
The world is a terrible place right now - slater
http://wilwheaton.net/2018/08/the-world-is-a-terrible-place-right-now-and-thats-largely-because-it-is-what-we-make-it/
======
benmmurphy
He wanted Jones to be banned from twitter then he ends up getting banned from
a Mastodon instance. I guess what goes around comes around.

EDIT: For more context: [https://medium.com/@AmberEnderton/wil-wheaton-has-a-
listenin...](https://medium.com/@AmberEnderton/wil-wheaton-has-a-listening-
problem-accdf6277b88)

------
wlkr
> I thought that if I left Twitter, I could find a new social network that
> would give it some competition

I mean, the self-hosted website - where this blog is posted - is exactly that.
I don't quite follow his desire to find a third party community. He seems to
want a service that meets his standards of what a social network should be
without realising that he has complete control of his own content and how
people interact with him on his own website. Interestingly, where he disabled
comments.

~~~
eesmith
He would like a place with "Cat pictures! Jokes! Links to interesting things
that we found in the backwaters of the internet! Interaction with friends we
just haven’t met, yet!"

A blog, even with comments enabled, is less effective at that than Twitter
was. (Certainly not _in_ effective, but as Wheaton has had long experience on
both Twitter and maintaining a blog, I think we can conclude he wants
something he doesn't get from blogging.)

------
corv
I don’t want to argue for or against the “my free-speech is your hate-speech”
conundrum.

The question I’m posing is, why are we so attached to our identities online?

If an angry mob follows us around online then why not use a pseudonym and let
our posts be judged on their own merits, instead of our reputation?

~~~
torgian
accountability. Using your real name on social media makes you much more
accountable than using a pseudonym. Some people really believe in that (I do
too, just not on most social media platforms)

~~~
newscracker
I’m not sure I understood what you mean by “accountability”. Platforms that
have tried to enforce real world identities, like Facebook, have clearly shown
that putting one’s name to a piece of content has very little to do with how
nasty people will be. We also know _at least a few (if not several)_ prominent
people on Twitter who say and do nasty things while posting with their real
names and identities.

What people put online and how they convey things are more about what people
are innately than about putting real names and photos around.

Putting real names and identities also exposes people (those vulnerable due to
circumstances or those who’re against commonly held notions in their social
setting).

Also see: [http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/08/04/real-
na...](http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2011/08/04/real-names.html)

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RickJWagner
I worry a bit about Wheaton. I'd like for him to have a happy existence, he
seems a bit off-center sometimes.

I wish him good luck.

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christefano
I wonder how this would have played out differently if Wil Wheaton had chosen
a different Mastodon instance like
[https://tenforward.social/about](https://tenforward.social/about)

------
jstewartmobile
Executive Summary:

One day that cool sewer--the one I used to hang out at--had too many turds
floating in it. So I tried out another one... Even worse! That's it. No more
sewers for me. Nosiree Bob!

~~~
eesmith
It used to be the river was a fun place to hang out. Then more people started
dumping their sewage into the river. At first it wasn't so bad, but over time
it got worse. Finally, one turd became the last straw, so I looked for another
river. Even worse! That's it. No more rivers for me. Nosiree Bob!

~~~
jstewartmobile
140 characters or less was never a river.

~~~
eesmith
You broke your own analogy - 140 characters isn't a sewer, either.

~~~
jstewartmobile
140 chars is ideal MTU for shitposting. OC was also an example.

Getting that kind of payload from pt A to pt B sure sounds like a sewer to me.

~~~
eesmith
A river is an ideal way to get rid of shit, yes. The river volume doesn't
really matter - humans produce a lot of shit. Some rivers have been turned
into sewer lines, like the River Fleet
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Fleet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Fleet)
). Even huge rivers can have problems, like the Yellow River
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_River#Pollution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_River#Pollution)
).

Twitter after the 2007 SXSWi was not considered a sewer, even with 140
characters. The River Fleet, in Roman times, was not a sewer. Most assuredly
Twitter did not build their system as a sewer.

Twitter doubled its limit, so by your definition is no longer 'ideal'. The
shitposting doesn't seem to be affected. Even if 140 is ideal, why should I
think that unlimited length would somehow prevent problems?

I prefer to think you didn't think through the metaphor of your 'Executive
Summary' well enough.

~~~
jstewartmobile
Only brought up Twitter because of original article. If you ask me, that
entire industry--Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc--is a sewer, and always has
been a sewer.

Whether it's social media, online games, or something entirely new, when there
is a) real-time feedback, b) a profit motive, and c) a large enough user base
to conduct experiments on, it is only a matter of time before someone gets the
bright idea of hiring a few data scientists to optimize the rube-fleecing.
Then it becomes Pavlov's human.

The whole awful business is the crack-pipe of our upper-middle class, and the
guys who made those crack pipes knew _exactly_ what they were doing. If a
bunch of alt-right shitposters shoved Wil Wheaton off of the pipe, they
unintentionally did him a favor.

And as far as original analogy went, sewers were designed for sewage. Rivers
weren't. It is not that complicated.

~~~
eesmith
Wheaton did not refer to early Twitter as a sewer. That's why my comment
points out that your "executive summary" is a misnomer. It is your
interpretation. It may even be a correct interpretation. But it is not an
accurate summary of what Wheaton wrote.

------
mgiannopoulos
Why not run his own Mastodon instance? It might be a better response to the
attacks he has received.

------
ap3
I don’t follow Alex Jones on Twitter and I don’t watch his show.

How are those two things different?

~~~
Hnrobert42
If you are on twitter, his fans come talk to you. If you are on your couch
watching television, they don’t. You know this.

