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>The obvious counter-argument is silencing them strengthens their argument and makes them a martyr. I don't buy that argument at all, it's far more dangerous to

>The obvious counter-argument is silencing them strengthens their argument and makes them a martyr. I don't buy that argument at all, it's far more dangerous to allow them to indoctrinate and appeal to all the fringe disenfranchised youth which they've become frighteningly effective at. In any case it's clear reddit can be used for good like in this article, I'm just not so sure it's a net positive to society as another poster argued. This is the road to censorship, burning books, and confiscating servers. Some people are fine with censorship, because they imagine people who think like them as the censors. You can only fight ideas with better ideas. Kicking them out and silencing them, says to them you can't compete. You can't offer them an argument as to why they should tolerate foreigners, other races, etc. It seems obvious to you now, but the ideals of tolerance and equality took years and years of discourse to dominate public consciousness.

pyre 9y ago
> You can only fight ideas with better ideas. The problem with this is that human beings will reject ideas that don't agree with what they want to hear, like the populations of coal towns in Appalachia that want to blame "Liberals" for their lot in life because they've hitched their wagon to the (dying) coal industry and don't want to change. It's like the Simpsons Principal Skinner meme. "Could I be wrong about something? No! It's definitely everyone else that is wrong!" Also, ideas don't woo people in and of themselves. Why do you think that charismatic leaders can swap entire populations to follow horrible ideologies that offer simple and easy solutions to their problems by throwing other people under the bus to pave the way to a better future for a select few?
- unabridged 9y ago
  Empty charismatic leaders only work when there is no good alternative offered. People are rational, they rejected Clinton because her policy was a continuation of Obama's 8 years. And in those 8 years the quality of life in Appalachia has not improved. Coal to them is a dream, its the last time people in their family and towns had money to spend and were happy. Telling them their glory days ruined the planet is not a way to convince them of anything. The problem with Appalachia is that nothing short of basic income will save them. No rational investor is going to build any new manufacturing there. And even if they extract natural resources, it will be done with 1/1000th of the workforce and the value will flow right to the pockets of a large corporation with shareholders far, far away. So in effect almost every major politician is lying to them (and they know it) so they are willing to try anything.
  - pyre 9y ago
    (Focusing just on Appalachia is going off on a bit of a tangent, but in any case...) This is the issue. There are no good solutions for Appalachia, but they don't want to hear that because the reality isn't as good as the fantasy that people like Trump want to sell them (that the "good ole days" are coming back). Placing blame on "Liberals" and hitching their horse to Trump is living in a fantasy land rather than dealing with their situation rationally. The reality, is that those towns are basically dead. They are slated to become modern-day ghost towns unless someone can figure out a way to bring a new industry to those areas. "Liberals" didn't bring about this situation, the realities of coal did. Maybe the "Liberals" didn't do anything of note to help them, but that's different than saying that this situation wouldn't exist if only the "Liberals" hadn't been in power. To bring this back to the topic at hand, it's an example of how it's easier to sell a positive fantasy than a negative reality (or even a long-term positive reality that has an unpalatable -- e.g. need to move away, retrain -- short-term reality). So this idea that we need to "fight ideas with ideas" fails in the face of realities like this. The best ideas don't always win. People will fling themselves off of a cliff just because someone convinced them that the landing will be soft (even if it doesn't make any logical sense).
    - FooHentai 9y ago
      >Maybe the "Liberals" didn't do anything of note to help them, but that's different than saying that this situation wouldn't exist if only the "Liberals" hadn't been in power. Agree, but to return to the topic of depressed rural/ex-industrial areas and Appalachia specifically - That's not the sentiment. The sentiment is '8 years of Obama delivered no improvement and only a continuation of the decline' and the response to that isn't 'hitch a horse to Trump' it's 'At this point what harm is there in a risky gamble? Spin the wheel and roll the dice'. Appalachian fatalism is a thing. It's not helped by American elections being rigged as a two-party affair. Combine these and it should be no surprise that many end up pushing their chips all-in and taking what might be a 50/50 chance. But the odds aren't even that bad, from the perspective of these people. What do these people have to lose from this gamble? Economically? Already fucked. Socially? Reproductive Rights/LGBT Rights/Foreign Relations are nowhere near the top of their list if they are on the list at all. You're spinning an enormous segment of the population as irrational actors, but they are not.
jerrylives 9y ago
>You can only fight ideas with better ideas. Kicking them out and silencing them, says to them you can't compete. Lol okay dude hop onto stormfront and engage in some civic discourse, offer some arguments, see how that goes.
- unabridged 9y ago
  Racism is a lot older than a message board. Many of your ancestors were racist. But at some point they were won over, either by rational discourse or evolution. Tribalism is our natural state, we gravitate toward those who act & look similar and away from the different. It takes thought and discussion to fight against this instinct. With kids growing up just being told racism is bad, many don't go though the intellectual work of actually proving it to themselves. Seeing these arguments in public is important. It may help convince someone living in a racist bubble why its wrong. But I doubt seeing some racist joke or tirade will actually convert a nonracist person to racism. On the other hand a deleted post does absolutely nothing.
hhmc 9y ago
> This is the road to censorship I think it's dangerous to conflate government sanctioned censorship with moderation on a privately owned website.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  There's a pretty direct parallel between local mods and a local government official when the online community and local government are semi-democratically run. If you're constantly posting threads highlighting successes of the market in /r/communism you will quickly find yourself kicked out of there. If you are constantly writing letters to the editor about conflicts of interest and unethical dealings in local government then local government will screw you at every turn until you leave town. In places where local governments have little control over people (e.g. the middle of nowhere Montana) there isn't much of a parallel. In places where you need a building permit for a garden shed you had better not "piss off the mods".
lsmarigo 9y ago
Then why is yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre illegal? With your reasoning you should just be able to 'fight that idea with saying "No there is NOT a fire" but it's too late, the damage is done.
- unabridged 9y ago
  This is only because we live in imperfect bodies that can die before the discussion can be finished. This is not an argument against free speech, this is an argument about the speed of human communication.
- saint_fiasco 9y ago
  Is that really illegal or just a cliche?
- breakbread 9y ago
  The origin of that phrase is a supreme court case where the court ruled that the First Amendment didn't protect you from passing out pamphlets encouraging men to resist conscription during World War 1. The "fire in a crowded theater" line was just a metaphor used to underscore a ruling I imagine most people today disagree with, and wasn't legally binding in any way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States#The_Court.27s_decision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States#The_C...
- nokcha 9y ago
  Falsely yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is illegal because the First Amendment has exceptions for lying (i.e., asserting an objective falsehood with intent to deceive).
  - Retra 9y ago
    Yelling fire in a crowded theater after lighting a match is not lying. The problem is not lying, it is recklessness. The only problem with lying is that it is also sometimes reckless.
dang 9y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14805545 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14805545 and marked it off-topic.
- deleted 9y ago
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  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

pyre 9y ago

> You can only fight ideas with better ideas. The problem with this is that human beings will reject ideas that don't agree with what they want to hear, like the populations of coal towns in Appalachia that want to blame "Liberals" for their lot in life because they've hitched their wagon to the (dying) coal industry and don't want to change. It's like the Simpsons Principal Skinner meme. "Could I be wrong about something? No! It's definitely everyone else that is wrong!" Also, ideas don't woo people in and of themselves. Why do you think that charismatic leaders can swap entire populations to follow horrible ideologies that offer simple and easy solutions to their problems by throwing other people under the bus to pave the way to a better future for a select few?

unabridged 9y ago
Empty charismatic leaders only work when there is no good alternative offered. People are rational, they rejected Clinton because her policy was a continuation of Obama's 8 years. And in those 8 years the quality of life in Appalachia has not improved. Coal to them is a dream, its the last time people in their family and towns had money to spend and were happy. Telling them their glory days ruined the planet is not a way to convince them of anything. The problem with Appalachia is that nothing short of basic income will save them. No rational investor is going to build any new manufacturing there. And even if they extract natural resources, it will be done with 1/1000th of the workforce and the value will flow right to the pockets of a large corporation with shareholders far, far away. So in effect almost every major politician is lying to them (and they know it) so they are willing to try anything.
- pyre 9y ago
  (Focusing just on Appalachia is going off on a bit of a tangent, but in any case...) This is the issue. There are no good solutions for Appalachia, but they don't want to hear that because the reality isn't as good as the fantasy that people like Trump want to sell them (that the "good ole days" are coming back). Placing blame on "Liberals" and hitching their horse to Trump is living in a fantasy land rather than dealing with their situation rationally. The reality, is that those towns are basically dead. They are slated to become modern-day ghost towns unless someone can figure out a way to bring a new industry to those areas. "Liberals" didn't bring about this situation, the realities of coal did. Maybe the "Liberals" didn't do anything of note to help them, but that's different than saying that this situation wouldn't exist if only the "Liberals" hadn't been in power. To bring this back to the topic at hand, it's an example of how it's easier to sell a positive fantasy than a negative reality (or even a long-term positive reality that has an unpalatable -- e.g. need to move away, retrain -- short-term reality). So this idea that we need to "fight ideas with ideas" fails in the face of realities like this. The best ideas don't always win. People will fling themselves off of a cliff just because someone convinced them that the landing will be soft (even if it doesn't make any logical sense).
  - FooHentai 9y ago
    >Maybe the "Liberals" didn't do anything of note to help them, but that's different than saying that this situation wouldn't exist if only the "Liberals" hadn't been in power. Agree, but to return to the topic of depressed rural/ex-industrial areas and Appalachia specifically - That's not the sentiment. The sentiment is '8 years of Obama delivered no improvement and only a continuation of the decline' and the response to that isn't 'hitch a horse to Trump' it's 'At this point what harm is there in a risky gamble? Spin the wheel and roll the dice'. Appalachian fatalism is a thing. It's not helped by American elections being rigged as a two-party affair. Combine these and it should be no surprise that many end up pushing their chips all-in and taking what might be a 50/50 chance. But the odds aren't even that bad, from the perspective of these people. What do these people have to lose from this gamble? Economically? Already fucked. Socially? Reproductive Rights/LGBT Rights/Foreign Relations are nowhere near the top of their list if they are on the list at all. You're spinning an enormous segment of the population as irrational actors, but they are not.

jerrylives 9y ago

>You can only fight ideas with better ideas. Kicking them out and silencing them, says to them you can't compete. Lol okay dude hop onto stormfront and engage in some civic discourse, offer some arguments, see how that goes.

unabridged 9y ago
Racism is a lot older than a message board. Many of your ancestors were racist. But at some point they were won over, either by rational discourse or evolution. Tribalism is our natural state, we gravitate toward those who act & look similar and away from the different. It takes thought and discussion to fight against this instinct. With kids growing up just being told racism is bad, many don't go though the intellectual work of actually proving it to themselves. Seeing these arguments in public is important. It may help convince someone living in a racist bubble why its wrong. But I doubt seeing some racist joke or tirade will actually convert a nonracist person to racism. On the other hand a deleted post does absolutely nothing.

hhmc 9y ago

> This is the road to censorship I think it's dangerous to conflate government sanctioned censorship with moderation on a privately owned website.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
There's a pretty direct parallel between local mods and a local government official when the online community and local government are semi-democratically run. If you're constantly posting threads highlighting successes of the market in /r/communism you will quickly find yourself kicked out of there. If you are constantly writing letters to the editor about conflicts of interest and unethical dealings in local government then local government will screw you at every turn until you leave town. In places where local governments have little control over people (e.g. the middle of nowhere Montana) there isn't much of a parallel. In places where you need a building permit for a garden shed you had better not "piss off the mods".

lsmarigo 9y ago

Then why is yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre illegal? With your reasoning you should just be able to 'fight that idea with saying "No there is NOT a fire" but it's too late, the damage is done.

unabridged 9y ago
This is only because we live in imperfect bodies that can die before the discussion can be finished. This is not an argument against free speech, this is an argument about the speed of human communication.
saint_fiasco 9y ago
Is that really illegal or just a cliche?
breakbread 9y ago
The origin of that phrase is a supreme court case where the court ruled that the First Amendment didn't protect you from passing out pamphlets encouraging men to resist conscription during World War 1. The "fire in a crowded theater" line was just a metaphor used to underscore a ruling I imagine most people today disagree with, and wasn't legally binding in any way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States#The_Court.27s_decision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States#The_C...
nokcha 9y ago
Falsely yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is illegal because the First Amendment has exceptions for lying (i.e., asserting an objective falsehood with intent to deceive).
- Retra 9y ago
  Yelling fire in a crowded theater after lighting a match is not lying. The problem is not lying, it is recklessness. The only problem with lying is that it is also sometimes reckless.

dang 9y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14805545 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14805545 and marked it off-topic.

deleted 9y ago
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- deleted 9y ago
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