Jump to content

Hall of Fame

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 06/04/2018 in all sections

  1. @misteraven I can agree with you on that. I'd rather skim past twenty dog photos than skim past one political or socially charged post. I love what you said about people not doing any research into what they've read, but instead blindly reposting and standing up for something just because it falls in line with their beliefs. This is one of the biggest reasons I quit Facebook. A handful of friends, and a few family members, constantly... fucking every day, several times a day, posted the most politically and socially hateful shit against Trump, Obama, Hillary, or whomever, or something related to terrorism, terrorists, wealthy white men, African Americans, or Latinos... you name it, they posted it. Every time I was kind of blown away by the 'articles' and they always seemed so unreal, just full of bullshit. I would always do some research online because I couldn't believe what I had just read, and always found out that the shit was completely fabricated, and almost always using images from something unrelated (half the time from another country) to engage the reader. When I would call them out on their posts it would be crickets in response. I would share links to factcheck.org or a number of other fact checking websites that would debunk their posts. Eventually one friend reached out through the FB instant messenger and asked to me to stop replying to his posts with my bullshit, that he and his friends don't appreciate it. I always replied that I was just looking for the truth... it's not that hard. I've found that if the story sounds way too fucked up to be true, it usually is. They always seemed to be a skewed story that further ignites the poster's agenda. No one wants to do the leg work anymore...
    3 points
  2. @Joker more interesting points, though I disagree with some of it this time around. I used to freakin hate when people posted pictures of their food. As if what they're eating matters in any way 99.9% of the time. Selfies were another that could easily get under my skin most of the time. Now I actually yearn for those days because just when I thought social media couldn't get any worse, we find ourselves in the era of "political and social soap boxing" as you so eloquently put it. Looping back to my my last couple posts in here, and again referencing that great lies of dichotomy podcast, I think it's super troubling that people are foregoing actually reading into or investigating a topic or event, before joining the mob that aligns with whatever tribe they've decided to attach to. I'll take the same pictures of a pet lying in the sun every day of the week and 3x on Sunday over reposted memes on social / political issues that at best are far too shallow to ever hope to encapsulate most subjects and at worst (and often most likely) are just agenda driven misinformation, half truths or all out lies that are engineered to pull on heart strings and compel people to join the mob and further fan the flames of discontent and division. But that being said, this thread is making me realize with more clarity that a large part of my frustration (and I can only assume the frustration of many others) could stem from the fact that we've allowed ourselves to believe that social media was a replacement for the social dialogue and the deeper online discussions we raised ourselves on when in fact, its two totally different things. Because one came to over shadow and nearly make extinct the other, we embraced it as a replacement, when looking back now its becoming more clear that they share little in common. Especially in regards to maintaining meaningful relationships and engagement with people we've gone out of our way to try and stay connected to. Very ironic when you consider it like this.
    2 points
  3. @Tesseract - I mean, every day I'm acting like it's 1985 and I have zero responsibilities other than to play Graffiti, bikes, and skateboards, but I'm really trying to live in the present... which I'm pretty sure is 2007.
    2 points
  4. @Joker, yes indeed. I don't even trust half the fact check sites if any, after fining that one of the main ones often referenced was owned by a couple that were also fund raisers for HRC. Found articles talking about how they really had no directly hired staff and mostly ran the business from their kitchen table. As I looked a little deeper into it, it seemed that they chose to mostly focus on debunking stories that all pointed towards benefitting HRC, so threw in the towel on even bothering with third party fact checking. Instead, I've consolidated down what I care about and chose to take a stand on and learn as much as I can about that specific subject. I don't generally give much thought to editorial opinion, pro or con and instead drill down to the source of where the data comes from and how the data is gathered. I'm simplifying it a bit, but point is nobody can follow all these topics and then investigate all the angles to each. Plus I personally maintain a purposefully independent position of skepticism. My belief is that virtually everyone has an agenda (myself included) and that government power is taken directly from individual freedom. There's few that can argue that politics and the process of governing doesn't boil down to being about power over people. The pursuit of power is a dynamic system, constantly in flux. You either take it or give it up, but it rarely maintain in equilibrium (subject for another thread). My agenda is to simply spark conversation and promote evidence based exploration and thought, as well as non-emotional, intelligent and insightful discussion and debate. I honestly don't care what side a person sits on, even if its opposes my own position, so long as they take the time to genuinely understand the topic and can put forth a reasonable argument based upon actual, unbiased evidence. I believe we can agree to disagree and still respect each other as human beings and as fellow Americans and that honest dialogue and debate benefits all of us. Which circles this conversation back to why I think its important to revive this forum and why its also valuable when we sit here and truly explore and discuss important topics out in the open. It really scares the shit out of me to see what things have become... How completely divided people are these days, while also being completely ignorant to the true catalysts behind so much of the discourse they're all so busy fighting over. The fact that the concept of "fake news" even serves to dilute questioning and hide shit in plain site. It's interesting to note how closely it parallels the coining of the "conspiracy theory", which was promoted after the assassination of JFK to helped quell the questioning of the *official record* released in the Warren Report. How effectively they got the nation to stop questioning the narrative being released or be accused of being a tin foil hat wearing *conspiracy theorist*. I see "fake news" as the exact same thing, even though if you were to actually look at it, most of the time its actually editorial opinion published by news organizations owned by individuals that are very actively political. Anyhow, I'm straying off topic, but there's definitely overlap.
    1 point
  5. I'm going to try to explain why I like Instagram, and why I hate it. I doubt I will make any sense. Why I like Instagram: There's something novel about touching an app icon and instantly being transported to the days news with regards to all of your friends, and folks whom you admire. I suppose "news" isn't really the best word as you're not really learning anything other than seeing that your friend is in Hawaii... again. I guess a better description would be it's a great way to see the most important thing your friend did that day, unless it's Thursday, then it's what they did that day fifteen years ago. Still, it's nice to see what folks are up to in a grouped thread that I can flip through in ten minutes and be caught up. Then if I see Dana later in the week I can ask about the twelve images of wine tasting she posted (as you can tell, I might like this but I'm also slightly jaded to the content). As an artist who make a supplemental income from his art, I like that I share new work (or old) and have folks who are interested reach out with inquiries. It's kinda nice. And as a collector of art I like that I can see new works from artists I follow and have the opportunity to purchase their work. Why I hate Instagram: Selfies, photos of your pets, political and social soap boxing, and content I'm too old to understand. I get it... you love your dog more than anything in the world, but do you really need to post the same fucking photo of it laying on the floor in the sun every other day? As mentioned above, the Tribes siding has become so important that if you haven't chosen which Tribe you belong to then you should be wiped from the earth. Some folks use social media to be extremely hateful and disruptive, and it's kind of boring. No amount of rational reasoning reaches them and it eventually leads to threats on your life... which is awesome. If it weren't for my art I wouldn't be on Instagram at all. I've grown so bored with it.
    1 point
  6. I see your gun bunny and raise you...
    1 point
  7. I'm gonna expand on that thought. Social media creates tribes. People with the same way of thinking, same school of thought, and from how they type, their own vernacular also. And this kind of environment creates an echo chamber. A group of people yelling out the same talking points, no real criticism, and no real valid points. This is dangerous because it breeds an extreme form of tribalism based on "us vs them" mentality, that would eventually turn to hate. 4chan is that way, facebook groups, and even some subreddits operate on that paradigm. 12oz can claim to be a tribe, but we don't reserve judgement and we call out the bullshit. We forgive and forget also. We're not a perfect platform but we don't go to extremes to defend a moot or useless point just to advance our own shit. The "dumb" people we hate on social media, some of them have a massive following. That's the scary part. The people who influence others.
    1 point
  8. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/ I have not gone any further into social media than having a LinkedIn account, so I do not really know what sort of content is out there but I very much miss the days when people got online and used fake names to talk about things they actually had expertise in, compared to using real names to spout off about everything. I used to visit another forum related to my work and it was an impressive conversation which is now extinguished, smoldering at best.
    1 point
This Hall of Fame listing is set to New York/GMT-04:00
×
×
  • Create New...