Very closely related. But social Darwinism is out and proud, politically aware and waving the flag for eugenics. Whereas 'Just world theory' is more like a meme that lurks insidiously and denies political reality. It thrives on tautology, therefore ' the world…

It is good to turn the whole social media thing off and get on with the business ofl living – you get more done.

The dividing line appeared to me to be when HST missed the Rumble in the Jungle. He never seemed to forgive himself for that. He became a self-parody of sorts, throwing in the…

Yup. Been there done that. Literally could not think beyond the boundaries of my head.

However, while that explains why the act is self absorbed it does not excuse the impact it has on others. In that sense it can be…

Everyone judges everything and some people do shameful things. I will shame and judge as I see fit. And I see you do the same quite often. However usually I don't see suicide as shameful. Or if they are…

OK, and I can respect that framing if that’s what…

Am I alone in not being particularly outraged by this? I find it entirely plausible that poor old Pete got — or was given — the wrong end of the stick. But it is an example of the way every move turns into a pratfall for…

Let's not go there at all, please. BTW, Jack, my partner was a train driver when a woman threw herself in front of his train many…

With a side order of guilt that "I didn't do more because I didn't know"

What the fuck? That's a whole lot of rich coming from someone who has taken a lot of very public exception to being patronized her as a smarmy Remmers yummy-mummy,…

I think that it's difficult to realise that many people…

"This led him to believe, incorrectly, that the item was intended to be comic."

And then there's this logical absurdity: "Williams personally apologised to the network's viewers through TVNZ chief executive Kevin Kenrick."

Oh fuck.

Burchill's dynamite prose style did use to cover a multitude of sins for me. But that column is lazy, flabby crap — I couldn't believe people I knew were enthusing about it on Facebook…

Hmmm I wonder if there is such a thing as an automatic opinion column generator. We just think the authors are writing those columns.

Tbh, I wouldn't mind so much if she wasn't so patently phoning it in.

And of course, Burchill couldn’t resist another snide round of self-congratulation at trolling trans people and getting exactly the reaction she was looking for. (Of course, any pushback from trans people and allies instantly gets framed as “bullying”…

One reason for the judgement is that some suicides are self obsessed and even selfish acts. Sometimes the things left behind cause a great deal of harm to those living. In those cases, yeah there is some judgypants going…

But for the narcissism and jumping on every other bandwagon with…

Blurgh. Though there is one point I agree with: " if you feel loved in your personal life, and sure of your beliefs in your public life — which I do, in spades — it’s hard to be hurt…

I'm going to assume you mean people who commit suicide because of depression, rather than those who do it because of terminal illness – because I don't think people perceive them equally.

It's going to be a long time before…

Julie Burchill has written a column inspired by Charlotte Dawson’s death.

Because we really haven’t had enough rambling, narcissistic columns on this topic.

The one in the middle was Rosemary McLeod in the Dom Post. I don’t think you can pin this one on the papers involved – columnists generally do get to write…

Boom! That's a zinger.

It isn't just a rag, it isn't just hypocritical, it isn't just cynical; it is inhuman.

Anyone who gives them money by buying copies…

So what I get from people’s perspective on here is the Twitter has many interpretations, uses, problems, and can be almost addictive. Plus, as a tool in relative infancy, the problems are now coming to light that users…

So many echos. I still marvel that I hit 53 this year. If there's one thing I could say to the never-depressed: don't try something that will help us all; try to help each of…

I'm sorry if that's a threadjack, but I've lost and almost lost loved ones to suicide and I really feel that we need to look at how that is dealt with and what support can…

That was me for like two years.

No, it wouldn’t suit you in that respect. It does reward people who write easily and with economy. I know…

Oh! Please do. I have asked around in the…

(be careful two writes can make a wrong!)
;- )

Yes, indeed. "The tools are broken!" just means one hasn't learned to use them.

I'm pretty sure I know who at least one of them was and I think I might know someone who might still have the files – I'll do some asking around tomorrow when my eyes go fuzzy from hideous excel spreadsheets

Nah. This is not something I mind at all. Thanks.

I've watched a Star Wars movie done in the same way except shot on film by many contributors from around the world. It was great, cant remember where we…

Twitter is really good for that. Many people don't use it for chitchat but for keeping up with knowledge, like Bart said. Best human search engine I've ever seen.

Yeah, nah. The community that writes together.... something.

I believe this was where the 'Oh, the huge Manatee' line came from too.

It was literally the best of times.

True. Those were fucking brilliant. Kind of sad I missed the Twitter end of that, though – Megan ran this for me, as there was no 3G at my mother's death-bed.

You already did. You just received it by text.

So glad. Because that was a Bunch of Fun for me. I love collaborative creativity. I suppose we could use PAS to do a 'paragraph at a time' story. The only problem…

In the mid-90s, two naughty scientists at a CRI set up the Shortland Street Script Generator (I think that's what it was called), a simple web app which allowed participants to write a fantasy Shorty…

I believe you (we) wrote a story on here once. Something about rugby players, zombies and a ref in a pink top, IIRC? That was the most fun I've had standing up, I mean sitting at a keyboard, in some time.…

I would love to be able to do this, with the people who mean the most to me. But they live in three different countries, and…

We faked the Moon landing. And trolling.

Much of the alleged "spontaneously user generated" stuff on the internet is actually produced by (badly) paid "content creators".

Those clever "viral" videos? They've usually been extensively seeded by marketing agencies who pay people in developing countries a dollar per thousand likes/views.

The pop charts? Chart rigging…

In think it goes back to an earlier post by David. Philip feels that David breaches the privacy of friends who can't respond.

Especially when one of them is coming from a veteran broadcaster who's normally stayed out of controversy, too. Unfortunately there are likely a lot of other occasions where shit gets made up, and the perps get off scot free.

It makes about as much as sense as bagging the printing press as “frivolous” tech, because it’s used to produce tabloid newspapers and porn as well as the deep and meaningful stuff. I’m also down…

It took me a long time to adopt Twitter after many of my online…

This blog site is absolute proof of that.

Twitter is now a major source of science. At work I use it to feed me tables of contents for the journals I need to read. I use it to follow key people in my field. It is…

Could I maybe refer you back a couple of pages to where Sue references a friend awake and on twitter as part of the reason she's alive right now.

Every medium of communication is only as good as…

So do I. Thinking about it, internet culture was…

I go back a long way, to pre-web days and BBS, and I remember the change in tone in Usenet as access broadened out from universities and research institutes, and I remember the emergence of trolling and the handwringing about netiquette.

Still, I dispute that…

And again this tells us more about the person making the accusation.

I dislike Twitter. A whole bunch of people who are not half as clever as they think they are desperately trying to be relevant in 140 characters of one upmanship or less. I can’t imagine a platform better designed…

unlikely

Not quite directly relevant for pile-ons and group behaviour, but interesting/relevant nonetheless.

Anyway, I'll be forming an angry mob once I've found out where these bastard Dark Tetrads live,…

Honestly, I don’t know what the hell Philip’s issue with David’s piece is so what’s the point of taking it up with him? He’s explicitly stated that he’s got no interest in explaining himself…

What the fuck. Does he realise other people have also read Herkt's obituary and know it wasn't any of those things? Jesus.

which in context tells us both something about him and why disabled New Zealanders continue to be marginalised.

and can say we've all been in internet clusterfucks, but when you can realise it apologise, or acknowledge during or after that…

Eh?

Philip Patston is boycotting not only the Herald over DHC’s column, but Public Address over what he describes as David Herkt’s “nasty”, “bile-spitting”, “bullying” obituary for Charlotte.

Post about it here.

THIS – and if you've just broken someone's nose, perhaps this would be the ideal moment to NOT make your intent the centre of attention. Effect trumps intent.

finding myself increasingly drawn to focusing on behaviour and fixing that. I don't much care what convoluted reasoning or family history led to it.

Oh I agree.

Reading kindly doesn't mean excusing everything anyone says.

and that. Damned if I'll be pollyanna any time soon.

Intent does matter. Intent is not magic. These things are both true.

There is a world of difference between somebody hitting you deliberately, and somebody hitting you by accident. But you'd still want the person who hit you by accident to say, "Oh god, I'm sorry, are…

For sure. There's not…

I've dwelt on it quite a bit. Also don't regret it.

And maybe it wasn’t a certain person's intent to be hideously offensive by opining that rapes wouldn’t happen if women…

Spot on. And largely the reason why I felt compelled a little while ago to tweet this. (I'm not actually all that…

Damn right. There has been huge pressure put on victims and…

Oddly enough I was told today that Beraiah Hales' claim that the police weren't doing anything isn't true. Detectives are out detecting.

There isn’t a magic boundary, but certainly we can recognize clear examples of a pile on, and Willie and JT got one. Quite a few people did not think it was OK. But it…

Weeelll... I thought Rachel Smalley's rant on mainstreaming special needs kids last week was deeply offensive. By countering that it wasn't her intention to offend, she thought that this was sufficient to change the meaning…

Sure, we all fuck up, get up and all too often do it all over again. And all of us hope that…

It tends to be a hallmark of performative pile-ons to disqualify intent as a factor.

A phrase that Emma uses here — "read kindly" — seems important to me. Reading what the subject has said in the worst possible light rarely ends well. Assuming good faith is…

good clues, yes. intent does matter.

Me too. And while I try to be better, it's inevitable that sometimes I won't. I don't believe I deserve to be punished or judged too harshly for it either. I think there's a strong difference between normal people getting…

Although I wouldn’t like it, I think you in principle have a right to say “Stephen is a stupid dickhead” with obscene variations to suit your taste.…

Couldn’t agree more, but it’s a not-so-fine distinction some people find hard to draw.

And before anyone calls me a hypocrite — I've definitely been on the wrong side of that line, and am thankful to some people around here who "piled on" and expected…

Even with the context, it was an unfortunate tweet, and she didn't help her…

Yes. Gio was calmer than I was. Which is why all the shouting-down stuff that was pinned on him was so odd. He…

And? who polices those cases? New world Order? The Human Race has always had an ugly side. We have just found more ways to exercise…

Yes, I was trying to get that across in the post.

But look at the stupid Polly Gillespie pile-on recently. Her dumb comment about the danger for foreign tourists of NZ beaches was stripped of its context (the…

Certainly his & Russell's response to the WJ JT thing was a world away from the kinds of shouting down via various ists, isms & phobes you often see.

I'm sure once the…

That's several steps beyond "rude".

I assert my right to snark, rant and be downright rancid about bad arguments and crappy attitudes contained therein. That far, no further. If I consider Gerry Brownlee a terrible minister who had bungled the Christchurch recovery (IMHO…

I don't tweet so whaddaIknow .This is only my opinion but yes I have one. I imagine Gio, that, that sounds like pretty basic information. It wouldnt bother me…

Stephen Judd, the one who nails it.

But from what I've seen I tend to think NZ society errs too far onto the side of abuse and bullying. It's pretty much standard management training to learn how to bully without getting…

Because for example, “trolling” as…

We must still discriminate among our behaviours, though, surely. You had pretty strong words for Willie and JT after their Amy interview last year. A lot of other people did afterwards. At what point did…

Another thing about online communication (especially Twitter) is that I don't have comprehensive personal dossiers on everyone who…

a great way to understand is to spend a little time…

Sometimes, yes it is. Having one person reply to you with "You're wrong!" might be no big deal to most people. Having a thousand, or ten thousand, people say it all at the same time, and for days and weeks afterwards, is…

And that'll be true until you rip the keyboard from my cold dead hands, but Robyn, listen, I'm right here and I have a name. Ruuude!

And thank heavens our dear old friend Bob Jones was around to put those uppity faux-raged university feminist types like Deborah firmly in their place!

Deborah added: "I want to be taken seriously…

How or why would you suggest that people care about it, until such time as the company makes its revised intentions public?

I picked it as an example because it was a…

Interesting follow-up to Goldberg on TheWire, including the tweets. Kendall speculates that Brittney Cooper was misrepresented, Cooper says she wasn't.

On NPR, Kendall says that while she might "be someone's bully in their mind" she's not a bully because she…

Or we could say “call-out culture” and stop pretending it goes one way. The spurious justification might be different, but the behaviour is no different from the sparkle-pony slut-shaming “you…

I've unwittingly said some very hurtful things to some people entirely unknowingly and unintentionally.

Ultimately would a…

There is a pretty big qualitative difference between sending a bunch of "you're a crappy feminist" tweets and *sending a black person pictures of lynchings*. Holy shit.

The attacks on intersectionality for what it never was – including from my political corner – are increasing at an alarming rate.

Again, let's not rationalise one form of bullying by citing another.

As much as Kendall is keen to wave it away,…

And in the story itself…

Yes, exactly.

I found the piece badly flawed. She repeatedly refers to pile-ons, or call-out culture, as "intersectionality". She may as well call it "cow" for all the sense that makes. Intersectionality is a thing, it's a word that has valuable meaning, and it's the only reason…

Indeed. This whole thread is using death to make a point. Even if the point is not to do so, that's still a point.

the rule on the internet has been and always will be
Don’t…

Aha! This explains what I wanted to say. Not every reaction can be characterised as just part of an unthinking pile-on and, indeed,…

Liz is quite extraordinary. She's been a target of derision for people on the internet for a very long time. 10 years or more. I…

Please don't. It might just help someone else to know that other people have those thoughts.

Thank you for sharing.

Once someone has threatened rape or violence, or repeatedly made comments that are defamatory or in the…

Yes but ...

Sure don't use a specific person's death and their specific details to make a point

But we use death to make a point all the time, and rightly so. The key is to use generic issues around death…

Really don't want to reopen the whole discussion on Golberg's piece, which I found very poor, but the reaction proves no such thing, insofar as a lot of people felt vilified…

Don't do it without the most affected people's consent. I've seen family members wrest some purpose out of their loss by making sure…

I do not know DHC or…

In a world where essentially anything you don't want to hear can be cast as bullying it would just be another way to silence people you don't agree with. (And…

The pile-on mentality is so weird. It's made Twitter somewhere unpleasant to use lately. I've unfollowed a few people and turned…

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