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World of Design: The Lost Art of Making Things Up
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8128188" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>I have literally zero hostility toward you, Bedrock. I don't know the first thing about you, other than that you post on this forum and have said things in this thread. I do, however, dislike the argumentation style that couches clear assertions behind the impossible-to-discuss veil of "opinion" or "personal experience." For example:</p><p></p><p></p><p>You are making a strong claim: Fear of criticism means people have difficulty thinking for themselves. But you then couch this very strong claim--one that would be very difficult to argue for--with the assertion that "this is just my personal perception." In other words, you have gotten the very strong claim onto the page and into discussion, but in a way that shields it from any possible criticism or dispute, because <em>how can I argue against your experience?</em> Yet you then build on that "personal perception," adding further arguments and assertions that work off of the strong claim.</p><p></p><p>If your argument boils down to, "I've seen people be extremely mean on the internet, and thus think that's a problem," there's really nothing to say. People are sometimes mean. The internet allows you to interact with a VASTLY larger number of people. The odds that at least one of them will be unpleasant for whatever reason are <em>astronomically high</em>. This point is completely right, it just...doesn't say very much.</p><p></p><p>But if your argument is, "The internet fundamentally makes people meaner, and causes such fear of criticism that it prevents a large number of creators from even thinking creatively at all," then you're simply wrong. Full stop. The internet has not made anyone <em>more mean</em>; it has made mean behavior <em>more visible</em>. We can SEE how petty and mean-spirited and hurtful other human beings HAVE BEEN to one another. It's not hidden in the corners anymore. It's there, up front, for everyone to see. And that means it's now a problem we can <em>do</em> something about. Instead of this being a secret dark side of technology that we have to re-align ourselves to process, this is technology revealing an ugly truth about <em>ourselves</em> that we must now reflect on and adapt to. Humanity was ALWAYS as nasty and vicious as the worst YouTube comment threads and Twitter blowups and snide Tumblr posts. That nastiness is now visible to us, and the question becomes how do we change ourselves--not how do we fix this medium that revealed these truths about us.</p><p></p><p>Are you familiar with the game <em>League of Legends</em>? If not, it is a popular MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) game, usually with two teams of five players competing to defeat the other team's NPC armies and infrastructure first. It is also <em>notorious</em> for the toxicity of its community. Yet when its community management team started collecting statistical information on the community, they were shocked--the numbers didn't indicate a particularly bad community. In fact, they seemed to indicate a really really GOOD community! I don't remember the exact numbers, but well over 90% of all accounts <em>never receive infractions at all</em>, and of those who do receive infractions, the vast majority never get a second infraction. In theory, that means that 90% of players should be perfectly normal folks, right? Nothing to worry about! Except...that's not how the statistics work.</p><p></p><p>See, each time you play a game with a group of people you've never met, you're in theory rolling nine dice. Nine chances to see if one of them isn't a great player. And let's assume that 95% of players are never jerks at all. That's like rolling 9d20...and hoping that not one die comes up 1. The odds of getting <em>no</em> ones in 9d20 are 63%--which means your odds of getting at least one infraction-getting player <em>per game</em> are about 37%. More than one in three games will have a jerk in it, <em>even though 95% of players aren't jerks</em>. Now run that over the course of, say, three or four games, which is somewhere between an hour and two hours of play in most cases. Suddenly, 25% of your play experience is awful <em>nearly every time you play,</em> because only 5% of the playerbase is jerks.</p><p></p><p>THAT is why the internet makes it <em>seem</em> like people are so much more cruel than before. They aren't. You're just interacting with MANY orders of magnitude more people than you ever interacted with before. A meme showing up on the internet, a tweet getting out online and getting picked up by the masses, may be seen by <em>literally millions</em> of people. If even one-tenth of one percent of those people is just feeling really awful, or dealing with serious mental issues, or simply has a bad attitude, you're talking about THOUSANDS of angry voices. It has nothing to do with humanity overall suddenly being more inclined to be cruel. It has everything to do with the <em>numbers</em> of people reached, and (to a lesser extent) the ease of response. (It's not like people didn't submit nasty "fan" mail to authors before!)</p><p></p><p>And this doesn't even touch on the other half of your claim--that this criticism <em>prevents creative thought</em>. Because...yeah, that's just...not correct. There is absolutely tons of creative thought going into all sorts of things, and <em>at best</em> all I can say is that you have been looking in the wrong places if you think internet criticism is meaningfully reducing humanity's capacity to <em>have creative thoughts</em>.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8128188, member: 6790260"] I have literally zero hostility toward you, Bedrock. I don't know the first thing about you, other than that you post on this forum and have said things in this thread. I do, however, dislike the argumentation style that couches clear assertions behind the impossible-to-discuss veil of "opinion" or "personal experience." For example: You are making a strong claim: Fear of criticism means people have difficulty thinking for themselves. But you then couch this very strong claim--one that would be very difficult to argue for--with the assertion that "this is just my personal perception." In other words, you have gotten the very strong claim onto the page and into discussion, but in a way that shields it from any possible criticism or dispute, because [I]how can I argue against your experience?[/I] Yet you then build on that "personal perception," adding further arguments and assertions that work off of the strong claim. If your argument boils down to, "I've seen people be extremely mean on the internet, and thus think that's a problem," there's really nothing to say. People are sometimes mean. The internet allows you to interact with a VASTLY larger number of people. The odds that at least one of them will be unpleasant for whatever reason are [I]astronomically high[/I]. This point is completely right, it just...doesn't say very much. But if your argument is, "The internet fundamentally makes people meaner, and causes such fear of criticism that it prevents a large number of creators from even thinking creatively at all," then you're simply wrong. Full stop. The internet has not made anyone [I]more mean[/I]; it has made mean behavior [I]more visible[/I]. We can SEE how petty and mean-spirited and hurtful other human beings HAVE BEEN to one another. It's not hidden in the corners anymore. It's there, up front, for everyone to see. And that means it's now a problem we can [I]do[/I] something about. Instead of this being a secret dark side of technology that we have to re-align ourselves to process, this is technology revealing an ugly truth about [I]ourselves[/I] that we must now reflect on and adapt to. Humanity was ALWAYS as nasty and vicious as the worst YouTube comment threads and Twitter blowups and snide Tumblr posts. That nastiness is now visible to us, and the question becomes how do we change ourselves--not how do we fix this medium that revealed these truths about us. Are you familiar with the game [I]League of Legends[/I]? If not, it is a popular MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) game, usually with two teams of five players competing to defeat the other team's NPC armies and infrastructure first. It is also [I]notorious[/I] for the toxicity of its community. Yet when its community management team started collecting statistical information on the community, they were shocked--the numbers didn't indicate a particularly bad community. In fact, they seemed to indicate a really really GOOD community! I don't remember the exact numbers, but well over 90% of all accounts [I]never receive infractions at all[/I], and of those who do receive infractions, the vast majority never get a second infraction. In theory, that means that 90% of players should be perfectly normal folks, right? Nothing to worry about! Except...that's not how the statistics work. See, each time you play a game with a group of people you've never met, you're in theory rolling nine dice. Nine chances to see if one of them isn't a great player. And let's assume that 95% of players are never jerks at all. That's like rolling 9d20...and hoping that not one die comes up 1. The odds of getting [I]no[/I] ones in 9d20 are 63%--which means your odds of getting at least one infraction-getting player [I]per game[/I] are about 37%. More than one in three games will have a jerk in it, [I]even though 95% of players aren't jerks[/I]. Now run that over the course of, say, three or four games, which is somewhere between an hour and two hours of play in most cases. Suddenly, 25% of your play experience is awful [I]nearly every time you play,[/I] because only 5% of the playerbase is jerks. THAT is why the internet makes it [I]seem[/I] like people are so much more cruel than before. They aren't. You're just interacting with MANY orders of magnitude more people than you ever interacted with before. A meme showing up on the internet, a tweet getting out online and getting picked up by the masses, may be seen by [I]literally millions[/I] of people. If even one-tenth of one percent of those people is just feeling really awful, or dealing with serious mental issues, or simply has a bad attitude, you're talking about THOUSANDS of angry voices. It has nothing to do with humanity overall suddenly being more inclined to be cruel. It has everything to do with the [I]numbers[/I] of people reached, and (to a lesser extent) the ease of response. (It's not like people didn't submit nasty "fan" mail to authors before!) And this doesn't even touch on the other half of your claim--that this criticism [I]prevents creative thought[/I]. Because...yeah, that's just...not correct. There is absolutely tons of creative thought going into all sorts of things, and [I]at best[/I] all I can say is that you have been looking in the wrong places if you think internet criticism is meaningfully reducing humanity's capacity to [I]have creative thoughts[/I]. [/QUOTE]
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