Enter... THE DISCOURSE

From discursus: 'to run about, to and fro'.

My folk etymology: the course wherein you dis.

pomenitul's mama is SO FAT

https://i.imgur.com/NQ4TtvV.png

Neanderthal, that is the thiccourse

ofcourse

Is The Discourse accepting submissions? I have a couple pitches

Discourse is that which disrupts the course of discourse.

The Discourse is what Arnold is lowered into at the end of T2 Judgement Day and if you want to behave as if it's something you must absolutely have to treat with I genuinely have great pity for you but probably think you are incorrect about that

*forms thumb-up with final vestiges of consciousness*

My inclination, as the world has become increasingly online, has been to become increasingly offline. Like I feel that I've been able to unravel and resolve a lot more (in my own head if nowhere else) by attempting to fill the copious gaps in my historical knowledge than I have by engaging with circular online discussions where people barely wait for their turn to talk and certainly aren't inclined to sit with an idea for a while before chiming in.

And yes that certainly happens on ILX but I make an exception because ILXors are some smart + thoughtful motherfuckers by and large.

The Discourse is Skynet (aka Twitter) therefore Arnie's selfless act (deleting his Twitter account) is essentially anti-discursive (dis-cursive).

My online life up through the end of the Rock Hardy era was a case of me self-importantly adding to The Discourse and finally getting smacked way down and realizing a) The Discourse has an almost infinitesimally low signal:noise ratio and b) I have nothing to add to it but more noise. So now I just watch and listen and read and grimace, and occasionally post about cocktails and my cat Jonesy.

Part of me thinks I've made great strides in realizing the smelter of The Discourse is not worth lowering myself into, and the rest of me knows I couldn't improve the alloy if I did.

Where once we might have encountered mass-produced broadsides by a gaggle of self-styled thinkers with access to printing presses telling us how we might collectively right the ship, we now have literally every human with access to the internet providing, in real time, a kaleidoscopic array of opinions and arguments on every subject whose nature is now up for debate (read: every subject period).

My objection to this is: "conventional wisdom" has always been received from some unattributable, amorphous source and the magnification effect of social media is overstated. Everyone always thought everyone thought "this way" regardless of what "this way" actually was and whether the strains of thought were directly incompatible; the difference is that there are now more platforms where people can put forward their opinions to a wider audience but the types of opinions and the types of conversations are, in my experience, exactly the same.

(and, as I said in my original post, I think "the discourse" is "conventional wisdom on 5G")

Admittedly a large portion of my opinion on this is driven by seeing White people talk about how bad and disorienting social media and Internet communication is because it's so difficult to feel that you belong to what the prevailing winds seem to be and me going "WELCOME TO GROWING UP BLACK IN A WHITE NEIGHBORHOOD"

My online life up through the end of the Rock Hardy era

i didn't realize you were Rock Hardy! during one of my introductions to ilx discourse a dozen years ago or so, i was asked to make a parody gif making fun of the "internet hard man". i had not idea what that was a reference to, so i made something that said "the internet is hard man...but it's worth it" or something similar. sorry if that appeared to be a burn on you, i had no idea what the heck was going on!

me neither lol

My objection to this is: "conventional wisdom" has always been received from some unattributable, amorphous source and the magnification effect of social media is overstated. Everyone always thought everyone thought "this way" regardless of what "this way" actually was and whether the strains of thought were directly incompatible; the difference is that there are now more platforms where people can put forward their opinions to a wider audience but the types of opinions and the types of conversations are, in my experience, exactly the same.

― DJP, Tuesday, December 22, 2020 10:47 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think we're basically saying the same thing. It's not that the broadsiders were so much more enlightened, just that there were fewer voices vying for attention and fewer perspectives dizzying up the conventional wisdom. The increased panoply of voices has the upside of adding to the breadth and diversity of perspective but also the major downside of depleting the depth and nuance of perspective.

I've always understood "discourse" to mean the range of discussion around a certain topic, rather than a set of collective beliefs or positions. More "national conversation" than "conventional wisdom."

From this perspective, I found it a bit jarring when katherine posted on the COVID thread that "the discourse flipped" in reference to the shifting attitudes expressed in replies to a tweet. I would say that the discourse on that topic continued and evolved to incorporate new ideas and opinions (some of which are more interesting and valuable than others).

(But maybe the discourse on the word "discourse" has shifted.)

DISCO(urse) SUCKS

More like discurse amirite?

The example I keep thinking of is that since the beginning of COVID, my wife has been pretty skeptical of the pro-lockdown approach for a variety of reasons, but has felt unable to even voice her thoughts about it around our (extremely online) friends due to 'the discourse'. It seems like 'the discourse' is slowly shifting, but for awhile expressing any concern about the long-term economic & social affects put you on the side of right-wing talking points.

oh yeah, try explaining to non-online people why liking free speech makes you a bad person

xp I guess what's interesting to me about that is that what she experiences as "the discourse" is driven by the specific people she follows online. The reference to "right-wing talking points" acknowledges that there is a separate discourse to which she doesn't give any weight. Theoretically, there is yet another discourse out there that might be closer to what she actually believes, but she hasn't encountered it because it's not part of her pre-existing online ecosystem.

She doesn't really follow anyone online, and only knows about 'the discourse' at a remove through me and our friends. So it's mostly a matter of hearing extremely online friends being judgemental about people/ideas, and observing where the lines are drawn.

^^^ This is why I ended up on my "THE DISCOURSE is just talking to other people" conclusion

Hell is other people('s tweets)

Office gif

One area where the utility of 'the discourse' breaks down is in the acceptance of nuanced opinion and respectful disagreement. There's too often very little wiggle room between 'you hold the correct opinion, good job' and 'YOU ARE A WALKING DUMPSTER FIRE, YOU WRONG OPINION-HOLDING POS', and while the vehemence of the latter take can be useful in reining in (some) shittier takes and cringey opinions, it also kinda eradicates the capacity for people to discuss knotty, messy subjects in a way that allows them to try to truly understand other viewpoints. Because the emphasis is more on getting on the right side of the line as quickly as you can before you get roasted.

I mean this just contributes to the increasing divisiveness in the world today, where you're either right or you're wrong and your rightness or wrongness is determined entirely by who you align yourself with.

There's too often very little wiggle room between 'you hold the correct opinion, good job' and 'YOU ARE A WALKING DUMPSTER FIRE, YOU WRONG OPINION-HOLDING POS', and while the vehemence of the latter take can be useful

Gonna stop you right there. It never is, never will be.

ru calling him a dumpster fire

It's not a rhetorical tack I ascribe to (as should be obvious) and it turns me right the fuck off but I'm not inclined to do a wholesale write-off on the efficacy of shame wrt reigning in shittiness.

The Discourse is Twitter's trending bar but with whatever people you follow are talking about instead of whatever brands are promoting or teens have hashtagged to amuse themselves.

I don't think anyone could disagree that there are 'Topics of the Day,' my objection to its use in the other thread is the idea that there a homogeneity to the discourse and getting caught out on the wrong side of the discourse exposes you to being put in the Twitter stocks and pelted with fruit. There are different sides, different conversations that spin off, different mores about appropriate language, different in-jokes.

ie yeah, it's just people talking to other people but loudly and in public

'YOU ARE A WALKING DUMPSTER FIRE, YOU WRONG OPINION-HOLDING POS'

You should at least attribute this to whichever ilxor you're quoting. It's the polite thing to do.

My online life up through the end of the Rock Hardy era was a case of me self-importantly adding to The Discourse and finally getting smacked way down and realizing a) The Discourse has an almost infinitesimally low signal:noise ratio and b) I have nothing to add to it but more noise. So now I just watch and listen and read and grimace, and occasionally post about cocktails and my cat Jonesy.

i relate to this.

the last time my boyfriend and i had a conversation about politics, we transformed from two people who like each other into two discrete, if very close, points on the discourse continuum. i've always sort of been fascinated by the discourse, it seemed like a key to unlocking something and "getting it right" but the truth is it has never helped me strengthen bonds with others that i need to survive and that i have had few of. so i'm constantly trying to dial back my exposure to the discourse and gain perspective, in order to focus more on ways forward in my material circumstances, outside the internet. taking weekend breaks from twitter helps.

sometimes when i have a few minutes to myself at the end of the day, i get online (twitter or ilx) out of habit and immediately i'm like "this is the last thing i want right now."

no offense to anyone here, there are people here who i've formed more lasting bonds with, just the context of ilx can be very tiring, even the talk about a subject i really love (music)

on the other hand, i think djp put it very well in his op about why "the discourse" might be important or appealing beyond low-stakes imaginary land, and i feel like a sub-section of the discourse (specifically an advice column i won't name here) has helped me make empowering decisions about my relationships irl that i wouldn't have otherwise made, as a white man from a conservative background who isn't used to standing up to, let alone seeing, bigotry.

Yeah, I want to say that it's a place of enormous privilege that allows me to withdraw and become Uatu, and I'm glad of every reminder of that privilege.

Reading the other thread, my feeling about the appearance that the “rules”/prevailing opinions shift is maybe just the nature of Twitter? Someone posts an opinion, their followers by definition have an interest in their opinions and more often than not agree with their views, if it gets enough traction people outside of their orbit see the post and react to it perhaps more negatively, their followers get involved, and if it gets big enough maybe there’s a backlash to the backlash. If you’re following it from the beginning I’m sure it’s disorienting. My experience is more that 90% of these hot topics of the day, especially about morality and individual behavior, are extremely predictable in how the arguments play out, often no one side is completely wrongheaded but none of the posts that get lots of engagement treat the opposing side with any kind of charity.

But sometimes there’s just a libertarian dipshit posting something that indicates contempt for humanity at large and they should probably be told to shut the fuck up every day of their life.

always be blocking libertarians is my motto

belated -- it both is and isn't driven by the people I follow online, just because of how things work. it is, in the sense that people like things and they are shown to me, and if someone likes a post presumably they agree with it. and if that person is someone I know, then obviously I am invested in not wanting them upset with me, and most likely I respect them and trust them and if they say something is harmful then I don't want to barge ahead harming people. with COVID it is particularly fraught since it is literally life and death

the two things that to me:

- first is a thing that I'm not sure has a name. the "fair game" policy, perhaps? for instance, people will insult Donald Trump for being fat, other people will point out that when you say something like that, it reveals what you truly think about fat people, and it hurts them; and then they'll respond "but he deserves it because he's a horrible person and I don't care what you think." the takeaway from this is that everyone is operating with a baseline level of vicious judgment, and the only way one can be exempt from it is not doing anything wrong -- but that the underlying judgment is still there.

- the elevation of non-moral things to moral status. almost every day I see something like, for instance, "people with food aversions deserve to be bullied." I just don't see why someone preferring to eat plain pasta is a moral failing (and this is from someone who definitely does not), but if you express that opinion then you too get bullied. even the normalization of "bullying" is just so incredibly depressing to me

Everyone is constantly judging everything, which is just a function of being a human being with sense organs and a brain. It's what you choose to do with those judgments (and, particularly, what you choose to externalize) that ultimately matters.

T. S. Eliot: 'criticism is as inevitable as breathing'.

even the normalization of "bullying" is just so incredibly depressing to me

it makes me sad to think this, but it seems to be true: bullying is normal human behavior and it has been all my life. I see where schools have been trying very hard lately to de-normalize bullying, but any success they are having is fragile and tenuous at best, because bullying seems to be wired into our brains as an easily available method of acquiring social ascendance, and overcoming the reflex to bully requires the active vigilance and intervention of our brain's moral function, which is at a perennial disadvantage in that struggle.

every day I see something like, for instance, "people with food aversions deserve to be bullied." I just don't see why someone preferring to eat plain pasta is a moral failing (and this is from someone who definitely does not)

This is the point of confusion, I think? You see that it’s not a moral failing (or even question) in the first place - so why do you give the jerk posting that more than a quarter of a thought?

Twitter has a strain of posting where some people appear to just be posting their intrusive thoughts (“bullying lol”) - whether to feed engagement for the serotonin hit or just to make the voice in their head stop for a moment, who knows.

Adjacent thing I’ve been thinking abt is how twitter provides this plugged in proximity to a hit of raw uncut Discourse that, grass being greener, I’d like to leave behind and everyone says I don’t need to pay attention to. Yet it reminds me of the bit from devil wears Prada, where the people disconnected from it don’t seem to realize how much of their opinion (on something of a delay) has been shaped by this conversation. I’ll make a point to some friends that they’re all skeptical of, based on something I read online, only for them to make the same point or one that incorporates it a few days later, but unconsciously, as if they don’t even realize the bounds of possibility have been re-determined for them over this small window of a conversation’s evolution

I think we're basically saying the same thing. It's not that the broadsiders were so much more enlightened, just that there were fewer voices vying for attention and fewer perspectives dizzying up the conventional wisdom. The increased panoply of voices has the upside of adding to the breadth and diversity of perspective but also the major downside of depleting the depth and nuance of perspective.

― You will notice a small sink where your sofa once was. (Old Lunch), Tuesday, December 22, 2020 12:04 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

there might be a diversity of perspectives out there in reality, but in effect people have become less tolerant of voices different from their own and have buckled down in their own echo chambers.

people are way more likely to engage with an opinion by trying to like "sort" it into some category. "this sounds like what xyz is saying, you are on their side now." we don't have a discourse as much as a great process of sorting, filing, amplifying and cancelling.

i don't know if there is an alternative, though. like, it's fair to want to weed out crackpots from your twitter feed; no person can hold *every* idea in their head at once. the curation function we have though seems a little idk too blunt sometimes and easily gamed by bad actors.

there might be a diversity of perspectives out there in reality, but in effect people have become less tolerant of voices different from their own and have buckled down in their own echo chambers.

― treeship., Monday, January 4, 2021 11:47 AM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is one of those received wisdom things I see ppl say all the time but I’m not actually sure it’s true

My personal challenge for today is to avoid learning what Bean Dad is about.

I don't think it's true because it assumes that people behaved differently before the advent of social media

jmm you know what they say: if you look around the table and cant spot the bean dad....

This is one of those received wisdom things I see ppl say all the time but I’m not actually sure it’s true

There's some truth to it, but not in the way the people saying it think. For example, the idea of people becoming "less tolerant of voices different from their own" - what does that actually mean? In literal, real-life terms, the people saying it often mean, "I want you to listen to my racist, right-wing beliefs and not call me a stupid racist asshole. You should approach with an open mind." But why should I do that? I'm 49 years old. I've been listening to racist, right-wing bullshit from stupid assholes for at least 35 years now. How much more am I expected to listen to in the name of "intellectual freedom" and "discourse"?

I think this is a legit both-sides phenomenon but a) one side is right, and b) people have been doing this since forever but it's forgotten because history smooths out the details and rough edges, making current interactions seem novel and new rather than a continuing extension of the way people behave

just a hunch lately that perceived constriction / entrenchment of viewpoints is related to increased material inequality

Yet it reminds me of the bit from devil wears Prada, where the people disconnected from it don’t seem to realize how much of their opinion (on something of a delay) has been shaped by this conversation.

The hill I will die on: the whole progression of the movie is Anne Hathaway slowly coming to understand that Meryl Streep is full of shit in this speech, that Streep is in fact so locked in to her tiny enclosed world and the constraints it imposes on her that she has no choice but to absurdly exaggerate its broader importance, or go mad. (Relevance to "The Discourse" left as an exercise for the reader.)

otm

does the movie show that the devil does indeed wear prada though

the devil shares praxis

Hmm I think that’s true of the general narrative of that character but isn’t really true of how the fashion industry operates

the Devil wears Givenchy, actually

The Discourse Wears Prada

i think you mean the discourse wears exploitation

And for jewelry? Blood Diamonds (starring Leonardo DiCaprio)

lol

just a hunch lately that perceived constriction / entrenchment of viewpoints is related to increased material inequality

I think there's definitely something here; I was talking about this over the weekend with my partner where I put forward the theory that conservative fiscal policy has done a very good job of concentrating more money in the hands of fewer rich people at the top while liberal social policy has brought more people to the table in terms of who gets to participate in/benefit from federal programs, leaving the "traditional" (read: White) participants who aren't megawealthy feeling that they have to share fewer resources with more people and having them come to the conclusion that the correct solution is to prevent these uppity newcomers from participating rather than expanding the pool of available funds by taxing the megawealthy, who will be able to support their families through at least their great-grandchildren's generations based on what they already have.

Also I don’t think I was implying Twitter “creates” or “originates” this discourse, I’m not inflating it’s sense of importance, merely observing anecdotally that stuff takes longer to filter out from its origins to people who don’t read it

at least their great-grandchildren's generations

great-great-great-great-great-great-great to the moon and back tbf

the devil shares praxis

― nob lacks, noirish (darraghmac), Monday, January 4, 2021 11:04 AM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this made me lol, thanks

just a hunch lately that perceived constriction / entrenchment of viewpoints is related to increased material inequality

I think there's definitely something here; I was talking about this over the weekend with my partner where I put forward the theory that conservative fiscal policy has done a very good job of concentrating more money in the hands of fewer rich people at the top while liberal social policy has brought more people to the table in terms of who gets to participate in/benefit from federal programs, leaving the "traditional" (read: White) participants who aren't megawealthy feeling that they have to share fewer resources with more people and having them come to the conclusion that the correct solution is to prevent these uppity newcomers from participating rather than expanding the pool of available funds by taxing the megawealthy, who will be able to support their families through at least their great-grandchildren's generations based on what they already have.

― Totino's Fortnite Training Room (DJP), Monday, January 4, 2021 2:28 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've been thinking along these lines recently and would add that climate change is a factor as well.

There are lots of people who "don't believe in man-made climate change" but will concede that "weather" is cyclical and has gotten worse (cf. "Tornados weren't as bad when I was younger, but it's not man made). I view this and the simultaneous/related economic inequality issues as creating a sort of "background radiation" of anxiety we are all living in that feels inescapable, even for those who would deny it's existence.

I commented ironically on the discourse, but I couldn't help but wonder: by commenting ironically on the discourse, was I part of the discourse? pic.twitter.com/UjZDw8lfkJ

— joe (@mutablejoe) January 12, 2021

Irony died forever in 2015 iirc so the answer here is 'no', obv.

Stare too long into the discourse and the discourse stares back

Also RIP irony

500 BCE - 2015 CE

You had a good run

...

NOT

You were like a black fly in our Chardonnay

And I really do think

Worst Bruce Lee movie

feel like DJP doing sea shanties should be part of The Discourse

I can probably pull together a decent version of "Drunken Sailor" over a weekend

from the thread "What Can't You Find On The Internet?":

thanks, Kate.

so if i could re-write my post, it would go like this.

1. can anyone recommend an interesting / critical perspective -- via book, blog post, article, twitter thread, etc. -- about the ubiquity of content and the techniques of content marketing?

2. seeking recommendations for twitter feeds, blogs, authors, even ILX threads i'm not aware of, that focus on the internet, and particularly advocates for free / open online spaces.

thanks

― budo jeru, Friday, July 8, 2022 10:17 AM

i might be having a different perspective on Content than you do, but to me the salient feature of Content is the way it engages us emotionally; I see Content as monetizing the cycle of abuse for corporate profit. my particular focus personally is on queer discourse, and i like a video lily alexandre posted last week on this topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH-avZlCMpk

if you see content and discourse as separate things i'd definitely be interested in exploring the differences further!