Paraphrasing an article by Time Magazine's Joel Stein:
The Internet's personality has changed -- once it was like a geek with lofty ideals about the free flow of information. Now the web is a sociopath with Asperger's. [ Submitter's note: the "Sociopath with Asperger's" comment is not my addition, but a verbatim phrase in the source article ]
The people who relish their online freedom to act under influence of the online disinhibition effect are called "trolls." Trolling is, overtly, a political fight; but it has become the main tool of the alt-right, an Internet-grown reactionary movement that works for men's rights and against immigration. They derisively call their adversaries "social justice warriors" and believe that liberal interest groups purposely exploit their weaknesses to gain pity, which allows them to control the leverage of political power.
When sites are overrun by trolls, they drown out the voices of women, ethic and religious minorities, gays -- anyone who might feel vulnerable. The alt-right argues that if you can't handle opprobrium, you should just turn off your computer. But that's arguing against self-expression, something antithetical to the original values of the Internet.
The article closes with a description of an exchange between Stein and a detractor. In meeting the detractor in real-life, he was surprised by her lack of bravado, to which she responds, "The Internet is the realm of the coward. These are people who are all sound and no fury."
Stein ruminates in response, "Maybe. But maybe, in the information age, sound is as destructive as fury."
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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.
Recent reporting and discussions here about "trolls" and the "culture of hate" (both con and pro) have repeatedly broached the topic of what appropriate limits to free expression might be.
Dean of Students John Ellison at the University of Chicago has taken a stand on the issue in a letter welcoming new students. He writes:
Once here you will discover that one of the University of Chicago's defining characteristics is our commitment to freedom of inquiry and expression. [...] Members of our community are encouraged to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn, without fear of censorship. Civility and mutual respect are vital to all of us, and freedom of expression does not mean the freedom to harass or threaten others. You will find that we expect members of our community to be engaged in rigorous debate, discussion, and even disagreement. At times this may challenge you and even cause discomfort.
Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so called 'trigger warnings,' we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual 'safe spaces' where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.
While some have voiced support for Ellison's commitment to free expression (with Robby Soave at Reason encouraging readers to give the dean "a round of applause"), others are concerned about the implications of his message. L.V. Anderson at Slate agrees with much of the letter's content promoting "civility and mutual respect," but finds the last paragraph quoted above to be "weird" and unsettling:
By deriding "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings" before students arrive on campus, the University of Chicago is inadvertently sending a message that certain students—the ones who have never been traumatized, and the ones who have historically felt welcome on college campuses (i.e., white men)—are more welcome than others, and that students who feel marginalized are unlikely to have their claims taken seriously. Adults who decry "the coddling of the American mind" will likely celebrate U. Chicago's preemptive strike against political correctness, but students who have experienced violence, LGBTQ students, and students of color likely will not.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:22AM
Another SJW ranting to its echo chamber.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:37PM
lol so you are an anti-SJW ranting to the same echo chamber?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @11:07PM
Nah, its ranting to this echo chamber. Where it got a +5 from those echoes.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Sunday August 21 2016, @05:10AM
You obviously haven't been around here very long. Ethanol Fueled a SJW?? Now that is way, way out there beyond right wing.
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:38AM
Submitter's note: the "Sociopath with Asperger's" comment is not my addition, but a verbatim phrase in the source article ]
Not any more, it's be pulled for political correctness reasons, which are actually good reasons, and the reason why the alt-right AIQ submitter had to make a point of denying responsibility.
I, for won, welcome the SJW backlash that will make Bannon angry, and Milo, well, what can you do with a Milo?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:17PM
For Great JUSTICE!!! Can't make this stuff up.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by cubancigar11 on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:42AM
Why Hackers Must Eject the SJWs [ibiblio.org] From someone who has more cred as hacker than Mr. Stein and more support for diversity than ban-happy SJWs.
(Score: 0, Troll) by aristarchus on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:45AM
Sorry, Cuban, I cannot read your link. You used the "SJW" thing, and so all rational people know two things immediately: you are not reliable, and you are probably not really a hacker. More of a hack. Or hackneyed. You should post more here to further damage your credibility.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by cubancigar11 on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:49AM
That's the title of the article. Thanks for letting us know about yourself.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:52AM
How are you defining "SJW?" Do you mean it in its true sense, that being the ridiculous Tumblrinas that invent things to be offended about, or are you another one of those dork--pardon me, *dark* enlightenment types who thinks they invented selfishness and that anyone left of Rand is untermenschen unworthy of life?
(I already know the answer, but I wanna see it right from the jackass's mouth, as it were...).
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:09AM
Leave Cuban alone! He's just like Britanny! Fragile! He does not want to explain himself, he just want to be banned! Then we will all see the violence inherent in the system! Then he can say, "See, I told you! Ban-happy SJWs!" Except, of course, evidently, we cannot ban poor cubancigar. All we can do is mod him down and hope some readers will not read him and spread his shame. Encouraging him to explain more will only end up like the troll in the FA, a normal person, but one with issues, and chemical imbalances, and one who we will have to accept as one of us, and assist on his path to becoming a more normal, more liberal, more justicy person.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:45AM
Just to set the tone, I have modded no one in this thread down. We are all here to help us all be better Soylentils. Let's keep this in mind. Cuban needs our help. Do not retaliate. Cuban needs our love.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:09AM
I suppose I must also await the response. If I know you, my opinion is the other possibility, but I may be proven wrong. Rand may be tangential to the matter. At the very least, you've shown me before that you have some very good positions as concerns men's rights, and I for one haven't helped. Granted that MRAs can be equally wacky as TERFs.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:29AM
If I know him, he'll conveniently disappear and never respond to that little challenge. After all, terms like "SJW" are snarl words, used for their impact on the R-complex rather than the cerebral cortex, and making the user actually *explain* what they mean makes the people watching have to *think,* at which point they realize what kind of memetic conjob was played on them and leave in disgust.
I think what pisses me off the most about people like him is that they genuinely think everyone else is as solipsistic and shortsighted and self-absorbed as they are :/
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:57AM
I knew right from the title, and the TFS, that a critical shortage of warm fuzzies would be present here. I was right :)
This thread need a hug. *HUG*
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:26AM
This thread need a hug. *HUG*
*HUG* back, edIII! Wasn't it that great big SJW Friederich Nietzsche that said: "When you hug a thread, the thread hugs you!" Maybe not. Or only in the Soviet Union. YMMV.
(Score: 5, Informative) by cubancigar11 on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:17AM
So you apparently know me, enough to call me jackass, and expect me to explain myself to you. And I had the bad luck of reading rest of whatever you wrote:
Gee... and you are surprised I leave conversations in the middle.
Rand? Tumblr? The whole world doesn't run around the american fads, you know?
Here is the subject of my original comment: "I will just leave this here" Because I am well aware of language mismatch when a party is married to a "cause". You can't have a civil discussion without an open mind, and I don't see any civility in this discussion.
Here is what ESR has to say about SJW:
There is nothing I can add to whatever that article says.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:53AM
Here is what ESR has to say about SJW:
Oh, fuque it, Cuban! You just doubled down! I cannot read anything where the entry is SJW, and certainly cannot read anything prefaced by Erectile Subperformance Republican! I mean, the man is a sexually harrassing pedophilic coward who has a Patron account! How could you possibly have any idea that quoting ESR would have any cred here at all? The man has not written any code for at least 20 years. He shit his pants after 9/11. And now he is unemployed and seeking socialized medical insurance. Pathetic.
I wish we could ban you, cubancigar, so you could be happy. But this is SoylentNews, we have a different method of dealing with batshit-crazy right-wing nut-jobs. It is not neat, it does take longer, and will require more work on your part. So what was that about White Males? You forgot "Christian". Do we need to call in Runaway to help? You still have not explained what is to be reviled about Social Justice Warriors.
(Score: 4, Touché) by linuxrocks123 on Saturday August 20 2016, @12:25PM
The man has not written any code for at least 20 years.
https://github.com/eric-s-raymond [github.com]
Your commitment to truth rivals that of Donald Trump.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:32PM
And what about everything else aris wrote? ESR's checkins are really the least of his complaints.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:07PM
"I won't read anything that challenges my beliefs."
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:52PM
"I won't read anything that challenges my beliefs."
Oh, if only anything that starts with "SJW" could challenge mine, or anyone's, beliefs! So to be clear, this is not a matter of ignorance, it is a surfeit of knowledge, knowledge gained from hard experience. Many times in the past I thought I might find something to challenge beliefs in writing that contained "SJW", but sadly I only got spittle on me from the foaming mouths of a deranged far right. It was like reading Mein Kampf expecting to learn something besides a historical context. Hmm. "Mein Drumpf"?
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday August 20 2016, @09:37PM
We need to prepare ourselves for a descent into severe economic depression, neo-fascism and possibly some kind of really nasty world war to the cheers of the stupid.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @08:49PM
Anyone actually interested in debate wouldn't be using terms designed to shut down debate, like "SJW", from the start.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JNCF on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:48AM
I cannot read your link. You used the "SJW" thing, and so all rational people know two things immediately: you are not reliable, and you are probably not really a hacker.
This is actually an interesting ball of yarn to unravel. Keep in mind that I'm strictly discussing word-use here. The Washington Post [washingtonpost.com] cites positive uses of the term "social-justice warrior" going back to 1991, which predates any known derogatory uses that I've seen:
More than 20 years ago, the term was generally used as a neutral or even complimentary describer. Here’s a clip from a 1991 write-up of a Montreal jazz festival, from the Montreal Gazette:
[Quebec guitarist Rene] Lussier will present the world premiere of his ambitious Quebecois mood piece Le Tresor de la Langue, which juxtaposes the spoken word — including sound bites from Charles de Gaulle and Quebec nationalist and social-justice warrior Michel Chartrand — with new- music noodlings.
“All of the examples I’ve seen until quite recently are lionizing the person,” Katherine Martin, the head of U.S. dictionaries at the Oxford University Press, said in an interview last month. Because “Social Justice Warrior” is currently only in Oxford Dictionaries — and not in the Oxford English Dictionary itself — lexicographers there haven’t done a full search for its earliest citation. But a cursory search for the phrase turns up several positive uses, spanning from the early ’90s through the early ’00s.
Which raises the question, is "SJW" a different term than "social-justice warrior?" Or is this a term that started with a positive connotation, and only very recently became negative? If the latter, it seems odd to write off a statement based on the use of this term. If the former, merely unabbreviating the phrase would make the statement readable again (or at least nullify your original objection) -- and while I can't find the link now, I'm pretty sure I've seen a "This Is What A SJW Looks Like" shirt which uses the abbreviation itself in a positive manner.
I'm legitimately interested in whether or not this information changes your mind about dismissing statements based on the use of the term alone, ancient chatbot philosopher.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:06AM
Hey, JNCF, (if that is your real login name), only an actual SJW can call another SJW a SJW!! We own the moniker, we take what our enemies call us, stick in our hat, and call it macaroni! With cheese!
But, yes, it would be interesting to know where this first arose. With a colossal lack of evidence, I suspect Brietbart. What with all the new stuff that has come to light, man, it only makes sense. But I could be wrong. We should research this more, so we can help our fellow Soylentils who seem to have been infected. I have heard that "SJW appelation syndrome" can cause microcephaly in otherwise healthy adult males.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Saturday August 20 2016, @10:28AM
words are neither good nor bad, but thinking makes them so...
(with 'thinking' meaning 'it is what our brains do', not 'reasoned logic'...)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Kell on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:11AM
I think there are really two concepts here that are being wrongly conflated. On one hand, there is the person who strives to bring about social equity and change (a laudible goal to many people) - the 'social justice warrior'. On the other hand is the person who uses feminism and race politics as a sort of weapon to promote a political agenda - what I would call an 'identity politics zealot'. There's a Venn diagram: not all SJWs are IPZs and not all IPZs genuinely fight for social justice... in fact, most of them seem hell-bent on promoting a culture of inequity based on historical slights and wrongdoings, real or imagined. IPZs seem to dominate the online discourse, and I think we rarely hear from the "real" SJWs because they're too busy actually doing that things that help build communities.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:59AM
Oh, great! The solution is another TLA? WTF? NNR? Whatever happened to the Anti-social Injustice Quibblers? AIG, opps, AIQ. Suspiciously like al Quaeda, doncha think?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NCommander on Saturday August 20 2016, @08:31AM
The problem is that when you have a label of any type, the loudest tend to create the stereotype of that label, and those stereotypes then get distorted over time. 20 years ago, the definition of what a Republican was is very different that what it is now. The same can be said for SFW, or troll, or even hacker.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Kell on Sunday August 21 2016, @12:21AM
You're perfectly right - this is merely my own internal way of thinking, and not what I'd propose for others. We all label people, consciously or subconsciously. I prefer to consciously separate these two concepts, which others may tacitly not. YMMV.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Francis on Saturday August 20 2016, @02:19PM
It hasn't meant that in a very long time. The main reason why SJW is a pejorative is that they live in bubbles. They usually mean well, when they're not actually trolls, but they're so divorced from reality that they're a danger to the republic. They don't respect free speech or equality as it exists and are regularly tilting at windmills and trying to right past wrongs by screwing over people who had nothing to do with it.
I personally think it's rather offensive to lump the anti-immigration people in with the men's rights people as those are two very different groups. In America it's difficult to find a measure by which men aren't behind. And the list is pretty much limited to sexual offenses. Even there, the women seem to be catching up.
But, life expectancy, prison terms, conviction rates, homicide, suicide, work conditions, divorce rates and child care leave are all areas in which women are doing better than men and those are some pretty damn important things and hardly a comprehensive list. Hence why the SJW types have to silence the critics, they haven't got a leg to stand on when it comes to women's rights and as a result their only viable strategy is to silence the opposition before people notice the lies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:52PM
Nice to see the special snowflakes are out in force. I'd hate to think that they would ever be confronted with somebody elses opinion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:53PM
Shut up, Francis!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @12:57PM
So the ignorant willfully wish to stay ignorant? Interesting, albeit unsurprising, especially considering how many SJWs espouse how ignorant everyone that they disagree with is.
I'm not quite certain how likely it is you're going to respond, but I'm quite sure if you do it's going to be something snarky that proves my point, so please, fire away if you are so inclined.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:53AM
> From someone who has more cred as hacker than Mr. Stein and more support for diversity than ban-happy SJWs.
The simple act of using the tern "SJW" proves otherwise. Like "feminazi", "tree-hugger", "race-traitor, "virtue signaling", "libtard", "cuck" and "self-hating jew"; SJW is a term created for the sole purpose of avoiding engagement with diverse opinions. It is everything the person using the term claims to oppose, turned up to 11.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:05AM
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-right types who use "cuck." That word is very, very revealing about the psychology of the user. It's a short form of "cuckold," a man who was cheated on by his female partner. Now the rational response to that is "that sucks, you deserve better, dump her lying bitch ass and move on."
But to the people who actually think calling someone "cuck" means anything in political context, what it reveals about the user is a set of Iron-age ideas about everything from personal honor to female sexuality to what it means to be male to their ideas about power and government. I can guarantee you its users are the classic "Authoritarian Follower" stereotype, are likely to be Trump supporters or worse, are probably homophobic (and may or may not be repressing homosexual tendencies themselves), are likely to see women as inferior, and so forth.
They're also projecting like mad. They see *themselves* as having been cuckolded by the supposed right wing, with all the wounding to their masculinity that that implies, and are lashing out, thinking that by accusing someone *else* of being a cuck[old] it will somehow magically wipe away their shame.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:13AM
You're an idiot.
It simply refers to being used.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:47AM
No, I think she has the correct interpretation here. It's a sexually charged term to begin with. Why choose a sexually charged term like that to describe one's political position? It can't be merely a political position.
I first encountered the term cuckold on hypnosis websites. At the time I was attempting to find a way to experience the things that cannabis analogues had helped me experience years before, which had a mentally stabilizing effect, completely the opposite of my erratic shitposts prompted by alcohol. (If I hit submit on this one, whoops I guess who cares.) Hypnosis proved to be a dead end for me. I found one recording that almost, almost, so very almost did it for me. For a moment I was there, but I need to be there for more than a moment.
At any rate, I was curious about just what a hypnotic recording meant to train a man to be a cuckold might comprise, and while I didn't bother to actually listen to one, I was familiar with some of the affirmations from various IRC channels. I gathered it was something very perverse and very weird given my mammalian supremacist beliefs. Around the same time, I read The Cuckoo's Egg [wikipedia.org], a story about one of the first international hacks, and I made the etymological connection.
Suddenly, cute clocks from der Schwarzwald I'd always been fond of took on a whole new, weird meaning I'm not sure even the clockmakers intended.
So fast forward about six years and I find that the term cuckold has become part of the MRA/RWNJ vocabulary. How odd! It doesn't mean simply being used. It means being used to raise another male's offspring, which a bit of a corruption of raising another species' offspring (with delicious possibilities for my conspiracy theories about lizard people), but hey. This implies that a cuckold is genetically dead. The term is deeply intertwined with the stuff different people have posted here about how Muslims are going to out-breed the rest of us.
I wasn't sure if I should bold the tl;dr portion, but it's in the paragraph above.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:51AM
Biiiiingo. The people using the word "cuck" are deeply frightened for their genetic and cultural futures. Would heaven their genes and cultures had more worth preserving!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:33AM
Then you too are an idiot.
It originates from a particular troll on /pol/.
But it has been fascinating witnessing your projections on the issue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:48AM
Darn! The first two times didn't work. Try calling someone an idiot again! It's sure to work the next time!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:28AM
Pretty sure it's not gonna work then either :D
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday August 20 2016, @12:41PM
Oh. My. God.
You do realize that the term was in usage way before /pol/ ever existed? I'll admit, my post was an inebriated meandering anecdote. The only origin I will accept that involves /pol/ is its use as a political buzzword. I am not going to go all the way to the library just to get you a proper etymology out of the OED, so you're going to have to settle for Wiktionary [wiktionary.org]:
From Middle English cokolde, cokewold, cockewold, kukwald, kukeweld, from Old French cucuault; a compound of cucu (“cuckoo”) (some varieties of the cuckoo bird lay their eggs in another’s nest) and Old French -auld. Cucu is either a directly derived onomatopoeic derivative of the cuckoo's call, or from Latin cuculus. Latin cuculus is a compound of onomatopoeic cucu (compare Late Latin cucus) and the diminutive suffix -ulus. -auld is from Frankish *-wald (similar suffixes are used in some personal names within other Germanic languages as well; confer English Harold, for instance), a suffixal note of Frankish *wald (“power, mastery, dominion”), from Proto-Germanic *waldą (“might, power, authority”), from *waldaną (“to rule”), from Proto-Indo-European *wal- (“to be strong”). Appears in Middle English in noun form circa 1250 as cokewald. First known use of the verb form is 1589.
cuckold (plural cuckolds)
1. A man married to an unfaithful wife, especially when he is unaware or unaccepting of the fact.
2. A West Indian plectognath fish, Rhinesomus.
3. The cowfish, Acanthostracion quadricornis and allied species.
Boom. Done. You're welcome. It has always, since back in the 13th century day, had a reproductive denotation and a sexual connotation with overtones of sexual domination through trickery. Is that not what's meant? My fucking apologies if people who are using it have no fucking clue what it actually fucking means. I mean, fuck.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:22PM
So fast forward about six years and I find that the term cuckold has become part of the MRA/RWNJ vocabulary. How odd! It doesn't mean simply being used. It means being used to raise another male's offspring, which a bit of a corruption of raising another species' offspring (with delicious possibilities for my conspiracy theories about lizard people), but hey. This implies that a cuckold is genetically dead. The term is deeply intertwined with the stuff different people have posted here about how Muslims are going to out-breed the rest of us.
Yeah, you're getting close. The problem is you're still imagining the word cuck is merely a shortened form of cuckold. It is not; the term has a new history and thus accumulated connotations. As noted by another poster (and as I understand it), its popularity on the internet seems to have increased in reference to so-called cuck porn, which almost always (as I understand it -- I've actually never seen any) has a racial component, i.e., white man abandoned by wife/girlfriend for sexually superior black man.
From there, it was picked up by white-power folks before spreading to broader internet culture, which is what you're seeing.
Basically, the people using the word cuck today are like the people who would have used words like miscegenation in the past. But the folks using cuck don't have vocabularies that big, so they borrow terms from things like internet porn. I doubt half of the people who use the term cuck even understand what cuckold really means.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday August 21 2016, @03:16AM
Hmm… fair enough. I don't think if we're going to create a new term cuck to refer to cuck pr0n we can entirely disregard the etymology. We'd need to add to it, perhaps with the mention of /pol/. Even then, it retains its basic qualities of referring to the reproductive habits of the cuckoo.
*sigh* Your point about their limited vocabularies is the depressing point in the end. They're probably duckspeaking without even having something they're trying to say outside of tribalism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:50AM
It simply refers to being used.
Very interesting, and in the long tradition of *nix recursives: if you call someone a "cuck", your are being used by "alt-right" who came up with the term because they were being used! And even worse, they did not have to worry about the provenance of their offspring, since they had never. . . . we'll just leave it there, with cubancigar. God, I hope nothing untoward ensues!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:18AM
It goes further than that. Practically all cuck porn is a white woman getting banged by a black man while her white husband is forced to watch. A shit-ton of people using the term are white nationalists. [ace.mu.nu] Its to the point where it is so popular with the racist crew that anyone using it is painting themselves as a racist, [radixjournal.com] kind of like any one using a swastika in the west is now nazi-suspicious at best.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:55AM
Nope, cuck is used more broadly than that and has become a meme. You just want an excuse to ignore others while feeling morally superior, same as with the term "SJWs", which are real [reddit.com].
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:13AM
Perhaps not. My understanding was largely the same because:
A) I don't expose myself to too much of the Internet hate apparently to see it
B) I expose myself to too much of the Internet's porn to see anything other than cuck porn being advertised in the thumbnail previews.
Purely from a stastisical viewpoint, the submitter is correct. The term is more often used to describe black cock pounding middle age white pussy while the small and limpdicked husband waits to snowball her. I can't speak to the White Nationalist overtones asserted, but a definite yes on the porn. Interestingly enough.... there has been a rather large uptick in it since the election really started.
Who wants to bet that Pornhub can tell us that the largest consumers of this porn are in Red states? ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:29AM
Hahaha, fair enough.
Don't forget the wedding dress. That really adds to the scene.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @07:08AM
That word is very, very revealing about the psychology of the user.
I hope you know that words don't have any inherent meaning and what matters is the intent of the user if you're going to try to examine their psychology for using particular words. Language evolves.
But let's not get into all this fake "psychology" pseudoscience where you try to examine someone's mind over the Internet, alright? Don't pretend to know what others think better than they do, or else it seems to me that you might appear similar to one of those theists who claim that atheists actually believe in god and are just deluding themselves by pretending otherwise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:42PM
> you might appear similar to one of those theists who claim that atheists actually believe in god and are just deluding themselves by pretending otherwise.
I've literally never heard that. And I was born an atheist.
I have heard, on many occasion, the accusation that some atheists have turned their atheism into a religion. And I agree with that. It isn't so much that they uncritically worship not-god, but rather that they are on a crusade to spread their non-belief and can't critically evaluate religion beyond the most narrow definition of "magical sky fairy" when in practice religion has a much more broad and intellectually coherent place in the lives of religious people. I fault the theists who make that accusation for rarely, if ever being able to express it in anything more complex than a sound-bite. But ultimately they have it right - especially for the people who have left a religion for atheism, many have just substituted all the rituals, evangelizing, social identification and self-righteousness for a new set. There is a saying that the most devout are the newly converted, and seems to apply to a significant number of newly converted atheists too.
To bring it back around, I think you've unintentionally discredited your argument with your central example.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:46PM
I've literally never heard that.
I have. It's good that you haven't. Some people will literally say that atheists do not exist.
I have heard, on many occasion, the accusation that some atheists have turned their atheism into a religion.
There's no need to stretch the definition of religion so far when all they really want to do is say that they don't like certain things the atheists are doing.
To bring it back around, I think you've unintentionally discredited your argument with your central example.
Nope. Even if my example was wrong, my other arguments would stand on their own merits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @05:44AM
> Nope. Even if my example was wrong, my other arguments would stand on their own merits.
What other arguments? That people do not make unintentionally reveal themselves through their word choices and their areas of focus?
Sorry, but that is disproven so frequently it's practically axiomatic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @08:39AM
What other arguments?
That you can't psychoanalyze every single person who uses a particular term over the Internet. It's fake Internet psychology of the worst kind. Where is your evidence that this is valid at all?
Sorry, but that is disproven so frequently it's practically axiomatic.
By what? Social science?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @08:46AM
Basically, if you claim that by using term X, that really what's happening in my individual brain is Y, then you need to prove it. If you make that claim about everyone who uses term X, then you're just flat-out bullshitting now. Even the worst pseudoscientists would hesitate to make such a broad claim about the psychology of an entire group of people who are tied together only by the fact that they use a particular term.
If there is actual scientific consensus that this specific tactic laid out in this comment is good practice, please present the studies which you think prove this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @05:08AM
Your hatred for the right is obvious. It is obvious they are your enemy. I think your love for them does not exist. You will know how far you've gone if you try right now to empathize with them or think of them in any positive way but cannot. Think hard if it is that you just don't want to, or if your demonization of them is truly complete.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:11PM
Uh, Anon...stop and think for a moment: if I had no empathy I wouldn't be able to get into their heads and figure out how they work so easily.
Fact is, this is a very, very human thing they're doing. It's not hard to understand; it's easy, all too easy, and it makes perfect sense if you think like they do. If I really had no empathy i wouldn't be arguing with--or horrified by--people like Uzzard and J-Mo either. The fact is, it's *because* I know how easy it is for people to fall into that kind of thinking and why that I'm up their noses so hard. Think of it like someone dealing with the early stages of a plague: you can feel sorry for the victims, but you have to, absolutely must, keep them quarantined.
You don't know me, so I can't really blame you too much for what you said up above, but it's simply not true. As it is, here in meatspace my problem is NOT being able to turn this off. I've had spooky shit like precognitive flashes and constant, receptive emotion-sensing happening to me since age 4 or 5 (probably before but I don't remember). It runs in the family, too; my father has a weaker version of it, though he never trained it like I did, the result being something that edges dangerously close to psychic abilities...which I personally do not believe exist, and which is making me feel like I imagine an atheist would if God started talking to him.
Is any of this making sense? I'm constantly going out all-guns-blazing on these people because I recognize how very similar we all are and I've seen this pattern over and over and over again throughout history. It never ends well.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday August 23 2016, @04:00PM
I know some people who have uttered the word "cuck" and I can almost guarantee they don't understand any of the background you have provided. Sometimes words are just fun to say to those who only know what it means in its post-political context.
It's one of those words that may actually have been invented by trolls. Not the nouveau-political meaning of "troll", but the older internet meaning of "jerks stirring up trouble". Because your analysis of the word's origins ring true, and somebody has managed to get a bunch of people too uneducated to even have heard of a "cuckold" before to repeat a strange slur with misogynist overtones, probably just to elevate the anger as people like you understand what they are saying even when its users probably don't.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:09AM
Funny your list almost only includes right-wing insults and none from the left-wing, most notably "racist" isn't included. Both sides of our rotten political duopoly will shout down the other with insults and use labels to refuse to discuss anything with the incorrigible other.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:20AM
I try not to sling words like "racist" and "misogynist" unless they're well and truly deserved, both because it reduces their impact when they're most needed and because, frankly, you're right that some lefties have sunk to the right-wing's level and begun to use them to shut down discussion.
That said, I can sense real evil where it appears and will go all-guns-blazing on it when possible. We're out of time; we can't just ignore it and hope it'll go away, and staying entirely civil is in my opinion partial capitulation. Some ideas need to be met with exposure and ridicule.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:22AM
> none from the left-wing, most notably "racist" isn't included.
Because the word racist was not invented for the purpose of avoiding engagement. Whether or not it is mis-applied for that purpose, it is neither the origin nor its most common usage today. But SJW is and has always existed for that sole reason. It is not leftist to correctly label racism as racist.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Aighearach on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:12AM
Even if it wasn't an absurdly blatant pejorative, the whole idea is absurd that social justice is presumptively bad in all forms.
And does their boogeyman of fake-justice warrior even exist as a notable minority component of social justice movements?
Are those really the people who have such success in the fight for justice that they are called warriors for justice?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:25AM
Of course not; it's using the age-old and always-effective tactic of ridicule. I have a hypothesis that an idea which is successfully ridiculed will become an avoidance-stimulus to the lower/primitve part of the brain, regardless of its actual content. This has its place (ridicule is one of my favorite weapons), but it has to be used against genuinely bad ideas, and *it has to be explained in context.*
This is a battle for minds, many minds, all varying degrees of "woke" (or not). Ridicule is like chemical or radiological weapons in that it can create no-go zones in the noosphere, deserved or not. Most people are more emotional than rational, and I am *certainly* not immune to this, having a bad tendency to let the bile flow when well and truly pissed off.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by migz on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:51AM
OPINION
Social Justice seems bad to be, in every form that accepts the label. It assumes that one can right discrimination by discriminating, and using violence to achieve it, that to do so is just. Further it is prefixed by "Social" to add credibility, but in doing so betrays its political agenda.
Personally I value freedom and reject the use of violence to enforce ones views on others. I also believe racism and sexism are stupid. I have personally been the victim of both state sponsored racism, and personal racism. I do not believe it is right for the state to interfere in discrimination.
Social justice also advocates redistribution. I consider this nothing more than theft.
To me social justice seems to be a reformulation of national socialism with the gun pointed in the other direction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @07:10AM
Social justice also advocates redistribution. I consider this nothing more than theft.
Takes one to know one! We are coming after you. We are coming for your capital gains, Chuck! We are going to tax you, tax your family, tax your little dog, too. After that, if we have any justice left over, we will educate you about what not having freedom is like. It is like not being paid enough to live, having the rent be too damn high, having to choose between medicine and food. Yeah, we are coming for you, so you can see how the other 99% live! Oh, you are not the 1%? Oh, well excuse us! We are coming for you anyway. We will steal what you stole to give it back to those you stole it from. Fair enough? Remember, as Proudhon used to say: "property is theft". And in your case, it is about time you realized that property is force.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @08:21PM
Tolerance means not tolerating bigotry. All logically valid ideas should be tolerated, but the idea that the amount of melanin in one's skin, one's gender, one's sexual identity or orientation, or the god one worships has anything at all to do with whether or not one is human is not logically valid and people holding these views are, by definition, delusional. Why should anyone tolerate another's delusions when they're clearly quite detached from reality? No matter how much one may disagree, niggers and fags and Muslims are, in fact, human and will always be human, and nothing will ever change that. Bigots should be ridiculed and shunned until they get the help they need and accept reality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @07:17AM
Even if it wasn't an absurdly blatant pejorative, the whole idea is absurd that social justice is presumptively bad in all forms.
Sounds like a straw man. Does the intent of the user of the term not matter at all? Are you just focusing on the words themselves?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @07:28AM
Sounds like a straw man. Does the intent of the user of the term not matter at all?
No. And, no. Any other questions?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @11:35AM
Intent and context don't matter. Got it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @02:27PM
But using the terms "fucking misogynist cis-gendered white male racist transphobic nerd virgin loser shitlord" is perfectly OK and encouraged right? Because mu feelings!
Hello pot, have you met kettle?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @02:32PM
SJW is a term created for the sole purpose of avoiding engagement with diverse opinions. It is everything the person using the term claims to oppose, turned up to 11.
False. "SJW" was created by SJWs. Then they gave it a bad name through their actions and now cry about the consequences.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:43AM
> From someone who has more cred as hacker than Mr. Stein
Just what is it about being a hacker that makes someone an expert on sociology or psychology?
Seems to me that at best the two are orthogonal and that in practice being a hacker blinds you to how people (and especially groups of people) work because humans are all analog and fuzzy logic which is the opposite of computer systems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @07:19AM
Seems to me that at best the two are orthogonal and that in practice being a hacker blinds you to how people (and especially groups of people) work because humans are all analog and fuzzy logic which is the opposite of computer systems.
I don't think so, unless someone goes around treating humans like computers. You could probably find people who appear to be like that in some insignificant aspect, but it would just be pure hyperbole.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @01:24PM
> I don't think so, unless someone goes around treating humans like computers.
It isn't about "treating humans like computers" it is about developing an understanding of the human condition. Hacking does nothing to increase that understanding. Unlike, say, being a reporter where your entire job is nothing but reporting on various aspects of the human condition. Practice makes perfect, and hacking provides zero practice.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Saturday August 20 2016, @07:52PM
Just what it is about Internet that makes all kind of sociology majors and gender studies majors and English literature majors think they know how and why of internet community?
See, we can go on and on about shredding this article to pieces. The truth is that Mr. Stein is just as much as trolling as it wants to blame its detractors of it. The reality is that trolls using left-wing terminology are just angry that right-wing is just as good at trolling. Is it a coincidence that every dumbass today is having an opinion about trolling or "violence-against-women" or misogyny or white privilege or rape culture or BLM? Do you really think this has got nothing to do with elections? Where do you think all those millions are getting spent? Could it be that sympathetic journalists are being paid to write more about certain topics and being paid to ignore certain other topics?
For example, if you believe this article, men's rights are against gays. Not seeing the flaw in that is pathological condition yet left-wing astroturfing is so strong due to democrats being in power and republicans busy pandering to richest people, that there are several times more people who are against men's rights than people who know what men's rights are demanding. (Hint: they are demanding equal rights for gays.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @11:15PM
> Just what it is about Internet that makes all kind of sociology majors and gender studies majors and English literature majors think they know how and why of internet community?
Just what is it about the Internet that makes all kinds of socially impaired hackers think they know the how and why of human behavior?
Would you trust a sociologist to write a DNS server? No? Then why would you trust a programmer to explain social behavior?
Just because hackers participate in the internet doesn't make them an experts in human behavior on the internet any more than driving a car on a freeway makes someone an expert on road grading, and paving aggregates.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:47AM
We're losing the internet to the culture of marketing, tracking, and surveillance. I don't see much hate, but I have tools that show me how I'm being tracked and it's scary. I also know the NSA and google are monitoring my every keystroke as well as they can.
Actually, to be honest, I've got tools that block the local tracking. But I'm not an expert on internet surveillance so who knows how well they work. And I can't do squat for the traffic I generate through my ISP.
The one I like the most is the one that sends random queries to google every minute or so while the laptop is on. That's gotta futz some people's metrics.
Every time a Christian defends Trump an angel loses it's lunch.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:53AM
You could use Tor if you really wanted. If it's good enough for Iarnian dissidents.... I actually have no idea if the NSA/Google can break it. But I would put way more money on the NSA/Google than the Iarnian government.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:00AM
I've used TOR, it's too farking slow for anything I do that isn't illegal.
Every time a Christian defends Trump an angel loses it's lunch.
(Score: 3, Informative) by number11 on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:04AM
I've used TOR, it's too farking slow for anything I do that isn't illegal.
Then use a VPN. There are ones with servers in dozens (or hundreds) of places that don't track you. TorrentFreak [torrentfreak.com] does surveys of their policies regularly (people who do file sharing are sensitive about using IP numbers that can be connected to themselves). Some don't track you, Private Internet Access was mentioned in a criminal court case where the FBI said they tracked the perp to PIA but PIA didn't keep any records so they couldn't follow any further. (That doesn't mean that the NSA can't, but they're not likely to spend their time or chance letting anyone know, if it's not a major terrorist or national interest issue.)
(Score: 3, Touché) by Snotnose on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:59AM
Yeah, I don't do anything that I need to spend the money or hassle with a VPN. I don't like being tracked and love my privacy, but if Uncle Sam cares that I frequent /., Soylent, and fark, then so be it.
Every time a Christian defends Trump an angel loses it's lunch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @09:42PM
Not scary enough to tack on $5/month on top of what you are paying your ISP to get on in the first place, apparently. You could also use a free VPN occasionally.
"I have nothing to hide."
(Score: 2) by number11 on Sunday August 21 2016, @04:03AM
I don't do anything that I need to spend the money or hassle with a VPN.
The money isn't much. They run $35-50/year. Boingboing has been plugging some that are less.
I find my VPN often speeds up file transfers. Don't know why (I'd expect the opposite) but I've measured and it's true. Depends on the server and location. Maybe the bigger datacenters are just really well connected. But if you're a gamer, ping times will probably increase some.
The only hassle I've found is that some CDN (Cloudflare?) keeps throwing captchas at me, and a few asshat websites refuse connections. And that if you use a German server, it breaks a lot of Youtube (but that apparently happens to everybody in Germany, my German friend says "we all use VPNs to the US or Thailand".
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:40AM
It's easier with HOAs (uggh), but if you can get an entire neighborhood together it's possible to completely obfuscate your location with wireless meshing & obfuscation with onion routing protocols like TOR. Bitblinder was an interesting project attempting to do this at a very local level. As with everything of course, it require participation.
Imagine 3 small utility sheds maintained by the community that have commercial fiber. From there it's wireless communications layered on top of an onion routing protocol, for everything. Your IP address is actually in that utility shed, with you tunneling all traffic to that router over obfuscated wireless where those networks could even change on a regular basis, across IPv6, which is 128bit.....
Your IP address would be localized to a point that could easily be 10-15 miles away from, and not in a straight line of sight, much less in the direction of the initial onion node. Higher population density is even better, and with fiber connects inbetween utility sheds in multiple communities you could expand that further.
It wouldn't be fool proof of course, but I think it would be possible to require interception of a large amount of wireless traffic across an entire city protected in such a way in order to eliminate anonymity. It does gain us something, because then even Google and others can only isolate us to the utility sheds at best, and we may have obsfuscated thousands at once. We're not attempting to remain completely anonymous, because we do actually register our real names in the collective, to help maintain ownership over property and to get it paid for. Your actually paying a group of locals in Smith Town USA to help distribute your own ISP service across hopefully a large number of nodes.
We can dream though right?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:02AM
> The one I like the most is the one that sends random queries to google every minute or so while the laptop is on. That's gotta futz some people's metrics.
Don't count on it. Seriously, those things are a waste of effort and breed a sense of complacency. The classification tools that Big Data places like google use understand noise, because noise in the signal happens under natural conditions anyway. They don't classify you by individual search terms, they classify you by groupings so sending them a thousand random searches with 20 real and non-random searches just reduces their confidence threshold for categorizing you a little bit.
If you wanted to meaningfully pollute google's profiling, you'd need to feed google a bunch of searches that are inter-related - that paint a picture of a coherent personality and identity, but a personality that is different from your own. But to do that, you'd probably need access to the kind of profiling data that google has compiled. Either that, or a full-fledged AI that could simulate a distinct person.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:30AM
Use a VPN. If it's too slow, ditch the cat videos.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Saturday August 20 2016, @08:36AM
What honestly concerns me is that the current generation will begin to accept this as the 'norm', and not see anything wrong with mass tracking, marketing, or surveillance.If something isn't seen as a problem, it isn't something that will be fixed.
Honestly, the world we live in makes 1984 look tame in terms of the analytical data available to to corporations and the government. I try to be an optimist on such things, but in a post Snowden world, even I'm struggling to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Still, I suppose its a victory that at least in this very quiet corner of the internet, we don't have anything but the most basic of IP logs and such.
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:00PM
> will begin to accept this as the 'norm', and not see anything wrong with mass tracking, marketing, or surveillance.If something isn't seen as a problem, it isn't something that will be fixed.
I don't think that's happening. I think that people are resigned to it, but when they have a choice that is reasonably accessible, that doesn't require total online hermitage, then they gladly embrace it. For example the way kids segregate their lives across social media services, using instagram for one social circle and snapchat for another. To one degree or another people are aware of big brother constantly looking over their shoulders and it makes them uncomfortable. They just don't have a better option. For now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:35PM
That's why they want what little "hate" there is gone too, it's easier to focus market to a bunch of placid people that it is to people busy infighting.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jdavidb on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:59AM
Trolling is, overtly, a political fight; but it has become the main tool of the alt-right
Hmm, no, that's just what that particular writer is concerned with. Trolling online crosses all social boundaries. I'm sure leftists think right-wingers do it more, and vice versa.
The real point of that paragraph is to troll the so-called "alt-right." Which I'm definitely not associated with, but I know a troll when I see it.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:07AM
> The real point of that paragraph is to troll the so-called "alt-right." Which I'm definitely not associated with, but I know a troll when I see it.
Since the audience for that article is decidedly not the alt-right, it would be pretty misdirected to try trolling them in the middle of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:19AM
Since the audience for that article is decidedly not the alt-right, it would be pretty misdirected to try trolling them in the middle of it.
Seems to be working here on SoylentNews, though. We already have cc calling SJW and AC saying "idiot". Besides, the ultimate feat of trolling is to troll a troll. You just have to lure them out long enough that they turn to stone.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:36AM
A real 'troll' is not playing the same game as you. They want to piss you off. Then when you are pissed off they will double down. It is what gets them off. Its what they like. Their actual views are not part of the discussion yours are.
This article is nothing more than trying to remove the same tools that the 'alt-right' took up to fight against their 'enemy' (the alt-left?).
Shouting someone down as racist is a good clue that you are dealing with someone who does not really want to change their view. They want to tell you their view and you just damn well better be happy with it. For anything else is 'trolling' and 'hate speech'.
This article seems like SJWs thinking they are the only ones who can be hateful and shout down others. It keys into their ego of 'they are right and everyone else is unenlightened'. The literally can not see the irony of what they are doing. They are ego blind to it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:42AM
Maybe it's time to substitute "alt-left" for "SJWs".
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:51AM
> the 'alt-right' took up to fight against their 'enemy' (the alt-left?).
The 'enemy' of the alt-right is everybody who is not the alt-right. The alt-right have at least as much animosity for the original right as they do for the left, they have at least two names for them - rinos and cucks. Its why Trump hired that breitbot and is working with Roger Ailes now that Ailes got booted from Fox -- Trump's looking past the election and hopes to cash in the alt-right by taking them from Fox news to a new Trump-Breitbart news network.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:58AM
> Trump's looking past the election and hopes to cash in the alt-right by taking them from Fox news to a new Trump-Breitbart news network.
That... seems extremely plausible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:48AM
A real 'troll' is not playing the same game as you. They want to piss you off. Then when you are pissed off they will double down. It is what gets them off. Its what they like.
Ah....
Their actual views are not part of the discussion yours are.
You get this part right, yet you felt the need to use the phrase highlighted above in bold.....
Oh, admittedly there are trolls out here who do get their jollies from trolling, However there are others who'll put up some outrageous trolling to lure their victims into spouting without filtering thereby revealing the egregiously asinine nonsense they truly believe..
I was told as a child, not to mock the afflicted..a fine platitude to follow until you wake up one day and find that a sizeable percentage of the populace around you are hanging on the every word of said afflicted...sure, don't mock the afflicted, the best policy is that you get the afflicted to publicly 'mock' themselves in the hope that the 'brighter' sections of the populace realise the true 'majesty' of those they're listening to, and wake up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:02PM
> into spouting without filtering thereby revealing the egregiously asinine nonsense they truly believe..
Submitted for ironic post of the year.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:38PM
However there are others who'll put up some outrageous trolling to lure their victims into spouting without filtering thereby revealing the egregiously asinine nonsense they truly believe..
Uh same thing. They are getting themselves 'off' by trying to get people to say things. My point was they are not playing the same game. Your views are up for review not theirs.
I was told as a child, not to mock the afflicted..a fine platitude to follow until you wake up one day and find that a sizeable percentage of the populace around you are hanging on the every word of said afflicted...
Is this your modus operandi of how you justify being a dick? That you are 'helping' others? Here is a life tip, people who are 'brutally honest' are more about the brutal than honesty. Trolling in many cases is a form of passive aggressive bullying.
and wake up.
Ah... you are the only one who is 'woke up' and spreading the good word huh? Being a jerk even when you are right is still being a jerk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:00AM
I could be somewhat sympathetic towards PC culture inasmuch of not wanting to cause inadvertent offense: thing go smoother with a degree of of harmony.
However, the agitation is coming primarily from the moral police, with the obvious backlash that follows.
And it really boils down to it is true, right, and good for a benevolent dictatorship as long as your intentions are good.
Except the nature of the web is inherently democratic. And in a democracy even the racist, sexist, homophobe lout gets a voice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:10AM
"Except the nature of the web is inherently democratic. And in a democracy even the racist, sexist, homophobe lout gets a voice."
In the end, all roads lead to the dark web.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:31AM
> Except the nature of the web is inherently democratic. And in a democracy even the racist, sexist, homophobe lout gets a voice.
It is democratic, it definitely isn't meritocratic. The ignorant asshole has a lot more time on their hands to fling shit than people with informed and thoughtful opinions have time to rebut it because it takes a lot of time and effort to develop anything more than the most superficial understanding of any issue worth understanding and then communicating that understanding is even more time consuming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:39AM
Pat yourself on the back a little more please.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:45AM
That's funny. You see bragging, I see an admission of trying and failing.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:17AM
Sorry. Different sections of the web have different political analogs, but postiings are more analogous to anarchy, or possibly nihilism, than to democracy. One could argue that it's most like the warlordism flavor of anarchy, but that's pushing the analogy to far.
You could plausibly argue that moderated discussion groups are similar to democracy...there are some similarities, including suppression of extreme dissidents. (In Athens people who were too unpopular were subject to being exiled for a decade.) Loosly moderated groups lean towards anarchy, tightly moderated groups lean towards dictatorship, etc.
What's changed is that the original internet users were intellectuals with geekish tendencies, but there are a lot of geeks who aren't intellectuals, and don't even LIKE complex ideas.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @07:15AM
..What's changed is that the original internet users were intellectuals with geekish tendencies, but there are a lot of geeks who aren't intellectuals, and don't even LIKE complex ideas.
Sorry, but you're looking at the history of the internet through seriously rose-tinted glasses there..
'original internet users were intellectuals with geekish tendencies' eh?
How I wish I still had some of the early Usenet printouts from '82-'83 to quote from to prove how wrong you are (the system I had access to only allowed one connection a week to download Usenet stuff, a copy was printed off and then passed around to people without terminal access). Geekish? yes... Intellectual? [oxforddictionaries.com]
The first time I fired up a copy of NCSA Mosaic (mid-late '93), I idly went round following as many links as I could find, a server a MIT had, as it's main page, a redneck 'in flagrante' with a pig..there was a lot of porn on early .edu sites... (and, ISTR, a lot of Garfield as well..what the esoteric connection betwixt these two facts is, I'd rather not know...)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:10AM
The Internet's personality has changed -- once it was like a geek with lofty ideals about the free flow of information. Now the web is a sociopath with Asperger's.
I don't know, but trolls have been around the internet since the age of BBS. The only difference now is that the internet caters to a large portion of users, hence the things we see now are just larger portions of niche parts of the internet.
But it doesn't matter. The internet is supposed to be a place where you could exchange ideas. The article just seems to be another push at "political correctness" in the internet.
an Internet-grown reactionary movement that works for men's rights and against immigration
Oh, it is.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by archfeld on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:13AM
I hear echoes of spastic webrage. Must everything have a label or a hashtag these days ? No one can just express an opinion, it has to fit under one of the socially acceptable labels.
#Hashtagsarefordouchebags
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:21PM
I don't like hashtags myself, but it looks like they might stick around a while. Language and culture evolves, emojis have become a big thing, and I think hashtags will be similar. They are a useful device for categorizing thoughts. There are other trends I don't like, but I'm trying to pull my annoyance back and realize it is better to go with the times instead of fight the inevitable. At least when the inevitable isn't a world ending trend!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:14AM
Let's not forget that there are plenty of companies and people with money and the incentive to either push a specific point of view, or disrupt discussions that might lead more people to form opinions that are against the interests of those moneyed people and companies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:19AM
"The couple quit their jobs and started Imzy, a cruelty-free Reddit. They believe that saving a community is nearly impossible once mores have been established, and that sites like Reddit are permanently lost to the trolls."
This hyperbole makes Reddit seem much worse than it actually is. A lot of the subreddits are successfully moderated to remove posts against the rules, just like many web forums that want on-topic posts and no flaming and drama. Various communities don't have much to do with each other. But of course they would exaggerate when they are getting TIME to plug their failed Reddit clone.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:34AM
I especially love this.
One of the biggest and most successful websites on the entire internet is "lost" because sometimes people are mean on it.
Meanwhile Imzy, which is used by pretty much nobody, is heralded.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:59AM
voat, basically the opposite of that site.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:27AM
The larger issue is that a small handful of media writers don't control the narrative anymore. So even if you're a millionaire NYT senior editor, you can't post an editorial filled with lies and half-truths about your favorite political candidate, because people that know the truth will appear in your comments and school you.
Granted, many of them are in fact trolls. But trolls are not THAT hard to get rid of. We of Soylent/Slashdot know this because we built a system that hides them most of the time. Anyone else could do something similar. But instead of doing that, they just get rid of all comments. Blaming trolls is an excuse for wanting complete control with no dissent.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:45AM
If you think for one second the SD system can not be manipulated you have not been paying attention. I have done it by accident a couple of times on this site with modding. Think if you had 20-30 people all getting mod points (and the SD system is fairly generous with points). You could easily change what the conversation is here on any thread.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @07:38AM
You could easily change what the conversation is here on any thread.
No, you couldn't. We wouldn't let you. I can't even hear you.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:58AM
Granted, many of them are in fact trolls. But trolls are not THAT hard to get rid of. We of Soylent/Slashdot know this because we built a system that hides them most of the time.
You are delusional. The only reason trolls are somewhat controlled here is because the community is tiny. Remember all that fucking around buzzard did with the mod system? It had zero effect because we simply didn't have any big problems to begin with. If soylent gets even close to mainstream popularity this place is going to be overflowing with shit and its going to take exponentially more effort to keep it from becoming a permanent cesspool. We don't even have meta-mod for chrissakes...
(Score: 2, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:05AM
Uzzard even says outright he's a troll himself. What the haemorrhaging purple fuck do you do when one of the staff is a troll?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:59AM
Leave? Start your own web forum. With blackjack... and hookers! [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:38AM
I don't think he's a troll. I think he genuinely believes his own bullshit. I think he even revels in it. He shows all the signs of a kid that's been beat too much and now knows no other way to express himself but with cruelty born of an ego-protecting belief in his superiority. He was the social misfit who, unable to understand why he was being picked on, decided that it was because his tormentors were jealous of his intelligence. His entire personality is now dependent on that illusion because he never developed the kind of healthy self-confidence that comes from a loving and supportive family. If that illusion ever cracks he's going to have the mother of all nervous break-downs. So he absolutely must defend his worldview with everything he's got because anyone who disagrees with him is not just challenging his beliefs, they are threatening his identity and thus are literally his personal enemies.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:47AM
Regardless of the genesis of his douchebaggery, I think the same thing. No one says the shit he says, with the frequency he says it, without believing it. I can feel the difference between a simple troll and a walking, talking dumpster fire of a human being. He got very, very upset when I suggested that he never completely came home from whatever war he says he's a veteran of, which may be where this lies.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:05PM
> he never completely came home from whatever war he says he's a veteran of
The great online troll wars of fidonet?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 21 2016, @02:16AM
He insists he's a veteran, and IIRC he let slip that he's in his early 40s. This would place him in Desert Storm. He also has this bizarre fantasy that being a vet means he's somehow superior to civilians who were never in a war somehow; it hasn't occurred to him that his previous status as cannon fodder may have something to do with, for example, lower intelligence than he thinks he has.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @02:28AM
S A V A G E
A
V
A
G
E
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @12:54PM
So even if you're a millionaire NYT senior editor, you can't post an editorial filled with lies and half-truths about your favorite political candidate, because people that know the truth will appear in your comments and school you.
I've been an active (registered) poster on several sites sponsored by old-school news organizations, and they all either shut down their forums or turned them over to FB. That was in spite of the substantial traffic attracted to the sites by those forums.
I really doubt that any of them did so because responsible posters refuted the work of their reporters or editorial writers. They did it because they were tired of devoting resources cleaning up after trolls, spam, haters, obvious jerks. And then some of the jerks would complain about censorship after their bullshit had been removed.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Sulla on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:57AM
Freedom to associate means freedom to not associate. If gays don't want to deal with stormfront then don't go bug people on stormfront. There appears to be less raiding going on than there used to be (but feel free to correct my record if I am mistaken). Maybe just respect the borders people have put up around themselves on the internet.
I presume what they are mad about is the assumption that freedom, expression, and exposure to other ideals would lead to some sort of liberal renaissance. When it wasn't going that way then you called the problem people bigots and stupid. When that didn't work you doubled down on trying to restrict expression of "close minded" ideals. The "hatred" that is being expressed is a direct response to the openess that is being expected and forced upon them.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:03AM
The most telling part is just looking at this thread.
There is indeed a culture of hate, but isn't quite as presented.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:23AM
Your entire post is non-sensical. By definition there is no way for 'SJWs' to "restrict expression" on sites like stormfront and other places with "borders around themselves."
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:41PM
Sure there is hatred and misinformed bullshit that sprays both directions, but you have it totally backwards with respect to "restricting". The pro-restriction of freedom people are primarily the ones pushing against gay marriage, abortion, pro voter ID laws, etc. These are real agendas looking to restrict real freedoms. What you have brought up as some form of oppression is actually the free exchange of ideas, and you apparently don't like that certain behaviors get called out for what they are, close minded bullshit.
To be fair, the same thing goes the other direction. Gun control advocates trying to undermine the 2nd amendment is the easiest target of anti-freedom. However, aside from the ironic transformation from open-minded thinkers to close minded idealists ("liberals" actively hating groups they don't like) the vast majority of close minded viewpoints come from the conservative base. There is a lot of culture-bound racism and religious extremism, and human history is on a general trend of minimizing such bullshit and promoting a :freedom for all: mentality.
To sum up, the stupid bigots are upset that they are being called out. At the same time, there are stupid liberal bigots. We should push back against all forms of stupid bigotry, and if you get too lost in your "us vs. them" mentality you will alienate the allies you might have in the "them" camp.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @08:35PM
gay marriage: this is your best example, and it's weak because the issue isn't what you get to do in private. You're demanding that other people accept the relationship, taking away their freedom to ignore it.
abortion: You're choosing sides between the mother's freedom and the child's freedom. Note that the child never had the choice to not be created, but usually the mother had an opportunity to be more careful and/or not be changing her mind. Thus the mother already starts with more freedom, and you want to take away 100% of the child's freedom to give the mother more.
pro voter ID laws: the freedom to... commit fraud? to vote 42 times? What about the freedom to be governed by somebody who is at least legitimately elected?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 21 2016, @02:49AM
Wow, sounds like seeing things you don't like....offends you. Uh oh. Better do something about that right quick, eh?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Touché) by shortscreen on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:15AM
Someone who has redefined "troll" to mean "anyone who says something I don't like" has no business mentioning the Good Old Days of the internet.
However, it's true that back then, the architects of the network failed to adequately account for political correctness. They should have reserved a field in the header for the packet's identity. I'm not an expert, so I can't say how many bits would be necessary to specify one's gender, religion, victim status, and ethnic attributes. (I imagine it would be quite a few.) If only we had this information, then we could ensure that our packets were diverse, that all voices would be heard, and that trolls could be censored. That's what the free flow of information is all about.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:53PM
Someone who has redefined "troll" to mean "anyone who says something I don't like" has no business mentioning the Good Old Days of the internet.
I somewhat agree, though I think you're exaggerating a bit when you conclude the article equates "troll" = "anyone who says something I don't like." The article clearly gives plenty of examples, the vast majority of which are hate-filled posts or actions aimed at insulting rather than having civil dialogue.
More accurately, I think we're conflating a whole bunch of different behaviors under the single word "troll." Here there are probably at least 4 categories:
1. Actual trolls, i.e., people who tend to derail discussion by posting things that are off-topic and often inflammatory (and frequently, though not exclusively, insincere -- just trying to provoke argument for the sake of fun)
2. Flamers, i.e., people who insult other people or ideas with unnecessarily inflammatory rhetoric rather than reasoned discourse
3. Keyboard warriors, i.e., people who participate in a somewhat reasoned debate but become more aggressive than they would in normal life, sometimes moving from "civil" to "aggressive and not polite," though not rising to the level of the flamer
4. Normal people with other opinions, i.e., folks who just disagree but without the aggressive or inflammatory rhetoric
Your implication is that the article is conflating all of these. And perhaps it is in some cases. But I think the focus of the article is just about conflating (1) and (2), or really just talking about (2) while calling them (1). The article probably would include (3) in this discussion too, but I don't get a sense that they are really going after (4). If anything, the most problematic distinction is between (3) and (4), because different people tend to perceive aggressive argumentation differently. Most civil folks can clearly call out cases of (2) for what they are. But one person's rational, but thorough, disagreement could be perceived by another as overly aggressive.
Anyhow, rather than seeing this as some sort of war between "trolls" (a misnomer used by their opponents) vs. "SJWs" (a stereotype and misnomer used by their opponents) or whatever, maybe we can just ratchet down the rhetoric on both sides a bit? Just a thought.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:35AM
The Internet is losing to a culture of goddamn mealy-mouthed, pansy-assed, whiny-bitching, thin-skinned, perpetually-offended, defective-in-the-head, always-gotta-have-a-dumbass-cause-to-fight-for, dipshit SJWs. SJWs are nothing but a random hodge-podge of defective DNA, that shouldn't exist. Hope I didn't offend anyone.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:51AM
The irony is you could leave out the word "SJWs" and that would be 100% self-descriptive.
Your post is itself a pansy-assed, bitchy, thin-skinned, dumbass-cause, dipshit whine from someone who is obviously perpetually offended.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @07:21AM
The Internet is losing to a culture of goddamn mealy-mouthed, pansy-assed, whiny-bitching, thin-skinned, perpetually-offended, defective-in-the-head, always-gotta-have-a-dumbass-cause-to-fight-for, dipshit Anonymous Coward Libertarians, Racists, Misogynists, Sad Puppies, Gamergaters, Brietbartians, and Milo. Gotta have Milo.
(Wait, didn't someone just say this could be done? Is it a violation of right-wing nut-job copywrite?)
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday August 20 2016, @08:32AM
This is pretty much the same effect as when a tourist takes a wrong turn and are shocked at the state of their destination once outside the potyomkin village.
Seriously, internet has always have had hatred and raw arguments - but it worked as long as most people was willing to focus more on the message and less on the messenger (sans blocking filters).
This is however the opposite of how society works at large - which means people ended up on "disneyweb" and now are shocked whenever the "deep web" (how I hate that phrase for what internet is and mainly used to be) shows its head.
Then again - the immense mental filtering of information backed with a hefty technological filtering that is needed to retain a shred of sanity have a learning threshold beyond what most people are willing to spend. So they just end up spending more time being disgusted and complaining (both with smaller thresholds) than learning how to minimize the noise they notice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @09:57AM
Or they could just cut to the chase, say "hey, we're better than you, and were taking over", and at least have the honesty to cop to the classism ("the web was better before these infidels were allowed in").
I'm galled that they can on one hand want to increase "diversity" on the web while ignoring how insular it was way back when (no poor people).
(Score: 1) by an Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @12:10PM
South Park already covered this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv2ZMN3T18E [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:36PM
Joel Stein's views [rense.com]
Joel Stein [wikipedia.org]
He wants brotherly love so that globalization can take over quickly. He wants alternative views to be crushed. He wants nationalism to be crushed. He 'hates' nationalism and calls them internet trolls. Do not let these shits take over. You did not vote for him (or any other media or hollywood jew). He voted himself to his current position.
These jews also ask for real names when people sign up to an internet forum. Those internet forums are easy to setup and cost little. To better control dissent, they shutdown comments on websites and force the use of their jewish facebook.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @07:22PM
It says everything that you have to cite the deliberately misleading article from totally-not-racist rense.com rather than go to the original source where its clear that (a) Stein is being deliberately humorous and (b) distinguishes between the fact that hollywood literally has a bunch of jews and that hollywood is not some religious/ethnic organization distinct from the rest of america.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/dec/19/opinion/oe-stein19 [latimes.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @07:46PM
The jew is quick to respond.
Takes selective parts of a text and replies to that, arguing furiously.
Ignores facts and takes attention away from the dangerous jew and his propaganda.
For the info: It matters who runs Hollywood and it matters who runs the media. No one voted for them and they are inside your bedroom. How did it come to this? jews in your bedroom, jews running your favourite websites, jews creating and manipulating views, jews running your life, .... !!!??!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @11:18PM
> The jew is quick to respond.
Lol, I'm muslim you dickless prick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @05:16AM
Is there a difference with regards to the subject matter here?