[Foundation-l] Image filter

[Sarah Stierch]

+1

You've just posted what many of us think and feel. I read the transcript for office hours with Sue from yesterday and it was the same thing. 45 minutes of image filter skepticism and more. I'm glad I couldn't attend it, seemed like a painful and unintellectual experience to sit through.

And if i had a dollar for the mentioning of "Germans" I'd be rich. And here people are arguing about lack of coverage about other projects and languages. So tired of the "Us vs. Them" mentality.

I'd rather talk about GMOs, JFK, Creationism and the end of the world next year....at this point.

Sarah Stierch
Who is never bored and is surely not mainstream, but is happy to be called so right now.


Sent via iPhone - I apologize in advance for my shortness or errors! :)


On Sep 23, 2011, at 8:03 AM, me at marcusbuck.org wrote:

> After some thinking I come to the conclusion that this whole  
> discussion is a social phenomenon.
> 
> You probably know how some topics when mentioned in newspaper articles  
> or blogs spur wild arguments in the comments sections. When the  
> article mentions climate change commentators contest the validity of  
> the collected data, if it mentions religions commentators argue that  
> religion is the root of all evil in the world, if it is about  
> immigration commentators start to rant how immigrants cause trouble in  
> society, if it is about renewable energies commentators tell us how  
> blind society is to believe in its ecologicalness.
> 
> It's always the same pattern: the topic is perceived well in the  
> general society (most sane people think that climate change is real,  
> that renewable energies are the way to go, that religious freedom is  
> good and that most immigrants are people as everybody else who do no  
> harm), but a small or not so small minority experiences these  
> attitudes as a problem and tries to raise awareness to the problems of  
> the trend (usually exaggerating them). The scepticists give their  
> arguments and the non-scepticists answer them.
> 
> The non-scepticists usually have not much motivation to present their  
> arguments (because their position is already the mainstream, so not  
> much incentive to convince more people, just trying to not let the  
> scepticists' opinions stand unwithspoken) while the scepticists have  
> much motivation to present their arguments (if they don't society will  
> presumedly face perdition). This difference in the motivation leads to  
> a situation where both groups produce a similar content output leading  
> to the semblence that both groups represent equal shares of society.
> 
> I think the same is happening here. The majority of people probably  
> think that an optional opt-in filter is a thing that does no harm to  
> non-users and has advantages for those who choose to use it. (Ask your  
> gramma whether "You can hide pictures if you don't want to see them"  
> sounds like a threatening thing to her.) But the scepticists voice  
> their opinions loudly and point out every single imaginable problem.
> 
> I just want to point out that an idea like a free community-driven  
> everybody-can-edit-it encyclopedia with no editorial or peer-review  
> process would never have been created if a long discussion would have  
> preceded its creation. The scepticists would have raised so many  
> seemingly valid concerns that they'd buried the idea deep. I'm feeling  
> that a group of worst-case scenarioists are leading the discussion to  
> a point where the image filter is buried just because everybody is  
> bored about the discussion.
> 
> Marcus Buck
> User:Slomox
> 
> PS: Please don't understand this as a longish version of "You guys  
> opposing my opinion are trolls!". I don't think that the points raised  
> by scepticists should be neglected. But I think that many people  
> reject the image filter because of very theoretical concerns for the  
> sake of it completely removed from pragmatical reasons and that the  
> length of the discussion is in no way indicative of the real  
> problematicness of the topic.
> 
> 
> 
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