It's the opposite of Gandhi's nonviolent resistance. Instead of acting as a moral foil, they act as a moral mirror. Both methods force to the surface judgments that people have already made but have avoided acknowledging. When people read about "a man slathered in Vaseline and covered in pubic hair and toenail clippings storm[ing] in and... desecrating a place of worship" and find themselves wondering which side they're on, they can't deny that they have little respect for Scientology.
Anonymous's video proclaiming their intent is truly epic. It's interesting to note the lack of coherence and describable goals in cruise's video when compared to the Anonymous video.
There's a Scientology church near where I live, and every time I see Anonymous members outside it I make it a point to stop and tell them that I think they're doing a good job...
I always take heart when I see people standing up against something they think is wrong, regardless of their effectiveness.
It is indeed epic. The aesthetic of Anonymous has always strongly reminded me of William Gibson's Panther Moderns. I don't know if that is just an example life imitating art or Gibson being prescient, again.
Great comparison... I love Nueromancer, every year or so I have to go back and read it again because I remember how good it is...
Anonymous reminds me of something like that too, almost like a force of nature. One minute there's seemingly normal people everywhere, the next they're all wearing Guy Fawkes masks and making a ruckus.
I don't really understand what it is about Scientology that pisses people off that much. You seem to be able to rally people against it more easily then you can against skinheads.
I think one of the main things that pisses people off about Scientology as opposed to skinheads (to use your example) is that no one really thinks that skinheads and their associated organisations are legitimate despite any efforts to make themselves seem so. No one is clamouring to give skinheads tax exempt status as non-profit/religious outfits.
Scientology tries to maintain a veneer of legitimacy while in reality, being pretty damn shady. By and large, I suspect they seem far more hypocritical to Anonymous, et al than many other questionable fringe groups, such as skinheads. If there's anything that really sets off activism on the Interwebs, it seems to be hypocrisy.
Plus have you actually read about the beliefs and teachings they push while demanding that people pay for the privilege of receiving them? Have you read about the "Sea Org" and so on? Whacky stuff.
Exactly. I get pissed off because they stand on the street and smile at you, trying to hand you a leaflet, while others inside quietly work at helping their fellow converts shut down contact with their family and friends, then encourage them to pay their way to enlightenment.
I think Scientology is a cult, and I think that it's acceptance as a religion by government gives it a sheen of legitimacy and makes it more accessible than it ought to be.
People with new found faith often become alienated from their friends and family outside this circle. Sometimes it is because the conversion process is similar to rehabilitation and it is necessary to be removed from some of the problematic context. Sometimes it is lack
Church fund-raising is something quite common. Many of the most benign religious communities manage to raise significant portions of their devotees' incomes. You might not agree with the ends of some of these religious groups. But when I agree with their 'mission,' I usually don't see this as a bad thing. We live in a time of plenty. I assume few Scientologists starve.
What is the actual difference between a cult and a religion? It certainly isn't about the specifics of the beliefs. It isn't about size. If you want to make 'they are a cult,' your argument you should probably define cult and explain what is wrong with a cult. If it a specific practice or practices (cut ties, raise money) you object too and think should result in lost legal status, why not base your argument on that and drop the label.
What gives the government the right to decide what is a religion and what is not anyway?
Some bits from that site which contain the closest thing to an answer to my questions.
"What I have against the Church of Scientology (CoS) is its deceitfulness, its lack of compassion for its members (especially the hard-working staff), its aggressive hard sell, its arrogance, its attack on free speech, its litigiousness, its harassment of its critics, its lack of concern for families, its gross neglect and abuse of children, etc."
"The Church of Scientology is a vicious and dangerous cult that masquerades as a religion. Its purpose is to make money. It practices a variety of mind-control techniques on people lured into its midst to gain control over their money and their lives. Its aim is to take from them every penny that they have and can ever borrow and to also enslave them to further its wicked ends."
"On the surface the Church of Scientology seems reasonable. The insane content of it is only revealed to a person when the early stuff has done its work and made them more susceptible. After a short while a person "believes" that Scientology is doing them good. They are then persuaded to help their new-found group further by donating money and/or working for the organisation for almost no money. Many people do exactly that."Ethics" is used to good effect to trap a person. A person�s natural tendency to do good is worked upon. Yes - they want to be more ethical, but what is ethical? This is where a clever trick is pulled! "Ethics" is redefined by Scientology in such a way that to be ethical is to be a better Scientologist and obey the "church"."
I don't have concise quotes for the other point so I'll try to explain them. The centre of the beef seems to be about how the church protects itself using litigation, influential contacts to control the information about it available to the public. It is very difficult to "prove" that Scientologists believe in any of that southpark stuff because their documents are copyright protected.
"By using copyright laws the Church of Scientology withholds information about the teachings of its founder from the public. The public sees only a limited amount of information, information the "Church" feels will not harm its reputation to any great degree. Thus people are attracted into it based on this limited information and its seemingly fascinating possibilities. Once in, the existing members of that organisation have the opportunity to possibly erode the critical thinking faculties of the new member over a period of years. After that, the person has either left, been evicted or possibly their critical thinking faculties have been eroded to the degree where the absurd is accepted as spiritual truth."
Really, wired? My experience with 4-chan has generally been that whatever you say about/of/to them, they'll try their damn hardest to prove you wrong. Give them enough time, and order will rise out of the chaos that is Anonymous. Sure, it will eat itself, and descend back into the depths of madness eventually, but something will rise back into its place.
I would bet, given another decade or two Anonymous, whether it be the 4-chan brand or from other meeting place, will do something that tops even this. As the Internet and networks in general are rising more towards the public eye, the memembers of Anonymous, who are mostly young, technologically adept individuals with questionable morals, will gain more and more relevance. Like it or not, there is a draw to Anonymous, and where there is technological interconnection it will exist and thrive.
I'd bet they top themselves within a year or two. The chans may have peaked in size, but what that means is the people who are most interesting there are going to be finding new ways to branch out to avoid newfags. I'd bet they consolidate and end up with something even more intense than 4chan was back in the glory days.
You seem to be far more versed in the ways of 4chan. I have spent a few hours there a few times, long enough to understand the draw and that it wasn't for me, and I have several friends who spend time on the various boards there. Would you mind explaining a few things?
I've seen "chans" refer to several things, both the various boards (/b/, /g/, /r/ and the like), and referring to individual people. Which way are you using it, and why (as opposed to using it the other way)?
Peaked in size I understand that 4-chan servers tend to be very heavily trafficked, to the point that many people have said "DOS attack on 4chan? Is the internet on?" or something of similar meaning. Is this what you mean, or does it have to do with some kind of critical mass relation between Anonymous contributors and how much Original Content can be created/consumed (I would assume there is a peak point for that, although I don't have the slightest idea where that would be).
news ways to branch out I was under the impression that 4channers held a generally negative feeling for any other boards, tending to call them "imitators" and the like. What makes you think that a sufficiently interesting person could change that, considering the anonymous nature of 4chan (thus making it impossible for any person to actually back up how interesting they were, historically).
Back in the glory days I see this often, although it seems to be more a state of message boards in general than 4chan, although it does seem particularly loudly voiced on 4chan. Would you mind elaborating what those glory days were like, sense it certainly seems to me that some of the most impressive things to come out of 4chan have happened recently (Chanology, the Times poll rigging, and the like).
Sorry if I read too much into what you said. I've wanted to ask someone about their 4chan experiences for a while, but none of my friends want to admit to much, so I was hoping the semi-anonymity of HN would help a little.
> I've seen "chans" refer to several things, both the various boards (/b/, /g/, /r/ and the like), and referring to individual people. Which way are you using it, and why (as opposed to using it the other way)?
'chans' refers to imageboard sites in general. 4chan arose out of a 'need/interest' in creating an English-language version of 2channel (2ch.net) from m00t who was a 'goon' from the SomethingAwful forums.
It was originally 4chan.net until the domain was 'hijacked' by a hosting service, so then it became 4chan.org. Since then there have been multiple boards spawned from 4chan (since the image board software open source, though 4chan doesn't release their internal modifications to it to my knowledge): iichan.net 7chan.org 420chan.org etc. These are collectively referred to as the 'chans' much in the way that Unix-like operating systems are referred to as '* nixes' (edit: sorry only way to avoid turning it into italics). If you want to have a more comprehensive listing look to http://shii.org/2ch
> Peaked in size I understand that 4-chan servers tend to be very heavily trafficked, to the point that many people have said "DOS attack on 4chan? Is the internet on?" or something of similar meaning. Is this what you mean, or does it have to do with some kind of critical mass relation between Anonymous contributors and how much Original Content can be created/consumed (I would assume there is a peak point for that, although I don't have the slightest idea where that would be).
4chan can be and is DDoS'd. The traffic to the site is MASSIVE (they've had to upgrade hosting several times and at least a couple of years ago or so they were constantly maxing out a 100Mbps connection), but they are occasionally taken down. Note that there is a significant amount of spam to the boards with links to malware or other sites trying to promote themselves (or just spam trying to 'flame' the 'community').
A number of DDoS attacks were initiated by way of uploading an 'image' that was just a javascript file with the extension changed. The text of the post then instructs the user to save it to '4chan.js' and double-click on it. Unfortunately there are a lot morons that do this and (at least the site admins claim) that this infects their computer somehow (I suppose the browser; most likely IE and Windows users) making them a 'zombie' in a 4chan-directed attack. The admins then need to try and post information on how users can remove this stuff from their computer. This is sort of ingenious if you think about it... The best way to DDOS 4chan is to infect all of its users with something that increases their normal traffic to the site 10 fold or more.
> Back in the glory days I see this often, although it seems to be more a state of message boards in general than 4chan, although it does seem particularly loudly voiced on 4chan. Would you mind elaborating what those glory days were like, sense it certainly seems to me that some of the most impressive things to come out of 4chan have happened recently (Chanology, the Times poll rigging, and the like).
This is just people being nostalgic to the past. There are people that claim that site was 'never good' and people that claim all of the 'newfags' are 'the cancer that is killing 4chan.' (At one point 7chan.org was hijacked to redirect cancer.org) 'Anonymous' is such a hodgepodge of differing opinion that you really can't get a single unifying view-point on anything. There are people that go on 'raids' to hijack people's emails and whatnot... and there are other 'Anons' that are referred to as 'white knights' that try and warn people that have been targeted. Sometimes 'glory days' posts are nothing more than trolls trolling other trolls too. You really can't take too much on the site seriously.
This is just people being nostalgic to the past. There are people that claim that site was 'never good' and people that claim all of the 'newfags' are 'the cancer that is killing 4chan.'
I was referring to the fact that once upon a time 4chan wasn't about the memespawning and repetition. The memes were just a part of the larger community that was /b/.
What I find funny is that you can see 4chan's community spreading to other sites. Reddit is now fully infested with meme generation, and it's just started to have the same set of people artificially creating memes and getting scolded by long-time users. I'm curious to see how Reddit survives, considering it both has user-based content moderation and subreddits to stave off the so-called cancer.
Now, of course, Hacker News has recently made the tip into memeage, and I'd suspect within a year we see a meme or two that's become a big part of the site. It's taken a surprisingly long time to tip, but it's tipped.
Which memes do you recognize as appearing on HN? The only one I can think of is Erlang references. I like the idea of labeling poor arguments against pg's disagreement hierarchy would make a useful meme, though I'm probably wrong and can't see it.
Erlang was more of an inside joke. I'm referring more to the Kanye jokes I've seen here, and similar mainstream memes being quoted within the month or so since I started using HN again.
Used to be people memeing like that would be downvoted instantly. Now we've grown to the point where meme recognition is more of a factor than Hacker News guidelines. It's a very, very, very slow fall, but it's a fall.
Part of it is that memes transmit so rapidly now to a pretty large percentage of internet users thanks to Twitter, Facebook and friends. All the old ways to transmit memes (irc, SA, chans, ytmnd, etc) are still active too, but the lag time between meme creation and meme saturation is way smaller than it used to be. So people are naturally becoming accustomed to seeing them in more venues.
It's not like memes are unique to the internet (see: Sometimes the Dragon Wins, for example) but their speed of infection and increasingly large reach is quite astounding.
I've never heard of Sometimes the Dragon, actually. And it's not about meme transmission: They've always been fast. The thing is, memes reflect a community's insider aspect. If you see a meme and allow it, you're allowing that self-congratulatory "We're on the Internet and know what the Internet thinks" aspect in. I mean, memes convey no useful information; they derail threads; very rarely is a meme used alongside relevant information. So on a site that uses upvoting/downvoting, as is all the rage here, a meme posting gets upvoted by all the people who kneejerk upvote memes, and downvoted by all the people who think that the community is worth more than a meme posting. (You can get that pretty clearly in this case, since memes usually aren't funny or clever beyond being repetitive, so don't get upvotes by non-kneejerkers.)
So when I joined Hacker News, a year and a half ago, memes weren't posted. Ever. It was antithetical to the idea of Hacker News. This was a place where serious-minded people talked about a very particular subset of information, almost all coding/business-related. When I joined, this was still almost entirely the case. Thing is, I joined at the same time that a lot of Redditors were also jumping ship, and we left for the same reasons, and we came to a community that was not what we wanted. Back when Reddit started, it was a geek haven, too, but geek havens are boring to nongeeks. What made Reddit so cool was when it became a center for interesting, unique links; problem was, when it did that it became nongeek, and so lots of people that weren't into the whole programming scene joined, and after a while the people that joined weren't interested in the community. So kind of like how 4chan got big when people heard it had awesome stuff, then got overloaded with memes, Reddit went through the same trend, and as it did, Hacker News went through the first major chance, which is that its community started being shared not just with coders but with people who just wanted big and detailed conversations. People like me, in other words.
There're a set of stories that don't feel oldschool Hacker Newsy. This is one of them. It's an interesting story, but it has nothing to do with hackers. And as much as I care about the community, I voted it up, because I and some users like me have an ulterior motive. I don't program, so I benefit when the top stories are dramatic ones and ones about social things rather than about programs and companies. I don't want Hacker News, I want old Reddit, and so that's how I attempt to shape the community. I still like conversation and interest, but I'm focused on a noncoding environment, ignore the programming stuff.
Still following me? Sweet, because I'm not the only sort of person who found Hacker News. We also saw a slew of wantrepreneurs and karma hounds. (To be fair, I'm also a little of each.) We had a ton of people join this community to promote their startup/get into YCombinator, and a few people who joined to gain karma points and "win", because any site that assigns a score to things works like that. Now, on Hacker News things aren't nearly as bad as they are now on Reddit, and HN is declining much more slowly, but what it means is the community's become bombarded with basically every small announcement you can imagine (remember when Facebook released usernames?) from the people who want points, and a ton of self-serving spam from everybody who owns a blog or a web site and wants attention. This further dilutes the site focus, especially when the various types of diluters work in tandem—the people, for instance, who will submit any story featuring/written by/commented on by a YCombinator graduate, excusing themselves with the "YCombinator news is hacker news" line that pretty much always works. So the original community, which is composed of sharp clever entrepreneurs, is slowly growing outnumbered on two fronts, both the non-coders and the people who want HN worsened for selfish reasons.
This isn't anything new. Last year, for instance, I had a fun thread where one guy made 20 throwaway accounts during an argument with me, upvoting himself and downvoting me to oblivion, all to promote a blog post. There've been several waves of newbies to Hacker News, and usually they either leave or they get incorporated with little damage. But Hacker News is becoming more and more well-known (fun story: one of the thirteen-year-old kids at the summer camp I worked at read Hacker News in school when he was bored), and with each successive wave we're failing to maintain that core focus. Or rather: We lost the core focus a long time ago, so that programming is only the central aspect of the site as frequently as blog drama or tech gossip is, and now the secondary focuses—good conversation and relevant discussion—are similarly slowly caving away. More and more people are downvoting based on disagreement, which is where it starts. In the month since I started posting again on HN, I've noticed that a lot of my posts are getting pummeled down in the first few minutes after I post them, then slowly voted back up. Other users and I have had discussions about that here. It's a sign that people are treating these conversations as games, where getting more upvotes means you're "winning" right fight. That means the door is open for more sensationalist postings, since those gain traction faster particularly when downvoting submissions isn't allowed. When you have 'turndead' on, you'll see it's not that surprising for five of the top thirty posts to be dead posts that moderators killed.
To make matters worse, Paul has shown quite a bit of apathy regarding this site. He sees it as a static community where no new features means no new change in community sentiment, and he's mistaken. I've seen a lot of complaints in the last week alone about broken features, moderator abuse, etc., complaints reaching almost the degree they were at back when forums had almost seen their intellectual heyday. In fact, the situation's very analogous. Social news is hitting the mainstream, and at the same time it's hitting the limits of what it's able to handle without breaking down. The Internet is moving more and more towards the new Twitter style of navigation, where each person is a single voice capable of choosing their own news, and the tech elite are moving towards that, be it Twitter, Tumblr, FriendFeed, or Facebook. There, you have all the power, no moderation required. Here, a site can last maybe twice as long as a forum, but it collapses all the same. I don't know if Paul's thought about this or cares much about it, but Hacker News is not invulnerable. It's past its prime by now, its most passionate users are growing dissatisfied, and it's not capable of reacting quickly enough to save itself from all the external troubles that are plaguing it more and more.
Which brings us back to memes. Memes are a sign of the end. They're what happens when a web site both acknowledges an external Internet and so loses its own unique voice, and begins generating its own inside jokes as a form of compensation. We're there. Erlang was the big warning sign, but we're at the point now where people have begun using Internet jokes for quick upvotes. And it's not a huge "this is the end of the HN" thing. It's slow, and subtle, and people don't mind much that it's happening, don't mind that some smart people are leaving or that the occasional joke's slipping in. But it certainly is happening, like it's happened to every site I've used save two: SomethingAwful and Metafilter, whose moderators work hard as the dickens to make sure the sites maintain their focus. On Hacker News, the moderators aren't fast enough or vicious enough to prevent things. What its method of quietly "killing" posts doesn't understand is that banning users wasn't just to stop them from arriving. It was to warn other users, very blatantly, that some shit was good and other shit was shit. Of course, SA and Metafilter also charge for admission, which goes a long way toward preserving community.
Long story short: Sites can be studied by how they treat memes. Social news is theoretically a way to prevent corruption, but it buckles under too much weight, particularly now that the people that should be defending networks now have an opt-out system they can use to avoid the hassles altogether. So now, instead of downvoting fiercely and giving the community a focus, they either join in or don't put up much of a fight and my mom got scared and said you're movin' with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air. I whistled for a cab and when it came near the license plate said "Fresh", and it had dice in the mirror. If anything I could say that this cab was rare but I thought "Man, forget it yo homes to Bel-Air."
I may respond to more aspects of your comment later, but I wanted to make a few quick points.
> They've always been fast.
Yes, and now, I'd argue, they are even faster. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any good studies about meme transmission rate-- it's the sort of thing that is difficult to measure without affecting the meme in the process of measuring. Data from a botnet would be ideal.
> The thing is, memes reflect a community's insider aspect. If you
> see a meme and allow it, you're allowing that self-congratulatory
> "We're on the Internet and know what the Internet thinks"
This is of course true. But don't forget that much social behavior is about fitting-in better with ones peers. It's a signal that says "I belong here" or "We are a part of the same tribe". Again, not unique to the internet at all. It's just much faster lately.
> usually aren't funny or clever beyond being repetitive, so don't
> get upvotes by non-kneejerkers.
I don't claim to have a complete theory of humor, but a big part of what makes something funny is repetition coupled with subtle changes in the pattern. Many memes, especially of the ytmnd or 4chan variety, tap into this to great effect. I can think of more than a couple which I thought were uninteresting in their original presentation that became outstanding after several iterations.
Also, note how many memes use self-reference and absurdity. This is the essence of post-modernism. Again, this is nothing new, but memes certainly allow exposure of these themes to a very broad audience.
Finally, with respect to your assertion that "very rarely is a meme used alongside relevant information," I note that your own post contradicts this.
This is of course true. But don't forget that much social behavior is about fitting-in better with ones peers. It's a signal that says "I belong here" or "We are a part of the same tribe". Again, not unique to the internet at all. It's just much faster lately.
Oh, absolutely! It's the same reason why music scenes fall apart and various cities rise and fall as the center of activity. Once something gets known past a point, it gets diluted. The Internet's just the latest thing to stop being cool when people get more involved.
I don't claim to have a complete theory of humor, but a big part of what makes something funny is repetition coupled with subtle changes in the pattern. Many memes, especially of the ytmnd or 4chan variety, tap into this to great effect. I can think of more than a couple which I thought were uninteresting in their original presentation that became outstanding after several iterations.
Definitely. I love memes. But they've got the same 99:1 ratio of shit:clever as anything else. The problem with them on a social news site in particular is that because they're such an everybody-knows-us safety net, once they gain traction they drown out other things, and they work with both dumb and clever people. Compare that to actual discussions, where the good tends to rise to the top since the bad is either easily identified or can be identified.
Also, note how many memes use self-reference and absurdity. This is the essence of post-modernism. Again, this is nothing new, but memes certainly allow exposure of these themes to a very broad audience.
Agreed again. Problem again is that they don't coexist well with other elements of conversation. (I have the same problem with people who quote memes in real life. Very unappealing, that.)
Finally, with respect to your assertion that "very rarely is a meme used alongside relevant information," I note that your own post contradicts this.
I saw an opening and had to go for it. Didn't want to be giving memes a bad name. ;-)
It sounds you we're pretty much in agreement and you just find memes annoying in some contexts. No argument there. I wouldn't look for them to go away anytime soon, though. If anything I'd expect things to get considerably "worse" in terms of some especially prevalent memes becoming further embedded in culture. It doesn't look like lolcats are showing any signs of slowing down, for example.
I agree with you (except for the last paragraph, obviously) and had been wanting to express this for a while, but couldn't find the energy to write it all up eloquently. So - thanks.
> I was referring to the fact that once upon a time 4chan wasn't about the memespawning and repetition. The memes were just a part of the larger community that was /b/.
Really? Like the 'Milhouse is not a meme' meme? That's practically as old as 4chan... Only in the very early days of 4chan was it less about meme-spawning. But in reality the memes that spawn from 4chan are just in-jokes, some of which garner enough popularity to escape the confines of 4chan. The people that try to 'force memes' are just people that are trying to create in-jokes.
When 4chan was small enough that they were able to hold irc discussions in #4chan to discuss the future of the site (i.e. adding new boards, donation drives, etc), people were constantly flooding the channel with just repetition of memes (there was liberal use of +m).
To say that 4chan never had these things or that they were only in a minority is to view the past with rose-colored glasses.
It should be noted that the 4chan macroculture's rather divided as to whether or not Anonymous as protestors should really be considered Anonymous as representative of the *chan culture as a whole. 4chan's founder, Moot, has expressed a rather large level of disdain for the protest movement.
Even suggesting that Anonymous by and large takes any interest in what Moot thinks shows just how misinformed you are. There's more to a spear than just it's point.
Though the in-joke is that Anonymous is a 'hive-mind' it really couldn't be further from the truth. It's just a large collection of people. Sometimes certain 'movements' gain a critical mass needed to manifest themselves, but that's about it.
Suggesting that a segment of Anonymous /doesn't/ treat him as a figurehead is possibly equally misinformed.
Actually, the only informed statement to make about Anonymous is that there isn't such thing as a capital-letter Anonymous. Considering them the funhouse-mirror version of Iain M. Banks's Culture is closer to the truth than otherwise.
I get a Stand-Alone Complex feel out of them, only with less mystery as to the source of the memes. That concept is closest to capturing the way highly ordered things happen far out of proportion to any individual plan.
(I highly recommend Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. It is one of the best near-future prediction shows I have ever seen, if not the best.)
This is rather off on a tangent, but it's rather entertaining watching people try and discuss the nature of Anonymous. I don't think there are any two people who have exactly the same perspective on the thing. They almost always end up completely talking past one another, heh.
I don't see why he would be. CoS's fair game tactics are pretty much identical to what 4chan griefers do to their targets for the lulz. The only difference is that the CoS can use lawsuits for harassment, while channers can't afford to do so.
Not quite though. There have been claims of things like car-chases, P.I.s tailing people (and breaking into their houses). I've seen people claim that Scientology hired people to do things like lace someone's toothbrush with LSD so that when they appear in court (against Scientology) they are high and easy to attack/discredit. I'm not sure of the truth of all of these claims, but they are out there. It's a far cry from 'Anonymous' ordering a bunch of pizzas for someone (or using the USPS site to order hundreds of free shipping boxes to be delivered to someone's address).
