Here's an interesting web page, titled "Five Geek Social Fallacies": http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html The title is a bit of a misnomer, since I've known a lot of non-geeks who suffered from some of these, too. However, they're certainly more common in geek communities. This is well worth a read for anyone who interacts with groups of geeks in any way.54 responses total.
Is this guy serious?
I've certainly been on one or the other end of most of these situations (particularly #1 and #5). I think we can all, as GRexers, say that we don't make a point of excluding eejits and "undesirables" from using Grex, though whether you think that's a bad thing obviously depends on how indoctrinated to the normal social order you are, or pretend to be. At least no Grexer can be accused of inflicting halitosis on another grexer, unless they meat in person - which sems to be less common that it might be. The interesting thing, is (even though the author admits it) this article paints a picture that says "all geeks exhibit 1 or more of these characteristics, whist all-non-geeks exhibit non of them". This is similar to the claim that geeks exhibit higher incidences of such "defects" as ADD and Asperger's syndrome. While I know no-one who, to my knowledge, suffers from ADD or Asperger's, I knnow several people who, not being gfeeks, exhibit facets of one or other of the symptons mentioneed in the article; not being geeks (most defiunitely not!), they are described as "merely insecure",etc. Hwever, in my personal experience anyone found to be a geek is condemned to be taunted for real or perceived faults along the lines of these "Geek Social Fallacies"; apparently if you're a geek it's your fault you're awkward, whereas if you're not, it isn't. Perhaps the fact that #1 happens so often is an "equal and opposite" reaction to "normal" society's entirely-too-broad definition of what is unacceptable or strange?
Slow down, Jeff :P
Heh. Sorryi'lltrytobemoreconciceinfuture,ok?
I think geeks do exhibit a higher incidence of Asperger's.
And then there's whatever the fuck I have.
Are you a geek? Or just a wannabe? ;-)
Re #6: Fetal alcohol syndrome's actually pretty rare in the geek population.
I agree that it's not true that only geeks exhibit those social problems. But they do seem more common in the geek population. There are very good reasons for some of them to happen, as twenex points out, but you can only get so far by saying "I'm that way because of how I was treated as a kid." Eventually you have to take responsibility for your own actions.
Could somebody venture an objective definition of "geek" that's appropriate for this context? (I assume that the old definition "a carnival performer who does disgusting acts" is not what's meant.)
As a very rough approximation, "geek" in this context can be read as "Socially awkward, technologically inclined person."
re5: BINGO!
Somewhat analogous to "nerd".
Eh. Reading that page left me kind of cold. I don't think the author is real solid on social skills himself.
Re #11: Hm, I used to be a geek then. Still have some of the characteristics.
I recognized a lot of stuff on that page from the science fiction and gaming communities. I've got other problems with the way he described it, but I see where he's coming from.
Re: #9: I agree that you have to take responsibility for your own actions, but the fact remains that, if someone beats up on yuou constantly for something, sooner or later, whether it's true or not, you are goiung to get sick of the way they are treating you. This, to take a more extreme example, is the origin of the doctrine of "diminished responsibility" in uk law, wherebya person cannot be convicted of a murderous crime if it can be shown that the victim, by mistreatment, drove the accused to a state of mind in which the murder (or murder attempt) was seen as the only way out of the situation. ASdded to that the idea of "every reaction causes an equal and opposite reaction", and the fact that if the person is strong-willed, he will often cleave to a behaviour that is deemed "unacceptable" by way of indicating his independence, and you have aid the groundwork for a taunted geek to become even more "geeky" according to the terms of this article.
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No. I never heard of anyhone claiming that Columbine was caused by the direct efect of abuse by anyone shot in the school on the kids who did. Also, the fact that someone is found not guilty of murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility does not mean that the murder is legal; it just means that they fall into that category of persons who cannot be held responsible for their actions, and therefore cannot be judged by hte legal system, which acts on responsible persons and therefore, woulde have different rules of procedure, etc. if the person were e.g. a child as well.
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Ah. Well, anyway, i believe dimished responsibility has to be proven by ref to near-immediate, extreme physical or mental stress.
Sort of like an insanity defense in the U.S.?
Except that it might occasionally work. It actually sounds closer to involuntary manslaughter.
Re: 22, 23: No, insanity means there is no external stimulus; you just have to prove someone was insane at the time of the incident. It's more a temporary madness caused by the ill treatment.
That's involuntary manslaughter, I'm pretty sure.
On Grex we take fallacy #1 to the xtent that people argue, on a regular basis, that you shouldn't avoid interacting with people just because they're assholes.
What twenex is describing sounds like what's often referred to in the US as the "battered wife defense." I'm not sure what the legal term for that is.
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Re #26: Define "interacting". Do you mean letting them post, or actually
trying to carry on a conversation about them?
I mean listening to them and/or talking to them.
I've never seen anyone argue that. I've only seen people argue that even assholes should be allowed to post. Can you point me to an example? (In fact, I've seen some very controlling behavior here, where an item author gets quite angry when people post material that doesn't toe the author's line. That isn't typical at all, but I've never seen the other extreme.)
No, it's pretty atypical here. As regards the other extreme, our good friend pvn (nee' bdh) recently stated that people who use twit filters shouldn't reproduce.
He says a lot of things. Enough of them are entertaining that I would never use a twit filter on him. I *would* like to see a fix option that lets me fix only items where the last response was by a specified user, so we can deal with the species of twit that responds to everything in the conference with crap.
Joe: see item 99, resp. 8 and 23, and item 164, resp. 16 (though that one was apparently in jest. I've also seen many posts over the years along the lines of, "You're not taking my idea seriously because it came from me!" The lgical implication of that admonishion is that everyone should be paid attention to, no matter how they've behaved in the past. The more I think about it, the more fallacious that seems.
Fallacio. Hey,m I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist :-/
Re #34: You're citing posts by BDH and Tod denouncing the use of twit
filters, not telling people they should interact with twits.
Number one, these posts are by two people whose normal behavior
is to post simply to be provocative. Number two, criticizing
twit filters isn't the same thing as telling people to interact
with twits. Number three, neither of those guys are representative
of Grex culture. (I'm representing it better by being this
pedantic, and I'm not culturally a Grexer either.)
As for failing to take ideas seriously because you don't like the
originator -- we all do it, and it's dumb, because previously
useless people can come up with good ideas occasionally. If
you can't evaluate ideas independently of the person who proposes
them, you'll miss out on some good ideas. It's hard, though.
How is "not using a twit filter" not "interacting with twits"? No, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that it's dumb to try to take people seriously when they don't meet a certain level of civility. If that means you miss out on an occasional good idea, the tradeoff in sanity is well worth it. And this is the way most human institutions function all over the world - you have to be a reasonable person if you want to be treated as one. So if you want to be treated with respect, you learn to treat others that way.
What Mark said. Plus, it's not worth my time or aggravation to read the comments of people who have been persistently and pointedly annoying to see if they actually have anything useful to say. If someone else wants to filter and report, fine.
<shrug> It's a matter of personal choice. I'd filter someone like wellcome,
because I don't want to deal with 80 posts that are basically noise. I
wouldn't filter someone who I find annoying but who posts on topic. (I'm
deliberately not giving specific examples here.)
Let me point out a few things, though:
1. The issue in question here was whether Grex has a culture that enforces
the geek norm about interacting with everyone
2. My position was that Grex does not
3. The people Mark has quoted in an attempt to illustrate that norm are
not exemplars of Grex culture; in fact, they're generally in opposition
to Grex norms
4. Mark and Eric, who are prominent exemplars of Grex culture, are taking
a position opposite to the geek norm
5. This isn't an effective way to argue with my statement
6. Even I'm not telling you it's morally wrong to twit-filter, just that
you may miss out occasionally if you do
I think I'll add a few fallacies to the list: 6. It's only WHAT I say that matters. HOW I say it is unimportant. Anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot. 7. There is nothing worse than being an idiot. 8. Anytime someone says something, that is an invitation to argue with them. If they didn't want to argue, why did they speak up?
There was some reference to this in one of the Neal Stephenson books (Cryptonomicon). It was about regular conversations vs. conversations where "every statement must be provably true". Which sounds like some of the arguments on Grex, actually.
Re resp:40: I have mixed feelings about #8. I dislike it when I'm talking to someone and they disagree with me, but when I try to talk about why they feel that way they just say, "It's just my opinion. I don't want to argue about it." I think a lot of the problems in the world are caused by people who hold strong opinions that they've never thought about or tried to justify.
Isn't it time to start thinking?
i still say gsf1 even though i filter one person - it's my way of accepting that person's existence without having to put others through the bad mood he puts me in. no need to thank me. there's a few of these i know in my real life - when they start ranting i usually step out for a smoke.
I don't smoke.
I used to know this girl who, during conversations, would get very defensive and upset if I disagreed with anything she said. No matter how mildly I phrased my disagreement, she always felt like I was attacking her personally. I found it really hard to talk to her for any length of time. It didn't help that she said a lot of things I disagreed with. :)
Girl? Maybe as she moved into adulthood she learned how to converse, just as boys do. Have you seen her since then? ;-)
Re resp:46: I've known people like that.
She was, I believe, 19 when I knew her, as was I. I haven't seen her in years, and haven't spoken at length with her for even longer. I've known other people like that, though never quite so extreme; people for whom there didn't seem to be any middle ground between agreement and antagonism.
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Yes. And then I turned her over my knee and spanked her! Okay, well, maybe not. :)
Kinky.
I've certainly met a lot of people who felt that making the same argument again, except louder, was the same thing as supporting their position.
AND AGAIN, DAVID. (No, I'm not being a troll; David and I really do seem to agree on a lot of things; as for the caps, call it ironic commentary.)
You have several choices: