Not Quite a Game

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Tiassa, Jan 28, 2015.

?

Can you see it?

Poll closed Feb 28, 2015.
  1. Yes. Ouch.

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  2. No. I don't see what the hell you're talking about.

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  3. No. I see what you're after but no, it's not any sort of problem.

    0 vote(s)
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  4. Other/Can I get a 'maybe'/I just need an 'other' option.

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  1. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    Can I Get an Opinion, Please?

    If a picture is worth a thousand words, or whatever ....

    At any rate: Can you spot what is amiss in this picture, taken from the end of Kendall Anderson's "I wish I hadn't reported my rape"↱?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    Honestly? All I can say is, "(sigh)".

    Well, okay, not really. I've already said quite a bit, elsewhere.

    But I really am interested how many others can perceive the problem.
     
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  3. Randwolf Ignorance killed the cat Valued Senior Member

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    This is probably not what you're after T, but how does Salon relate men sticking their hands into snowblowers to an article on rape?

    Not a very deep and profound observation I admit, but it is bizarre...
     
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  5. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Mormons, presumably.
     
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  7. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    All the stories are stupid?
     
  8. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    5,051
    I'm not sure what you are talking about. I know it is a screenshot, but did you really mean "picture" or are you referring to the article titles? I can think of a number of problems I have with the article titles.
     
  9. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,635
    The woman in the picture is tilting to the right but is also saying "I won't fear Muslims" which seems to be a contradiction?
     
  10. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    16,479
    you mean all the f*** rape articles?
     
  11. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    Actually, you score a point there.

    I should note, however, that apparently I did confuse some people with the word "picture", when I should have used "image", instead. Or "screengrab".

    Okay, my bad on that count.

    But you're exactly onto the problem.

    Well, there are two.

    In the first place, I pick a nit with the online definition of "like", which seems more akin to the Facebook condition in which you "like" the death notice for a three year-old because that's the button available to acknowledge the message. Or "like" the latest article a friend posted about a warzone atrocity somewhere. And so on.

    I might read stories like this, but by what measure do we say one "likes" such stories?

    But what you're onto is a really bizarre outcome. One of the things I noted in the tantrum I pitched elsewhere:

    Now, to be fair, though, one can read those headlines and consider potential relevant aspects―one can assert with confidence that a horrifying number of rapes will occur this coming weekend under circumstances strongly associated with a Super Bowl party, and in any overly pious institution with all sorts of sublimated sexual obsessions rape is a virtually assured phenomenon―but that one about men sticking their hands in running snowblowers requires a rather crass and useless joke.

    For the record, yes, I clicked the bait. Just now. Not even a hunch, but, rather, a cynical assurance based on certain presuppositions about how our society works. You can already guess the result.

    Not a single one of those “related stories” has anything to do with the rape phenomenon, either in general or within our society particularly. Or, well, at all. Period. Not a word.​

    Whether we're talking about an aura of disrespect resulting from design or accident, the problem isn't any one occasion. This is part of how mass media becomes absolutely meaningless, and this occasion is a particularly pointed example.

    One can simplify and just suggest that on this occasion the various widgets ended up with an exactly backward result; and it's hard to pick on Salon specifically for tending toward the social media definition of "like", but coupling that with the "more related stories" that probably belong somewhere on the "most popular" or "most shared" lists is not so much a slap in the face to the subject matter and the human beings affected by the rape phenomenon, it's a one-two punch.

    Add to that a particular frequent behavioral result among cohorts who attend these issues regularly, that our fatigue is such that even after reading a story describing an outrageous condition in our society, we don't necessarily have the energy to be outraged. In the end, the stories leave us weary and empty and frustrated, but there's no point in actually raising our blood pressure. After a while, the anger is useless without any observable return on investment.

    But when that smoldering kindle gains a fresh breath of stupidity it can flash over.

    And, in truth, autogenerated content references like this have been a growing issue in my awareness. Like how reading a story about whatever was going on at the White House that day means Huffington Post thinks I might want to read the detail of Martha Stewart's threesome.

    (You're welcome. Yes, I did encounter that one, once, though it might have been the "most popular" list, in which case my question is to HuffPo readers: Really?)

    And maybe I'm too hard on the modern editors in a changing world, but I also come from an era when the phrase "These Slits Weren't Classy Enough" carried an entirely different meaning. (Again, HuffPo.)

    But no proper print editor would ever allow something like this to happen on a physical page. If Salon was a paper magazine and those recommendations made it through press and onto the newsstand, the editors responsible would be drawing straws to see who resigns; well, if they weren't all fired, first.

    This is an important issue. It will affect everyone at some point in their lives, and if one is lucky, they'll just have to witness the damage rape causes and either help pick up the pieces or walk away.

    Roll a die. Hit a one, it's your turn. Two through five, you get to watch someone else try to recover, and if you have even a modicum of decency, do what you can to be helpful. Throw a six, you get to go to the funeral and spend the rest of the night, week, year, your life, trying to figure out just what the hell happened that your friend or relative is dead.

    And it just seems to me that certain issues absolutely deserve and demand our utmost respect. This is one of them. Because it will come that close, and the best part of what progress our society makes has to do with what happens after the rape.

    As a result, even though the explanation is easy enough, we can't blame the autogenerators; it is humans who set their criteria, and heaven only knows by what formula Salon determined that these articles, which do not touch on the subject at all, are "related". It's one thing to push popular content, but quite another to misrepresent it as such. And with such a powerful exponent as this subject brings to the formula, the result is almost unspeakably grotesque.

    And today was the day that I just can't deal with such horrid accidental disrespect borne of capitalistic instincts toward cutting corners and costs. Because that's "all that happened".

    Except it's not just this one pageview; nor is it simply that such a pageview could have gone out thousands of times. But in our era of information overload our formulae for compression of communication has to do with anything but communication itself.

    I'm not so annoyed at the idea of "liking" rape stories in and of itself. But compounded with the soul-scarring tale it is attached to and the crass disresepect that follows, it does become an important component.

    What will this issue look like in twenty years? Or even a decade? How will the discourse go? What will be the effects of our social media "like" phenomenon, and our misrepresentations of context for the sake of the business model, over time? I'm already watching the English language "evolve" by reducing its communicative efficacy.

    It's a vague spectre of fear and outrage, but yes, I can see the shadow rising on a distant horizon. And there are things I could say today that sound ridiculous, but will eventually come about. To wit, given our discourse in general and not just pertaining to the rape phenomenon, we can expect, probably in the next few cycles, a controversy to flare up over what some politician liked, and not because in younger days he "liked" and commented supportively on a racist social media rant, but because he "liked" a friend's post that presented an important article about unpleasant subject matter.

    And perhaps if people want to argue about what one "likes" when acknowledging a friend posting a link about an Israeli atrocity in Palestine or some such, well, we'll have to see how that goes. But the day it comes down to, "Well, why do you 'like' mass murder, Senator?" or some such, I won't be surprised, but, instead, quite sad.

    There are certain things in life I prefer to be exactly wrong about. And, you know, when the Seahawks manage to stage that kind of a comeback, I don't care how furious I was at halftime; I'm happy to have been wrong. But come on, it's a fucking football game. If the 'Hawks lost, life goes on for the rest of us who survive the night, and it's a hell of a lot better to recover from a hangover and a lost football game than ... well ... right. (We don't really need to speculate the reasons why domestic and sexual violence skyrocket in the sports markets of teams that lose championships. Nor should we be surprised that the data is less sound regarding what happens in the winning markets.)

    And I would dearly hope that the future proves me embarrassingly wrong about the tantrum I pitched earlier today, but this disgusting outcome from Salon's autogenerators is representative, in its own context, of both where we've been and where we're going. Quite clearly, I am displeased with those propositions, and thoroughly disgusted by where we're at.

    Meanwhile, I've been checking in with a few friends to be certain I'm not getting distracted by shadows. Then again, not every shadow is a mere distraction.

    There's not enough dope in this county to erase this one from memory; nor can I consume enough coffee to skip the groove and hear a different track.
     
  12. Randwolf Ignorance killed the cat Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,201
    I must confess that I considered mentioning the jokes - we even had a Snapper brand snowblower when I was growing up in Ohio - but the connection seemed a bit too obvious.

    (If that is the case, I have serious concerns about about the programmer that came up with Salon's "related" algorithm)
     
  13. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    I was going to get back to you about this when this was brought up in our discussions, but I haven't had a chance to, so I will address it here.

    Rape is not out of the ordinary.

    In that sense, it is related to all aspects of life. It is so common that yes, by its commonality, it is seen as being related to football, one guy sticking his hand in a snow blower (the jokes, oh the jokes) and the LGBT community's treatment by mormons. Common stories, not too out of the ordinary and thus, related solely because rape is just that common now days.

    Certainly, there will be a few rape cases that are so extreme that they would stand on their own. Such as the one I linked you yesterday. They stand out. And even that horror story had a "You Might Also Like" stories about neighbourhood noise and one about the mistakes in foreign languages. While the story it was discussing was probably one of the worst I have seen reported in the media itself, or the subject matter was out of the ordinary and downright sick and disturbing, the crux of the story itself was rape and murder. So it is not out of the ordinary. It is a fact of life that these things happen. Why they feel that I may also like articles about neighbourhood noise after reading that story is beyond me, apparently, the story itself was not so uncommon as to generate links that indicate and show the importance of such crimes, and the seriousness of the depravity of others. But under the subject of rape in and of itself, it's a fact of life. Just as it is a fact of life that someone will stick his hand in a snow blower and some mormons will discriminate against the LGBT community.

    As for the like..

    This is something that appears so often now. Yes, you have to question what type of person "likes" rape stories, but there you have it. There are some that do. Just as there are some people who think a fleshlight in the shape of a foot is a wonderful invention. So the media caters to them as well.

    It is morbid and obscene, but this is who we are now.

    Rape is a common fixture in women's lives. And that is why it is there.
     

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