evocatus

You can refuse to buy into the conspiracy theory drivel that is so commonplace on the web these days. That does not make this sociopsychological phenomenon go away. In that sense, and by your definition, this phenomenon is now part of "reality."

SSH in and use a terminal editor. Or, create an SMB/CIFS share and mount it locally.

I've been fascinated with this phenomenon as it pertains to our conception of our selves, and the role the Internet and social media have played in mediating this.

In particular - how much of our identity is tied to, or even dependent on, our digital footprint? To what extent do we judge someone based on their Twitter bio, and whatever carefully curated selection of photos they have decided to expose to the public?

...and what of those who have dutifully abstained from social media all this time, sounding the alarm bell _almost a decade in advance_ of Cambridge Analytica and 2016? Are these people now without identities, personas - digital vampires without a reflection in the black mirror?

How accurate is the reflection, anyway? Online personas, identities, are a construction; I would even go further to call them participants of Baudrillard's "order of sorcery" - mere brushstrokes, assemblages of pixels suggesting an actual person behind them, but on one extreme are faithful representations up to the fidelity of the medium (e.g. candid photos), and on another are pure personas, people acting out a role (e.g. an actor on screen). VTubers [1] are one particularly salient illustration of this logic taken several steps further.

From the article:

> Narratives shape our perceptions, which form our realities and influence our choices.

Is it possible to seize hold of one's personal narrative, and thereby reinvent the self?

> You can be whoever you want to be. You can completely redefine yourself if you want. You don't have to worry about the slots other people put you in as much. They don't look at your body and make assumptions. They don't hear your accent and make assumptions. All they see are your words. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTuber

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...

The old man lost his horse, but it all turned out for the best [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_old_man_lost_his_horse

This is an ancient phenomenon. I would posit that religions are its earliest manifestation.

Reality is a consensual process. Societies are continuously negotiating and renegotiating, amongst themselves, the borders of the map we call our worldview. Sometimes this process involves wiping the slate clean as we completely re-imagine the territory.

This is not a value judgment of this piece, or of this process as a whole.

Let me dust off my copy of the Malleus Maleficarum.

Fantastic essay, as is par for the course.

Ah yes. I suppose you still believe in Powell's story that inflation is transitory. Forget about the money supply or the sudden course correction to hike interest rates faster.

So if magic money exists... what's stopping us from printing out 100x the amount of money? Why not continue this policy indefinitely?

The self-taught developers of today are a far, far cry from the self-taught developers of yesteryear.

Self-taught developers were once ardent hobbyists hailing from an era before (we had quite this much) aggressive commercialization of the internet. They found it fun to make computers blink pretty colors.

Self-taught developers today heard you could make a quick buck from the profession.

Good. If you open yourself up to this form of exploitation by increasing your attack surface proportional to the order of the insane dependency graph that is the NPM ecosystem... then prepare to be exploited.

Sounds like you are the one denying racism.

In my recent experience/experimentation, HN does not like to be told this and will downvote or flag opinions expressing this sentiment.

Perhaps this community is not as progressive as it thinks?

More racist technology that HN cannot actually recognize as racist.

For him to stop exploiting his privilege as a rich white man to farm social credit and shut up.

I've already walked this path of self-isolation. The pandemic, quarantine, none of it are new to me. This was my life for years.

I feel for this upcoming generation, in the most real way possible.

They are fucked.

More apologies to dress one's self up with morality and a tinge of nostalgia, with nothing substantive actually being done about it. Typical white liberal behavior.

Burn in hell.

It's really just like you Europeans to constantly project attributes of your perceived enemy unto others. Anti-Pelosi, straight-laced anti-hippy conservative types, people defying mask mandates.

No mind reading required. Simply observing the whites.

For what other purpose? I've met people who are vocally on this end of the political spectrum that don their masks, sit in close proximity to one another, remove them, and remain in each others' presence for an hour or more.

Does COVID not strike at the dinner table? Or is there some other purpose to this theater?

If people really practiced the virtues of true self-isolation and quarantine, out of concern for how the virus actually spreads (which is _through human contact_) there wouldn't be nearly this many people with immaculate short haircuts. One wonders how barbers pay the rent otherwise.

Of course. The problem doesn't (in fact, never) lies with you - it's always the _others_ who are incapable of practicing virtuous acts that are at fault.

If you had read the article, you would have at least addressed their point that many people make ostentatious displays of virtue without actually doing a damn thing in the real world.

It's the attempt to paint one's self with good deeds, without actually having done any, that is problematic.

Perhaps you are experiencing white fragility from your worldview being questioned?

> No one actually has to do anything. Virtue comes from mere words or even from silently held beliefs. There was a time in the distant past when people thought you could only be virtuous by doing things: by helping the blind man across the road; looking after your elderly parents instead of dumping them in a home; staying in a not-wholly-perfect marriage for the sake of the children. These things involve effort and self-sacrifice. That sounds hard! Much more convenient to achieve virtue by expressing hatred of those who think the health service could be improved by introducing competition.

Here's an experiment - the next time you're out (if you still do that), take a look around and see how many people are wearing masks. Of that sample, how many of them have long hair?

The thing that typifies white liberals most to me is their desire to be adorned with an aura of virtue while still doing the absolute bare minimum in order to be seen as such. Conspicuous displays such as mask wearing are low-effort, low-cost, require little to no compromise or change in one's lifestyle and behavior, and signal to fellow whites or allied tribespeople that you are on the same side.

But when it comes to making an actual sacrifice - not even a significant one, I would posit! - suddenly all those lambasting the "alt right" are nowhere to be found. Short hair, fades, crew cuts abound - what happened? Weren't we just shaming our neighbors on social media for wanting to get haircuts? For having outdoor barbecues in the park? Where were you, when society called for your sacrifice?

At the barber's, it seems.

Now think - if there are this many people willing to skirt quarantine and stay-at-home orders while making outward displays of conformity... how many more of these self-proclaimed progressives actually secretly harbor racist beliefs while still reciting the common refrains of diversity and inclusion?

I've developed tactics for unmasking the fakers and pretend-quarantiners. I am working to develop social technologies to unmask the pretend anti-racists now.

You touch it with a needle.

Good. There's nothing more insulting than discovering that you were hired not for your technical merits or capabilities, but for the color of your skin.

To add on further injury, all the feigned niceties and politeness go out the window once you actually start working together. Then all the unconscious biases are on display.

Good luck talking about this because none of your coworkers are racist - they all took diversity training.

Sounds like something a white would say. Perhaps you suffer from the "white fragility" cited by the wikipedia article [1]?

[1] https://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/viewFile/249/116

    White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and in-
    sulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protec-
    tion builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering
    the ability to tolerate racial stress, leading to what I refer to as White Fragility.
    White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress be-
    comes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include
    the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such
    as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behav-
    iors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium.

It can't be racist if you have no power [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice_plus_power

Sounds like telling someone how a magic trick works before you perform it.

Those who readily believe what they are told are easily taken advantage of.

While we are on the topic of epistemic integrity, do you not consider it harmful to make a judgment of psychopathy "from the little I know about you," based on a few UTF-8 characters sent over the web?

Had you any actual knowledge of what it is you speak of, you would have known that:

    The potential for harm is considerable if the PCL-R is used incorrectly, or if the user is not familiar with the clinical and empirical literature pertaining to psychopathy

from the author of the PCL-R [1], "gold standard" for assessing psychopathy (by your own citation [2]).

Why is it that the most morally outraged are the ones most incapable of following their own principles? Doesn't HN rely on people not spreading unreliable misinformation, unlike yourself?

[1] http://www.hare.org/scales/pclr.html

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Diagnosis

There was a time when the internet was a mythical place, full of fiction and unreality - cyberspace. Nothing was taken for granted here, and everything assumed false.

The culture has shifted. Now we expect the internet to be a faithful representation of reality, the truth - whatever terms you want to use.

There are those of the first order, and those of the second. Before those of the second criticize those of the first, observe that:

"You can be whoever you want to be. You can completely redefine yourself if you want. You don't have to worry about the slots other people put you in as much. They don't look at your body and make assumptions. They don't hear your accent and make assumptions. All they see are your words." [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...

It's too late. The dilution of the hacker community has crossed a critical threshold.