4 ms·

You posted them as examples of "bad ideas." Shouldn't you be able to tell me the factual standing behind the positions you hold?

mrguyorama 8y ago
Are you asking me to go through each of them and give a thorough post about the background of the issue, the facts as they lay, the most reasonable conclusions, the possible influences/biases from each side and their possible agendas etc etc etc? And you're saying that I should do this each and every single time someone wants to discuss a (IMO) discredited study or blog post or something? Do you not see how easy that is to abuse by people acting in bad faith? It's a pretty classic DDOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
- lylecubed 8y ago
  Isn't that what you tried to do to me? You asked me this: "is there actual factual standing behind the positions I listed?" First of all, why are you asking me about the factual standings of your examples? And second, you didn't just allege that the ideas you listed were 'silly'. You said they do "actual damage" despite being out in the open and actively refuted. Is it so much to ask that you provide proof? Had you just said "I think these are silly ideas" we wouldn't be having this conversation.
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    Hang on, just to check, which of the specific things called out as "bad ideas" do you take issue with?
ubernostrum 8y ago
Well, this sort of gets to the heart of it, doesn't it? A lot of what's being called a problem is basically people who go Gish galloping; they spew easily-refuted statements, rarely if ever offer any evidence or anything else to back them up, but if you so much as hint at the possibility that perhaps they might have said something a little bit mistaken, they come down on you like a ton of bricks with demands for citations and evidence. And on a platform like Twitter, it's not even one person who does that; wade into the wrong thread and you might have hundreds or thousands of people mobbing you with "citation needed" and ignoring any evidence you don't personally direct at them and them alone (and that's being charitable; most of them ignore evidence, period). This wears people down quickly to the point that they just give up on challenging incorrect information, and then the people who spew it win by default and take over whatever platform they're on. Why shouldn't platforms have the freedom to put a stop to that if they choose? What value is there in claiming "neutrality" on this (and really, there is no "neutral" -- there's only enabling it, or not enabling it, the platform's owners don't get to claim they're just bystanders when they're, y'know, providing the platform)?
- lylecubed 8y ago
  > Why shouldn't platforms have the freedom to put a stop to that if they choose? That's the heart of the question being asked. On the one hand, there's freedom of association. On the other, freedom of speech. Which one trumps the other and to what extent?
  - ubernostrum 8y ago
    Spam is a form of speech. For years, most providers and platforms have banned it, and people have organized to boycott providers who didn't. Why is that apparently OK but other forms of organized boycott, or disassociation based on the content of speech, are not?

mrguyorama 8y ago

Are you asking me to go through each of them and give a thorough post about the background of the issue, the facts as they lay, the most reasonable conclusions, the possible influences/biases from each side and their possible agendas etc etc etc? And you're saying that I should do this each and every single time someone wants to discuss a (IMO) discredited study or blog post or something? Do you not see how easy that is to abuse by people acting in bad faith? It's a pretty classic DDOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

lylecubed 8y ago
Isn't that what you tried to do to me? You asked me this: "is there actual factual standing behind the positions I listed?" First of all, why are you asking me about the factual standings of your examples? And second, you didn't just allege that the ideas you listed were 'silly'. You said they do "actual damage" despite being out in the open and actively refuted. Is it so much to ask that you provide proof? Had you just said "I think these are silly ideas" we wouldn't be having this conversation.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  Hang on, just to check, which of the specific things called out as "bad ideas" do you take issue with?

ubernostrum 8y ago

Well, this sort of gets to the heart of it, doesn't it? A lot of what's being called a problem is basically people who go Gish galloping; they spew easily-refuted statements, rarely if ever offer any evidence or anything else to back them up, but if you so much as hint at the possibility that perhaps they might have said something a little bit mistaken, they come down on you like a ton of bricks with demands for citations and evidence. And on a platform like Twitter, it's not even one person who does that; wade into the wrong thread and you might have hundreds or thousands of people mobbing you with "citation needed" and ignoring any evidence you don't personally direct at them and them alone (and that's being charitable; most of them ignore evidence, period). This wears people down quickly to the point that they just give up on challenging incorrect information, and then the people who spew it win by default and take over whatever platform they're on. Why shouldn't platforms have the freedom to put a stop to that if they choose? What value is there in claiming "neutrality" on this (and really, there is no "neutral" -- there's only enabling it, or not enabling it, the platform's owners don't get to claim they're just bystanders when they're, y'know, providing the platform)?

lylecubed 8y ago
> Why shouldn't platforms have the freedom to put a stop to that if they choose? That's the heart of the question being asked. On the one hand, there's freedom of association. On the other, freedom of speech. Which one trumps the other and to what extent?
- ubernostrum 8y ago
  Spam is a form of speech. For years, most providers and platforms have banned it, and people have organized to boycott providers who didn't. Why is that apparently OK but other forms of organized boycott, or disassociation based on the content of speech, are not?