It's funny. I've been browsing 4chan all month and I havent seen any gore or pedos. Maybe a few leud pictures (less than 10). Maybe you should actually visit the site instead of just spreading misinformation.
I took you up on that, and visited the technology interest area /g/
Post #1: Comment using the N word
Post #2: Someone using "fag" to insult people who, presumably, use Arch linux. (The term was Archfags)
Post #3: In response to something about headphones: "that deaf faggot [n-word]"
So it's funny. I've been browsing 4chan for 5 minutes and couldn't avoid racism & homophobia in the very first things I saw. Maybe you should actually visit the site instead of just spreading misinformation.
So we went from "it's nothing but pedos and porn" to "there are some bad words on there". If you find that offensive, maybe stay away from the internet.
Racism and homophobia aren't just bad words, and they were literally in the first three things I looked at.
If you find that hard to understand, maybe stay away from HN where we try to have at least some minimum of reason in our discussions: you either lack that by minimizing racism and hatred to "bad words" or you are a troll arguing in bad faith.
I think you are the one doing the conflating. You've jumped from "these words are sometimes used" to "these words are used solely for the purpose of expressing racist and homophobic feelings".
Okay, I'll go back & check again, maybe it's you who is right after all, maybe it is only "sometimes" on 4chan...
Nope, it's still me, I'm right: I just saw a whole new group of content on the first page of /g/, still lots of racism & homophobic slurs. A an even mix of f- & n- words, though it also included these two gems: "tranny fa--ot shitskin" followed by "Holocaust never happened"
So nope, nothing is conflated for me and I haven't jumped anywhere. My feet are firmly planted in the land of "4Chan has lots of racism & hate speech". I don't know what land you're in if it's a place where calling someone a "fa--ot [n-word]" doesn't get categorized into some sort of hate speech.
> I don't know what land you're in if it's a place where calling someone a "fa--ot [n-word]" doesn't get categorized into some sort of hate speech.
This is the main point of contention. No one denies that such words are a common occurrence on 4chan, but you believe these words are automatically indicative of racism.
Are you open to the idea that someone who refers to himself as “an Archfag” is simply communicating on his being an Arch Linux user, and not otherwise intending to communicate his sexual orientation, and certainly not to proffer a negative view of his own sexual orientation?
You got this wrong, it's not an insult. Somethingfag such as "oldfag", "newfag", "Archfag", etc. are not insults whatsoever. They're shibboleth terms for "old users", "new users", "Arch users".
Your entire premise is incorrect.
>2) The language of the insult is a comparison to another group of people.
No one is being insulted, so this point is also wrong.
>3) Being a member of that group is supposed to be a bad thing, which is what makes it an insult.
You're projecting here big time. No one there is tying any negativity or positivity to the "fag" suffix, only you are.
>4) Therefore the person believes that group of people is in some way inferior, bad, or otherwise undesirable in some way.
Nonsensical since nothing is being tied to inferiority, "badness", or anything undesirable.
People [who don’t get it] are being insulted to some degree. Just indirectly. If these words didn’t have their actual background of meanings, they wouldn’t be used.
I don’t agree with people getting too insulted by any of this. It’s not edgy. It’s corny and part of the gate keeping. Both sides don’t get it at times. At least when the using side seriously thinks there’s nothing wrong at all, ever, with the usage. Again, I don’t think the word usage matters at all. I was once a “/b/tard”.
The extremes of saying it’s so bad or saying there’s nothing wrong at all in any way shape or form are both incorrect.
> I don't have anything to say about people that uses a slurs against themselves because that isn't what I saw in 4Chan. It was someone calling other people "Archfags" as an insult, and each of the other examples I cited were used as insults. I've checked /g/ a few times since I posted my original comment to see if it was a fluke, but nope: Still lots of racial & homophobic insults.
I think you interpret these words are insults when they are simply descriptors.
You keep saying they are used so commonly but you don't provide any context for these quotes.
On the first page of 25 comments, 10 were used in a manner of disagreement with the person referred to, 5 were self-descriptors, 5 were in praise of others, and 5 were with no positive or negative inference to it.
It doesn't matter how they claim it's being used. It's a slur. The user of the slur doesn't get to decide who's offended by it. It's an offensive term just like the N word.
Perhaps it is, but that's a completely argument than the one proffered by the user I was responding to.
I'm refuting those claims, which are falsifiable, your claims are not and are merely a moral axiom such as “Stealing is bad.” which entail no factual, falsifiable component.
The "community" is the actual world we live in. A message board isn't isolated from that. It's offensive and a slur in the real world, of which 4chan is a tiny subset.
You do not want to live your life by the average of what “the world” finds offensive. There is no one on the world who would want such, and thinking that one want such can only come from a grave lack of realization how much cultural values can differ around the world.
Your case to freely be racist with no repercussions is unconvincing. 4chan’s cover story doesn’t matter. It’s clearly a huge center for racism and other forms of discrimination. You’re literally arguing to use slurs.
4chan most definitely exists in the real world and is subject to its morals. It doesn’t matter if you use a slur at a private club, Internet forum or at home. It doesn’t change its offensiveness.
> There's no other way to use these words. They're always racist and homophobic.
The way this thread progressed was very fascinating to read.
First, an absurd baseless generalization was made. Then, when challenged, the generalization was narrowed down a bit. Then it was narrowed down again and again until we got this comment which asserts an outright lie.
These words aren't always used in a racist and homophobic way. 4chan is proof of this.
They clearly can, and are in this case used, to communicate information where neither the listener nor the speaker is even thinking about race or sexual orientation, and no comment thereon is made.
If you wish to still call that “racism and homophobia”, then neither of which necessarily has anything to do with race or sexual orientations, or even disdain. — you should also know that your usage of these words is then quite nonstandard, and does not align with what most mean with them.
The word “nigger”, in particular, has been of particular interest of study in how depending on context the word can very much be about race, and negatively so, to a simple form of address that has no implications of race.
If you visit anonymous imageboards, it's because you want to be exposed to the widest possible spectrum of humanity. There's a bias towards being offensive simply because those things are not allowed to surface anywhere else. If you stick around despite that, you'll realize the site has a rather unique culture. Occasionally, you'll run into great stuff that could never be expressed in sites such as this one.
You mentioned /g/ -- there is a daily programming thread on that board with a very long history. I've seen some really interesting projects posted there. Some even made their way here eventually. SerenityOS for example.
I can understand that sometimes there's decent bit of non-hate content on 4chan, but what sort of great content would you find there that couldn't be expressed here, or in some other forum that isn't full of hatred?
Seeing your comments on a few other parts of this thread makes me think that it's probably better for you not to bother with 4chan. As others have kindly explained to you, insults on there are facetious as well as self describing, and of course, derogatory.
If you can't, or rather won't, see beyond that. Then it's just not for you. And that's fine.
You are correct, hate speech is not for me, and when possible I stay away from places where it would otherwise be unavoidable.
But what people have "kindly" explained have merely been justifications for racism and other hate speech that all seem to ultimately boil down to it being normal for 4chan. That, and the excuse of "oh but they don't really mean it" is pretty thin justification.
It is normal there. These elements surface on anonymous forums precisely because they are not tolerated elsewhere.
A very simple pattern of 4chan posting culture is to offend others in order to provoke a debate about what you actually want to discuss. It's the 4chan version of clickbait. The /g/ catalog is absolutely filled with people doing this. Want to talk about Linux? Pretend you're a superior Windows user and mock Linux for not having some feature. File picker thumbnails are a common example. This happens all the time and can generate some rather unique discussions.
Because it's anonymous, you'll see a lot of frowned-upon behavior which can nevertheless be interesting. Everytime some drama happens on GitHub or LKML there might be a random 4chan thread discussing it in the usual offensive tone. It's interesting to read about what people think, especially opinions they wouldn't express if they had to sign the post with their real names.
>A very simple pattern of 4chan posting culture is to offend others in order to provoke a debate about what you actually want to discuss. It's the 4chan version of clickbait. The /g/ catalog is absolutely filled with people doing this. Want to talk about Linux? Pretend you're a superior Windows user and mock Linux for not having some feature. File picker thumbnails are a common example. This happens all the time and can generate some rather unique discussions.
I do this with investment ideas on /biz/ regularly, particularly in the stock market general thread and have had some very enlightening debates as a result.
He specifically refuted the claim that it was "pedophilia and gore"; your response, while raising valid criticisms, has nothing to do with those two things.
I used to see pedo pics on 4chan... occasionally, if not frequently. That was well before the site gained it's alt-right reputation, though, back when it was more focused on simply "internet outcasts" and very gay friendly.
The diversity pushed by academic institutions and tech companies is the same. They want people from different backgrounds and locations, that are all the same politically. If you disagree with a progressive policy, you get the boot.
4chan is the same. They accept anyone from all over the world. The majority of posters are foreign. If you disagree with their narrative or political ideals, they insult you and tell you to leave. Except on 4chan you don't get banned or your life ruined for disagreeing. It's an actual safe space for ideas.
I'd love to create a game but the sheer amount of time and effort to build something is insane. And then you have to hope you are really good at marketing or you hit the social media lottery.
Perhaps make something small for yourself or a loved one in your life? It feels great to finish something, however small! And people who aren't programmers are super happy you made a game for them.
