There's no thesis, we're just talking. I don't understand why I got called names and hostile responses. Meh.
The second part of your reply is great, I figured this would be the place to ask somebody who knows about it. I wish you'd have started and ended with that. I'm one of those very nerds who never cared about who wants to sleep with whom.
I must note that on occasion trans techies are aggressively hostile to none trans techies and I don't appreciate it anymore than you do when it flows the other way.
> hey, you all seem to be more worked up about this thing than I am, I just thought that sounds too crazy, it sounds like something from "Curb your Enthusiasm" not real life.
No no, I am right there with you. It is straight out of Curb'd.
> I'm pretty sensitive to implications of literary style and so forth, in my opinion at least, and I think the implication was "oooh everybody ganged up on me"
Observe people doubling down in this thread about how the fingers snapping (which didn't even happen probably!) is totally normal because actually... :P
Again, can hardly fault you as a reader, you certainly aren't part of that.
Listen, someone posted in here that they themselves are a NYT reporter and not only did the finger snaps did not happen (but would be totally justified if they did!) this is just a former disgruntled employee who "probably got fired for watching porn".
I just think that's... amazing. Hilarious and weird. And something to watch out for.
> since I lived in the U.S a long time and never experienced this snapping thing I felt what, no way, this is crazy.
Thank you for the candor. I agree that it is bananas. Definitely can see how it might be difficult to believe at first.
> People often make statements about what societies are like in order to paint them in a particular way for rhetorical or propaganda purposes.
Absolutely. What do you make of the folks in this thread echoing your sentiment that it must be made up and/or quickly changing tact and trying to pass it off as completely benign and normative by various explanations?
I would argue trying to pretend like it is fake is a form of gaslighting/propaganda. Doesn't seem like you were engaged in that, especially with your response.
You might be somewhat alarmed to know that initially one or two NYT staffers did in fact engage in exactly this behaviour until they were debunked ("I was there and it didn't happen" type posts on X). I am a tad alarmed.
Hence my call for rumination. All of this is quite bizarre, don't you agree? What on earth is going on?
> Evidently you have never had a similar experience.
Of course I have. I am not even calling you particularly gullible actually. I think clearly on display down thread from you is an exploitation of your, and others like you, reasonableness.
You're essentially calling this person a liar for sharing an anecdote.
Why is this even a matter of belief, what makes you uncomfortable about it?
With a modicum of effort you can indeed corroborate that this happened - I hope you do so - but I'm more curios about the knee jerk reaction.
You clearly don't want it to be real and simultanously you left open the possibility that it is a thing you aren't familiar with. But first and foremost you called him a liar. This is worthy of further rumination.
Both his and your comments come off as inflammatory derailment to me. That's how it reads, I'm not ascribing malintent. People didn't use to talk like this, I hope you reconsider.
"not just weird privacy geeks who never gave up on PGP." is simply not conducive towards making your point. You can make your (otherwise solid) point and even win the argument on merit without this sort of thing.