Star Trek is a great example of what I’m talking about actually. How many legitimate scientists do you think are out there right now who either had their interest in science first sparked by or at least significantly influenced from watching some version of Star Trek? I would bet it is a lot of them. Not every concept in Star Trek is worth diving into from a scientific perspective but not trying to do that at all would be a huge mistake.

Now, Graham Hancock isn’t writing Star Trek but people listen to what he’s saying for the same basic reasons they watch Star Trek. They are curious about a science based approach to the world. They don’t know he’s exaggerating some things and taking other things out of context. Use the opportunity to teach them.

In other words, don’t call them idiots for watching Star Trek, start a conversation about space travel.

You’re ignoring the interesting questions he asks in favor of the easy to hand wave away stuff and that’s exactly what I’m talking about. To be clear, I’m not defending the things he says. I’m pointing out that his more outlandish theories gain more traction because the scientific community doesn’t lean into the softballs and use them as an opportunity to both teach people actual science and understand what different groups of people want to learn about.

Ignore the star / soul example and focus in on the possibility of an ancient and semi advanced civilization existing. That’s the part grabbing people’s attention. Talk about what that would change about our understanding of the past and what sort of evidence we would expect to find if it were true. Showcase people working in related fields and what they have found already. Propose other locations we could look for that evidence and discuss other topics we could study while looking for that evidence in those places. Engage the curiosity, don’t dismiss it. Anyone listening to Graham is likely uneducated in science but interested in it so use that as your jumping off point instead of judging those people for not being farther down the path.

I don’t see how getting more people interested in ancient history and geology is a bad thing. Part of the reason Graham has the wiggle room to make the claims that he makes is that the subject is relatively unstudied.

Obviously there is actual science taking place in the field and has been forever but funding for that kind of thing is notoriously difficult to come by compared to many other fields. Getting grants to study the distant past for essentially no reason other than curiosity is not a priority within an economic system that prioritizes profit over all else. The best way to break through that particular obstacle is getting more people to pay attention and ask questions. If we need a benign conspiracy theory about “big geology” hiding the truth from us to make that happen then where’s the harm in that? The vast majority of people prone to conspiratorial thinking are already farther down that rabbit hole than Hancock’s ideas will take them.

Additionally, actual scientists would do well to learn something from Graham about presentation. Despite what you may think of him, the way he talks about the subject resonates with people. People don’t want hear a regurgitation of facts in a research paper. Speculate a bit and get people excited about your future work. You don’t need to go to the extremes that he does but don’t refuse to branch out from what can be conclusively proven today either. Talk about your theories and what you’re hoping to find / learn just as much as you talk about the results of your research.

I have no idea where that data comes from and that’s exactly the point I’m making. It doesn’t match my personal experience at all.

I build the infrastructure that these data centers need to connect to the internet. Our projected power consumption is at least tripling from last year which was itself double the year before, and that’s only the power draw for the fiber optic infrastructure connecting these data centers together. They’re also building a ridiculous amount of computing power in those data centers which is another massive increase in power consumption.

There are some kind-of green efforts in progress to mitigate a bit of the environmental impacts of that increase in demand but most of what I have seen personally is just more draw from the local utility company. I have serious doubts about any data that indicates that tripling power consumption is not a major environmental problem.

It’s easier to verify rote memorization than actual understanding so naturally shitty schools focus on the former at the expense of the latter. Most American schools are shitty by academic standards.

Photography is capturing something real in the physical world. Even if the action can be boiled down to “push a button” the photographer needs to have at least some presence where the real event is taking place.

AI art is not a depiction of a real event and requires no physical presence. It’s also not being brought to life by the person taking credit for it. That’s not to say AI generated images can’t be cool or useful but I don’t think they are art. If your definition of art is loose enough to apply to AI generated images then the I think the artist credit should belong to the AI itself or the team that wrote the software, not the person typing in prompts.

How many beans have you harvested? How many bushels of wheat have you grown? None, damn I guess that means we all have to starve to death.

meating

Nice one

It does talk about some steps they’re taking right at the beginning. I missed those initially because on mobile it looks like an ad before the actual article starts so I skimmed over it.

deleted by creator

I understand the comparison but you can’t exactly mute people with minimal effort in real life. Additionally, the threat of rape in person is significantly different than anonymously online from a legal perspective because the person making the threat knows who and where the target is at the moment the threat is made.

At a high level I don’t disagree with most of what you’re saying. The point I’m making is that there’s a pretty large gap between “something should be done about online harassment” and “this is our plan for stopping online harassment”. Most calls for action appeal to the first without much concern for the second, and the solution is the difficult part, not identifying the problem.

While that is true in many respects, voice chat is quite difficult to police compared to text chat. I’m not sure how you go about automating or even monitoring that without recording everything people say using your service. Which then brings up a whole host of issues from data storage costs to privacy concerns to consent to record laws. You pretty much have to rely on users to submit evidence of their claims and that leads us back to the idea that users need to expect to have an active role in enforcing any sort of moderation policy.

I didn’t say no attempts should be made to improve things. In fact in one of my comments I explicitly said the opposite. I’m saying people need to be both realistic in their expectations of what any moderation policy can achieve and proactive in the pursuit of their own online safety. Moderators will never be able to fully eliminate this problem because it is an inherent part of the behavior of a subset of humanity and humans are involved in the activities where this harassment takes place.

If you expect every person you meet, online or in person, to respect the rules you are going to be disappointed. By all means, make suggestions for improvement. But understand any solution will be imperfect and accept your role in dealing with those imperfections. To put the sentiment in a more succint form, get thicker skin.

Yes that is how moderation has worked in some places in the past. It’s also been historically unpaid volunteer work and not particularly effective, especially at large scales. Most of the people here have at least one story about bad moderation on reddit precisely because that kind of moderation is inefficient and heavily influenced by the personal bias of the moderator reviewing a report. You still needed to block people on a regular basis if you wanted to both participate and avoid harassment from a subset of users. That’s how it is all over the internet and there is nothing that can be done to completely remove that element of online activity. Hence the need for thicker skin.

Ok so what exactly is your proposal? We’ve already established that what happened in this video is not illegal based on the laws of any of the countries that the people involved likely live in so what’s next? How do you go from where we are now to the system you want to see implemented?

You’re talking about abstract ideas and I’m talking about actionable realities. The two often conflict with each other. The world you’re describing isn’t the one we live in so if you you want to make it a reality you need to get much more specific about how to implement your vision. It’s easy to say “do more” when you don’t have to worry about the resources required or side effects of what you’re asking for.

Normally I’d agree with the blanket statement that companies are allowed to get away with too much but the way you’re applying that argument here doesn’t make sense. You’re also saying that people don’t have any responsibility to protect themselves and I just can’t agree with that statement. It’s way too idealistic to be applicable to real life in any significant way.

I’m not a lawyer but it is my understanding of US law that something like what you see in the video does not meet the legal definition of a threat. There is no indication that the offender knows the real identity or location of the person they are speaking to, both of which are required to establish the intent necessary to define something as a threat in the legal sense of the word. Furthermore, the person speaking appears to be from another country, likely the UK or Australia, both of which have different laws than the US. Is Riot supposed to evaluate this situation based on the laws of the country in which they have their corporate HQ, the country the speaker resides in, or the country in which the listener resides? I don’t think a lawyer in any of those three countries would advise this streamer to press charges based on the content of this video alone which would indicate that this kind of behavior is not illegal. Perhaps it should be, but that’s another matter entirely.

To reiterate, none of this is meant to be interpreted as a defense of what that guy said. It’s just to illustrate the point that moderation is not a simple thing to enforce even in situations where a surface level evaluation seems like it should be. It’s much simpler to mute this guy or leave the lobby or whatever else you feel like you need to do to protect yourself. The unfortunate reality remains that people like this will always be around no matter what system is in place to minimize their impact. That’s not to say that no steps should be taken with that goal in mind, just that when all is said and done you will always bear some responsibility in protecting yourself from content or behavior you don’t want to be exposed to.

Why do game makers need to be the responsible party? I’ve never played a game that didn’t let you block and/or mute people you’re playing with. That doesn’t make assholes disappear but it stops the problem from impacting you. Why add a middleman to the equation? Taking care of it yourself is much faster and doesn’t depend on convincing someone else that what’s happening needs to be dealt with. You can block people for having the wrong favorite color if you want to.

There’s too much inconsistency in what people perceive to be inappropriate behavior for a central authority to have the final say on the matter. Moderator action should be reserved for situations that explicitly violate the law, and even that varies significantly based on location and interpretation. It’s much simpler to let players decide what they will tolerate on their own.

People do need thicker skin though. So much internet drama is magnified beyond reason by people who can’t just ignore assholes. That’s not excusing the fact that they’re being assholes. Obviously if they would stop being assholes that would be the ideal solution. However, we all know that will never happen. No amount of legislation, moderation, or punishment will ever remove that tendency from people. It is fundamental human nature. Stop fighting a losing battle. Learn how to block people and move on with your life. If you stop engaging they’ll get bored and leave you alone. They thrive on your reaction so stop giving them one.

At the end of the day it’s your job to protect yourself in all aspects of life, including online. Stop trying to outsource it to software developers. They gave you all the tools you need decades ago.

She’s got DSL. Dinshaw’s suckin lips