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SoylentNews is people

posted by cmn32480 on Sunday September 20 2015, @05:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-percentage-of-the-population-is-employed-by-the-government? dept.

Fresh from the Gallup poll-monkeys:

Three in four Americans (75%) last year perceived corruption as widespread in the country's government. This figure is up from two in three in 2007 (67%) and 2009 (66%).

While the numbers have fluctuated slightly since 2007, the trend has been largely stable since 2010. However, the percentage of U.S. adults who see corruption as pervasive has never been less than a majority in the past decade, which has had no shortage of controversies from the U.S. Justice Department's firings of U.S. attorneys to the IRS scandal.

These figures are higher than some might expect, and while the lack of improvement is somewhat disconcerting, the positive takeaway is that Americans still feel fairly free to criticize their government. This is not the case in some parts of the world. Questions about corruption are so sensitive in some countries that even if Gallup is allowed to ask them, the results may reflect residents' reluctance to disparage their government. This is particularly true in countries where media freedom is restricted.

So, apparently a quarter of the nation have not brains but moist cow pies in place of them. Honestly, I figured it would be a higher percent but apparently the corruption is bad enough to penetrate even a cow pie if it's not also moist.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by dcollins on Sunday September 20 2015, @06:43PM

    by dcollins (1168) on Sunday September 20 2015, @06:43PM (#238965) Homepage

    "So, apparently a quarter of the nation have not brains but moist cow pies in place of them. Honestly, I figured it would be a higher percent but apparently the corruption is bad enough to penetrate even a cow pie if it's not also moist."

    Just rename the site, shut the lights off, and be done with it already.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by dcollins on Sunday September 20 2015, @07:23PM

    by dcollins (1168) on Sunday September 20 2015, @07:23PM (#238983) Homepage

    One follow-up since I just deleted SoylentNews from my bookmarks: this is how forums go to hell, by allowing one busybody loudmouth to take over.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @08:21PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @08:21PM (#239019)

      I just deleted SoylentNews from my bookmarks

      That is a good idea. Beta is dead. Dice is selling. Runaway, Buzzard, MDC, that Cl0o guy, jmoris and a few others are sort of in their own echo chamber screaming at each other or ranting about things that don't exist.

      Time to get back to reality gentlemen.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @06:19AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @06:19AM (#239236)

        Runaway, Buzzard, MDC, that Cl0o guy, jmoris and a few others are sort of in their own echo chamber screaming at each other or ranting about things that don't exist.

        exactly what has driven me away. i don't want any echo chamber, nor do i want to watch irrational nubjobs screaming "SJW!" every other word while their persecution complexes take over their lives and the last traces of their rationality.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by mrcoolbp on Sunday September 20 2015, @08:27PM

      by mrcoolbp (68) <mrcoolbp@soylentnews.org> on Sunday September 20 2015, @08:27PM (#239022) Homepage

      He's not taking over, there's just very few people submitting stories. Editors run whatever we can find. I'd rather run these half-serious, sarcastic, pseudo-satire tidbits then nothing at all. If we had better/more submissions, ole' Buzz probably would go back to coding for us and stop submitting these fun little romps.

      --
      (Score:1^½, Radical)
      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @09:08PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @09:08PM (#239043)

        these fun little romps

        Spin all you wish with your friend, you just gave away your bias towards these sorts of submissions. Why should any of us believe ours will be accepted when all you publish are these hateful pieces and call them fun?

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday September 20 2015, @10:55PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday September 20 2015, @10:55PM (#239106) Homepage Journal

          They publish at least 10 of gewg_'s libtard drek stories for every one of mine and you don't hear me bitching. What you're forgetting is "SoylentNews is People". It is not "SoylentNews is People You Agree With". Think of it as good practice for living in the real world.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @11:28PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @11:28PM (#239115)

            They publish at least 10 of gewg_'s libtard drek stories for every one of mine and you don't hear me bitching.

            Now, now, Buzzy, submitting dreck like this is bitching, just in that passive-micro-agressive fashion that you just micro-agressively posted a day or so ago. Oh, for the reputation of SoylentNews, please try to spell "dreck" correctly. Just think of "Shrek."

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 21 2015, @12:27AM

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday September 21 2015, @12:27AM (#239137) Homepage Journal

              Vile laptop keyboard after a ten hour drive. Typos will happen.

              As for micro-aggressions, that's just another word for the recipient being a whiny little bitch. Rest assured, when I'm feeling aggressive, you'll know it.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @06:21AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @06:21AM (#239238)

                Rest assured, when I'm feeling aggressive, you'll know it.

                Oooh, we got us an internet tough guy here! I'm shaking in my keyboard!

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by inyoutees on Sunday September 20 2015, @11:48PM

            by inyoutees (1320) on Sunday September 20 2015, @11:48PM (#239122)

            Luckily Soylent News is People that revert back to being petty, political, bickering people. All sides are at fault, and I'm finished with Soylent News.

            Thanks for the effort, guys, but the experiment failed.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 21 2015, @12:28AM

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday September 21 2015, @12:28AM (#239139) Homepage Journal

              Well, yeah, that's people for you. You expected something else out of people?

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @01:53AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @01:53AM (#239168)

                > Well, yeah, that's people for you. You expected something else out of people?

                He said proudly.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @02:13AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @02:13AM (#239172)

                  Well, yeah, that's people for you. You expected something else out of people?

                  He said proudly.

                  Um, slightly disturbing, but do you know what buzzards usually get out of people?

            • (Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday September 26 2015, @06:06AM

              by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 26 2015, @06:06AM (#241819) Journal

              Yeah, that's what it's like to be human. Doesn't matter if you're an astrophysicist or a farmer, engineer or coder, disabled or out of work, nothing in particular or easily defineable, or any of the rest we have here (the “human” probably includes the bots too). Not to pick on you but you're also like that —as your comment illustrates— even when it disgusts you. Same as me and everyone else.

              And while you might not read any of this I'm going to write it anyway. Maybe you'll see it if you change your mind or maybe you'll come back later for whatever reason.

              But if you do: what is/was the experiment supposed to be?

              And why are you expecting something else than people? The main point of SN (and the precursor site and the sister sites and places) is people and people talking/informing/discussing/debating/arguing/joking/disagreeing/baiting/quarreling/trolling.

              That and the fact that such things can easily make you think (and maybe even fresh thoughts or new takes on your own thoughts, confronting yourself) is what gives it value, at least in my opinion. This, simple as it might be, is the “hefty stuff”/‘real internet’ from the “old” days and why things/places like the EFF/FSF/GNU/Byte/Wired/Slashdot were correctly (no matter how funny/humorous it may seem) mentioned and interconnected for the purpose of expounding on the leading cultures and motivations of the early internet in part of the curriculum of a Bachelors degree I almost took a decade ago (phew, what a sentence Σ:3 ).

              SN is carrying that torch and exploring that space.

              To me Dice/Slashdot is dead and SN has gone further than a full replacement of Slashdot and actually improved lots of things noticeable directly as a commenter/reader like the various moderation changes (and avoiding the blind alley of meta-moderation). Changes that actually made things better like rewarding “Funny” and solving “Spam” and incredibly even moving through the old code and shaping it up and modernizing it so that eventually if in ten or twenty or fifty or a hundred years or tomorrow if so be it when someone feels a need for a place where people can talk but are dissatisfied then they can actually go fork it just the same way SN did (only with a lot less work).

              Sorry, and I say this as someone who isn't as active here as I wish I could have been but I'll continue to think SN is amazing.

              --
              Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
        • (Score: 2) by mrcoolbp on Monday September 21 2015, @04:13AM

          by mrcoolbp (68) <mrcoolbp@soylentnews.org> on Monday September 21 2015, @04:13AM (#239199) Homepage

          I don't see this as hateful. And yes everyone is inherently biased, I acknowledge that and when I wear my editor hat I try to be aware of bias (which I haven't needed to do thankfully).

          As for getting your stories accepted, if it follows the submission guidelines pretty much everything gets submitted, which tells me you probably aren't trying very hard at submissions (if at all)

          --
          (Score:1^½, Radical)
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @09:13PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @09:13PM (#239045)

        > He's not taking over, there's just very few people submitting stories.

        This weekend may well have been the highest volume weekend for story submissions in the history of soylent.
            (1) Number of stories on front page less than 24 hours old: 14
            (2) Number of stories approved and pending: 10
            (3) Number of stories in queue that are less than 48 hours old: 6

        And that is on a sunday night. That's gotta be a record.

        Like about 50% of buzzy's submissions, this one was about him stroking his ego about how smart he is and how dumb everybody else is. And I mean that literally, he actually used the first person in the submission.

        This story and the "he didn't invent a clock so he wanted to be arrested" story are some of the lowest quality stories to be published here in a long time and this time the "submit better stories yourself" excuse doesn't cut it since the queue's been so full.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @10:47PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @10:47PM (#239101)

          ...and this time the "submit better stories yourself" excuse doesn't cut it since the queue's been so full.

          When you do submit your own stories, you get the angry little trolls come up and take over the forum.

          I think the OP was right: this place is done. It's owned by angry little trolls and special snowflakes who know the real truth but don't get enough attention from the people who ought to be learning what their opinions should be.

          This crap is why I never signed up for an account; I was waiting to see if it would last or turn into the biggest dominant bitch contest. Congratulations to you bitches, you've made this place worse than Slashdot.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday September 20 2015, @10:06PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Sunday September 20 2015, @10:06PM (#239074) Journal

      I don't recall your ever submitting or posting before, dcollins. Pity, because having more voices improves discourse, in my opinion. Double pity that the one time you've posted, it was to slag off the community and suggest everyone else do likewise.

      Fare well out there.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @12:15AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @12:15AM (#239131)

        You are part of the problem too. You are just more subtle, utilizing passive-agressive tactics and less "Donald Trump" about it like buzzard does. But you still flood conversations you want to. Hell, you just were in the very post I am replying to. So much for improving discourse.

        Look, if you care about the soylent community. You could at least pretend to feel bad when you and your ilk drive people away instead of this passive-agressive nonsense about dcollins never posting. He has done so 147 times [soylentnews.org] as of this writing. If you don't care about your own intergrity, if you don't care about respect, at least you should be able to do is have some dignity by clicking on a damned link to see if you are spurting bullshit or your own hateful lies.

        It just blows my mind how self-destructive you, buzzard, and the rest of the admins of this place are. Shame and guilt are the appropriate response you should be feeling about yourself not "pity" and the ego to inject yet more lies about the people you depend on.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @01:29AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @01:29AM (#239161)

          So you encountered some comments you didn't like and some summaries that had some text you disagreed with. I don't see why that would chase you people away from an entire website. What chased me away from Slashdot was the Beta nonsense, the near-constant Slashvertising, and the general unwillingness of the operators of the site to listen to its users even slightly. SN is better in all regards, or at least to me.

          Some people here seem kind of oversensitive.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @06:53AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @06:53AM (#239246)

            What chased me away from Slashdot was the Beta nonsense, the near-constant Slashvertising, and the general unwillingness of the operators of the site to listen to its users even slightly.

            So you encountered some comments you didn't like and some summaries that had some text you disagreed with. I don't see why that would chase you people away from an entire website.

            Some people here seem kind of oversensitive.

            Indeed.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @09:46AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @09:46AM (#239281)

              How did I know that was going to happen? Sadly for you, I clearly differentiated between leaving a site because of some summaries you didn't like and what happened at Slashdot.

      • (Score: 2) by dcollins on Monday September 21 2015, @12:44AM

        by dcollins (1168) on Monday September 21 2015, @12:44AM (#239141) Homepage

        FYI, I have 147 posts and maximum possible Karma. Thanks for your wishes, likewise.

    • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday September 21 2015, @03:36AM

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Monday September 21 2015, @03:36AM (#239192) Journal

      Admittedly, it's not much in the way of news that the US has a fair amount of corruption, and that power corrupts. I don't know good answers to that very difficult problem, but running away surely isn't one. However I agree that saying many people have moist cow pies in place of brains is not only rude, but useless. Puts the author in the stellar company of Mitt "47% of Americans are moochers" Romney.

      I wish our fellow citizens were less tolerant of corruption, but so many are apathetic, weak thinkers, and easily distracted, confused, and scared. Distraction is a major problem. It's hard to work up the energy to care much about corrupt senators protected by bought off police and judges when you have children to raise, bills to pay, cars and a home to maintain, and you're perpetually having to worry about losing your job because there is no job security any more.