Journal: Second Account

I haven't had this much fun on Slashdot in a long time! Check this thread out: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=396578&cid=21780824

I spent a little time playing around with people and pushing their buttons. I had a great time responding to it all too. This is my account to conduct social experiments and play with peoples' minds. It's very interesting seeing how people react to certain statements. Or how they deal with assaults on their belief systems. Or how their belief systems can have parallels to other belief systems. An example of this is how environmentalism correlates to religion. The example thread above illustrates how people will cling to a line of thought. Some gave up or didn't come back. Some couldn't help but spew the usual rhetoric. Some just wanted to play logic games with words.

Some of these people are really smart too. The challenge I personally face is how to remain unbiased and truly scientific on a matter. I think some of these people understand the scientific method but for some odd reason they cast it aside to protect their beliefs. I'm not saying that being scientific is easy and I'm not faulting these individuals. And on a couple of occasions I purposefully tried to bring out the zealots with inflammatory statements. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=396578&cid=21781776

This is also an account where I've disregarded karma altogether. I've said what's on my mind without restraint. Too often in the past I've been guarded in my responses because of the fear of hurting my karma. I decided it would be fun to let it all hang out so to speak. Just let it all go! Blast 'em into the dirt when they deserve it. Stop being so nice. This is the toughest part for me because I'm inherently a very thoughtful and considerate person. I even had to fess up a bit to one guy. I think he was convinced I was the root of all evil. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=396578&cid=21793872

I haven't been a very vocal person on Slashdot with my primary account. I was only posting something once in a while. In general, the comments I have been reading were getting a bit boring and some viewpoints were getting modded into the dirt whether they were well supported or not. Some were modded up in the same way.

Examples of this karma whoring include:

• Bashing George Bush
• Pushing Environmentalism
• Shunning Religion
• Holding up Ron Paul as the second coming (he's not gonna be elected guys, get a grip)
• Bashing corporations indiscriminately
• Bashing the war in Iraq

I know this isn't a complete list and it doesn't attempt to be. Anything to the contrary, whether well supported or not is modded into the dirt.

I noticed one guy put in is signature that there is no moderation for "disagree". So don't shoe-horn moderation into agree/disagree. I don't have to agree with people but I expect logically sound arguments, evidence and support (provided on request is fine) for a viewpoint, and balanced perspective sprinkled with common sense.

Common sense seems to be a real kicker here for some people. One thing I keep seeing is a serious lack of perspective and common sense. Forums like this allow people to extrapolate a philosophical paradigm to a point of uselessness. Checks and balances in terms of common sense are cast aside as one logical conclusion follows the next in a seemingly endless chain. Pretty soon what started as something useful and valid suddenly turns into lunacy.

So. I'm going to have fun with this. I hope I didn't just jinks it all by writing this. How often do people read Slashdot journals anyway, right? The funny thing about this whole thing is that my karma went positive right away with my new approach. Maybe things aren't as broken as I imagined. Whatever happens with this experiment, I stand to learn a lot from it, getting more out of Slashdot than I ever have before.