Ha. I just rewatched Heathers this week. I think I first heard/saw it on MTV's Liquid Television.

I mention the book because it is a candid and compelling account of his journey that was manifest in contradiction but was noble. Malcolm left the world a better place. His views on racial equality evolve, as do his views on gender. The ground moves beneath his feet. His views of women and his participation in the Nation of Islam were both progressive and regressive. Malcolm was at times right and wrong and neither and both, but he had a cause. You cannot define his work by a moment, or a measure. However, if you take him as the sum of his efforts, there is no question that we are better off for him. It is a very human story. I think everyone should read it.

I agree with the pace of progress. Those repressions are clear.

As an aside, some actualization is complicated, and it becomes difficult to get a social consensus on dignity, especially in matters of religion. I think polygamy is an interesting example. It is illegal, and most Mormons no longer practice it. But is that right? Should consenting adults be able to choose to live in polyamorous union? I think so. But maybe not if as children they have been subjected to religious indoctrination of a patriarchal-style polygamy? But why? Is that denying religious identity and dignity? Are agnostics and atheists in the clear for patriarchal-style polygamy? Should we choose? I don’t want to repress adults that want a certain kind of family, but at the same time, I am worried about why they want it. For some groups, it is not clear when respect and dignity are met for all. Is there a battle won when one man and three women are married? Some people want that. I don’t know. On some matters of repression there should be no debate. But it doesn't mean that all matters repression can be settled by applying a vision of respect and dignity. In some subjective value judgments get entangled.

I think you misread my meaning. I wasn't moaning about either side or belittling them. I think they are both legit and important. I often see opposing forces as a good thing. It's how nature is stable. I'm glad to see people less repressed, but fearful of the means leading to other ends.

I do think that if your side fully won, there would be repression and fear, but it would look different. That said, I don't take issue with your conviction, I don't think it isn't legitimate.

Curious, have you read the autobiography of Malcolm X?

I'm an old BBS'r as well. I agree that online sensitivity seems to have gone up. Perhaps it is in part because the digital aspect of identity is greater for people born in it? I'm not sure, but my guess isn't that we older folk have thicker skin, but are just less invested in that arena.

I'm skeptical of actual differences in generations. IMO the snowflake hypothesis is a perception based on differing values, not that younger folk are any more or less tough.

I'm not saying that's what you are saying. Just typing as I think...

The thermometer idea is interesting. I do believe how we signal appreciation or structure threads, strongly influences the type of interactions we have. I'm open to experimenting with it. However, I do not see my agreement with a comment as a positive thing. Ideally, I would like to be able to indicate that I find the comment to be stimulating and constructive without implying whether I agree or not. I wish shares worked this way, but I think they do not.

Perhaps, but I do have work to do. :)

It seems to me there are two slopes here with differing degrees of fear of each.

I fear them both, and I hope this battle is never fully won.

Good news. Glad to hear it! I am in the lab tomorrow. I believe I can bring a grape.

I think we can all agree that Hubski needs some fixing. Please think on that.

My painting needs some fixing. I slapped those clouds on there to give me no choice but to get bold.

I am building a custom 1/10 rc buggy and loving it.

I agree with you except for the groove. I'm going to post about it.

Buy a burner.

Thanks, flag. Your critiques and feelings are shared by many of us. I've had related discussions with a few of you, and I harbor some of these feelings as well.

it is partially the medium's fault. interesting people just don't post on forums much. i figure that's what happened to most of the best users here; they're interesting, and therefore busy. there was a guy who posted a lot of supreme court stuff that was great. was it francopoli who had the astronomy updates? etc.

I'm not sure the 'interesting people part' is true. We've had a lot of interesting people posting in the past, and interesting people still post here, and more so on some other forums. I do agree that many of the OG's have gotten busy and have experienced life changes. thenewgreen insomniasexx and myself used to be active community managers. Each day, at least one of us was adding something intended to be positive. Often we did multiple times per day. We also took opportunities to reward the best kind of discussions by joining in. Sometimes we tried to diffuse conversations gone wrong. Oddly, we three are now all founders of venture-backed startups, which is extremely consuming, if not ridiculous. I suspect that our efforts had a positive impact, and that the lack of them has had the opposite, over the long term. Furthermore, I admit that my reduced presence and awareness meant that my contributions in the last few years haven't always been the best example on the site.

Our anti-spam measures have slowed the flow of new blood to the site, which has also contributed to things becoming stale. That has to change.

others were driven away by a few loud users who dislike people having opinions they don't agree with. some even in this thread. but that's a separate problem and certainly not unique to hubski. (although its small size makes it uniquely vulnerable.)

I have been told this by a few people, some that have left. Those instances really make me sad. I probably don't need to say it, but I can't point to a current Hubskier that I wish would leave us. Some of my favorite people on here have views that I cannot fathom. The better angels of our nature are absent in some threads on this site, and that some patterns of behavior and interactions are obvious and in the balance, negative. Different personalities clash by their nature, and on top of that, most of us seem to oscillate between degrees of a willingness to let go, and fed up. Whenever Hubskiers meet in meatspace, this doesn't appear to happen at all, but likely we haven't met for long enough. We can never engineer this away, but I am sure we can still improve upon what we have.

I talked to _refugee_ about an idea I had that would be sure to be controversial: It was that you could not reply to a post or comment that you did not share. In simplest terms, if it is not something worthy of sharing, then it is not something worth continued discussion.

a couple of years ago i unfollowed all users and began screwing around with tag/domain-based use of the site to see if i could land in a bucket i find more useful, but the signal to noise ratio is still not good enough for me to justify spending much time here. (i also found that this wasn't too easy to do... domains, sure, but what's the point, i can just rss; tags, often too scattered.)

The user base just isn't big enough for that kind of stuff. There is basically one Hubski.

for one thing, the norm in the early days of hubski was to post the absolute most interesting stuff you found, and the average poster's age was higher than most of the internet, which meant stuff off the beaten internet path got posted. now when i skim the home page from time to time, there's a higher number of "news item" posts, i.e. ones where nothing beyond the headline is particularly relevant. there's no point clicking on those -- unlikely to breed good discussion, and no additional info in the article. that's just a reddit post. scroll and move on. (this, at least, includes a degree of personal preference: there are a lot of subjects i find less interesting than i did in 2017 or 2014, and if those are still found interesting by the majority of the userbase, then the site is serving its purpose. but #goodlongread used to be one of the most popular tags, and i don't think it is anymore.)

This is very true. I have been thinking that the post submission page could stand to have some reminders/guidelines. It's not terribly interesting seeing a feed of mainstream news items that either challenge or support my view of the world, particularly my political one. That's not to say that these aren't interesting subjects worthy of discussion, but I'd find more value in Hubski if it were the minority of content, not the majority. I am guilty of contributing to this decline.

I have some thoughts on how to encourage a less newsy balance. In fact, I have a number of thoughts on how we can make a course correction. Rather than bury it in this thread, I will make a post in the next couple of days, and invite discussion.

Some of us will leave Hubski. Some of us will revisit from time to time. However, we all have learned from our time here, and if we can improve upon in for those to come, then that'd be a good thing. I am not going anywhere. When I started Hubski, I knew that it would evolve, but that its goal wouldn't. I also knew that this was going to be a lifelong project.

Thanks for your thoughts.

The ugly thing is that at the core of it, being "cancelled" is just other people not liking you.

To the extent it’s that, I am all for canceling. However it’s been my experience that when a group of people are right about something and are taking action, you find that only about 20% can appropriately communicate that message, and the other 80% are finding their conviction from their peers.

When this dynamic gets coopted by evil people, very bad things happen. I know people that suffered in the Cultural Revolution. Part of the fear is legitimately rooted in this. Part is just assholes afraid of being held accountable.

Also, I have personal issues such as the nice weekend with my aunt and uncle who are Trumpers. We discussed politics, but it never got ugly, and I love them. I’m all about canceling Trump, but I can love his followers. I need to be careful not to be a hypocrite.

I totally agree about free speech in the private sphere. It’s also why I think the Constitutional right is so precious.

Did we cancel Kanye? Technically, I think you need to know you are cancelled to be cancelled.

Also, I'm not into canceling people. I do not recognize the court's jurisdiction.

Thank you. I have thoughts on that, and will share them tomorrow.

I’d love for you to expand on this, and for no one else to join the thread, if possible, if you’d humor me.

I think I am out of touch with so much that happens here. I think I have a notion of where your critique comes from, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I was dead wrong.

I’m curious as to what you mean.

As for me, I think canceling can come from good and bad places. Every situation deserves its own assessment. As a trend, I think canceling is mob-like and can be dangerous and dumb.