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Not to Godwin myself, but an example someone once used was that in Nazi Germany, only a small percentage of Germans actually were firm Nazis. The moderate majo

Not to Godwin myself, but an example someone once used was that in Nazi Germany, only a small percentage of Germans actually were firm Nazis. The moderate majority, however, let the radical minority dictate the agenda for everyone, and that's how Nazism gained power. In the same way, I see this phenomenon all over our world. I don't know if it's because of 24-hr news cycle, Twitter/Facebook or whatever, but we see the radical, loud minority dictate the agenda. So even Fry says that it's only a small percentage of trolls that are ruining it for him, but it's enough to drive him off Twitter, despite all of his fans that want him on Twitter. In other words, the signal-to-noise ratio is very low, but people are now taking the noise as signal and reacting to it. It's not a good thing when trolls and radicals dictate the agenda for the silent, moderate majority. All the noise from the media and anti-Trump haters is a good example of where people who listen too closely to the noise end up missing the signal where it matters, and don't react properly. I think if the Democrats really know how Middle America was feeling, they would have conducted a much different campaign, but they listened to the wrong things.

obstinate 9y ago
It's fascinating that, in your analogy, folks sharing progressive views on Twitter are the Nazis, considering that literal white supremacists tend to favor the other side.
- pfarnsworth 9y ago
  Nope, not what I said at all. I was talking about the trolls on Twitter. My point is that if you listen to the noise, rather than true signal, you might take the wrong path or get the wrong idea. In the case of the election, EVERYONE thought Clinton was going to win in a landslide, and the real signal was that it was a lot closer than that. But you never would have seen that from Twitter or the media. And that's the problem. If the Democrats were able to root out the true signal, they probably could have stopped Trump with better communication to Middle America, and stopped this debacle that we're currently in.
  - obstinate 9y ago
    The "trolls" Fry is talking about here are progressives. At least, that is the signal I'm getting from the following: "It doesn’t matter whether they think they’re defending women, men, transgender people, Muslims, humanists . . .." He is essentially invoking the "snowflake" meme. And, in what might perhaps be called an instance of the Law of Snowflakes, it's in a context where he is whining about discourse not taking the tone he prefers. (If it seems weird that I'm ignoring 80% of the parent poster's content in his comment, it is because its initial iteration of that comment only contained the first two sentences.)
    - pfarnsworth 9y ago
      Trolls exist on both sides of the spectrum.
      - obstinate 9y ago
        That is no doubt true, although hardly relevant when one particular side is called out by various signals in the linked blog post, one of which I have already explained. If he were talking about conservative trolls, this would be a very different article.
    - inopinatus 9y ago
      You infer too much, and he isn't whining.
  - ikeyany 9y ago
    The forces who are interested in creating noise are far more motivated, are far more numerous, are far dirtier, and are generally far more incentivized than that forces who are interested in creating the signal. There's the rub.
  - devdas 9y ago
    Though that was mostly a racist vote for Trump.
astrofinch 9y ago
Yep: http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-shouting-class.html http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-shouting-clas...
homerrr 9y ago
Well, they may have not all been national socialists, but they did vote Hitler into power. They also largely benefited from Hitlers rise, as he pulled them out of a depression and led the country to prosperity. So I don't really think it's true that they were against Hitler, but rather they saw the benefits and figured a police state was worth it since they were reaping the benefits of Hitler's reign.
ldp01 9y ago
You've reminded me of a pretty good blog post on this subject by Nassim Taleb. I think it's basically the same phenomenon you are getting at in your post but he tries to explore the idea generally. https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

obstinate 9y ago

It's fascinating that, in your analogy, folks sharing progressive views on Twitter are the Nazis, considering that literal white supremacists tend to favor the other side.

pfarnsworth 9y ago
Nope, not what I said at all. I was talking about the trolls on Twitter. My point is that if you listen to the noise, rather than true signal, you might take the wrong path or get the wrong idea. In the case of the election, EVERYONE thought Clinton was going to win in a landslide, and the real signal was that it was a lot closer than that. But you never would have seen that from Twitter or the media. And that's the problem. If the Democrats were able to root out the true signal, they probably could have stopped Trump with better communication to Middle America, and stopped this debacle that we're currently in.
- obstinate 9y ago
  The "trolls" Fry is talking about here are progressives. At least, that is the signal I'm getting from the following: "It doesn’t matter whether they think they’re defending women, men, transgender people, Muslims, humanists . . .." He is essentially invoking the "snowflake" meme. And, in what might perhaps be called an instance of the Law of Snowflakes, it's in a context where he is whining about discourse not taking the tone he prefers. (If it seems weird that I'm ignoring 80% of the parent poster's content in his comment, it is because its initial iteration of that comment only contained the first two sentences.)
  - pfarnsworth 9y ago
    Trolls exist on both sides of the spectrum.
    - obstinate 9y ago
      That is no doubt true, although hardly relevant when one particular side is called out by various signals in the linked blog post, one of which I have already explained. If he were talking about conservative trolls, this would be a very different article.
  - inopinatus 9y ago
    You infer too much, and he isn't whining.
- ikeyany 9y ago
  The forces who are interested in creating noise are far more motivated, are far more numerous, are far dirtier, and are generally far more incentivized than that forces who are interested in creating the signal. There's the rub.
- devdas 9y ago
  Though that was mostly a racist vote for Trump.

astrofinch 9y ago

Yep: http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-shouting-class.html http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-shouting-clas...

homerrr 9y ago

Well, they may have not all been national socialists, but they did vote Hitler into power. They also largely benefited from Hitlers rise, as he pulled them out of a depression and led the country to prosperity. So I don't really think it's true that they were against Hitler, but rather they saw the benefits and figured a police state was worth it since they were reaping the benefits of Hitler's reign.

ldp01 9y ago

You've reminded me of a pretty good blog post on this subject by Nassim Taleb. I think it's basically the same phenomenon you are getting at in your post but he tries to explore the idea generally. https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...