Perhaps you are correct, but I think well reasoned posts, over the long run, beat out emotional appeals of any stripe in overall positive moderation. Meaning, if you want to say something popular, it doesn't matter how you say it, but if you want to say something unpopular, you had best say it with style, intelligence, and conviction.
Still, I think the sobriquet "groupthink" is demeaning to the slashdot culture and the people who create that culture. It implies that weak willed people are swayed to think a certain way by the group. The truth is that people who think a certain way choose to stay and contribute more frequently than people who think oppositely. Few here express opinions just to fit in, rather, they had those opinions already and have stayed at a place where those opinions are welcomed.
Perhaps that is all that is really meant by "groupthink." But the connotations of the word are different. Let's analyze this according to the causes and symptoms of groupthink as listed at wikipedia.
Causes of Groupthink * Highly cohesive groups are much more likely to engage in groupthink. The closer they are, the less likely they are to raise questions to break the cohesion.
Untrue. Slashdot is not cohesive. the members are not particularly close.
* The group isolates itself from outside experts. In order to make a well informed decision, the group needs to invite qualified experts to help weigh the possible risks.
Untrue. Outside experts are welcomed and rewarded consistently for their contributions.
* Strong leadership leads to groupthink, because the leader is more likely to promote his/her own solution.
Strong Leadership? Don't make me laugh.
Social psychologist Clark McCauley's three conditions under which groupthink occurs:
* Directive leadership.
* Homogeneity of members' social background and ideology.
* Isolation of the group from outside sources of information and analysis.
All completely untrue. The leadership is nondirective, our backgrounds and ideology are diverse, and the site is about outside sources of information.
Symptoms of groupthink
In order to make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms that are indicative of groupthink (1977).
1. A feeling of invulnerability creates excessive optimism and encourages risk taking.
2. Discounting warnings that might challenge assumptions.
3. An unquestioned belief in the group's morality, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
4. Stereotyped views of enemy leaders.
5. Pressure to conform against members of the group who disagree.
6. Shutting down of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
7. An illusion of unanimity with regards to going along with the group.
8. Mindguards -- self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting opinions.
Point 1 doesn't exist here. Point two happens on occasion, for instance warnings about Linux or Mac security might be met with skepticism. Point three happens on occasion i.e. "Information wants to be free and so does my entertainment." Point four, well, I can't decide. Are Gates and Balmer as evil as people here make them out to be? Maybe I'm already too influenced by groupthink to make an unbiased judgment here. Points five & six are the points you propose to address in your experiment, and I think you may be right, moderation acts as a pressure to conform and may shut down ideas that deviate from the apparent consensus. I don't think there is any illusion of unanimity here, not least because of all the shouting about "groupthink." I also don't see anything much
There is no such thing as slashdot group think. There are a wide variety of opinions expressed on this site, that's why I keep coming back. I think that the only reason anyone believes that stupid "group think" meme is because they believe that only someone brainwashed by group think could ever possibly disagree with them.
Get over it. People who disagree with you are not weak willed idiots infected by some "group think" mental virus.
On a complete tangent, why do we always compare human behavior to chimps and gorillas, but not to bonobos? Me, I'd rather live in a society where stressful situations were defused with copious sex, and the social hierarchy was defined by female genital rubbing rather than male poop-flinging and fighting.
It's called working to your pay scale. Someone wants to pay me less than I know I'm worth, I'm gonna dick around. Someone wants to throw down the cash for my best effort, they'll get the smartest, hardest working man around.
There is nothing inherently wrong with it in the individualist world view, as we are all personally responsible for our emotional reactions. In the interdependent world view it is wrong, as you are contributing to a dysfunctional dynamic that increases net human suffering.
So it all depends on whether you are a selfish capitalist pig, or a dirty commie sympathizer.
Nah, look up the difference between civil and common law. You will see that jurisprudence is a concept introduced by common law, based mostly on English common law, as opposed to civil law, based on the Napoleonic code.
From common law by way of jurists making decisions regarding prior cases. As opposed to civil law, where precedent is relatively unimportant. What's your point?
Well, am not a lawyer, but the way I understand it is that the Constitution must be interpreted according to case law, not according to what any given individual thinks it should mean. You can't just pick and choose how you interpret the words that make up the language of the Constitution and expect that it to be legitimate.
People have done exactly what you have done, reinterpreting the Constitution to mean what they would like it to mean, only in regards to tax laws. They have pretty much all ended up in jail because of it.
You could debate all day what you think our Founding Fathers might have meant. It amounts to a fart in a hurricane. Judges have already decided what they meant.
Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your news letter! Actually, I already am, hehe, though I haven't even looked at technocrat in some months.
Cluckeraptors, lol. I was in Chinatown in San Francisco on a bus when an tiny ancient chinese lady tried to bring a live one on. The bus driver said no way, so she snapped it's neck like cracking a whip, then brought her now dead cluckeraptor on the bus.
Vertically integrated aquaculture, interesting. Have you ever seen an aquaculture/trombe wall combo? Water makes a great thermal mass for trombe walls, and you can raise tilapia in anything, they're muck-dwellers like catfish. Big tubes of water in sunlight grow a LOT of algea for them to eat.
He gets Linux. He was hired as a Linux expert, to lie about it. I know we shouldn't ascribe to malice what can be blamed on stupidity, but this guy isn't stupid and Microsoft is about as malicious as they come.
That is a great idea. I lived on a farm when I was a kid, haven't in a while now. I kinda miss it. I've done a little research into permaculture, that's how I found out about the movable coops. The Chinese know a lot about permaculture, probably stems from having so much marginal land and a long sense of history. They tie all their inputs to outputs. Nitrogen fixing leguminous trees on ridge lines, then any animals, then grain crops in the middle slopes, with rotating fish ponds in the bottom of the valley. Grow tilapia one year, switch ponds, and grow veggies in the fish poop. Bee hives over the fish pond so the dead bees become fish food. Really nice system they've got.
You wouldn't need to worry about the watering if one corner was fixed and the corral just swept out a circle like those huge sprinklers do. The watering trough could stay in the center, the pasture is a wedge shape, the chicken coop is a run along the trailing edge of the wedge with the solar panels shading the chickens. You know, something like that could be feasible. Manufactured in large enough scale, a system like that could be economical. I've heard some very good numbers regarding increased carrying capacity (cow patties fertilize much better if they are broken up by the chickens) and decreased antibiotic use (again, the cow shit is mulched into the ground meaning less reinfection).
The most interesting use for the movable coop is as part of a permaculture ranching plan. You have several pastures where you raise cows, moving them from one to the next. Behind them you wheel the moveable coops. The chickens feed off of insects in the cow dung. They also break it up and trample it into the ground, which reduces the incidence of disease when you bring the cows back around to that pasture. You get increased yields of chicken and beef without using any extra inputs.
The question of the existence of God is an open scientific hypothesis. Hence the reference to S. Hawking's "A Brief History of Time".
No, no it is not. A scientific hypothesis is falsifiable. That is, it makes predictions and those predictions can be tested for, and if not found, the hypothesis is false. The idea of God makes no predictions, and is inherently unfalsifiable.
I've given you the evidence and a way to reproduce them. Why is this different to the scientific method?
No, you have not given evidence. You have given your delusions, and your explanation for your delusions. I have tried to reproduce your evidence using your methods, and have come up with absolutely nothing.
What's the definition of evidence?
Verifiable observations of the world, including internal mental and emotional events. That is to say, it is verifiable and repeatable that anyone will have a particular kind of internal event if they stroke their genitals for long enough. I have also found that practicing Buddhist methods leads for me to the kinds of experiences predicted. I had previously tried that with Christianity and found nothing.
As Buddhism posits no Gods, no personal soul, only conditioned arising, it is not a religion, just a philosophy.
I'm giving references to support my statement that (again) the existence of God is an open scientific hypothesis. You suggest that the only authority in the world is you. Something's wrong here.
No, he's not saying that. Please look up what the logical fallacy known as appeal to authority means. In a logical argument, you do not need to cite authority. There is no authority, only evidence and the rules of logic.
Regardless, blind faith even in the face of massive evidence to the contrary is a religion.
Agreed, that's what people have been talking about when referring to atheism. Where's the evidence?>/blockquote>
There is no evidence for God. The God myth is no different from any other myth. It holds no special place over and above the tooth fairy or Santa Claus. No rational adult human would believe in either without extraordinary evidence. A book claiming they exist is not enough.
However, there is no evidence against God, either. In fact, there can't be, as God could fake any evidence he likes. So the whole question is meaningless. The proper position is agnosticism, but one could say, the proper position on whether matter will cease providing support upon taking the next step is also undecided. Maybe it will, maybe it wont, there's no way to know until you take that step.
Okay, I'm bored. He's right you know. You and your co-religionists are brain damaged. That's not an ad hominem, I'm not attacking you, it's a hypothesis to explain your insane behavior and beliefs. Yes, insane. Over the age of four, believing in invisible friends is crazy.
The only point in arguing with people like you is the possibility of inoculating the uninfected. It is unlikely in the extreme that anyone will be able to fix your brain damage with mere argumentation.
If a human can go against God's will, God is not omnipotent. Being omniscient and omnipotent, God could have set up a universe where every human freely chose to do his will. God could have set up a universe where no evil existed. The fact that evil exists means that either God is not all powerful, not omniscient, or not omni-benevolent. I don't think you fully grasp what these terms mean.
Yes, but in that instance, there were two blobs of matter that slowed due to mutual interaction, gas pressure and whatnot, while the two associated blobs of dark matter shot off ahead. In this, it's a ring of dark matter.
The shorthand for that is C|N>K. Coffee piped through nose output to keyboard. I wish I could claim credit for that one, but alas, I am merely passing it along.
Yep. But that's not how it's supposed to work. Stakeholders in a capitalist system include not just business owners, but employees and customers as well. That is why I have a problem with capitalism, it's inherently anti-democratic.
That's what patents are for, right? Serving the needs of the business world. Not fostering innovation amongst Citizens of the United States. Nope. Serving the needs of the business world.
Heh, yeah, prejudice in all its forms is bad. even prejudging stupid people will get you in trouble sometimes. One of the most enlightened conversations I've had was with a stupid person at a bar. Ever talked to an enlightened stupid person? They make you feel dumb for not being able to put your philosophy of life, the universe, and everything into a few monosyllablic sentences.
Interesting point about remembering what it's really like to be a child. I do, it's one of the reasons I get along so well with kids. I can even remember being a kid, and swearing to myself that I would never, ever do what most adults appeared to have done, and forgotten.
Yes, yes I know Lisa has been into Jazz. I used that episode as an example because it is one of the few recent episodes I've watched, and it represents a general trend in the Simpsons, away from their working class roots and towards what I can only imagine is what the current crop of writers are more familiar with. They just don't feel like the same family any more.
Not only that, but the characters don't feel like the same people. It's as if the current writers are utterly unfamiliar with the Simpsons. They do things completely out of character all the time these days, they are just walking one line jokes. Bad one line jokes.
Slashdot Mirror
Still, I think the sobriquet "groupthink" is demeaning to the slashdot culture and the people who create that culture. It implies that weak willed people are swayed to think a certain way by the group. The truth is that people who think a certain way choose to stay and contribute more frequently than people who think oppositely. Few here express opinions just to fit in, rather, they had those opinions already and have stayed at a place where those opinions are welcomed.
Perhaps that is all that is really meant by "groupthink." But the connotations of the word are different. Let's analyze this according to the causes and symptoms of groupthink as listed at wikipedia.
Untrue. Slashdot is not cohesive. the members are not particularly close.
Untrue. Outside experts are welcomed and rewarded consistently for their contributions.
Strong Leadership? Don't make me laugh.
All completely untrue. The leadership is nondirective, our backgrounds and ideology are diverse, and the site is about outside sources of information.
Point 1 doesn't exist here. Point two happens on occasion, for instance warnings about Linux or Mac security might be met with skepticism. Point three happens on occasion i.e. "Information wants to be free and so does my entertainment." Point four, well, I can't decide. Are Gates and Balmer as evil as people here make them out to be? Maybe I'm already too influenced by groupthink to make an unbiased judgment here. Points five & six are the points you propose to address in your experiment, and I think you may be right, moderation acts as a pressure to conform and may shut down ideas that deviate from the apparent consensus. I don't think there is any illusion of unanimity here, not least because of all the shouting about "groupthink." I also don't see anything much
There is no such thing as slashdot group think. There are a wide variety of opinions expressed on this site, that's why I keep coming back. I think that the only reason anyone believes that stupid "group think" meme is because they believe that only someone brainwashed by group think could ever possibly disagree with them.
Get over it. People who disagree with you are not weak willed idiots infected by some "group think" mental virus.
On a complete tangent, why do we always compare human behavior to chimps and gorillas, but not to bonobos? Me, I'd rather live in a society where stressful situations were defused with copious sex, and the social hierarchy was defined by female genital rubbing rather than male poop-flinging and fighting.
It's called working to your pay scale. Someone wants to pay me less than I know I'm worth, I'm gonna dick around. Someone wants to throw down the cash for my best effort, they'll get the smartest, hardest working man around.
There is nothing inherently wrong with it in the individualist world view, as we are all personally responsible for our emotional reactions. In the interdependent world view it is wrong, as you are contributing to a dysfunctional dynamic that increases net human suffering.
So it all depends on whether you are a selfish capitalist pig, or a dirty commie sympathizer.
Nah, look up the difference between civil and common law. You will see that jurisprudence is a concept introduced by common law, based mostly on English common law, as opposed to civil law, based on the Napoleonic code.
Because it takes a simple majority to work within the constitution, and a two-thirds majority to change it.
From common law by way of jurists making decisions regarding prior cases. As opposed to civil law, where precedent is relatively unimportant. What's your point?
Well, am not a lawyer, but the way I understand it is that the Constitution must be interpreted according to case law, not according to what any given individual thinks it should mean. You can't just pick and choose how you interpret the words that make up the language of the Constitution and expect that it to be legitimate.
People have done exactly what you have done, reinterpreting the Constitution to mean what they would like it to mean, only in regards to tax laws. They have pretty much all ended up in jail because of it.
You could debate all day what you think our Founding Fathers might have meant. It amounts to a fart in a hurricane. Judges have already decided what they meant.
To be fair, this is ONE issue, with Adobe, not open source software or Linux. So it is fair to still say it works.
Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your news letter! Actually, I already am, hehe, though I haven't even looked at technocrat in some months.
Cluckeraptors, lol. I was in Chinatown in San Francisco on a bus when an tiny ancient chinese lady tried to bring a live one on. The bus driver said no way, so she snapped it's neck like cracking a whip, then brought her now dead cluckeraptor on the bus.
Vertically integrated aquaculture, interesting. Have you ever seen an aquaculture/trombe wall combo? Water makes a great thermal mass for trombe walls, and you can raise tilapia in anything, they're muck-dwellers like catfish. Big tubes of water in sunlight grow a LOT of algea for them to eat.
Actually, don't.
He gets Linux. He was hired as a Linux expert, to lie about it. I know we shouldn't ascribe to malice what can be blamed on stupidity, but this guy isn't stupid and Microsoft is about as malicious as they come.
That is a great idea. I lived on a farm when I was a kid, haven't in a while now. I kinda miss it. I've done a little research into permaculture, that's how I found out about the movable coops. The Chinese know a lot about permaculture, probably stems from having so much marginal land and a long sense of history. They tie all their inputs to outputs. Nitrogen fixing leguminous trees on ridge lines, then any animals, then grain crops in the middle slopes, with rotating fish ponds in the bottom of the valley. Grow tilapia one year, switch ponds, and grow veggies in the fish poop. Bee hives over the fish pond so the dead bees become fish food. Really nice system they've got.
You wouldn't need to worry about the watering if one corner was fixed and the corral just swept out a circle like those huge sprinklers do. The watering trough could stay in the center, the pasture is a wedge shape, the chicken coop is a run along the trailing edge of the wedge with the solar panels shading the chickens. You know, something like that could be feasible. Manufactured in large enough scale, a system like that could be economical. I've heard some very good numbers regarding increased carrying capacity (cow patties fertilize much better if they are broken up by the chickens) and decreased antibiotic use (again, the cow shit is mulched into the ground meaning less reinfection).
The most interesting use for the movable coop is as part of a permaculture ranching plan. You have several pastures where you raise cows, moving them from one to the next. Behind them you wheel the moveable coops. The chickens feed off of insects in the cow dung. They also break it up and trample it into the ground, which reduces the incidence of disease when you bring the cows back around to that pasture. You get increased yields of chicken and beef without using any extra inputs.
No, no it is not. A scientific hypothesis is falsifiable. That is, it makes predictions and those predictions can be tested for, and if not found, the hypothesis is false. The idea of God makes no predictions, and is inherently unfalsifiable.
No, you have not given evidence. You have given your delusions, and your explanation for your delusions. I have tried to reproduce your evidence using your methods, and have come up with absolutely nothing.
Verifiable observations of the world, including internal mental and emotional events. That is to say, it is verifiable and repeatable that anyone will have a particular kind of internal event if they stroke their genitals for long enough. I have also found that practicing Buddhist methods leads for me to the kinds of experiences predicted. I had previously tried that with Christianity and found nothing.
As Buddhism posits no Gods, no personal soul, only conditioned arising, it is not a religion, just a philosophy.
No, he's not saying that. Please look up what the logical fallacy known as appeal to authority means. In a logical argument, you do not need to cite authority. There is no authority, only evidence and the rules of logic.
If a human can go against God's will, God is not omnipotent. Being omniscient and omnipotent, God could have set up a universe where every human freely chose to do his will. God could have set up a universe where no evil existed. The fact that evil exists means that either God is not all powerful, not omniscient, or not omni-benevolent. I don't think you fully grasp what these terms mean.
So the best answer to "Where is everywhere?" is... What? I've been looking for everywhere forever.
Here not what. Everywhere is here, it's no wonder you've been missing it, you've been looking forever, which is why, not what.
Yes, but in that instance, there were two blobs of matter that slowed due to mutual interaction, gas pressure and whatnot, while the two associated blobs of dark matter shot off ahead. In this, it's a ring of dark matter.
The shorthand for that is C|N>K. Coffee piped through nose output to keyboard. I wish I could claim credit for that one, but alas, I am merely passing it along.
Yep. But that's not how it's supposed to work. Stakeholders in a capitalist system include not just business owners, but employees and customers as well. That is why I have a problem with capitalism, it's inherently anti-democratic.
It's an internal colon massage! Now bend over...
That's what patents are for, right? Serving the needs of the business world. Not fostering innovation amongst Citizens of the United States. Nope. Serving the needs of the business world.
Just like Congress itself, I suppose.
Heh, yeah, prejudice in all its forms is bad. even prejudging stupid people will get you in trouble sometimes. One of the most enlightened conversations I've had was with a stupid person at a bar. Ever talked to an enlightened stupid person? They make you feel dumb for not being able to put your philosophy of life, the universe, and everything into a few monosyllablic sentences.
Interesting point about remembering what it's really like to be a child. I do, it's one of the reasons I get along so well with kids. I can even remember being a kid, and swearing to myself that I would never, ever do what most adults appeared to have done, and forgotten.
Yes, yes I know Lisa has been into Jazz. I used that episode as an example because it is one of the few recent episodes I've watched, and it represents a general trend in the Simpsons, away from their working class roots and towards what I can only imagine is what the current crop of writers are more familiar with. They just don't feel like the same family any more.
Not only that, but the characters don't feel like the same people. It's as if the current writers are utterly unfamiliar with the Simpsons. They do things completely out of character all the time these days, they are just walking one line jokes. Bad one line jokes.