20 Comments on “To Heal a Nation, a Shoutout to Team Reddit”

1. Are you highlighting a specific aspect of the reddit link or just its existence in general?

2. The specific comment highlighted in yellow.

3. Haha! I was thinking that the comment in yellow was the post at reddit and not a comment. I clearly have not been going there in quite a while. Thanks for sharing. It is way cool.

4. What I like about this link is that it is a reminder not to let a large group be defined entirely by it’s fringe. That’s the only thought that gives me hope during this political season.

5. That’s a great post, and it reminds me of something I was thinking the other day: how can people ever be bored? I suppose if you’re stuck in a waiting room all alone, your smartphone’s dead, and the only magazines are People and Sports Illustrated, you might be bored for a little while, but otherwise, there are so many things to do.

6. Judy, one of the things to be careful about when poking around reddit is that different subreddits have entirely different cultures (much like different website comment sections do), so while one area might be full of people who are kind and friendly and cuddly, another area could appear to consist entirely of offensive assholes.

7. Full disclaimer: Until this morning, I have never been to Reddit. I clicked your link with some ambivalence, because not going there has been a conscious choice. But I trust you, so I clicked the link, and I’m glad I did, because that is awesome.

   I don’t know when, if ever, I will go to Reddit again, but thanks for the pointer to a demonstration of the other side of the Reddit coin.

8. Now I want to learn lockpicking.

9. Alexander conquered most of the known world, and reddit tells me to learn how to play guitar?

   How much the world has changed in a few thousand years….

   ;)

10. aphrael, that’s my point. No group is entirely defined by just it’s best members or just it’s worst. I think it’s a healthy thought to keep in mind. In fact, there was mention of my son’s Make A Wish story on one sub-reddit with some kind and thoughtful comments on pediatric cancer. I don’t think that line of conversation is diminished by the existence of some of the more nasty sub-reddits. I have no illusions about Reddit as a whole – like the entire internet, or the entire world, there is some good, some bad, and some that just isn’t to my taste/liking/comfort-level.

11. I really *do* need to improve my handwriting. If I concentrate and go very slowly and put a lot of effort into it, you can *usually* read it, but if I’m in a hurry, not even I can read it… O.O

12. Haven’t been bored since I was a child, except when I am sick. Even now as I age and body fails me, I write and use the net to extend my reach. I *am* a well rounded geek autodidact — never got the degree, started publishing at 21 and running professional committees, and had a half dozen careers some of which didn’t know about one another.

    I need a couple padawans at this point so I can pass on what I know and teach them to save the world effectively before I die. ;) But we don’t have that sort of apprenticeship structure for the more rarified sorts of work anymore, sadly enough.

13. I’m probably going to make things worse by saying this, but the whole thing read like a Lifehacker article to me.

14. I agree an that is a gem of a post in Reddit. Now I want to make a Reddit account so I can somehow bookmark that post for reference.

15. Oh, thank you so much! My son has Asberger’s and really, really doesn’t want to go to college (he gets very distracted by people surfing the ‘net or texting in class, autistic people invented the Rules Nazi concept). However, there are no damn jobs out there for anyone, let alone people with issues.

    I have wanted him to try computer programming, though, and I believe if he found something he enjoyed I think he’d give college a chance, especially since our local community college has most of it’s computer classes available online.

    I’ve never been to Reddit before, either, although I have a lot of friends who do. This is interesting as hell, and now I have a starting point for Vincent to find out if he’d enjoy programming! I have a friend who’s a 3D animator in the game industry, and he said that they’re always looking for programmers.

    Thanks!

16. This, combined with the recent Reddit/Gawker bruhaha, illustrates what I try to remember about Reddit: it’s basically the Reader’s Digest version of the entire internet. It’s good. It’s bad. It is whatever you want it to be. You want to learn about programming or home beer brewing? You want to look at cute cat pictures? You want to check out the distasteful stuff in the world? There are subreddits for each of those. Find what you want. Ignore what you don’t.

    This particular post is one of the best posts I’ve ever seen on Reddit (or most of the internet, for that matter). When I was a kid and complained to my mom that I was bored, she always told me to go write a letter. This guy’s suggestions are much better (although writing a letter does fit into some of his ideas, too).

17. Although I haven’t played piano since I was a kid I did teach myself how to lockpick in high school. I can say that feeling the click when the tumblers line up and the lock turns always puts a big old smile on my face :-)

18. @sorcharei: Yes. Me too. (or “AOL”, for those who’ve been on the ‘net forever.) (I’ve been thinking about getting back into sketching/drawing, which – well, I’ve got sketchbooks and pencils and Conte crayons from, um, never mind how long ago. I’ll just say that the most recent sketch is from 1979. (Oy.) And the comment John linked to has a link to r/sketchdaily, which may be the thing that gets me to actually *do* it.)

    Thanks, John.

19. sorcharei, 1st comment above, spoke precisely for me as well.

    So thank you, Mr. Scalzi.

20. adelheid_p — is there a reason you can’t use your browser (or a service like Pinboard/Delicious) to bookmark it?