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Bateshorn

By Bateshorn
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Captainant

Captainant 27792

Posted
Posted (edited)
22 minutes ago, immamac said:

horror acid GIF

Me every morning. Then I get to go to work for another dose of incompetence and people just mailing it in because they don't want to quit during a pandemic. 

I feel for you man, starting up surly to replace the shag years ago was keeping a great community going. And while this community definitely has rotten areas, goddamnit I've been on the shag/surly since I lived in fucking Jester West. This place is an institution. Or we should all be institutionalized. 

You should turn on ads for non treefiddy, as long as they aren't page hijacking or autoplaying. You shouldnt have to contribute your sanity AND money to keep the lights on. 

But I know I would be bumming hard if surly was gone. This place is a reflection of a big chunk of the Texas fan base - it's just that we are in a historically bad stretch of football and in the most destabilizing and uncertain period of modern times. 

If you get section 230 protections yanked out from under you though, I couldn't blame you for turning the lights off

 

Edit: on a related note, I turned off my tree fiddy a while back in protest to the "wink-wink no politics in DT unless they're right wing" but my payment never ended. Can I get my tree fiddy tag back? Lol

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NAVY

NAVY 6747

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, immamac said:

To be clear this isn't burning a hole in my wallet and just ruining me financially, but it does now COST money to keep the site up and I just want to let people know that it's pretty fucked up having to come out of pocket to have a platform for some of the shit that's going down lately 

Maybe a new push for tree fiddy? Sucks you’re going out of pocked. 

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Biff Tannen

Biff Tannen 45744

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

I very rarely go to the football board.  Ironically, football discussions were why I joined the hookem/hornfans/shaggy/surly cabal decades ago.  I don't think things have changed so much as I am just no longer interested in seeing the same takes over and over.

Non-political point:  at some point it seems the University of Texas and its fans are going to have to point the finger at something besides the coaches we hire.  I suppose it's possible that multiyear high dollar contracts at one of the bluest of blue blood programs leads to near-immediate complacency for otherwise good coaches, but I suspect the culture of the school and administration and to some degree the city itself have infected the program.

For me, I can't witness 39 years of mostly soft, fundamentally unsound, underperforming football and reach a  different conclusion.  We lacked talent in the late 1980s, and Mack Brown had roughly an 8 year run that was outstanding, but besides those two periods, I'd say we consistently suck at developing talent and teaching the game.  Did we truly whiff on 6 straight coaches?

This is the argument I was making to a couple of buddies the other night.  There's just no way that we are THAT unlucky with coaches.  There's something else at play here.

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G650

G650 14278

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, immamac said:

Then you have me. Who had to not only wade through both of those pools of shit, but also the daily texan bullshit. 

I'm pretty sure the other mods barely even come to the site anymore.

Appreciate you doing it man. Seriously.

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cactusflinthead

cactusflinthead 27604

Posted
Posted
50 minutes ago, immamac said:

To be clear this isn't burning a hole in my wallet and just ruining me financially, but it does now COST money to keep the site up and I just want to let people know that it's pretty fucked up having to come out of pocket to have a platform for some of the shit that's going down lately 

Wait a second. You mean you are paying for the privilege of wading into this cesspool every morning? 

That's fucked up. Turn loose the ads. I'll even put up with it as a tree fiddy. And there's only around a hundred of us?!

Pony up you cheap ass mfers. Tree fiddy ain't gonna kill anybody's bank account. 

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Sbbruin

Sbbruin 21894

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, immamac said:

I'm only half kidding. Ever since the fallout of the TX OU game I really did consider just leaving the board down for a while. 

I don't know that anything positive is coming from it anymore, it seems like everyone is just miserable and pissed off. Before it used to be some of that, but with a sense of humor and a jovial culture at poking fun at people. Now it's just fucking mean and hardly anything is funny. 

Does anything positive ever come from this place?

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ztejas

ztejas 43541

Posted
Posted
24 minutes ago, NAVY said:

How many new tree subscribers do you need to get into the black? I bet we can get you there by end of day. 

Agreed. Just subbed for $7/mo. Probably should have awhile ago with all the bandwidth I take up.

I don't think there's any shame in asking for a few bucks from the regular posters. Most of us probably weren't aware that imma is paying out of pocket. Seems silly with how much traffic this site gets. 

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Sbbruin

Sbbruin 21894

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, immamac said:

To be clear this isn't burning a hole in my wallet and just ruining me financially, but it does now COST money to keep the site up and I just want to let people know that it's pretty fucked up having to come out of pocket to have a platform for some of the shit that's going down lately 

What percentage of people are tree fiddying?  Maybe we should start a guilt campaign. A cup of coffee per month is a small price to pay for the jagoffery 

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G650

G650 14278

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, immamac said:

Maybe a new board that has its own set of rep and once you get crowdourced there you are banished to this board like douchebag central back in the day...or hell maybe even just need douchebag central back. 

I like it

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workswithseed

workswithseed 2112

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, immamac said:

Maybe a new board that has its own set of rep and once you get crowdourced there you are banished to this board like douchebag central back in the day...or hell maybe even just need douchebag central back. 

Yeah, the politics board seems (to me) to be the worst at handing out neg rep.

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immamac

immamac 43119

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Sbbruin said:

What percentage of people are tree fiddying?  Maybe we should start a guilt campaign. A cup of coffee per month is a small price to pay for the jagoffery 

There is 101 treefiddy monthly 4 annual and then 9 double treefiddy and 3 passionate newsletter subscribers (9.95)

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Whatever

Whatever 700

Posted
Posted
The Christian thread is very positive. The hobbies threads seem to be pretty light on sour notes, same as food.

The food board is my go-to. I only check the Fire Tom/Urban threads in football, but even those are annoying most of the time. The Shank and “Check out this fucking sandwich” threads are my favorite.
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Sbbruin

Sbbruin 21894

Posted
Posted
13 minutes ago, immamac said:

We have over 6800 active users who posted in the last month or so. 

The number of treefiddy subscribers.  Is woeful.  There’s no reason whatsoever this board should run at a loss.  You should go old school porn pop up banner ad style ad spamming on anyone who doesn’t financially support.  I can start a subscription shaming thread.  @immamac you’ll need to put up the instructions on it though.  I don’t even remember how I did it originally.

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Dbeasy

Dbeasy 15093

Posted
Posted

Surly right now is a microcosm of a much, much bigger problem in society right now. I don't know about you all, but life is pretty tough for a lot of us. The country is experiencing greater discord than perhaps ever. I have friends I've known for decades on the other side of the political aisle, and for the life of me I can't understand how so many people could have such distorted views of the world and reality. It's weighed on me, my friends and family for a long time now. I'm sure some of you know what I'm talking about. An effed up Football and Politics board is the perfect example of what's happening more broadly every day across the world.

We all know "fake news" is a big part of the problem, but I would very strongly recommend every single person on Surly watch a program on Netflix called The Social Dilemma, if you haven't already. In a very easy to understand way, it describes what is happening in the world right now, and the root cause. Immamac, there ought to be a dedicated thread to this documentary, under the NEWS forum, not the political forum. It is not a political program. It is a program that explains how technology is literally destroying society right now.  And it's not hyperbole.  It's a realistic view of a very serious and urgent problem.  I'm not kidding. Every person in this country and the broader world, should watch this program. It would at least help people understand what is happening right now.

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ztejas

ztejas 43541

Posted
Posted
50 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

Immamac, there ought to be a dedicated thread to this documentary, under the NEWS forum, not the political forum.

Lol at thinking we have a non political news forum.

That doc was okay. I kind of didn't like how it was mostly people that designed all of these things telling us how bad they are. 

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immamac

immamac 43119

Posted
Posted
54 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

Surly right now is a microcosm of a much, much bigger problem in society right now. I don't know about you all, but life is pretty tough for a lot of us. The country is experiencing greater discord than perhaps ever. I have friends I've known for decades on the other side of the political aisle, and for the life of me I can't understand how so many people could have such distorted views of the world and reality. It's weighed on me, my friends and family for a long time now. I'm sure some of you know what I'm talking about. An effed up Football and Politics board is the perfect example of what's happening more broadly every day across the world.

We all know "fake news" is a big part of the problem, but I would very strongly recommend every single person on Surly watch a program on Netflix called The Social Dilemma, if you haven't already. In a very easy to understand way, it describes what is happening in the world right now, and the root cause. Immamac, there ought to be a dedicated thread to this documentary, under the NEWS forum, not the political forum. It is not a political program. It is a program that explains how technology is literally destroying society right now.  And it's not hyperbole.  It's a realistic view of a very serious and urgent problem.  I'm not kidding. Every person in this country and the broader world, should watch this program. It would at least help people understand what is happening right now.

I've echoed this sentiment to several posters in private, without the strong recommendation for the documentary. 

One of the things that I think is so unique about this community in particular is that we (and I specifically) will not allow for any of the runaway train of bullshit getting pushed on people. There is no algorithm telling you to look at anything, the threads that get highlighted are the ones with the busiest posts, however there is a lot of cleanup that either goes unnoticed (a good thing) or that people are turning a blind eye to. I was not aware of how bad the thread about riot documentation had gotten with conspiracy theories and I shut it down pretty quick by mocking the thread and cleaning up the last few pages. When things and have a label of stupid on them people tend to shy away from them because they feel like they are posting in a troll thread or if they continue the argument they will appear dumber than usual. 

There is no racist chest bumping group think tank, but some posters definitely have some pretty fucking skewed views of the world that are painful to read, but aren't representative of the community as a whole. OFC being blatantly homophobic, racist, mysoginistic, what most would call "hate speech" is immediately moderated. There's a fine line that many posters walk, and some forget how bad the word "faggot" or "faget" got in this sites history and how quickly that problem was solved when we decided as a group that it was unacceptable. Sure there was some laggards, but overall accountability has been easy. 

Even things like "highly regarded" instead of using the word "retarded" are more the norm here and that's UNIQUE for the internet which is so rampant with garbage spewing. I'm not saying this place is head and shoulders better than twitter, but it has principals that extend beyond that of a fanbase. We will never be a community of hate (unless it's directed at Tom Herman, fuck that guy). It's disgusting how many companies trade stock price inflated and propped up by bogus revenue driven by their own fucked up algorithms instead of offering a place for real change to start. Facebook could easily just eliminate the problem, Twitter too. They decide to amplify the problem and create not only an echo chamber, but a room which you cannot escape because it is PUMPING your feed full of shit that you have not indicated that you even care about. The "data science" behind it all is fucking trash, all they do is take polarizing topics pick one side of the fence and blast your eyeballs with it until you either leave the platform or succumb to the hypnosis. 

Flat earth? Watch 4 videos on a brand new youtube account and see what the algo does. 

QAnon? Start a new twitter and comment on 5 or 6 conspiracy theorists and get ready for the 300 others you don't follow to bombard your eyes.

It's irresponsible for these companies to be doing it and they KNOWINGLY take part because that means they can show you more ads, and generate more revenue.

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G650

G650 14278

Posted
Posted
15 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

We should shame the most active posters who don’t donate.  

 

9AADD798-3701-487C-96CF-EC06C4D8C287.gif

We actually had this problem on another board where I mod, all the more prolific posters didn't donate. We basically gave them an ultimatum. Pay or gtfo.

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89809

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

Surly right now is a microcosm of a much, much bigger problem in society right now. I don't know about you all, but life is pretty tough for a lot of us. The country is experiencing greater discord than perhaps ever. I have friends I've known for decades on the other side of the political aisle, and for the life of me I can't understand how so many people could have such distorted views of the world and reality. It's weighed on me, my friends and family for a long time now. I'm sure some of you know what I'm talking about. An effed up Football and Politics board is the perfect example of what's happening more broadly every day across the world

I've mentioned that I've got relatives who think the world will end if somebody isn't reelected.  They somehow lived through LBJ, Carter, Clinton, and Obama, but apparently 2020 is where everything ends.  Even though both parties are bending over backwards for those olds, even though their financial future is secure, thanks to generous retirements, houses that were relatively cheap 30 years ago, Social Security, etc.

It's to the point where I appreciate the fucking qanon idiot in-law, because I can actually laugh at that shit - she and her bf are not contributing members of the family or society at large, and as long as they don't act on that stupid shit, it's no harm to us.   We've been pushing them slowly out of the family "sphere" around our kids, and our kids haven't even noticed.

But some of these relatives, it hurts a bit.  I had a huge discussion/argument with a relative the other day, who was fretting over the election, talking about how people are working against Trump, specifically calling out the CDC and other agencies, how they want to "control us", etc. and then trying to tell me that if those agencies had their way, they'd keep us permanently "locked down"  like they did this spring.  We argued over "locked down", because I pointed out to them at no point were either of us and our families ever actually locked down.  That they were free to leave their house, walk around, even drive to their other house near the coast, go to Walmart or HEB, go fishing, etc. and that at no point did the police stop them, or put up roadblocks or anything of that nature.  

But in their minds, they were as locked down as the Chinese who had their apartment building entrances welded shut.  This was an intelligent person, who was a world traveler, multiple degrees in multiple disciplines.  He even said "what would your grandpa say", and got pissed when I pointed out that the political affiliation of said grandpa, and then I pointed out that his grandpa had been alive during the 1918 flu, and that he would most likely have worn a mask and avoided people when possible, because it was the right thing to do.  

Back in the spring, we even talked about how his grandparents' generation had done the mask thing - somebody had pulled up a bunch of the local newspapers from 1918-20, and there were mask instructions, photos of people wearing masks, etc., but apparently that's now a 100% a political issue, and unAmerican or some shit.

It fucking saddens me, to see some of these people losing a grasp on reality, especially when I know the problem is the media that they consume, and pointing it out only reinforces their bunker mentality.

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89809

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Posted

The Social Dilemma doc has a lot of good stuff, but this is not new, it's just kind of the culmination of nearly 40 years of cable news networks scaring people.

We've got an older aunt who is upset and scared about "defunding the police" in Portland.  She doesn't know anybody there, she's never been to Portland, and based on her limited mobility these days, I don't think she'll ever visit there.  I pointed out that if they actually did that, they would regret it, and change course very quickly, and that she shouldn't concern herself with what people halfway across the country from her do, that they should be allowed to do their own thing.  But in her mind, if it happens in Portland, it's coming to her part of Arkansas.

But this isn't new.  When I was a kid, we had the Tylenol scare, the Halloween candy scares, and Adam Walsh.  It was a long time ago, so I don't know how close those events were to each other, but they stand out to me - very isolated incidents, extremely isolated incidents, but all over the national news.  Those things put fear into a lot of the boomers, and they inflicted it upon a lot of us kids.  From then on until high school, my parents carefully checked our candy, and kept track of us more often at places like malls, etc., even though the chances of us being abducted by a random stranger were far, far less than being run over by somebody blowing through a stop sign.

And my gut says that it carried over to my generation, even subconsciously, with the rise of the helicopter parents, from the Boomers inflicting that fear upon us.

But man, that generation above me, the Boomers, they've had 40 years of cable news taking isolated events, and blowing them up into national crises, one after another, and certain cable news networks, combined with social media, over the past 10 years, is just polishing that paranoia that the world is a lot scarier than it actually is.

I don't know where I was going with this, so I'm going to stop.

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Dbeasy

Dbeasy 15093

Posted
Posted
The Social Dilemma doc has a lot of good stuff, but this is not new, it's just kind of the culmination of nearly 40 years of cable news networks scaring people.
We've got an older aunt who is upset and scared about "defunding the police" in Portland.  She doesn't know anybody there, she's never been to Portland, and based on her limited mobility these days, I don't think she'll ever visit there.  I pointed out that if they actually did that, they would regret it, and change course very quickly, and that she shouldn't concern herself with what people halfway across the country from her do, that they should be allowed to do their own thing.  But in her mind, if it happens in Portland, it's coming to her part of Arkansas.
But this isn't new.  When I was a kid, we had the Tylenol scare, the Halloween candy scares, and Adam Walsh.  It was a long time ago, so I don't know how close those events were to each other, but they stand out to me - very isolated incidents, extremely isolated incidents, but all over the national news.  Those things put fear into a lot of the boomers, and they inflicted it upon a lot of us kids.  From then on until high school, my parents carefully checked our candy, and kept track of us more often at places like malls, etc., even though the chances of us being abducted by a random stranger were far, far less than being run over by somebody blowing through a stop sign.
And my gut says that it carried over to my generation, even subconsciously, with the rise of the helicopter parents, from the Boomers inflicting that fear upon us.
But man, that generation above me, the Boomers, they've had 40 years of cable news taking isolated events, and blowing them up into national crises, one after another, and certain cable news networks, combined with social media, over the past 10 years, is just polishing that paranoia that the world is a lot scarier than it actually is.
I don't know where I was going with this, so I'm going to stop.

No it is absolutely not like 40 years. Not anywhere close.
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Biff Tannen

Biff Tannen 45744

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

We all know "fake news" is a big part of the problem, but I would very strongly recommend every single person on Surly watch a program on Netflix called The Social Dilemma, if you haven't already. In a very easy to understand way, it describes what is happening in the world right now, and the root cause. Immamac, there ought to be a dedicated thread to this documentary, under the NEWS forum, not the political forum. It is not a political program. It is a program that explains how technology is literally destroying society right now.  And it's not hyperbole.  It's a realistic view of a very serious and urgent problem.  I'm not kidding. Every person in this country and the broader world, should watch this program. It would at least help people understand what is happening right now.

One billion % this.  I've watched it twice and made my in laws watch it.  Get the fuck off social media, or at least understand what it is doing so you don't get sucked into the bullshit.

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Biff Tannen

Biff Tannen 45744

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Dbeasy said:


No it is absolutely not like 40 years. Not anywhere close.

This is important.  The concept is similar, but the technology makes it infinitely more potent.  Cable news is human beings vs other human beings, with the goal of influencing them.  Social media is super computers vs human beings.  There is no winning, if you don't know what's happening.

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Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Dbeasy said:

No it is absolutely not like 40 years. Not anywhere close.

Oh it's worse now, but I can remember when there was a focus to start sensationalizing the shit out of every little thing.   They've just refined their methods, but they've been working on that generation for 40 years, and the big difference between 2020 and 1980, is that they can pour it into their audience 24/7, whether they are at home or on the go.  But the aim was always the same - push fear, make sure they come back after the commercial break.

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Dbeasy

Dbeasy 15093

Posted
Posted
Oh it's worse now, but I can remember when there was a focus to start sensationalizing the shit out of every little thing.   They've just refined their methods, but they've been working on that generation for 40 years, and the big difference between 2020 and 1980, is that they can pour it into their audience 24/7, whether they are at home or on the go.  But the aim was always the same - push fear, make sure they come back after the commercial break.

Agree. The fundamental approach of misleading people has been here since the first newspapers of 1776. It’s the sophistication and VOLUME of information that you are subjected to every day that’s different. It’s scary effective.
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