It’s not the posters that bother me, it’s the format. I’m a wordy person who likes to take it slow and read things leisurely. Hence why the very concept of Twitter is anathema to me. Beyond its usefulness for instigating revolutions, I don’t appreciate it much.
Well, besides the fact that the article is addled with subjectiveness and exaggeration in pure Cracked fashion, they did manage to make me feel rather stupid about myself. For a rationalist, news sources that achieve that are extremely valuable, and should be consulted often.
Well, maybe Rational_Brony wants to find posts with detailed explanation of some position/fact with a summary of corroborating evidence.
I’m a wordy person who likes to take it slow and read things leisurely
I treat that as preference for 1k-ish posts over ≤140-character posts.
On many forums posting a medium-length essay without too much polishing would be just “business as usual”, on some other it would be “weird but OK”. On Twitter it is declared impossible if you use it as supposed. You could use Twitter as an RSS-like stream for your blog, but leading conversation by linking blog posts with points and couterpoints doesn’t seem to be widespread practice on Twitter.
EDIT: I answered before readng the entire thread; looks like I mostly guessed.
Help with the fact that, given how short twitter posts are, it is very difficult to talk about stuff at comfortable length. There isn’t even the comfort of a linear or tree structure like in fora or reddits, and while you can stack them by topic you need to sacrifice characters to do so. You can link to longer posts in blogs and fora, but then why not talk there? Also, every time you post a link, it has to be tinyfied, which is a pain in the neck. And the briefness of the format forces to rely on tacit understanding and common priors, which oftentimes aren’t there, so the risk of illusion of double transparency is very high. .
And I didn’t mean “echo chamber” in terms of ideas so much as in terms of habits, norms, etc. We’re a rather different subculture, and it’s really easy to lose track of how others thinks, a bias which may bite us in the ass later on.
Not that I understand normal people all that well, either, but huddling with my peers isn’t going to help.
… The ideal would be to find people that I disagree with, who don’t express their disagreeable opinions in a way that makes me reject them. Example; mormons, the nicer variety of zionists, anarchists, the nicer variety of randians...
But if I’m only willing to listen to people who express themselves nicely and politely and are civil about stuff, that’s already a bias in itself, huh?
Tribal banners are usually tighly associated with ways of knowing and doing.
Nevertheless, I think we’re heading away from the topic. What worries me is not understanding special tribes, but normal people. And it isn’t so much that I disagree with them, more like I can`t understand them in the first place. Their opinions tend to be few and unworded, so there’s little to disagree upon, let alone argue. Not to mention, they don’t like to argue, they don’t like philosophical or political discussions besides reconfirming whatever they already happen to believe at the moment.
It’s these people that I need to fully grasp if I want to make them leave a conversation in the state of mind I want them to be in, and do the things that I want them to do. Or, barring that, at least being able to predict their behaviour would be nice.
You’re kinda right, but it’s still related. It’s like we’re this very specialized group who drifts away from the concerns of the mainstream more and more, developing our slang and lingo and environment… which wouldn’t be different from any other group such as rock geeks or art fandoms or the like… except our focus of geekery is the improvement of the human mind. This makes communicating with defenctive people complicated, because they don’t know they’re thinking wrong, they’ll confuse your cleverness for insanity, and your attempts to help them for arrogance. It’s like when you know yoga and talk about it to people and they go “Are you going to teach me how to breathe?” I’ve had places were I’ve delcared myself a lesswronger, and where I was told my company was welcome as long as I didn’t try to teach them how to think.
And that’s just people in general. But there’s that subset of people, the normal-normal people, people without dreams, without ambition, without curiosity, without any motivation besides making it to the next month. Talking with those people frustrates me enough as it is, and I fear the company of intelligent, ambitious, witty people such as the ones found here is not going to help assuage that.
A while ago, someone posted a list with twittering LWers, and I started following them all, but now I’ve mostly unfollowed them again. Not because I don’t like them, but because I don’t like them on Twitter. I would have to follow not just them, but all the people they follow as well, to understand what they’re saying, and then I wouldn’t have time to do anything else with my day. I don’t think Twitter is a good medium for ongoing discussions.
I don’t think verbosity is a big problem on LW. People not making posts for fear of being downvoted, or just not investing the time necessary to create good discussion/top-level posts, seems much bigger.
I don’t twit. That thing is in(s)ane. It must be the most frustrating, unfulfilling, obsession-inducing social medium I’ve ever attempted to use.
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Upvoted for patience and directness.
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Upvoted for both, downvoted for condescension. Result; neutral.
It’s not the posters that bother me, it’s the format. I’m a wordy person who likes to take it slow and read things leisurely. Hence why the very concept of Twitter is anathema to me. Beyond its usefulness for instigating revolutions, I don’t appreciate it much.
The writers at Cracked.com don’t seem to think Twitter is all that useful for instigating revolutions, FWIW.
Well, besides the fact that the article is addled with subjectiveness and exaggeration in pure Cracked fashion, they did manage to make me feel rather stupid about myself. For a rationalist, news sources that achieve that are extremely valuable, and should be consulted often.
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How will it help? 140 characters is simply too short form for some kinds of posts.
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Well, maybe Rational_Brony wants to find posts with detailed explanation of some position/fact with a summary of corroborating evidence.
I treat that as preference for 1k-ish posts over ≤140-character posts.
On many forums posting a medium-length essay without too much polishing would be just “business as usual”, on some other it would be “weird but OK”. On Twitter it is declared impossible if you use it as supposed. You could use Twitter as an RSS-like stream for your blog, but leading conversation by linking blog posts with points and couterpoints doesn’t seem to be widespread practice on Twitter.
EDIT: I answered before readng the entire thread; looks like I mostly guessed.
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That is indeed a terrible vice of mine. But see vi21maobk9vp (what kind of handle is that anyway?) for the other reason I find twitter unsatisfactory.
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Help with the fact that, given how short twitter posts are, it is very difficult to talk about stuff at comfortable length. There isn’t even the comfort of a linear or tree structure like in fora or reddits, and while you can stack them by topic you need to sacrifice characters to do so. You can link to longer posts in blogs and fora, but then why not talk there? Also, every time you post a link, it has to be tinyfied, which is a pain in the neck. And the briefness of the format forces to rely on tacit understanding and common priors, which oftentimes aren’t there, so the risk of illusion of double transparency is very high. .
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You’ve lost me from “if” onwards. What’s root density? Erosion?
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Got any recommendations? Also, how to avoid an echo chamber effect (which is already enough of a problem here on LW, I’m afraid)?
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… I still find it kind of baffling.
And I didn’t mean “echo chamber” in terms of ideas so much as in terms of habits, norms, etc. We’re a rather different subculture, and it’s really easy to lose track of how others thinks, a bias which may bite us in the ass later on.
Not that I understand normal people all that well, either, but huddling with my peers isn’t going to help.
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… The ideal would be to find people that I disagree with, who don’t express their disagreeable opinions in a way that makes me reject them. Example; mormons, the nicer variety of zionists, anarchists, the nicer variety of randians...
But if I’m only willing to listen to people who express themselves nicely and politely and are civil about stuff, that’s already a bias in itself, huh?
.
Tribal banners are usually tighly associated with ways of knowing and doing.
Nevertheless, I think we’re heading away from the topic. What worries me is not understanding special tribes, but normal people. And it isn’t so much that I disagree with them, more like I can`t understand them in the first place. Their opinions tend to be few and unworded, so there’s little to disagree upon, let alone argue. Not to mention, they don’t like to argue, they don’t like philosophical or political discussions besides reconfirming whatever they already happen to believe at the moment.
It’s these people that I need to fully grasp if I want to make them leave a conversation in the state of mind I want them to be in, and do the things that I want them to do. Or, barring that, at least being able to predict their behaviour would be nice.
.
You’re kinda right, but it’s still related. It’s like we’re this very specialized group who drifts away from the concerns of the mainstream more and more, developing our slang and lingo and environment… which wouldn’t be different from any other group such as rock geeks or art fandoms or the like… except our focus of geekery is the improvement of the human mind. This makes communicating with defenctive people complicated, because they don’t know they’re thinking wrong, they’ll confuse your cleverness for insanity, and your attempts to help them for arrogance. It’s like when you know yoga and talk about it to people and they go “Are you going to teach me how to breathe?” I’ve had places were I’ve delcared myself a lesswronger, and where I was told my company was welcome as long as I didn’t try to teach them how to think.
And that’s just people in general. But there’s that subset of people, the normal-normal people, people without dreams, without ambition, without curiosity, without any motivation besides making it to the next month. Talking with those people frustrates me enough as it is, and I fear the company of intelligent, ambitious, witty people such as the ones found here is not going to help assuage that.
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A while ago, someone posted a list with twittering LWers, and I started following them all, but now I’ve mostly unfollowed them again. Not because I don’t like them, but because I don’t like them on Twitter. I would have to follow not just them, but all the people they follow as well, to understand what they’re saying, and then I wouldn’t have time to do anything else with my day. I don’t think Twitter is a good medium for ongoing discussions.
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Well, of course I’m exaggerating. But following not only those LWers, but the people they follow, would cost more time than I am willing to spend.
It’d be interesting to see a site like Twitter that hid all follower/following relationships.
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Less of an implied popularity contest.
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I can’t think of a way, but LW feels like much less of a popularity contest, and it has that problem.
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I don’t think verbosity is a big problem on LW. People not making posts for fear of being downvoted, or just not investing the time necessary to create good discussion/top-level posts, seems much bigger.
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It is much more segmented popularity contest because who are the “right” people vaires.
Follower count is a global instantly updated popularity contest, which may be considered worse.
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