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« obvious denialism propaganda » Was JFK killed by a random crazy sniper ? Did the US finance afghan rebels or south american totalitarian regim ? Did french p

by bsaul 7y ago

« obvious denialism propaganda » Was JFK killed by a random crazy sniper ? Did the US finance afghan rebels or south american totalitarian regim ? Did french president françois mitterand work under vichy collaborationist regime ? Did he have a secret child while he was president with a second wife ? Etc etc I can’t believe someone could still say that it’s fine to discard « obvious propaganda » on the most popular personal video publishing platform. And that it should be a private company to decide who should be banned and who isn’t, without any kind of judgment by a public authority. If an argument is strong enough for a theory, then deniers will eventually loose its steam ( flat earth is going nowhere). On the other hand, think about the impact of making it casual for video platform to censor every « non official » theories.

franga2000 7y ago
> If an argument is strong enough for a theory, then deniers will eventually loose its steam ( flat earth is going nowhere). I wouldn't be so sure about that. Crystal ball fortune telling, horoscopes etc. are still alive and well, as is denying the Moon landing and (this will get me downvoted to hell) religion - the most popular one of these. But going back to the main discussion, these people want to believe something against all evidence (for various psychological reasons) -> more and better evidence threatens their world view (and in the case of YT - revenue stream) -> they make even larger leaps of logic to , start getting more extreme, more aggressive -> their followers do as well. Sprinkle on some echo-chamber effects and you've got yourself a perfect machine for turning "sceptics" into extremists. Now, with most political issues, conspiracy theories and other beliefs, it doesn't matter much and doing anything against them would be setting a dangerous precedent, but things like this are just too dangerous. We can "debate" the Moon landing for hundreds of years, but climate change is already happening and we need to do things now, not in 1 year or 100. There's no time to hope these people will just go away eventually.
fulafel 7y ago
Your other examples don't match the "sufficiently harmful" criterion, besides being unresearched nubjects at the time of debate. But eg white supermacism does - it's also a contrarian theory - and it's rightly banned. Re: eventually - in climate change it's a case of long run vs short run, as Keynes put it: "The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again."

by bsaul 7y ago

franga2000 7y ago

> If an argument is strong enough for a theory, then deniers will eventually loose its steam ( flat earth is going nowhere). I wouldn't be so sure about that. Crystal ball fortune telling, horoscopes etc. are still alive and well, as is denying the Moon landing and (this will get me downvoted to hell) religion - the most popular one of these. But going back to the main discussion, these people want to believe something against all evidence (for various psychological reasons) -> more and better evidence threatens their world view (and in the case of YT - revenue stream) -> they make even larger leaps of logic to , start getting more extreme, more aggressive -> their followers do as well. Sprinkle on some echo-chamber effects and you've got yourself a perfect machine for turning "sceptics" into extremists. Now, with most political issues, conspiracy theories and other beliefs, it doesn't matter much and doing anything against them would be setting a dangerous precedent, but things like this are just too dangerous. We can "debate" the Moon landing for hundreds of years, but climate change is already happening and we need to do things now, not in 1 year or 100. There's no time to hope these people will just go away eventually.

fulafel 7y ago

Your other examples don't match the "sufficiently harmful" criterion, besides being unresearched nubjects at the time of debate. But eg white supermacism does - it's also a contrarian theory - and it's rightly banned. Re: eventually - in climate change it's a case of long run vs short run, as Keynes put it: "The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again."