I really, absolutely appreciate your voice and opinion, but I emphatically disagree with this stance. Doesn’t mean you aren’t correct, but I can’t find any evidence that you are (which again could be my own problem).
So I guess what I am saying is if you propose social norms wikdky different that what we have had in the last five thousand years, the burden of proof is on you.
Thankfully every few thousand years conventional wisdom is proved false.
BTW I never thought you as trolling. Perhaps similar to how I can come off as snarky, but only because of humor. If you are trolling then I need to upgrade sting.
Eh, for what it’s worth, I wasn’t aware of you at all before our dialogue in the recent Classic superheroes thread.
That was a dialogue I found frustrating, and was glad to drop it when you revealed that you had no interest in mainstream superhero comics newer than a couple of decades ago, and were thus arguing about a subject whose recent history you had no idea about. The reluctance on your part to accept an idea that was new to you I found less than impressive, especially as you made a point about what a unique and special snowflake you were.
The above, long-winded comment I’m replying to I find to be more of the same special pleading, with the added bonus of an arrogant assumption that we could all learn from your special-snowflakiness — presumably that we could all learn to not be bothered by things that you aren’t bothered by, and concerned with things that concern you, e.g. how everyone treats you.
If you are concerned by the way that the Boingboing commentariate respond to you, perhaps you could take on the radical idea that the fault is in you, and not necessarily in the commentariate.
[quote=“japhroaig, post:3, topic:53498”]I have kinda figured out @Medievalist… /quote]
Dang, I must be doing something wrong!
The key word is “kinda”. I suggest I can’t think of even the next ten letters you will type.
I talk a bigger game than I deliver 
Cool 
That’s the thing, I don’t think of this as proposing different social norms at all. It could be described like when people copy the habits of “successful people”, but going a few steps past. Sure, a person could measure their success by earning lots of an existing currency, but those who were the most successful are those who implemented that currency in the first place. If you ask your average person in contemporary capitalist society whether one would be more successful by getting a great job, or by starting a great company, many choose the latter. But extrapolating this to creating new family units, schools, governments, etc seems to lose people.
Rather than doing anything wildly new and different, it is merely a meaningful democratization of the kinds of systems people already find themselves participating in.
Not quite, I said that I thought superhero comics were always lame. I wasn’t aware that I had to follow them closely for my opinions to be relevant. I read comics, and have been involved in the areas of art and sexual activism, so I noticed the discussion. You seem to be suggesting that I need to approach this all from a specific angle to not be construed as utterly ignorant.
What idea was new to me? And how would we know if I was “accepting” this idea? Again, this sounds a lot to me like you expect that I need to perceive the issue a certain way in order to be allowed to have an opinion.
Sorry, this bit doesn’t make much sense to me!
I don’t take how I may be treated personally. The problem tends to be that people don’t like what I say, instead of simply refuting what I said, they seem to go out of their way to distort what I presumably meant. Solid rhetoric I think tends to be based upon picking apart what somebody actually says. When instead, people ignore what one says and lambaste them for what they are presumed to have meant, it turns into soapboxing and defensiveness. Anybody who is really invested in demonstrating my poor thinking will have more than enough to work with using what I actually said. Hang me with my own words! If they are sloppy enough, then I deserve it, and we’ll all have a good laugh.
Any methods will fail under that circumstance!!!
+1 on this.
It is like we speak different languages (or at least @popobawa4u does, though that sounds mean).
Definitely, it’s the Leaning Tower of Babel! My experience is that everybody interprets and translates their communications with others, and I am no exception. I think that what people call “rapport” is a sort of illusion they employ which allows them to easily gloss over this practice with those whom they are comfortable. This has mixed results - there is the benefit of it being a social lubricant, but also the unfortunate inertia of making it more difficult for many to step back and examine their preconceptions. After all, various instances of identifying with others might depend upon assuming that we mean the same things.
This is what I think Korzybski was getting at in General Semantics by saying that communication exists only between equals, and they start by defining their terms. It’s useful to each put our definitions out there because it’s far easier - too easy - to take our definitions for granted as being the same for others. People who decline to do this might not have examined how they frame such things in communication, or else perhaps declining to do so because they feel there is or should be an unequal basis of power. Either way, it’s contentious and awkward when I say: “This is my opinion. What do you think?” and somebody shouts: “Well aren’t you special? You think you speak for everybody!”
Yeah, I do not presume to speak for the crowd here.I fo disagree with points, but I won’t speak for others.
I disagree with specific opinions that involve moral or ethical choices. But I will not discount pops freedom to disagree.
This I’d exactly where lose you.
What surprises me is HOW this loses people! Usually starting with: “Heh, how droll. But come off it now.”, but when many realize that I suggest these things in earnest, they lash out and sound rather insecure, as if I subjected them to an insult.
Another peculiarity is that if it becomes apparent that I am not “joking”, that I must be terribly “serious”. But despite me being earnest, I don’t find any of this to me anywhere near as self-important and terribly serious as people suggest that it sounds. It’s important, but it’s fun.
Consider how DIY culture has developed and spread over the years. I have been involved in electronics, audio, and digital media projects for some years. People don’t tend to get alarmed when someone discusses incorporating some previously taken-for-granted into their haquery. But most of maker/hacker culture is just stuff. Interesting things, but things just the same. I think extending such ethos and practice into the social areas of everyday life is inevitable and even preferable, because this involves improving the areas of life that matter the most, rather than limiting ourselves to faffing about with so many gadgets. Why not invent a kind new family between four inter-married people? Or citizenship through network instead of geography? Or companies based upon solving a problem and then putting themselves out of business? These are precisely the areas where things get interesting, and examples of what I mean by “DIY social structures”.
You lose me because you clearly seem to me to be an anarchist with a plan. I get the anarchist part, it’s fun to destroy whatever structures there are, whether we created them or not, but I think people get frustrated at your plan.
You often speak of networks and infrastructure that is essential to the type of life you think would be beneficial, but there’s a lot of work that seems too important to just let whoever wants to do it, do it, without any effort in trying to make sure those jobs are staffed.
I doubt that there’s enough helpdesk technicians who actually like the job enough to do it for free to serve everyone 24/7. I know that I wouldn’t do it without some kind of major reward, in my case money and healthcare, which enable me to do the things I actually like to do.
Maybe part of the problem is a lack of clarity on your part? I’m not saying it’s always the case, but sometimes, maybe it is?
Sure, it’s an obvious possibility. I usually read my posts several times, and really think about what I am trying to say, trying to be as clear as a can. This is why I am delighted when somebody asks me to clarify something, it gives me more to go on. Sometimes topics go from apparent disinterest to requiring too many specifics. I might mention that I think people should drastically decentralize and DIY things and somebody corners me be requiring me to state in exacting detail how we should all do this, and when I point out that telling people exactly how to do-it-themselves is a paradox, they complain that it’s a cop out! But I’d rather see an anti-movement of separate actors than provide a nucleus for following.
Many times I think there are already several accepted positions on a topic, so when I breeze through and defy polarization people react strongly. For instance, the topic of overly idealized forms in comics which Nelsie spoke of. Pretty much all of the discussion was split between those who thought there was too much sexualization, and those who dismissed it as not being a real problem. Then I show up! If there is a latent sexuality to the images, why not make it blatant and see what happens? (I am from the underground comix scene, where showing crazy sex is not unheard of). Instead of putting clothes back on the heroines, why not strip them off the males as well? (I tend to strive for the most sex-positive of all options). Also, I started asking around about the sex and gender of not only the readers, but the artists as well. (no answers). There were some great links to illustrate some disparity in comics representation, such as “The Hawkeye Initiative”. But I loved this site, and said “Yes, this is what we need!” which seemed to further annoy people, as being “not cool”. So all of these “unwelcome” ways I had of approaching what I thought was interesting and relevant just bothered people. In this case, I don’t know that it’s them not understanding what I said, but rather perhaps them preferring to distance themselves from my views and label me as “part of the problem” - despite my antipathy towards what they were initially expressing their criticism of.
In other words, trying to read past my words to define what my soundbyte-marketable, easy-to-digest position really is. If there are “camps”, people seem to mangle what I say to fit me in one or more of them.
I’m reminded of this:
Not at all how I see it. What possible need would I or anybody have for “destroying structures”? Other peoples structures (or lack thereof) are their own problems, just as is the case with me. What I am doing is starting from the assumption that anybody can create meaningful structures. There is no reason why this needs to involve destroying anything - unless you start from the perspective of this being an essentially hierarchical, coercive process.
Who said anything about a lack of effort? My experience seems to indicate that there are many more people than there are jobs which need to be done. And even now, with many fluffy frivolous jobs, there seems to be more people who actually want to work than existing jobs. I’d go so far as to suggest that getting rid of monopolies of currency and government drastically increase the numbers of ways people can compensate each other for such work. Besides, the current trend has been to expand government without them doing much work, while replacing helpdesk employeees with robots.
