't know, don't care, but even if she didn't that doesn't mean she couldn't.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0, Troll) by jmorris on Friday August 31 2018, @06:11PM (2 children)
I also believe in free speech, which is why she must be fired and I say that YOU are obligated to join the baying for her blood. Until they pay the same price they inflict on others, those who occupy the "commanding heights of the culture" and make the rules (like say those on the editorial board of the New York Times) they have no motivation to rediscover the benefits of supporting free speech. Your support for free speech is as unimportant as mine, her opinion decides the rules we live under and convincing her caste that it is good is what matters. Either that or casting her and her Progressive kind from the heights of the culture, something greatly to be desired but currently beyond our reach.
IF YOU WOULD HAVE PEACE, KNOW WAR. IF YOU WOULD HAVE FREE SPEECH, CALL FOR BANHAMMERING THE ELITE WHO OPPOSE IT.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday August 31 2018, @07:17PM
"You know, we're just so so so unfair to people openly advocating for genocide"
Free speech is something they'd take from everyone in a second if they had power.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @08:17PM
You are a moron trying to equate bad humor with actual Nazis. Take a deep breath and use your logic instead of your beliefs.
"MUH OPPRESSION" is getting old, clean up "your" side if you want any sympathy. The only time you stand against racism is when it is against you and that makes you a piece of shit.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @08:36PM
"Thing that doesn't happen."
you're either blind/stupid or you lie for your ideology all the time. blacks do this anywhere they are (many times artificially) promoted into positions of power. look at any major city and watch the gov depts get completely taken over. maybe they keep a few boot licking token whites around, but that's about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @02:09AM
Prove it.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday August 31 2018, @05:07PM (2 children)
But one of those examples is legal and entirely socially acceptable. And it has to be called out, shamed and litigated until it either isn't acceptable anymore or both are. No more two caste society.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @09:04PM
<sarc>WAAAAH!!!!! I can't use racially charged epithets in public because friends and family might shun me and my boss might fire me because he doesn't want my views associated with his company! Oh, the inhumanity of it all!</sarc>
Frankly, as a white male, I am less than impressed with your "defense" of equality.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 31 2018, @09:30PM
J-Mo, to be honest it sounds to me like you're more worried about not being in the lower caste, rather than worried about caste-ism specifically. Sounds almost like you have a guilty conscience, except Madokami knows (yes, she does) you don't have a conscience to begin with...
Karma's a bitch, isn't it?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Friday August 31 2018, @06:22PM (7 children)
Poor white guy! Centuries of white privilege, all for naught!
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday August 31 2018, @06:56PM (6 children)
Come Arist, I expect better of you. How am I wrong, is it okay to fire a guy just because he is white?
As far as levels of privilege goes, a Mandarin or a Han is pretty high up there if we are just considering those in China (perhaps all of east asia). Is it okay to hate one of them if you are a Tibetan, and have it not called racism? Certainly the Tibetan is oppressed by them, is their level of privilege so high that lashing out against them is not racism?
Without accepting that you cannot judge a person on the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, you can never fix the root issues.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @07:13PM (5 children)
hahahaha oh wow
You fools are really out there, I guess I should feel sorry? you example ari replied to is totally "valid" I guess. I use quotes because technically yes, those are two examples of prejudice based on skin color.
However in the real world there is an overwhelming occurrence of your first example and almost zero occurrence of the second. What does this mean? Your examples are just a way to escape the fact that #1 is a real problem while your white persecution complex is stupid and lame, the ultimate in first world problems.
So much equality that the ethnic elite feel persecuted!
Ok, enough poking fun. I'm sure your position is rooted in the Affirmative Action legislation. Yes that bit of law is racist, but it is trying to counter balance the systemic societal racism that really truly for-realsies exists.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday August 31 2018, @11:17PM (3 children)
Discussions of Affirmative Action as reverse racism against poor, put-upon whites are as relevant to anything as perfectly spherical, friction-less cows in a two-body problem involving torid bovines.
(Score: 2) by chromas on Saturday September 01 2018, @02:15AM (1 child)
First, we assume a spherical Nazi.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @06:00AM
Unpossible! Nazis are always rightists, and being rightists, they favor symbols that are rectangular, like the swastika, because they are simple and easy to understand. It is much like Trumps positions on tariffs: other countries are disrepecting the US by trading with it. Shirley you can see the symmetry, when it is laid out in a powerpoint of only three slides, because after all, Trump falls asleep after three slides, and gets an erection, which is rather un-Precedential.
Ergo, no spherical Nazis. Unless they are on the Moon.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @08:27AM
Discussions about whether race, gender, sexual orientation, and other features of identity politics are the primary divisions of society are not nearly as relevant in the present moment as a discussion about whether economic class is the primary division of society.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday September 03 2018, @08:37AM
So, at which point of time would you think that enough has been done?
Tell me, give me a real hard data based condition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 31 2018, @09:58PM (1 child)
Goodness me, racist fascists sure do swear a lot!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @08:29AM
Thus demonstrating that your whole disingenuous purpose was nothing but trolling. The mistake was not dismissing you as a crazy or a crank.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 01 2018, @09:46AM
Since when has parody been a valid excuse? And glancing at the tweets in question, I read
Somehow we've gone from one parody to casting all of the tweets as parodies.