SJW thread/cringe/mockery

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Re: SJW thread/cringe/mockery

Postby Dr. Ambiguous » Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:43 am

Sunny is lying. We talk about all this with you, the users. Then the mods pretend to discuss it, but instead we just have lots of awesome orgies. Then we randomly pick a solution, completely ignoring any input people have offered. It's a mod secret, but I'm telling you this cause I want to see all of you get angry. Then I'll bribe avi with steak so that he'll distract all of you from this matter by arguing about Israel.
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Re: SJW thread/cringe/mockery

Postby Tesseracts » Thu Oct 15, 2015 2:49 am

Dr. Ambiguous wrote:Sunny is lying. We talk about all this with you, the users. Then the mods pretend to discuss it, but instead we just have lots of awesome orgies. Then we randomly pick a solution, completely ignoring any input people have offered. It's a mod secret, but I'm telling you this cause I want to see all of you get angry. Then I'll bribe avi with steak so that he'll distract all of you from this matter by arguing about Israel.

Sounds like the perfect plot for a sitcom.
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Re: SJW thread/cringe/mockery

Postby Matthew Notch » Thu Oct 15, 2015 4:30 am

Jeez, sorry I can't make clear posts you guyz...

Again, the reason, in the first place, that I compared people's right to gossip to people's right to own a gun was to say that, of course, it's easy for me to feel like just making those things illegal would only benefit everyone, but the fact is banning either thing isn't likely to be effective OR received well in any case. I feel like I even said that in the same paragraph but I may be wrong. The mind is a funny thing, daddy-o.

All I want is for people who gets their rocks off laughing at people--and yes, for me personally, and maybe unreasonably, that includes public figures--to really stop and question themselves if there isn't a better way. That's entirely my aim in posting here. Wondering whether Notch advocates censorship or not is missing the point. Actually, it's kind of interesting how quickly we zero in on perceived threats against our personal liberties while missing the larger issues. I imagine this is why gun owners clutch their weapons more tightly to them when there is a mass shooting. Does that make them wrong? Not really; they ought to feel strongly about their rights. It's just also not the most pragmatic response.

If I had my druthers there's a lot of things we wouldn't talk about here, but I wager that is secretly true of most everyone to some degree. That's not censorship; that's just not liking a topic. And my opinion may not count for much since I do try to avoid those threads, but as was made clear earlier in this thread, I'm not the only one who feels this way. But this is all just something to think about, not a stab at any sort of solution, if in fact there is even a problem needing solving at all.
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Re: SJW thread/cringe/mockery

Postby Tesseracts » Thu Oct 15, 2015 5:13 am

Matthew Notch wrote:All I want is for people who gets their rocks off laughing at people--and yes, for me personally, and maybe unreasonably, that includes public figures--to really stop and question themselves if there isn't a better way.

Well, this sound basically like the Aviel solution to me. (Everyone changes their personality because it doesn't mesh with someones taste and/or sense of morality.)

Here's the thing. I grew up watching The Simpsons. It's a TV show which is basically all about how stupid people are. It mocks all kinds of people including public figures. A large portion of the humor I have ever enjoyed in my life is similar. The Onion, South Park, Nostalgia Critic, and yes even Cracked. One of the things Cracked offered was a glimpse into how bizarre and terrible people can get. Especially THOMAS EDISON.

I've said some things here I'm not entirely comfortable with. I sometimes feel kind of bad making fun of bronies, even if the bronies are also terrible people. I feel like it's hard enough to be a fan of cartoon ponies already. So, I can get feeling bad about that, but I can't sympathize with the idea that all mockery is bad. Even mockery of public figures who have far more power over my life than I will ever have over anything. The only "better way" I can conceive of, would be for me to eliminate my sense of humor. That's not really a good option.
Matthew Notch wrote:If I had my druthers there's a lot of things we wouldn't talk about here, but I wager that is secretly true of most everyone to some degree.

False consensus. I can't think of anything I'd rather people not post about. My curiosity is vast.
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Re: SJW thread/cringe/mockery

Postby Matthew Notch » Thu Oct 15, 2015 5:15 am

I was reading this awesome article on Gamergate the other day
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Re: SJW thread/cringe/mockery

Postby Tesseracts » Thu Oct 15, 2015 5:29 am

Matthew Notch wrote:I was reading this awesome article on Gamergate the other day

I don't really want people to stop discussing Gamergate though.
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Re: SJW thread/cringe/mockery

Postby Kate » Thu Oct 15, 2015 6:34 am

I'm with Tess, I can't think of a single thing that I wouldn't want to see discussed here...though with some of the more disturbing things, I understand why we need some censorship.
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Re: SJW thread/cringe/mockery

Postby Learned Nand » Thu Oct 15, 2015 8:28 am

Tesseracts wrote:Well, this sound basically like the Aviel solution to me. (Everyone changes their personality because it doesn't mesh with someones taste and/or sense of morality.)

I honestly cannot think of a situation in which the solution I proposed was that everyone change their personality for any reason, much less personal preference. Nor, by the way, do I think Notch was proposing that as a solution to any problem, but just as a recommendation.
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Re: SJW thread/cringe/mockery

Postby Crimson847 » Thu Oct 15, 2015 11:00 am

Tesseracts wrote:Here's the thing. I grew up watching The Simpsons. It's a TV show which is basically all about how stupid people are. It mocks all kinds of people including public figures. A large portion of the humor I have ever enjoyed in my life is similar. The Onion, South Park, Nostalgia Critic, and yes even Cracked. One of the things Cracked offered was a glimpse into how bizarre and terrible people can get. Especially THOMAS EDISON.

I've said some things here I'm not entirely comfortable with. I sometimes feel kind of bad making fun of bronies, even if the bronies are also terrible people. I feel like it's hard enough to be a fan of cartoon ponies already. So, I can get feeling bad about that, but I can't sympathize with the idea that all mockery is bad. Even mockery of public figures who have far more power over my life than I will ever have over anything. The only "better way" I can conceive of, would be for me to eliminate my sense of humor. That's not really a good option.


CAASS seems intended as a discussion forum where everyone is free to voice their opinions. This demands a different standard of civility than, say, a stand-up comedy show, where the point is for the comedian to talk and everyone else to shut the hell up. It doesn't really matter if people at a comedy show don't feel comfortable expressing their contrary opinions; they're not supposed to be doing that anyway. By contrast, if the goal is to encourage everyone to feel free to participate in a discussion, giving everyone who suggests a dumb idea the full-on Harry-Terjanian-slapping-down-a-heckler treatment is probably not going to accomplish that.

More generally, "Person X is a stupid bitch" isn't a joke, it's an insult. I don't think the bulk of the objections here are based on the idea that "all mockery is bad"--trust me, you're not the only one who watched and enjoyed The Simpsons. I can say with certainty that my objection is to insults, not lighthearted mockery. The problem as I see it is that the former is often accepted and even encouraged in the SJA thread and apparently other threads as well, against such all-powerful authority figures as "random teenager on Tumblr" and "random teenager on Facebook". Citing TV comedies seems like a poor counter to that: I don't think I remember the episode where Matt Groening just took the mic, sat in front of the camera, and started insulting some random kid by name who wrote something on the internet that he didn't like.
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Re: SJW thread/cringe/mockery

Postby Kate » Thu Oct 15, 2015 3:43 pm

I hear what you're saying, I think. But you know, the Simpsons does make fun of behaviors in our culture; teens who do or say certain things, celebrities who do things, activists who do things, etc. They make fun of stereotypes all the time. I don't know how much of this is crossing into other threads, and as I said earlier, I think anything that isn't newsworthy should be relegated to "From The Web" so I would certainly propose a major shift of SJA into "Social Justice News" and then make a thread in From The Web for "Tumblrites Say the Darnedest Things" where the unofficial policy is to black out names.

But you know, sometimes things that are cultural are going to be relevant in other threads, and for internet creatures, tumblr is cultural. Sure, there's a difference between saying "Look, people say this kind of stuff" about gun culture and "Look at them, clutching their guns and religion" (oh wait, my president said that about me, not anyone here. My bad) but it's not against the rules to make a point in a less than effective way, nor should it be.

CAASS does have a higher standard of civility, but to my mind, that does not mean that we should exclude mocking. There is a certain person who posts in CAASS a lot, with highly sarcastic posts at times, but he wields sarcasm the way Tess does her paintbrush. The absurdity of what is going on comes through the page, the ridiculousness of the actions of the people he's talking to is highlighted in a way that just can't be done with any other method, and while I don't always agree with him or appreciate the occasional strawman that comes up when you communicate this way, I would hate to see that gone. And I mean, it's not just light-hearted mockery, it is straight up insulting at times but as our dear Andropov mentioned, sometimes people feel that a situation calls for that. I'm not going to be kind to a doctor who butchers women by using unsafe practices and treats minorities worse than he does white patients, for example.

I have also always considered TCS a good place to learn and grow. I've been here since the beginning and I gotta say, some of the best moments I've had are watching Eric or avi or Tess or Marcuse or...just...anyone who's been here that long get better at communicating their points. That's not to say they started off bad or anything, just to say that as we get older, we're hopefully becoming more skilled, and I see that every day here. If people don't use their sarcasm and mockery in an effective way, it doesn't mean they're bad people, it means they fall short of Colbert and John Stewart and John Oliver. That's okay, because they aren't paid a ton of money to be funny and clever (we pay in sandwiches that we manage to wrestle away from JT sometimes). But I have noticed that people who use these methods to communicate often respond to feedback from the community, including thumbs, and learn how to tune their responses and improve.

I absolutely think we need to separate out the things that aren't newsworthy from the CAASS forum, especially in the SJA thread, and I absolutely think we need a rename on that because it just isn't fair to officially declare that anyone who agrees with things posted in there is absurd, even if that was never the intent of the thread or the name of the thread. But, I think removing the ability to insult in CAASS in general is problematic.
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Re: SJW thread/cringe/mockery

Postby Tesseracts » Thu Oct 15, 2015 4:56 pm

Crimson, your responses to me always seem rather personal. Keep in mind I was responding to NOTCH, a person who thinks all mockery is undesirable. I consider this a rather extreme position. For someone who hates insults you seem to target me a lot in a way I find unkind. My point is mockery has a place in humor, whether you personally find my posts funny is a different issue. My point in bringing up the Simpsons wasn't to say I'm as good as the Simpsons.
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Re: SJW thread/cringe/mockery

Postby LaChaise » Thu Oct 15, 2015 7:12 pm

Okay, this has become too meta. This has gone too far, I suggest we lock the suggestions subforum.
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Re: SJW thread/cringe/mockery

Postby Matthew Notch » Fri Oct 16, 2015 5:46 am

Kate wrote:I have also always considered TCS a good place to learn and grow. I've been here since the beginning and I gotta say, some of the best moments I've had are watching Eric or avi or Tess or Marcuse or...just...anyone who's been here that long get better at communicating their points. That's not to say they started off bad or anything, just to say that as we get older, we're hopefully becoming more skilled, and I see that every day here.


Except me. I'm getting garbage at communicating the longer I post here :( I suspect it's because everybody is much smarter than me, or at least most people are.

Tesseracts wrote:Keep in mind I was responding to NOTCH, a person who thinks all mockery is undesirable. I consider this a rather extreme position.


I guess I think of it more like a guilty pleasure, as such a term can be applied. Most things I like that would typically be called guilty pleasures are just regular pleasures for me because there's realistically nothing to feel guilty about. But come on. I have sure as shit laughed at a joke and thought, "Yep, going straight to hell now", and I don't even believe in Hell. I have a laugh at YouTube comments on a nearly daily basis. I mean look at the early pages of SSIRC. That time everybody was MoldyPotatoSack? I was there. I don't think it's extreme to say that I feel bad whenever I do get a kick out of mockery. Then again, I watch SNL and don't feel bad at all, so I'm most likely a hypocrite.

LaChaise wrote:Okay, this has become too meta. This has gone too far, I suggest we lock the suggestions subforum.


If this is a "Whoever Posts Last Wins" situation, I'd say now is the time...
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Re: SJW thread/cringe/mockery

Postby Crimson847 » Fri Oct 16, 2015 6:12 am

@Kate: Will respond later when I have more time.

Tesseracts wrote:Crimson, your responses to me always seem rather personal. Keep in mind I was responding to NOTCH, a person who thinks all mockery is undesirable. I consider this a rather extreme position. For someone who hates insults you seem to target me a lot in a way I find unkind. My point is mockery has a place in humor, whether you personally find my posts funny is a different issue. My point in bringing up the Simpsons wasn't to say I'm as good as the Simpsons.


That's a problem. I'm certainly angry over this issue at the moment, but I thought I was being civil. What am I doing that makes you feel unfairly attacked?
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Re: SJW thread/cringe/mockery

Postby Tesseracts » Fri Oct 16, 2015 6:25 am

Crimson847 wrote:@Kate: Will respond later when I have more time.

Tesseracts wrote:Crimson, your responses to me always seem rather personal. Keep in mind I was responding to NOTCH, a person who thinks all mockery is undesirable. I consider this a rather extreme position. For someone who hates insults you seem to target me a lot in a way I find unkind. My point is mockery has a place in humor, whether you personally find my posts funny is a different issue. My point in bringing up the Simpsons wasn't to say I'm as good as the Simpsons.


That's a problem. I'm certainly angry over this issue at the moment, but I thought I was being civil. What am I doing that makes you feel unfairly attacked?

You're not uncivil, and if your responses reflect your genuine opinion, that's a reasonable standard of fairness. However, you often attribute motives to me I don't have and argue against arguments I never made. To but it bluntly you talk to me kind of like I'm an idiot, and I find that hard to respond to. Example:

Citing TV comedies seems like a poor counter to that: I don't think I remember the episode where Matt Groening just took the mic, sat in front of the camera, and started insulting some random kid by name who wrote something on the internet that he didn't like.

I don't know how I'm supposed to respond to this, because you're making it sound like I don't understand what a TV show is. Rather than discuss the issues at hand this forces me to defend myself as a human being, and that's a waste of my time.
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