Haha. I was watching this with my dad and he didn't get the end just like most people in the audience didn't. What's funny is almost EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD saw the original AOL commercial even if they didn't realize they did, it was like roofied into our collective consciousness.

I never saw that commercial until maybe a year ago.

Maybe it wasn't that ubiquitous after all then; I either remember it from watching latenight infomercials because we didn't have cable or it was on the disc that nearly everybody in the US with a mailing address received..

I'd just mostly outgrown TV by 1997. I saw plenty of Prodigy ads.

Yeah 1995-7 was sort of my TV binge years. We didn't really have TV (except for PBS) growing up so when I got a lifeguarding job the first thing I did was get a little 13 inch to have in my room, and fell asleep to reruns of Cheers and Nightcourt. Inevitably infomercials would come on and invade me dreams.

Ironically my parents now have this gigantic flat screen and pretty much every cable channel, and still all they watch is PBS. I don't get it: the shows on PBS aren't that good compared to, I dunno, most anything on HBO. Like, my dad doesn't like Game of Thrones because it's "too dark" but they tried their damndest to get me to watch Wolf Hall on PBS, which is like exactly the same thing, just historically grounded. To quote the fresh prince.. parents just don't understand. But happy father's day dad! Sorry I fell asleep on the couch and you had to take out the trash, you could've woken me up you know. :)

I pretty much gave up on TV around when MST3k left Comedy Central, probably a few weeks after the first time the Great Cornholio episode of Beavis and Butthead aired (that was around when they started to really slip, and they were one of the last things on TV I really paid attention to), although I did watch the first two or so seasons of South Park. By that time I was working at video stores on weekends and could take out as many movies as I wanted for as long as I wanted, so TV was sort of pointless.

Well, there are also normals schlubs that just have facebook to keep up with their niece who moved to Indiana or whatever, and this segment is pretty much what they all think of the whole thing.

I don't see that to be the case at all, SolRo.

First off, saying that someone "thinks they're too cool to be concerned", makes explicit the assumption that the person is question is primarily motivated by a desire to be hip, trendy, and/or progressive, and furthermore implies that the person is unconcerned about what is going on around them. Neither need be the case at all. Mr Solro, surely, even YOU could understand that there are reasons to oppose cruelty and the rise of the police state beyond simply worrying about your personal reserve of coolness capital. Indeed, dissidents who neither take to the 'chans with GamerGate tags nor believe netizens should be sent to prison over shitposting, these people ARE concerned, VERY concerned, about the bullshit drama "the rest of you" are trying to involving us in. The rise of fascism and loss of digital freedom is a very serious issue, particularly now, considering the fact that thoughtcrime legislation, panopticon-style monitoring, and rampant censorship of information by both corporate and state bodies are becoming common in various parts of the world. The internet is currently the most liberative and progressive invention in the history of mankind, but it has this potential only because it is open and free.


>> The side that enjoys, and thinks its fine, to threaten women/others online for thinking in ways they don't like.

Now the second point I'd like to raise here, is that n̲o̲-̲o̲n̲e̲ is a̲g̲a̲i̲n̲s̲t̲ attacking others online for thinking in ways they don't like! Every netizen has an Other, a group which they dislike and derive pleasure from arguing against, be that women or Republicans, Furries or Christians, Muslims, Ukrainians, Zionists, Baptists, commies, libertarians, conspiracy theorists, bronies, Xboxers, Justin Bieber, the voluntary homeless, fans of John Cena, the American military-industrial complex, even fedora-wearing neckbeards with Sonic the Hedgehog tattoos. That's part of the fun of the internet, not to mention the whole point of even allowing democratic discourse in the first place.

In fact, in all my years on the internet, the ONLY person whom I can think of who's never been mean to anybody is Boomer the Dog!!! Everyone else has an enemy. I have them, Master Ashtar has them, Sudan has them too. I know for a fact that you yourself, Mr SolRo, have several. How is the Ukraine doing, by the way?

In your OP above, you speak as though Position I and Position II are two distinct positions. They are not. They are two sides of the same coin, or rather, the second is simply a sub-set contained within the first - after all, threatening someone with involuntary psychiatric commitment and arrest i̲s̲ ̲a̲ ̲t̲h̲r̲e̲a̲t̲, a real and credible one at that, a threat on a level of magnitude and (so it is schemed) enforceability, well beyond the idle comments issued by politically-unconnected (and thus largely powerless) individuals.

In fact, I'd say that once we properly understand the internet, we find that our cyber home has only two factions, full stop: those of us who believe in casually threatening others who think in ways we dislike, and those of us who believe in actually backing up our threats with coercion. Liberalism or paternalism, that is the fundamental dichotomy. What's more, both of these factions cross sociological boundaries, and are to be found, to varying degrees, in all places where a culture war may be brewing - you can find liberal assholes AND paternalist assholes in both GamerGate and Tumblr, just as you used to be able to find them in the "meatspace" culture wars of generations passed.

I think there's a legit difference between argument and threats.

Well, TeenerTot, as my esteemed colleague Mr Holmes and I have discussed before, there is a legit difference between threats and "threats" (that is, threats which are credible, and therefor legally-actionable; there IS a reason why few people here in the States have ever been arrested in conjunction with trolling, even in the face of increasingly stringent controls on thought and speech following 9/11). The difference between arguments and threats (which here we should perhaps be more properly calling "trolling" or "shitposting") is principally one of rhetorical style - confrontational rather than persuasive, abusive rather than reasoned.

My main point is simply that all sociological interest groups engage in threatening (i.e. abusive) behavior directed against people whose thinking they do not like. If anyone disputes the truth of this statement, then I invite them to explain why their favoured group is magically exempt from such behavior, and also urge them to consider the following: { http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#SelectiveAttention }

I gotta side with Teenertot, that it's possible to disagree and even get heated in discussion, but with no intention whatsoever of wrecking the other person's day. I guess that works out to two dichotomies that are superimposable: trying to be a dick or not, and willing to carry dickishness over to the real world or not.

You say this:

"The difference between arguments and threats (which here we should perhaps be more properly calling "trolling" or "shitposting") is principally one of rhetorical style - confrontational rather than persuasive, abusive rather than reasoned."

Strongly disagree; abusive vs. reasoned (or really, abusive vs. respectful) is much more than rhetorical style. I'll give you an example. Back on PoE-News, one time someone was discussing an incident that happened to them, and I said that it sounded to me like they were bending the truth. They didn't at all like my saying that, but I explained why I thought so, and it didn't take many exchanges before I realized I'd hit a nerve without trying to. So eventually I apologized and said that, if I'm wrong, that makes me some asshole whose opinions don't even matter, and I did my best to defuse the situation. If my intentions were abusive, I would have kept egging him on, with a goal of provoking a meltdown. But my intentions were very different, and that's more than rhetorical style.

Or like when you and I argue about Tom Riker or the Japanese robot girl or whatever, we both play at taking it 100% seriously (at least I hope that's what's going on), and I'll use a harsher tone than normal with you because I know it's all in good fun. I wouldn't do it if I thought it involved genuine frustration and anger.

But being a dick is still a rhetorical choice, Mr Bort, and one's intentions usually (if one is clever) dictate one's rhetorical stratagems. Being overtly abusive is NOT a good tactical decision when one wishes to be persuasive (at least not when one intends to persuade one's opponent dirctly, or when one is in a formal academic setting). However, it IS a rather good strategy when one is playing the populist demagogue; when one intends to sway, not the other speaker, but rather a vast audience composed largely of people lacking formal training in logic and rational discourse. Dickishness is a form of sophistry - a rather underhanded tactic to be sure, but nonetheless one which can be legitimately applied in a great many situations. Modern "political" entertainment is a prime example of this: men like Rush Limbaugh, Bill Maher, and yes even the John's Oliver and Stewart, make their careers by ridiculing and belittling people whose thoughts differ from their own, all to delight their audience and quietly sell their own point of view. At what point does Jon Stewart calling former President Bush an evil totalitarian despot go from being funny and satirical, to being sinister and dangerous? Where is the line between Photoshopping Bin Laden or Fred Phelps in nice set of sexy lingerie, and Photoshopping Sarkeesian?

PoeNews is a perfect example of a community where abusive debate tactics reigned, I'll give you that. And you, Mr Bort, are by and large a very reasonable fellow; you are both intelligent and ethical enough that raw dickishness will neither persuade you nor tempt you into being your default rhetorical style. Yet sophistry-via-abuse has always had a place in popular discourse, and will continue to have that place so long as language exists. For every Bort, there are a dozen Gmorks, SolRos, and Great Hippos.

I think you know that I am correct, just as I know that Mr TeenerTot is correct when he says (or rather, when you say he implies) that one may disagree with another person without wrecking that person's day. The key problem here is: what is meant by the qualifying adjective, "legit"? How does one define legitimacy, in this context? Again, I would say that differences in rhetorical style, while certainly significant, are not severe enough to warrant severing them from their parent group; that is to say, the set-of-things-which-are-abuse may still be, and often is, still part of the set-of-things-which-are-argument (or "are-debate"). And regardless of whether you are in a place to accept this, you would still agree with me, would you not, that the difference between abusive and non-abusive rhetorical devices, is far less significant than the difference between rhetorical abusive and the very narrowly defined band of legally-actionable threats? †


† {particularly within the context of this discussion, triggered as it was by Mr SolRo stating that AnitaGaters are predominately in favor of arresting shitposters - a claim which, incidentally, I find to be highly dubious. While I have heard at least two or three AnitaGaters advance this line of argument, they are still in the minority, and it is such an outlandishly stupid proposition that the intellectual mainstream will never pick it up. The only possible chance for paternalists to press such an absurd agenda on society at large is, ironically, by going directly for the fears of the mob; through sophistry, like the dickery strategy we just discussed. In fact, I would not be surprised if we saw a lot more "dickishness" - fear-mongering, threatening, and abuse - surrounding this issue in the months and years to come. We haven't had a good bonfire of our vanities in many a year now; we are about due for this current decade's regularly-scheduled Congressional mass media scare, and God knows I'd rather it happened under Obama's watch than Wal*Martllary's.}

Five stars for SolRo dividing the Internet into three factions:

- Those who agree with him (good honest decent people)
- Those who do not (sociopathic monsters)
- Those who don't care (trying and failing to be cool)

At what point does Jon Stewart calling former President Bush an evil totalitarian despot go from being funny and satirical, to being sinister and dangerous?

When he says he will rape him and cut his head off.

I don't really have a problem with what you call "dickishness." Yes, I think dickishness can (not necessarily always does) derail productive discourse. But it's still different from threats.

It says a lot about how internet-autistic some people on this site are when they think calling someone names is exactly the same as finding their address and posting it online with a detailed plan for murdering them and their loved ones.

"SolRo
It says a lot about how internet-autistic some people on this site are when they think calling someone names is exactly the same as finding their address and posting it online with a detailed plan for murdering them and their loved ones."


By no means is that limited to this site.

"The internet is currently the most liberative and progressive invention in the history of mankind"

not really.


"it is open and free."

not really.

"In fact, in all my years on the internet, the ONLY person whom I can think of who's never been mean to anybody is Boomer the Dog!!!"

I'm with you on this part, though.

Hi E-Homie,

> In fact, in all my years on the internet, the ONLY person whom I can think of who's never been mean to anybody is Boomer the Dog!!!

Wow, that's cool, I guess the net was made to fight it out, but I haven't gotten to that point yet. I don't think most Dogs are mean needlessly, we just hang out, and I feel I'm self absorbed and not worrying as much about what others are doing, that's part of it.

It's usually been the case with me that when I have a strong reaction to someone or an idea that I come across, that it's not them, it's something going on in my head and why am I feeling threatened?

When issues are weighing heavy, I tend to write a lot, do a good radio show and work on plans to get the Dog out there to the waiting world.. :)

Boomer

I'm not going to participate in this argument, but I will post this slightly old Slate article that does a better job than I would at explaining what anyone old enough to have been sentient before Myspace should already know from experience: this kind of stuff is an inevitable side effect of the entire design paradigm of social media and the commodification of social interaction in general.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/tw itter_is_broken_gamergate_proves_it.html

Also this was a good episode, that anyone could disagree with anything John said in this video is hard to even comprehend.

Toodles

It's worth remembering that a lot of the most outspoken opponents of regulation of the Internet are the companies that have profited and stand to continue turning incomprehensible profits because of the ways this very lack of regulation allowed them to position themselves. It's definitely a tricky area but the current pseudo-religious "free market of ideas" ideology isn't sustainable, and much stricter regulation OF BUSINESSES would be a net positive in my opinion. Just in general, internet or no internet. The Internet just happens to be one of the areas it is regulated the least and has manifested most completely.

As I've often stated, I'm not pro censorship, I'm pro editing. We don't need to regulate the whole internet, we just need to create safe, self-regulated spaces for everyone. 4chan can go on being 4chan.

Its going to happen in time. If Google can monitor every aspect of my online activity, they can monitor harassment. Sooner or later, they'll decide it's in their best interest. Maybe they already have.

I think holding companies accountable for their products facilitating SERIOUS, LAW-BREAKING, REAL LIFE HARASSMENT and similar crimes would be a good start.

The revenge porn thing is a real conundrum because it's so unambiguously unethical yet I can't really think of how laws against it will be enforceable without shifting the burden of proof to the defendant, which of course violates the very core of the entire US legal system. Requiring people to file records according to 18 U.S.C. § 2257 for every video they upload to tube sites would be a start but realistically it would never happen and wouldn't really do much. Plus it's part of the deeply flawed 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act that should really be overturned anyway, though some form of recordkeeping for pornography is probably a good idea. Realistically, though, how could laws againstt revenge porn be any more effective than anti-piracy laws? I think the best we can hope for is a cultural shift that both stigmatizes doing something like that to some one and also destigmatizes women's sexuality such that even if someone pulls something like that it won't have the potential to ruin someone's career or worse like it does now (which would also diminish the whole "revenge" aspect of it and further discourage people from doing it to begin with.

Also, without letting them of the hook for completely unconscionable behavior, it's important to remember that the people doing shit like threatening and harassing women and distributing "revenge porn" are also victims of enculturation into a world where women aren't considered fully human, and while they are still accountable for their behavior and should be treated as such, a punitive approach is damage control at best and isn't going to fix the underlying problem.

I don't know, this stuff is a pretty huge problem in the short term and something I've definitely put a lot of consideration in to for a long time, but I don't have a clue how we are going to fix it. My gut tells me it'll be a combination of global pandemic and corporate totalitarianism.

And let's not forget that everyone on the Internet today is in their own little filter bubble that keeps them myopic, docile and afraid.

She MUST be lying, she's saying things I don't agree with!

Anita told me we were going to use ferrets to steal the crown jewels, took the money she said we needed to coat the ferrets in mirrors (to avoid the laser beams), and then never showed up at the museum. :(

She MUST be a huckster! Would Thunderf00t, the Amazing Atheist, and Davis Aurani lie?

nobody would care if you died

obviously you would, other wise you wouldn't have mentioned it.

I say no.

ICP co-opts scary sounding words to give a veneer of dignity to a bunch of repulsive overweight neanderthals.

PLEASE STOP SLURRING THE JUGGALO RELIGION WITH YOUR HATE SPEECH

Juggaloism: the world's first totally illiterate religion

I could be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure they call it "Juggalism."

Don't care enough to check.

just look it up online,... you DINOSAUR

i did it and now my desktop wont stop turning into earl sinclair's gaping cloaca, cannot recommend

Right, I'll hear about a fight or breakdown on social media, and catch myself thinking, 'Wait a minute, this is just on the screen.' It's like a form of deja vu, but then I came on line in 1997 and it was reasonable to just shut the computer off if someone was bothering you.

*****

no.

No.

You can't bully a corporation.

The average person can't bully a billionaire, outside of some ludicrous hypothetical scenario involving both of them being stranded alone on some desert island.

Good god, why on earth would you participate in a discussion on Youtube?