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It sounds like what you want is not sentiment analysis but rather some sort of political-correctness analysis, which rather than identifying aggressive language

It sounds like what you want is not sentiment analysis but rather some sort of political-correctness analysis, which rather than identifying aggressive language identifies "wrongthink". I suspect you're the sort of person who would have torn down the signs 4channers put up last year saying "It's OK to be white", because despite the obviously anodyne and correct content of the message, you would have interpreted it as "polite Nazi".

happytoexplain 8y ago
I thought his point was interesting and practical, and that he used a non-controversial example. The problem he's describing is probably impossible to solve because real examples aren't so obvious, but it seems like you jumped to the conclusion that he would be willing to accept the downside of such a system in practice (punishing people who are in fact acting in good faith, and not just hiding hatred behind apparently rational wording), and you seem to be personally attacking him. However, I can only say that by assuming from the way you wrote it that you believe the 4channers you referenced were by-and-large acting in good faith. You should be more clear if that's what you're saying, since that would be a surprising conclusion to me. From everything I saw and heard, that movement seemed to be dominated by the usual hatred, and "It's OK to be white", while ostensibly an addressal of very real problems, was really just a slogan that's unassailable outside of any other context and therefore easy to hide behind.
- repolfx 8y ago
  I think pretty much any argument that invokes terms like hate speech or Nazi is going to be controversial. The fact that people so casually compare others to Hitler and then believe it's not controversial or unacceptable to do so is if anything, part of the problem sentiment analysis is trying to address. The 4channers had a clearly stated goal but it wasn't to spread racism: it was to reveal the hypocrisy of people who claimed they aren't racist but actually are (as in, they harbour hatred towards people of a specific race). It appears to have been very successful at doing that. After all, you can't really know what the intentions of the people posting the signs were. Are they really seething with hatred of Jews? Or do they just realise that a bunch of people will flip out and make themselves look racist, thus enjoying a masterful troll? Ultimately all you can do is judge what the words mean and the sentiment of those words: to do otherwise is ad-hominem. In this case the sentiment is clearly positive: saying it's OK to be <X> can never be negative, and assuming it's "wrongthink" requires an enormous number of assumptions about intention that aren't supported by the text itself (and ad-hominem isn't possible because you don't actually know who said it). Even if someone disagrees with the above, and believes it's too obvious for words that anyone who says "It's OK to be white" is in fact Hitler re-incarnate, it's just terrible tactics to actually act on that assumption. To any neutral observer it looks exactly like racial hatred: tearing down the signs is literally a statement that it's not OK to be white! Obviously if you're going to try and teach a computer to take positive statements and mark them as "polite Nazi" (as if such a concept isn't a contradiction to begin with), you're very likely to fail. Sentiment analysis based on surface level words is likely to be as far as computers go for the forseeable future, and why should it be otherwise?
  - lukev 8y ago
    So let me get this straight: Implying that someone holds a racist ideology: unacceptable ad-homenim. Actually holding a racist ideology: just fine, or at least we can't stop it without censoring free thought. Also I don't know why you keep going on about 4chan. Nobody else is talking about that example (mostly because it was an obvious bad-faith troll and isn't worth talking about.)
    - repolfx 8y ago
      You got it: that's exactly correct. Implying someone is racist when they've not said anything racist is unacceptable ad-hominem. I think any civilised person can agree on that. And the second part is also correct. You can't stop people holding "racist ideologies" without censoring free thought, which short of Black Mirror style sci-fi machines is impossible. But even if such technology did exist you can't even define what "racist ideology" actually means with any level of consensus of precision. You're so far from even being able to think about doing anything here, that even attempting is worthless and will cause vast collateral damage. Therefore the correct solution is to do nothing.
      - lukev 8y ago
        This is fascinating. What other things fall into this intriguing category, where doing a Very Bad Thing is ok, but observing that someone seems to be in favor of a Very Bad Thing is downright terrible? And how is a society to defend itself against Very Bad Things, when it's worse to talk about than to actually do? The only reason I can think of why someone might hold such a logically contorted position, actually, is if they actually think Very Bad Thing isn't that bad a thing at all, but won't come right out and say so.
lukev 8y ago
Yes, I do in fact think that blatant racism is "wrongthink" and has no place in civilized discourse. I definitely think it is a more serious issue than using curse words or expressing negative sentiments. Also, if you think that that 4chan stunt was "anodyne" then it seems you have very little concept of how language or speech acts work, and are unqualified to weigh in on a discussion of them.
deleted 8y ago
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happytoexplain 8y ago

I thought his point was interesting and practical, and that he used a non-controversial example. The problem he's describing is probably impossible to solve because real examples aren't so obvious, but it seems like you jumped to the conclusion that he would be willing to accept the downside of such a system in practice (punishing people who are in fact acting in good faith, and not just hiding hatred behind apparently rational wording), and you seem to be personally attacking him. However, I can only say that by assuming from the way you wrote it that you believe the 4channers you referenced were by-and-large acting in good faith. You should be more clear if that's what you're saying, since that would be a surprising conclusion to me. From everything I saw and heard, that movement seemed to be dominated by the usual hatred, and "It's OK to be white", while ostensibly an addressal of very real problems, was really just a slogan that's unassailable outside of any other context and therefore easy to hide behind.

repolfx 8y ago
I think pretty much any argument that invokes terms like hate speech or Nazi is going to be controversial. The fact that people so casually compare others to Hitler and then believe it's not controversial or unacceptable to do so is if anything, part of the problem sentiment analysis is trying to address. The 4channers had a clearly stated goal but it wasn't to spread racism: it was to reveal the hypocrisy of people who claimed they aren't racist but actually are (as in, they harbour hatred towards people of a specific race). It appears to have been very successful at doing that. After all, you can't really know what the intentions of the people posting the signs were. Are they really seething with hatred of Jews? Or do they just realise that a bunch of people will flip out and make themselves look racist, thus enjoying a masterful troll? Ultimately all you can do is judge what the words mean and the sentiment of those words: to do otherwise is ad-hominem. In this case the sentiment is clearly positive: saying it's OK to be <X> can never be negative, and assuming it's "wrongthink" requires an enormous number of assumptions about intention that aren't supported by the text itself (and ad-hominem isn't possible because you don't actually know who said it). Even if someone disagrees with the above, and believes it's too obvious for words that anyone who says "It's OK to be white" is in fact Hitler re-incarnate, it's just terrible tactics to actually act on that assumption. To any neutral observer it looks exactly like racial hatred: tearing down the signs is literally a statement that it's not OK to be white! Obviously if you're going to try and teach a computer to take positive statements and mark them as "polite Nazi" (as if such a concept isn't a contradiction to begin with), you're very likely to fail. Sentiment analysis based on surface level words is likely to be as far as computers go for the forseeable future, and why should it be otherwise?
- lukev 8y ago
  So let me get this straight: Implying that someone holds a racist ideology: unacceptable ad-homenim. Actually holding a racist ideology: just fine, or at least we can't stop it without censoring free thought. Also I don't know why you keep going on about 4chan. Nobody else is talking about that example (mostly because it was an obvious bad-faith troll and isn't worth talking about.)
  - repolfx 8y ago
    You got it: that's exactly correct. Implying someone is racist when they've not said anything racist is unacceptable ad-hominem. I think any civilised person can agree on that. And the second part is also correct. You can't stop people holding "racist ideologies" without censoring free thought, which short of Black Mirror style sci-fi machines is impossible. But even if such technology did exist you can't even define what "racist ideology" actually means with any level of consensus of precision. You're so far from even being able to think about doing anything here, that even attempting is worthless and will cause vast collateral damage. Therefore the correct solution is to do nothing.
    - lukev 8y ago
      This is fascinating. What other things fall into this intriguing category, where doing a Very Bad Thing is ok, but observing that someone seems to be in favor of a Very Bad Thing is downright terrible? And how is a society to defend itself against Very Bad Things, when it's worse to talk about than to actually do? The only reason I can think of why someone might hold such a logically contorted position, actually, is if they actually think Very Bad Thing isn't that bad a thing at all, but won't come right out and say so.

lukev 8y ago

Yes, I do in fact think that blatant racism is "wrongthink" and has no place in civilized discourse. I definitely think it is a more serious issue than using curse words or expressing negative sentiments. Also, if you think that that 4chan stunt was "anodyne" then it seems you have very little concept of how language or speech acts work, and are unqualified to weigh in on a discussion of them.

deleted 8y ago

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