Comments on: How Anonymous broke its own rules to break free

By: elix

elix — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 04:22:00 +0000

One follows the other, yes; you’re spot on. When I was a kid, it quietly poked on my subconscious to wonder why there were no male kindergarten teachers. What I didn’t know was that I was growing up in the immediate wake of the Satanic-abuse daycare hoax (albeit I don’t know that it happened much in my actual area).

Harmful to Minors by Judith Levine inevitably returns several times to the endemic moral… well, it’s not so much a panic as a reflex, at this point, revolving around children and any sort of expression of sexuality whatsoever before age 18. And we wonder why teens are going off the rails so badly.

By: hymenopterid

hymenopterid — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 02:19:00 +0000

Yup, I used to get confused when I read fishing guidebooks that talked about trolling lanes.

By: Theranthrope

Theranthrope — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:49:00 +0000

…and I would have gotten away with it too! If it weren’t for those PESKY MASKED KIDS AND THEIR ANNOYING POPTART CAT!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH2-TGUlwu4

By: Theranthrope

Theranthrope — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:41:00 +0000

Also: “Churning the Turnips” as posted, above.

By: Theranthrope

Theranthrope — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:38:00 +0000

Conspiracy-theorism is a bug in a human’s cognitive pattern-recognition “software” (firmware? wetware?), like seeing shapes in clouds, or religious iconography in a dog’s anus; for example.

It’s forming patterns where none exist; it’s also is a personal irritant of mine, because all conspiracy theories involving the government assumes a dangerous level of competence from those least capable of expressing it: politicians and bureaucrats.

There are real conspiracies out there, but they are boring, as they are typically involve things like price-fixing or regulatory-capture.

By: Theranthrope

Theranthrope — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:21:00 +0000

…granted, that’s said with the understanding that neither Anons or Goons are separate homogeneous groups, there is a lot of overlap between the two, but Anons tend to younger and dumber (and troll more rashly), while Goons tend to be older and grumpier (and troll with a more deliberate, thoughtful, manner).

By: Theranthrope

Theranthrope — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:09:00 +0000

No.

By: Theranthrope

Theranthrope — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:09:00 +0000

Pervert.

By: Theranthrope

Theranthrope — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:09:00 +0000

Anon learned to love itself through the grace of Jergens.

By: Theranthrope

Theranthrope — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:08:00 +0000

I think the term your looking for is “moral panic”; a particularly vicious form of IRL concern trolling which does destroy lives and sometimes entire industries (with the “Seduction of the Innocent” comic book scare of the 1950′s), usually for no-good reason.

By: Theranthrope

Theranthrope — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 22:02:00 +0000

“Trolling for skank.” …as it were.

By: Theranthrope

Theranthrope — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 21:59:00 +0000

EVERYONE starts out as a n00b, but not everyone grows out of it.

By: Theranthrope

Theranthrope — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 21:57:00 +0000

Well, 4chan DOES what SA just talks about doing…

By: Theranthrope

Theranthrope — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 21:55:00 +0000

Well said!

By: spinach

spinach — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 20:54:00 +0000

Daarrgghn you weasily kids! I could’ve won this one if it wasn’t for you booky wooks. I’ll just skulk back under my bridge now.

By: Damon Chance

Damon Chance — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 20:49:00 +0000

Nope he’s absolutely right. Trawlers use nets. Trolling is using individual lines with bait or artificial lures. See also… trolling motors… which are smaller motors on fishing boats that cruise at a reduced speed to make the lure you are trolling with go at a more life-like speed.

http://www.lakemichiganangler.com/tips/trolling/trolling_fishing.htm

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 20:18:00 +0000

Troll has also had that meaning since the middle ages.

By: wysinwyg

wysinwyg — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 15:16:00 +0000

I wasn’t making the comparison you apparently thought I was. I was pointing out that your “defense” of trolling — that, realistically, it can never be eradicated (and that therefore we should do nothing about it) — can be applied equally as well to heinous crimes — which can also never be eradicated but which most people think we should at least try to do something about. I was not saying that trolling is as bad as those crimes, just that your argument is terrible.

By: spinach

spinach — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:31:00 +0000

The term you’re looking for is not ‘trolling’ but ‘trawling’. Trawling is a word from the fishing lexicon. As in the following sentence, “I am a troll who trawls message boards to catch authors who make spelling and grammar errors.” You big dummy!

By: James

James — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 10:24:00 +0000

True enough. Your statement regarding the understanding of noobs is still writ with a very broad brush however.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 09:14:00 +0000

You can be herded into the corral or out of it.

By: Cowicide

Cowicide — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 08:08:00 +0000

I hope you now have seen the error of your ways.

By: James

James — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 07:57:00 +0000

I’m pretty sure I fit those criteria and I’ve been a noob lots of times.
In varying scenarios, obviously.

By: Rusty Shackleford

Rusty Shackleford — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 04:52:00 +0000

4/10 would respond again. Grade inflated due to venue.

By: Rusty Shackleford

Rusty Shackleford — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 04:49:00 +0000

Anon learned to love itself through the grace of Boxxy.

By: Rusty Shackleford

Rusty Shackleford — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 04:43:00 +0000

I think the best thing about trolls is that the things you truly believe eventually become impervious to the obvious attempts to bait you. In my life, it has made me view cable news as by turns hilarious and boring. I used to think I was being informed.

By: Lachlan Musicman

Lachlan Musicman — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 03:48:00 +0000

What I really like about this response is the idea that there are plenty of Anonymous’ stories. I remember when I was more active as an anarchist realising that there were as many “anarchy”s (or more formally, “theories of what anarchy is and/or how anarchy works”) as there were “anarchists” – mine was merely another in the milieu.

By: elix

elix — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 03:30:00 +0000

I didn’t exactly intend on calling Seabrook himself a concern troll, although I can see how that sentence implies it pretty hard. However, the actual concern trolling started quite a while ago, and that’s a good reminder that we still haven’t really figured out how to integrate the Internet into society. There’s still a long way to go.

By: Yo Vinny

Yo Vinny — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 02:43:00 +0000

We used to call it “Churning the Turnips.”

By: That_Anonymous_Coward

That_Anonymous_Coward — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 00:43:00 +0000

*tears up*
I feel a lot of love in here tonight…