Comments for Bija Andrew's Zen Blog

Comment on The “Ground Zero Mosque” for nice Muslim people. by Ron Krumpos

Ron Krumpos — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 21:20:14 +0000

I know many Muslims, both in the U.S. and abroad, and none of them support terrorism. When asked they will say that the Qu’ran is opposed to it.

Comment on I don’t have any Internet friends. by Liz

Liz — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 16:56:06 +0000

Yes, quite. I always used to say “I picked him/her up on the internet” those twelve or so years ago when people thought it was odd and strange and just plain freaky….

I read this today and thought about your piece http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/07/10_reasons_to_stop_apologizing.html

Comment on I don’t have any Internet friends. by Bija Andrew Wright

Bija Andrew Wright — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:39:30 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Hubert! It’s mutual. The awesome opportunities to meet people through Tweetea wouldn’t have happened if not for those of us who risked those grimaces back in the day.

Comment on I don’t have any Internet friends. by Hubert "GAM" Sawyers III

Hubert "GAM" Sawyers III — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:44:39 +0000

AMEN DREW!

It is not a faint memory of the grimace you witness when you tell people you met a person on the internet. Or the chuckle. Or the look of shock That said, the response of sheer disruption of the psyche has rapidly dissipated and I don’t see as many funny looks these days.

I am glad to say you are a real acquaintance in my network – both IRL and URL. Keep it zen, my friend.

Comment on Twitter Is Redefining “Attention” by encyclops

encyclops — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:44:58 +0000

Like I said, the pollution comes and goes. If someone’s usual topic is Doctor Who, and I want to read what they say about Doctor Who, I’m not going to unfollow them while the World Cup is going on and then remember to refollow them again later, partly because they ARE talking about our shared interest during that time, and partly because I would have to pay attention to the World Cup to know when it was over and I should refollow that person. It’s a passing problem, but during that time it IS a problem, so it’s not about terminating a social connection so much as needing to suppress intermittent bursts of traffic in order to enjoy the whole feed. It’s more WORK to maintain a stream I want to dip into, and the same person can be contributing very positively and very negatively depending on the situation.

Don’t get me wrong: I think what you’re saying about inbox vs. stream is a really crucial mind-shift, one that’s especially challenging (but very necessary) for someone like me who doesn’t like to miss things. I’m just saying that there might be better tools for maintaining the quality of a stream than Twitter, but no one has built them yet.

Comment on The Sad Story of Shirley Sherrod by encyclops

encyclops — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:38:25 +0000

My initial response was “Well, I know there are a lot of people who are only hearing the ‘I used to believe X’ part and judging her based on that, but this whole thing would never have come up if someone who knew exactly what they were doing hadn’t intentionally ‘misread’ her for political ends.”

But then I realized that the “lot of people” are the ones who make it possible to use something like this for political ends in the first place, that the cynical few have to exploit the crowd who aren’t paying attention to the whole story in order to make use of that story at all.

I’m sure, too, that there are a lot of people for whom X is so bad that no amount of growth can really recover trust. I think this essentialism (“once a racist, always a racist” or “all liberals are like this under the skin”) is a huge part of the problem right now.

Short version: I like what you have to say on this issue. This isn’t a new thing, but I feel as though I usually post to disagree slightly, and I wanted to redress the balance a bit.

Comment on The Sad Story of Shirley Sherrod by Hadi Kadri

Hadi Kadri — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 02:32:22 +0000

I completely agree, Andrew! I had the same initial reaction: she was clearly leading up to something, telling the beginning of a story. I wondered if it was possible that other folks just didn’t hear it the same way; or if they were ignoring the reality in order to assassinate someone’s character.

We’re definitely encouraging people to strip all the complexity from their speech, their arguments, their writing. Which is pretty sad.

On the positive side, I was glad to hear on NPR this evening that the White House admitted they rushed to judgment and plans to review the firing. How cool would it be if they can make this right!

Thanks for the thoughtful post.

Comment on The Sad Story of Shirley Sherrod by Koho

Koho — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 01:57:27 +0000

Amen, Bij.

Comment on Twitter Is Redefining “Attention” by Bija Andrew Wright

Bija Andrew Wright — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:34:40 +0000

What’s interesting is that Twitter is set up to make that a mostly bloodless transaction–simply, if you don’t value discussion of the World Cup, then don’t follow people who discuss the World Cup. The format and terminology of Twitter doesn’t emphasize “friendship” in the way that others do. And yet, our habitual social response isn’t bloodless–we either feel too guilty to terminate a social connection when it no longer serves, or we feel like there needs to be some personal judgment, to tell the person, “I’m sorry, if you’re going to keep tweeting all the time about that, I have to stop following you.” I find that illogical, but then again, that’s human social contact for you.

Comment on Twitter Is Redefining “Attention” by encyclops

encyclops — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 01:01:32 +0000

A stream can still be polluted if there’s too much of a bad thing flowing through it. If you find you’re following someone who says a lot of things that aren’t very much fun to read — for example, a play-by-play reaction to the World Cup — you have to work a lot harder to find the interesting stuff being drowned out.

Obviously one possible solution here is to stop following that person, but the pollution comes and goes, and in the meantime there’s no clean water to drink unless you filter it.