a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  1699 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Labor Econ Versus the World

hubski: "go elsewhere if you want to talk about ideas"





kleinbl00  ·  1699 days ago  ·  link  ·  

hubski: "even bad ideas generate voluminous conversation"

kingmudsy  ·  1699 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think you need thick skin to post an article here, because people who disagree with you will usually write you an essay about why. I don't think that culture can easily change, and it's sort of who we are at this point.

Personally, I enjoy reading the lengthy comments people leave. I'm wondering if you can expand on yours a bit, though? I'm curious what you have to say about the conversations here, and what you'd like to be different about Hubski's culture!

user-inactivated  ·  1699 days ago  ·  link  ·  

too late - i've long since gone elsewhere

user-inactivated  ·  1699 days ago  ·  link  ·  
This comment has been deleted.
kingmudsy  ·  1699 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That's been my main gripe with the site since I joined years ago, and since coming back from hiatus: The general attitude of conversations is often "I disagree with you, and you're dumb for thinking this way."

The empirical content of these disagreements is always fantastic (which is a big part of why I enjoy the site), but it's usually interspersed with personal insults and other immature comments. We also have the tendency to submit a singular vision of what's true, which is oftentimes epistemologically dishonest.

It sucks that even writing a comment like this, I'm trying to word things very carefully because I know I'm inviting criticism by having an opinion. It sucks that people leave this site forever because they don't have the energy to deal with a disagreement that's full of language designed to humiliate them.

wasoxygen  ·  1699 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    It sucks that people leave this site forever

There's an orthodoxy of approved ideas that you can express without much risk of the shouting and name-calling. The users I've noticed quitting are the ones who challenge the "bubble" with contrary ideas.

I value civility for its own sake, but also because I want to hear the strongest and best-composed version of the other side's argument, not one distorted by emotion. Intentional or not, vulgarity and aggression are effective techniques to "win" a disagreement by raising the cost to the other side to present their case.

kingmudsy  ·  1699 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    The users I've noticed quitting are the ones who challenge the "bubble" with contrary ideas.

I agree with this, and I think it's especially pronounced in the short term. I also feel that Hubski's daily userbase has shrunk in the last four years. I don't know why (because I wasn't here), but the site has definitely changed from when I was active as a new college student.

I'm left wondering how the general tone of discourse has affected user retention over the long term. It doesn't feel like people got tired of it, but we make the site an intimidating place with the takedowns we're talking about, and how Pubski is both the only way for to talk to the community, and scary when you don't know anyone.

Is that any one person's fault? No. Are we okay with that? I don't know. It seems that way to me. Should we do something about it? Again, no clue. Curious what your thoughts are.

kleinbl00  ·  1698 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  

I've been thinking about this comment for a while. From my perspective, Hubski has become a lot more polite than it used to be. "I disagree with you, and you're dumb for thinking this way" is an appropriate response when your counterpart is espousing ideas that are demonstrably wrong.

But then, I've been having online debates since before you were born. My first "internet" experience was using an acoustic coupler to dial into the University of Colorado to play a MUD on a terminal whose only output was a daisywheel printer. I missed being OG "eternal September" by a year. And what I've noticed over the past ten years (but not the past twenty, and not the past 25) is the retreat of anyone over 30. It didn't used to be this way. It started when GenZ hit college.

Because here's the thing: you can be wrong. People are wrong all the time. And when they're wrong, and they're asking questions as to whether they're right, they need to be told they're wrong. When they're holding opinions that you judge to be harmful and toxic, they need to be told they're wrong in such a way that the toxicity is front-and-center. This has been accepted social conversational doctrine my entire life; it was the basis of every single-camera and multi-camera sitcom going back to I Love Lucy. It's the core of Nancy Reagan's Just Say No. It's the basis of Dennis Leary's career.

But a funny thing happened about 2010, 2011. Conversations on the internet started demanding that both sides are always right, and that if one side has absolutely all the facts, they still need to politely assert that they don't have all the facts lest the other side stop listening because their feelings are hurt.

I didn't really grasp why until I'd been back to college, until I'd seen my kid start school, until I had reason to explore the pedagogy of education in these United States and what I discovered is that a doctrine of exploration and self-education has, in most school districts, become an insistence that no one is ever wrong. Whatever ideas you may have, they automatically have merit through the simple act of holding them and if those ideas are to be discounted, they must be discounted by the holder, on the holder's terms, for reasons that are valid only to the holder.

For my part, I came to Hollywood in 2007 and was immediately sheep-dipped into a culture where the people who are wrong are wrong immediately, they are wrong incontrovertibly and the sooner we can get things right the less money we lose because there are 28 people and millions of dollars of gear waiting on your mistake. You can get over your butt-hurt later because we've got shit to do. Your assessment of the world is not the core issue here, it's the broader context and your place in it is entirely optional because there's a long line of people behind you who will do your job without getting wrapped up in whether or not you were right to have your feelings hurt. Likewise, my wife's profession involves life safety and regular discussions with emergency rooms and aid cars. She is surrounded by students who have opinions, who have their knowledge, who have their confidence, and are not going to be walked through whether or not an iron level of 18 should go to the ER "in their opinion" because somebody could die and somebody else has the expertise to answer the question.

And you can't fight the tape. The world is definitely heading towards safe spaces where we never confront each other over our racism or ageism or anything else because that's not the sort of shit you do face-to-face and person-to-person, you see, if you want to strike a blow for social justice you do it by ratioing Twitter threads. You do it by regramming. You do it through in-jokes and memes that Vice will wring their hands over obliquely. Actually telling someone they're wrong? In a conversation? Perish the thought.

So those of us who remember? Those of us who know? We're left with a choice - figure out how to tell you that you're wrong in such a way that your feelings aren't hurt... or find something better to do.

One of the things that bugged the shit out of me when I was your age was people who said "when I was your age." What bugged me more was people who would say "you'll understand when you're older." It's intellectually lazy. It's an appeal to authority based on nothing more than hang time. It's "respect your elders" without any underpinning justification. But it's also a cry for help - it's a statement that "I don't know why you're wrong, but you're wrong, fucking listen to me because I've been around the sun a couple dozen more times than you have and that ought to count for something."

I maintained then and I maintain now that an idea needs to stand on its own, regardless of who puts it forth. What I've learned by growing gray hairs, however, is that it's an instinct borne of the knowledge that simply being ass-in-seat for longer will teach you something, even if you can't elucidate it, even if you can't share it, even if you can't describe it. "Respect your elders" is ultimately based on the same sentiment as Neils Bohr's quote "an expert is someone who has made every mistake there is to make in a narrow field." You might not be able to explain why your opinion is right and their opinion is wrong based solely on the fact that they're half your age, but prejudicially speaking, at least, you've had longer to change your mind.

A lot of people don't have the patience to constantly reframe an argument in their opponent's terms. "You're right, but also impolite about it" has become the most common refrain I've seen over the past ten years whereas the 20 years before that were full of "you're full of shit, let me count the ways, asshole." I'll take the profanity, thanks; it doesn't immediately shift the conversation to whether or not the information was presented in the proper tone of voice.

Most people? Given the choice between having a conversation at a tenor that satisfies the other person no matter how wrong they are or silence? They'll pick silence. And that's how a whole new generation of kids are growing up with the idea that unions are useless, that public school doesn't matter, that feminism is irrelevant, that you're entitled to believe measles is better than measles vaccines. Because those of us who can argue the opposite have given up the effort of explaining it to you because you reject that there can be one right answer. Have given up on defending our certainty of knowledge because we've had this fight since you were born. Have given up on educating the youth because the youth don't want to be educated, they want to be patronized.

Because if the only people you're willing to listen to are the ones who are speaking in your approved tone of voice, the only people you'll hear are the ones you agree with.

user-inactivated  ·  1698 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  

    But then, I've been having online debates since before you were born. My first "internet" experience was using an acoustic coupler to dial into the University of Colorado to play a MUD on a terminal whose only output was a daisywheel printer. I missed being OG "eternal September" by a year. And what I've noticed over the past ten years (but not the past twenty, and not the past 25) is the retreat of anyone over 30. It didn't used to be this way. It started when GenZ hit college.

    So those of us who remember? Those of us who know? We're left with a choice - figure out how to tell you that you're wrong in such a way that your feelings aren't hurt... or find something better to do.

Thank you for putting into words what I have been going through personally in regards to the internet over the last at least 5-6 years. Funny, now that you mention it, where are all the old farts on the internet? Where did they go? How is it that a whole class of people can just stop interacting and nobody noticed? Suddenly, I don't feel like the grumpy old codger of an asshole I have been dealing with as I walk away from the toxic swirling drain of garbage that is the Internet. Nothing in the online space is really worth the bullshit any more and I have better stuff to do that is actually worth spending my time on.

Your words have helped me and for that I will be eternally grateful. Be well.

user-inactivated  ·  1698 days ago  ·  link  ·  

This was francopoli.

kleinbl00  ·  1698 days ago  ·  link  ·  

ghostoffuffle  ·  1697 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Ah, damn.

user-inactivated  ·  1697 days ago  ·  link  ·  
This comment has been deleted.
OftenBen  ·  1695 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Miss you, just so you know.

Hope you are well, wherever you are, if you ever read this.

ilex  ·  1697 days ago  ·  link  ·  

This sums up pretty exactly what growing up in a fundamentalist conservative christian household is like. There are things you just don't question and if you even try, the resulting discussion is so bad-faith and full of rabbit holes that you might as well not even bother. Unless you can find someone your parents already think speaks the gospel truth, you'll never convince them of anything, and even if you do the odds are that they'll denounce that person too.

I'm trying to learn how to speak more confidently and y'all (and especially KB) have definitely helped me see how that can look. (Although I don't think the bombast-and-cursing style will ever quite work for me!)

wasoxygen  ·  1699 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You picked a good time to take a break. The Calamity of 2016 has been the focus of attention since then, and Hubski is subject to the same issues that affect other places of online public conversations.

I made a suggestion, but I don't think there's any good fix. The strength of a public site comes from attracting new perspectives, but an open door also attracts spammers and show-offs. I don't know how any kind of user-based moderation can be structured without it becoming a scoreboard. Quarrels are always crowd-pleasers, so I figure people are getting what they come for, and I accept that Hubski is as good as it gets.

kingmudsy  ·  1699 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    The Calamity of 2016

I'm not actually sure what you mean by that, could you explain?

I like you suggestions. The conversations in that thread were good, too. Maybe I'm just trying to make Hubski something that it's not

wasoxygen  ·  1699 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I refer, of course, to the disastrous late-night liquidation of my 209 shares of D, acquired with little apparent risk at prices ranging from 69-91ยข, decimating the balance I built up with months of careful trading.

Recovery has been slow. I am now up $2.20 on a $6.30 bet against impeachment, up $0.80 from $1.52 on Biden and down almost 50% on a hopeful $1.08 long shot position against Maduro.

wasoxygen  ·  1699 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Personally, I think it's extremely difficult to talk about politics without getting somewhat emotional.

You put together a long, thoughtful reply to the post which indulged very little in emotional language. I note it is the only comment that got a long, thoughtful reply from blackbootz. I am sorry to see that your conversation did not continue.

    Do you expect an essay in Chicago-style format? I suspect maybe you agree with Caplan's points and are more upset most people in this thread are disagreeing.

I won't speculate on the mental state of others, but my frustration with these conversations is entirely due to the lack of calm, clearly-expressed disagreement.

kleinbl00  ·  1698 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I can speak only for myself, but my lack of "calm, clearly-expressed disagreement" is due to the fact that the arguments put forth - often the arguments you put forth yourself - are deliberately disingenuous and manipulative.

You seldom argue a point, you generally argue around a point. If someone argues that sunflower seeds are predominantly black, you will argue that the petals of the sunflower are widely acknowledged to be yellow therefore one cannot assert with any certainty that the seeds are black (latin phrase with link). I know you're smarter than this, and I know you're better at argumentation, but it's the easy thing, it's the accepted thing, it's the standard tactic of the conservative propagandist without facts on his side. More than that, you're more likely to range far afield the less intelligent you've judged your opponent to be.

Again, speaking only for myself, I'm not going to calmly walk through whether or not sunflower petals are yellow when the only reason we're talking about them is that you refuse to discuss sunflower seeds. Especially when your go-to trope is "nobody else is willing to discuss my off-topic nonsense calmly and rationally."