[HN Gopher] The Internet of Beefs (2020)
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       The Internet of Beefs (2020)
        
       Author : throw0101b
       Score  : 18 points
       Date   : 2025-03-11 12:05 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.ribbonfarm.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.ribbonfarm.com)
        
       | cjs_ac wrote:
       | > Beefing is everywhere on the internet. Bernie and Warren beef
       | with each other and with Trump, different schools of economists
       | beef with each other over trade policy, climate hawks beef with
       | climate doves. Here you see Slavoj Zizek and Jordan Peterson
       | taking their beef offline. There you see Ben Shapiro attempt to
       | bait Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez into a live beef for the hundredth
       | time. And over on that side, we find Jesse Singal beefing with
       | trans activists.
       | 
       | ...
       | 
       | > And this is just the North American, English-language theater
       | of the IoB (the other major one I'm familiar with, the Indian
       | theater, is much worse).
       | 
       | I have two observations on this. The first is that the
       | interaction model of a platform influences this. Platforms with a
       | creator-audience dynamic promote this sort of thing: YouTube,
       | everything Meta owns, Twitter. Reddit and HN make this sort of
       | thing less likely because posters can't establish a brand and
       | there's no 'follow' mechanism.
       | 
       | My second observation is that there is a cultural component to
       | this. Consider /r/politics: every comment page is just hundreds
       | of people saying that Trump is awful. US politics is so polarised
       | that supporters of different political parties need to be
       | segregated into different subreddits. Compare and contrast
       | /r/australianpolitics and /r/ukpolitics, where, despite a strong
       | bias towards the Labo(u)r parties, the whole Overton window is
       | welcome to participate, and they participate by engaging in
       | earnest, interesting discussion. The 'no, they're the bad people
       | over there' comments are downvoted as the worthless rot that they
       | are.
       | 
       | I have a theory as to why this is, but I don't think HN is the
       | right place to discuss it.
        
         | tom_ wrote:
         | If HN isn't the right place to discuss it, why even mention it?
        
       | impure wrote:
       | > You only opt-in to the Internet of Beefs driven by a sincere
       | grievance if you are mook enough to want to. If you aren't, and
       | you haven't fallen into the IoB by becoming vulnerable or
       | compromised in some way, you are there either because you've been
       | baited in, or because you are profiting from its existence.
       | 
       | I'm profiting from its existence. Beefs are good for engagement.
       | Although I do sometimes wonder why it so often happens to me.
       | Maybe my takes are more controversial. Maybe it's because I
       | simplify things so the barrier to disagreement is much lower.
       | 
       | Although I do disagree with the 'end of history' argument. Humans
       | have always been like this. Just look at Jon Ronson's book 'So
       | You Have Been Publicly Shamed'. People were always terrible. The
       | only difference is now we have the technology to gang up on
       | anyone using the internet.
        
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       (page generated 2025-03-14 23:01 UTC)