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As long as the user has complete control over the agent, I am all in favor of screening inbound messages and dropping anything I don't like (hate speech, but al

As long as the user has complete control over the agent, I am all in favor of screening inbound messages and dropping anything I don't like (hate speech, but also paid speech). This is consistent with my view on "consensual communication" - it is startling that we allow ourselves to force information into each others minds, but we don't allow ourselves to shove food into each others mouths, without permission! And yes, if this function came under central control, you might have yourself a very merry dystopia. You might have a dystopia anyway if people can set their filter not just on hate speech and paid speech, but on any predicate they define, including anything that disagrees with them. It's the ultimate information silo, and would no doubt be deadly to any democracy. It might even be deadly to any form of government, since it would tend to seriously weaken the intellect of the population.

ars 7y ago
What's old is new. Can we bring back PICS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_for_Internet_Content_Selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_for_Internet_Content_... ? In hindsight people killing it as a censorship tool was so unfortunate. The whole point of PICS is YOU pick your rating agency.
imgabe 7y ago
> it is startling that we allow ourselves to force information into each others minds, but we don't allow ourselves to shove food into each others mouths, without permission! I'm sorry, this whole concept irks me in a "not even wrong" way. It's difficult to even begin to explain how wrong I feel this sentiment is. Let me try. First, it makes no sense to draw an equivalence between taking in information and physically assaulting someone with food. Eating is an active thing. It's something you do. You can be in the same room as a piece of cake and not eat it. You can't choose not to sense something. There is not even an option to consent to communication with someone. If you're near someone and they talk, they've communicated with you, whether you wanted them to or not. (Assuming you speak the same language). It's the natural state of a person (all living organisms, actually) to be passively receiving as much information as possible all the time. This is because survival is dependent on being as aware as possible of your surroundings so you can detect both threats and opportunities. Deliberately choosing to limit the type of information you're able to perceive makes as little sense to me as deliberately trying to reduce the number of colors you can see. Or making it so you can feel only pleasure but not pain. There are people who can't feel pain, it's a debilitating disorder that makes it very difficult to navigate the world. We need to be exposed to uncomfortable ideas just as much as we need to be able to feel pain. Removing any information you "don't like" from your awareness would be about as healthy for your mind as eating only cake and potato chips would be for your body.
- kgwxd 7y ago
  So you don't have a spam filter on your email?
  - imgabe 7y ago
    What's being proposed is more like that episode of Black Mirror where the mother gets her daughter a brain implant that makes her unable to perceive anything "objectionable" (anything that raises heart rate or upsets her in any way). Spam/Not Spam is a very limited category to filter. "Things I Like / Things I Don't Like" is very different. Sometimes you need to know about things you don't like. Suppose everyone who doesn't want to act on climate change just filters out any information related to climate change. Do you think that is helpful for the world?
    - bmarquez 7y ago
      > Suppose everyone who doesn't want to act on climate change just filters out any information related to climate change. Do you think that is helpful for the world? If they've already made the conscious decision to filter out that information, forcefully shoving it down their throat isn't going to change their mind, and may even reinforce their beliefs.
      - imgabe 7y ago
        But existing in a bubble where the only information they get is "Everything is fine, climate change is a hoax" ... is going to change their beliefs? How? The mere existence of information within your realm of perception doesn't mean it's "shoved down your throat". That is an unnecessarily hostile view to have towards information. I assume you're in a room somewhere with some objects around you. Maybe there's a painting on the wall. Is the painting being shoved down your throat or is it just a thing that you might notice that happens to exist? Yes, there are definitely ways of presenting information that are counter-productive to changing people's minds, but quarantining them off from information doesn't seem likely to do any better. People can learn and grow and change their views, but they need access to information to do it.

ars 7y ago

What's old is new. Can we bring back PICS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_for_Internet_Content_Selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_for_Internet_Content_... ? In hindsight people killing it as a censorship tool was so unfortunate. The whole point of PICS is YOU pick your rating agency.

imgabe 7y ago

> it is startling that we allow ourselves to force information into each others minds, but we don't allow ourselves to shove food into each others mouths, without permission! I'm sorry, this whole concept irks me in a "not even wrong" way. It's difficult to even begin to explain how wrong I feel this sentiment is. Let me try. First, it makes no sense to draw an equivalence between taking in information and physically assaulting someone with food. Eating is an active thing. It's something you do. You can be in the same room as a piece of cake and not eat it. You can't choose not to sense something. There is not even an option to consent to communication with someone. If you're near someone and they talk, they've communicated with you, whether you wanted them to or not. (Assuming you speak the same language). It's the natural state of a person (all living organisms, actually) to be passively receiving as much information as possible all the time. This is because survival is dependent on being as aware as possible of your surroundings so you can detect both threats and opportunities. Deliberately choosing to limit the type of information you're able to perceive makes as little sense to me as deliberately trying to reduce the number of colors you can see. Or making it so you can feel only pleasure but not pain. There are people who can't feel pain, it's a debilitating disorder that makes it very difficult to navigate the world. We need to be exposed to uncomfortable ideas just as much as we need to be able to feel pain. Removing any information you "don't like" from your awareness would be about as healthy for your mind as eating only cake and potato chips would be for your body.

kgwxd 7y ago
So you don't have a spam filter on your email?
- imgabe 7y ago
  What's being proposed is more like that episode of Black Mirror where the mother gets her daughter a brain implant that makes her unable to perceive anything "objectionable" (anything that raises heart rate or upsets her in any way). Spam/Not Spam is a very limited category to filter. "Things I Like / Things I Don't Like" is very different. Sometimes you need to know about things you don't like. Suppose everyone who doesn't want to act on climate change just filters out any information related to climate change. Do you think that is helpful for the world?
  - bmarquez 7y ago
    > Suppose everyone who doesn't want to act on climate change just filters out any information related to climate change. Do you think that is helpful for the world? If they've already made the conscious decision to filter out that information, forcefully shoving it down their throat isn't going to change their mind, and may even reinforce their beliefs.
    - imgabe 7y ago
      But existing in a bubble where the only information they get is "Everything is fine, climate change is a hoax" ... is going to change their beliefs? How? The mere existence of information within your realm of perception doesn't mean it's "shoved down your throat". That is an unnecessarily hostile view to have towards information. I assume you're in a room somewhere with some objects around you. Maybe there's a painting on the wall. Is the painting being shoved down your throat or is it just a thing that you might notice that happens to exist? Yes, there are definitely ways of presenting information that are counter-productive to changing people's minds, but quarantining them off from information doesn't seem likely to do any better. People can learn and grow and change their views, but they need access to information to do it.