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Technology's Legacy: the 'Loser Edit' Awaits Us All
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times Magazine has an insightful article putting into words how I've felt about information-age culture for a while now. It's about a phenomenon dubbed the "loser edit." The term itself was born out of reality TV — once an outcome had been decided while the show was still taping, the producers would comb back through the footage and selectively paste together everything that seemed to foreshadow the loser's fall. When the show actually aired, it thus had an easy-to-follow narrative.
But as the information age has overtaken us, the "loser edit" is something that can happen to anyone. Any time a celebrity gets into trouble, we can immediately search through two decades of interviews and offhand comments to see if there were hints of their impending fall. It usually becomes a self-reinforcing chain of evidence. The loser edit happens for non-celebrities too, using their social media posts, public records, leaked private records, and anything else available through search.
The worst part is, there's no focal point for the blame. The news media does it, the entertainment industry does it, and we do it to ourselves. Any time the internet gets outraged about something, there are a few people who happily dig up everything they can about the person they now feel justified in hating — and thus, the loser edit begins.
But as the information age has overtaken us, the "loser edit" is something that can happen to anyone. Any time a celebrity gets into trouble, we can immediately search through two decades of interviews and offhand comments to see if there were hints of their impending fall. It usually becomes a self-reinforcing chain of evidence. The loser edit happens for non-celebrities too, using their social media posts, public records, leaked private records, and anything else available through search.
The worst part is, there's no focal point for the blame. The news media does it, the entertainment industry does it, and we do it to ourselves. Any time the internet gets outraged about something, there are a few people who happily dig up everything they can about the person they now feel justified in hating — and thus, the loser edit begins.
"Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past." - Nineteen Eighty Four, George Orwell.
What? No. That's a completely different concept. At it's core Karma is simply the name for cause and effect as a single indivisible concept, though it does embrace much more subtle chains of causality than Western thought traditionally recognizes, and many traditions have wrapped it in lots of other concepts relating to reincarnation, etc. Drop a ball and it hits the ground - karma at its simplest: one event, not two. Make a habit of spouting your mouth off in biker bars and get your ass kicked. Earn a reputation as an honest and helpful person, and you'll find help forthcoming when you need it.
What perspective has you equating that with a relatively new phenomena where people go out and build a chain of foreshadowing for whatever random shit befalls you? Hmm, okay, now that I type it, it kind of makes sense. But I stand by my assertion that they're completely unrelated.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Virginia Rappe was not a hooker, she was an actress. There was at least one person who accused Arbuckle of violently raping or assaulting her at the party, resulting in the ruptured bladder that caused her death. There were numerous conflicting accounts at the time. The case dragged on through three trials; he was only acquitted in the third trial. It's still not clear what actually happened.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V...
Koans and fables for the software engineer
Seriously, who depends on Wikipedia as a reliable reference? How about something a LITTLE more serious, like the Smithsonian magazine?
To wit: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/...
"But Arbuckle's lawyers introduced medical evidence showing that Rappe had had a chronic bladder condition, and her autopsy concluded that there "were no marks of violence on the body, no signs that the girl had been attacked in any way." (The defense also had witnesses with damaging information about Rappe's past, but Arbuckle wouldn't let them testify, he said, out of respect for the dead.) The doctor who treated Rappe at the hotel testified that she had told him Arbuckle did not try to sexually assault her, but the prosecutor got the point dismissed as hearsay."
And:
"It wasn't until the third trial, in March of 1922, that Arbuckle allowed his attorneys to call the witnesses who had known Rappe to the stand. ...They testified that Rappe had suffered previous abdominal attacks; drank heavily and often disrobed at parties after doing so; was promiscuous, and had an illegitimate daughter."
If not a hooker, then perhaps it's too close to call. Fatty deserved better.
Sometimes the "writing on the wall" is blood spatter...