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Has that method successfully prevented bigots from collaborating, growing, and exerting political influences -- say in elections over the past year? I'm not sa

Has that method successfully prevented bigots from collaborating, growing, and exerting political influences -- say in elections over the past year? I'm not saying we give them a megaphone, but if bigotry is prevalent (and it seems to be), then the best antidote is to expose it and address that directly. Why? Simple. Bigots are bigots for reasons -- even if they're not (in our esteem) good ones. You can't address the symptom (bigotry) without addressing the cause (those reasons). Your method only leads to wounds festering under bandages, and not the exposure and cleansing we need for healing.

s73ver_ 9y ago
At the same time, what you're suggesting encourages the constant dumping on marginalized people with those "questions". Constantly being assailed like that takes its toll, and can lead to those people withdrawing from social media, removing their point of view from the discourse, and emboldening that of the bigots.
- SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
  > Constantly being assailed like that takes its toll, and can lead to those people withdrawing from social media, removing their point of view from the discourse, and emboldening that of the bigots. From my understanding of social media, it hasn't been workable trying to stop outright racist comments being hurled at those marginalized people -- so I just can't agree that not actually addressing the cause so we don't hypothetically do less damage than is actually being done right now by the problem is a workable idea. That's the kind of squeamish bargaining done by people without the stomach to tackle complex or hard topics: "Can't we all just get along without it being messy!" Your complaint is like saying that surgery hurts, can't we just let the infection fester? The surgery doesn't even hurt as much as the infection! Why would we do that? This is, for the moment, setting aside that we could work with technology to do better at time/place of those questions and filtering so the stream isn't overwhelming for (or even involuntarily sent to) any particular marginalized person. And so at a technical level, you're solving the problem in an inefficient way (trying to legislate human nature versus changing how we route text online).
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    "From my understanding of social media, it hasn't been workable trying to stop outright racist comments being hurled at those marginalized people" More so that it just hasn't been tried. "so I just can't agree that not actually addressing the cause so we don't hypothetically do less damage than is actually being done right now by the problem is a workable idea." What do you mean by "addressing the cause"? Taking the leading question seriously? That clearly hasn't worked. The answers to those things are out there. The people repeating these questions are not interested in answers. They just want to get their bigotry out there to try and make it seem mainstream. "Your complaint is like saying that surgery hurts, can't we just let the infection fester? The surgery doesn't even hurt as much as the infection! Why would we do that?" But your answer is like, "Let's amputate the leg!" When the infection is nowhere near the leg.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]

s73ver_ 9y ago

At the same time, what you're suggesting encourages the constant dumping on marginalized people with those "questions". Constantly being assailed like that takes its toll, and can lead to those people withdrawing from social media, removing their point of view from the discourse, and emboldening that of the bigots.

SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
> Constantly being assailed like that takes its toll, and can lead to those people withdrawing from social media, removing their point of view from the discourse, and emboldening that of the bigots. From my understanding of social media, it hasn't been workable trying to stop outright racist comments being hurled at those marginalized people -- so I just can't agree that not actually addressing the cause so we don't hypothetically do less damage than is actually being done right now by the problem is a workable idea. That's the kind of squeamish bargaining done by people without the stomach to tackle complex or hard topics: "Can't we all just get along without it being messy!" Your complaint is like saying that surgery hurts, can't we just let the infection fester? The surgery doesn't even hurt as much as the infection! Why would we do that? This is, for the moment, setting aside that we could work with technology to do better at time/place of those questions and filtering so the stream isn't overwhelming for (or even involuntarily sent to) any particular marginalized person. And so at a technical level, you're solving the problem in an inefficient way (trying to legislate human nature versus changing how we route text online).
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  "From my understanding of social media, it hasn't been workable trying to stop outright racist comments being hurled at those marginalized people" More so that it just hasn't been tried. "so I just can't agree that not actually addressing the cause so we don't hypothetically do less damage than is actually being done right now by the problem is a workable idea." What do you mean by "addressing the cause"? Taking the leading question seriously? That clearly hasn't worked. The answers to those things are out there. The people repeating these questions are not interested in answers. They just want to get their bigotry out there to try and make it seem mainstream. "Your complaint is like saying that surgery hurts, can't we just let the infection fester? The surgery doesn't even hurt as much as the infection! Why would we do that?" But your answer is like, "Let's amputate the leg!" When the infection is nowhere near the leg.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]