3 ms·

So not dumb-dumb, but dumb for all intents and purposes of making decisions in a democracy? What's the difference? At the core of your argument is the idea that

So not dumb-dumb, but dumb for all intents and purposes of making decisions in a democracy? What's the difference? At the core of your argument is the idea that people in a democracy aren't able to do their singular duty: make a reasonable choice based on available information, so they need to be coddled and only fed information that is "fair", "fair" as determined by liberal arts majors I guess. And if anti semitic arguments are so unfairly effective, why hasn't it won? All the major platforms have a lot of anti semitic speech that they haven't been able to filter out, and it's remarkably easy to find on the internet, so why hasn't it entranced the majority of non-liberal-arts majors? Why are the masses of average people calling for the removal of anti semitic content - an act built on a rejection of anti semitic ideas - instead of being enthralled by it?

claudiawerner 8y ago
>so why hasn't it entranced the majority of non-liberal-arts majors? Perhaps a possible explanation is that such speech is already disallowed on many popular networks - Reddit, Twitter or Facebook, for instance. This leads to a secondary effect in which people who have never actually seen antisemitic arguments believe (rightly) that it's something they wouldn't have wanted to see anyway, so they are fine getting rid of it. That's not a great reason on their part, but we can't say that the way antisemitism proliferates has not itself met counter-balancing forces since Sartre wrote the the section GP quoted. In a similar way, antisemitism is very healthy on forums that do not block it; if you open any thread on 4chan's /pol/ board you'll find many instances of "unironic" antisemitic content, and even if you go to other boards like /g/ or /int/ you'll find plenty of "ironic" antisemitism. I'd be cautious of saying that antisemitism does not have the ability to grip people anywhere, though; a recent issue was the proliferation of antisemitic ideas on a popular meme subreddit[0] and the circulation of extremely popular antisemitic myths and propaganda[1] - the support shown for this conspiracy theory shown through posts and upvotes on those posts serves to show this is not as marginal of an opinion. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/virginvschad/comments/bb1es2/the_virgin_holocaust_vs_the_chad_kalergi_plan/ https://www.reddit.com/r/virginvschad/comments/bb1es2/the_vi... [1] This is a debunking of the conspiracy theory rather than the conspiracy theory itself since I don't want to drive people to the original video, though to view it you can check the description of the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o3pkoZyYRA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o3pkoZyYRA
- themacguffinman 8y ago
  > Perhaps a possible explanation is that such speech is already disallowed on many popular networks - Reddit, Twitter or Facebook, for instance. Antisemitism isn't new, it predates Reddit and Facebook and Twitter and we've already been through periods of history where antisemitism had widespread exposure in the public discourse yet democracy still defeated it. Antisemitism (and discrimination in general) is a bad idea for reasons that ordinary people can understand, and practically every democracy agrees. Evidently, we didn't need YouTube to save us from the magical techniques of persuasion that Sartre describes. > the support shown for this conspiracy theory shown through posts and upvotes on those posts serves to show this is not as marginal of an opinion. I don't doubt that certain places have a "healthy" amount of antisemitism, but it has no serious grip on democracy, mainstream society, or its chosen laws. There will always be people who believe in things that others consider harmful. I find it difficult to believe that you can or should realistically stop that with censorship.
  - claudiawerner 8y ago
    >we've already been through periods of history where antisemitism had widespread exposure in the public discourse yet democracy still defeated it. Sartre was writing right after France was liberated from the Nazis, so from his own position in history he'd laugh if he were to hear you say that. Arguably anti-semitism has not enjoyed a popular resurgence since the downfall of the Nazis and I'd hazard a guess that it's because its effects were so evident, as was its proliferation among ordinary "thinking" people in the Nazis's rise to power. Perhaps with new generations who don't have memory of the effects of anti-semitism, who are only acquainted through it by the school system which they may be (rightly) distrustful of, there is much less of a buffer, and perhaps that's a buffer Youtube can aid in providing. >There will always be people who believe in things that others consider harmful. I find it difficult to believe that you can or should realistically stop that with censorship. Arguably it can be minimized; some researches point out that speech itself in its function as speech, what makes it such a powerful concept, can harm[0]. [0] https://global.oup.com/academic/product/speech-and-harm-9780199236275?cc=gb&lang=en&# https://global.oup.com/academic/product/speech-and-harm-9780...
minikites 8y ago
>So not dumb-dumb, but dumb for all intents and purposes of making decisions in a democracy? What's the difference? The difference I tried to explain is the difference between dumb and unskilled. We as a society don't value the skills of information and media literacy and those skills are withering in the population at large. We could easily address this problem if we chose to do so. >And if anti semitic arguments are so unfairly effective, why hasn't it won? It is winning, hate crime rates are climbing: https://www.hrc.org/blog/new-fbi-statistics-show-alarming-increase-in-number-of-reported-hate-crimes https://www.hrc.org/blog/new-fbi-statistics-show-alarming-in... >Bias-motivated crimes based on race, religion, disability and gender all increased. The FBI reported that anti-Black hate crimes increased by 16 percent, from 1,739 incidents in 2016 to 2,013 incidents in 2017. Hate crimes targeting Black people represented 28 percent of all reported hate crimes in 2017. Every other racial and ethnic group also saw increases in the number of reported hate crimes in 2017. >Additionally, hate crimes motivated by anti-religious bias increased 23 percent, largely driven by a 37 percent increase in anti-Jewish hate crimes, which constituted the majority of religion motivated hate crimes. Hate crimes motivated by bias against people with disabilities increased by a disturbing 66 percent and hate crimes motivated by gender bias increased by 48 percent.
- themacguffinman 8y ago
  > The difference I tried to explain is the difference between dumb and unskilled. We as a society don't value the skills of information and media literacy and those skills are withering in the population at large. We could easily address this problem if we chose to do so. I understand the distinction you were trying to explain, but I don't see how it's relevant. You're still saying "we as a society" can't do the critical democratic task of making good choices based on available information, because we're "unskilled" at information or something. To repeat noego's original question: If that's how you feel about the average person, why do you still favor democracy? > It is winning, hate crime rates are climbing That's a pretty broad definition of "winning". Antisemitic ideas and actions have gone from a small minority far from the mainstream, to a slightly less small minority far from the mainstream. This is the catastrophe that you're willing to sacrifice freedom of speech to avert?

claudiawerner 8y ago

>so why hasn't it entranced the majority of non-liberal-arts majors? Perhaps a possible explanation is that such speech is already disallowed on many popular networks - Reddit, Twitter or Facebook, for instance. This leads to a secondary effect in which people who have never actually seen antisemitic arguments believe (rightly) that it's something they wouldn't have wanted to see anyway, so they are fine getting rid of it. That's not a great reason on their part, but we can't say that the way antisemitism proliferates has not itself met counter-balancing forces since Sartre wrote the the section GP quoted. In a similar way, antisemitism is very healthy on forums that do not block it; if you open any thread on 4chan's /pol/ board you'll find many instances of "unironic" antisemitic content, and even if you go to other boards like /g/ or /int/ you'll find plenty of "ironic" antisemitism. I'd be cautious of saying that antisemitism does not have the ability to grip people anywhere, though; a recent issue was the proliferation of antisemitic ideas on a popular meme subreddit[0] and the circulation of extremely popular antisemitic myths and propaganda[1] - the support shown for this conspiracy theory shown through posts and upvotes on those posts serves to show this is not as marginal of an opinion. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/virginvschad/comments/bb1es2/the_virgin_holocaust_vs_the_chad_kalergi_plan/ https://www.reddit.com/r/virginvschad/comments/bb1es2/the_vi... [1] This is a debunking of the conspiracy theory rather than the conspiracy theory itself since I don't want to drive people to the original video, though to view it you can check the description of the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o3pkoZyYRA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o3pkoZyYRA

themacguffinman 8y ago
> Perhaps a possible explanation is that such speech is already disallowed on many popular networks - Reddit, Twitter or Facebook, for instance. Antisemitism isn't new, it predates Reddit and Facebook and Twitter and we've already been through periods of history where antisemitism had widespread exposure in the public discourse yet democracy still defeated it. Antisemitism (and discrimination in general) is a bad idea for reasons that ordinary people can understand, and practically every democracy agrees. Evidently, we didn't need YouTube to save us from the magical techniques of persuasion that Sartre describes. > the support shown for this conspiracy theory shown through posts and upvotes on those posts serves to show this is not as marginal of an opinion. I don't doubt that certain places have a "healthy" amount of antisemitism, but it has no serious grip on democracy, mainstream society, or its chosen laws. There will always be people who believe in things that others consider harmful. I find it difficult to believe that you can or should realistically stop that with censorship.
- claudiawerner 8y ago
  >we've already been through periods of history where antisemitism had widespread exposure in the public discourse yet democracy still defeated it. Sartre was writing right after France was liberated from the Nazis, so from his own position in history he'd laugh if he were to hear you say that. Arguably anti-semitism has not enjoyed a popular resurgence since the downfall of the Nazis and I'd hazard a guess that it's because its effects were so evident, as was its proliferation among ordinary "thinking" people in the Nazis's rise to power. Perhaps with new generations who don't have memory of the effects of anti-semitism, who are only acquainted through it by the school system which they may be (rightly) distrustful of, there is much less of a buffer, and perhaps that's a buffer Youtube can aid in providing. >There will always be people who believe in things that others consider harmful. I find it difficult to believe that you can or should realistically stop that with censorship. Arguably it can be minimized; some researches point out that speech itself in its function as speech, what makes it such a powerful concept, can harm[0]. [0] https://global.oup.com/academic/product/speech-and-harm-9780199236275?cc=gb&lang=en&# https://global.oup.com/academic/product/speech-and-harm-9780...

minikites 8y ago

>So not dumb-dumb, but dumb for all intents and purposes of making decisions in a democracy? What's the difference? The difference I tried to explain is the difference between dumb and unskilled. We as a society don't value the skills of information and media literacy and those skills are withering in the population at large. We could easily address this problem if we chose to do so. >And if anti semitic arguments are so unfairly effective, why hasn't it won? It is winning, hate crime rates are climbing: https://www.hrc.org/blog/new-fbi-statistics-show-alarming-increase-in-number-of-reported-hate-crimes https://www.hrc.org/blog/new-fbi-statistics-show-alarming-in... >Bias-motivated crimes based on race, religion, disability and gender all increased. The FBI reported that anti-Black hate crimes increased by 16 percent, from 1,739 incidents in 2016 to 2,013 incidents in 2017. Hate crimes targeting Black people represented 28 percent of all reported hate crimes in 2017. Every other racial and ethnic group also saw increases in the number of reported hate crimes in 2017. >Additionally, hate crimes motivated by anti-religious bias increased 23 percent, largely driven by a 37 percent increase in anti-Jewish hate crimes, which constituted the majority of religion motivated hate crimes. Hate crimes motivated by bias against people with disabilities increased by a disturbing 66 percent and hate crimes motivated by gender bias increased by 48 percent.

themacguffinman 8y ago
> The difference I tried to explain is the difference between dumb and unskilled. We as a society don't value the skills of information and media literacy and those skills are withering in the population at large. We could easily address this problem if we chose to do so. I understand the distinction you were trying to explain, but I don't see how it's relevant. You're still saying "we as a society" can't do the critical democratic task of making good choices based on available information, because we're "unskilled" at information or something. To repeat noego's original question: If that's how you feel about the average person, why do you still favor democracy? > It is winning, hate crime rates are climbing That's a pretty broad definition of "winning". Antisemitic ideas and actions have gone from a small minority far from the mainstream, to a slightly less small minority far from the mainstream. This is the catastrophe that you're willing to sacrifice freedom of speech to avert?