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Ben Harris-Roxas

@mhoye the arc of the moral universe is long, and it bends towards Randal Monroe answering for his many crimes of aiding and abetting technbro smugness.

11 July at 2:08 | Wall-to-wall | Open on old.mermaid.town
6 comments
Glyph

@ben_hr @mhoye I have used this comic myself many times, and while I could readily accept its deployment as hacky or clichéd, I am struggling to understand how it might be “smug”? It describes a pervasive failure, one we are all complicit in, how do you read its users as feeling somehow superior?

11 July at 4:18 | Open on mastodon.social
Hugo Devillers

@glyph @ben_hr @mhoye maybe in the broader sense of "techbro" as "not as technical as they think they are", because it's easy to post XKCD comics to look like you're part of some nebulous in-group, and it's also easy for that to turn into a "how do you do, fellow kids" energy post

11 July at 7:52 | Open on mastodon.gamedev.place
Clifford Adams

@gob @glyph @ben_hr @mhoye

I don't fault Randall for his comics, although maybe he should do an XKCD where he adds a disclaimer that not all situations fit any particular XKCD. (Then people could refer to that XKCD number and feel REALLY SMART.)

Techbros often misuse XKCDs (or memes in general) as a kind of "thought terminating cliche", especially the infamous 927 about standards. Just cite the XKCD and walk away--no need to consider the issues in depth.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-

@gob @glyph @ben_hr @mhoye

I don't fault Randall for his comics, although maybe he should do an XKCD where he adds a disclaimer that not all situations fit any particular XKCD. (Then people could refer to that XKCD number and feel REALLY SMART.)

Techbros often misuse XKCDs (or memes in general) as a kind of "thought terminating cliche", especially the infamous 927 about standards. Just cite the XKCD and walk away--no need to consider the issues in depth.

11 July at 13:52 | Open on fosstodon.org
Cody

@wikicliff @gob @glyph @ben_hr @mhoye ok but worth remembering that "this is a thought terminating cliché" is, itself, a thought terminating cliché, including, unfortunately, this mention.

11 July at 14:24 | Open on mathstodon.xyz
Clifford Adams

@codyroux
Agreed, which is why I was careful to say the XKCDs/memes may be *misused* as thought terminating cliches. (I wonder how long it will take for that accent mark in "cliché" to go away in English, like the umlauts in "naive" and "cooperate".)

11 July at 14:36 | Open on fosstodon.org
Cody

@wikicliff I certainly wouldn't have added it if it had been harder to type, so... when android updates their keyboard?

11 July at 14:42 | Open on mathstodon.xyz
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