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And I don't mean to throw the baby out with the bath water. There are many wonderful things to learn from the scaffolding of religion and parable. To apply it t

And I don't mean to throw the baby out with the bath water. There are many wonderful things to learn from the scaffolding of religion and parable. To apply it to our legal system, tax system and to cherry pick bits from it for our military conflicts seem less than fruitful and more than a little hypocritical in a modern age (no accusation on you). As an American, I would much rather we go towards a scientific, historical, philosophic and arts educational model and leave religion at home, with tax loop holes removed. Charity tax breaks should be more than enough for those churches that stick to their mission statement. But I digress. It doesn't matter until the likes of Facebook are turned into public spaces and regarded as havens for free speech or they are not. That's really the question that has to be answered.

asimpletune 6y ago
> with tax loop holes removed Yeah, I agree completely. The fact that there is a material difference between one kind of institution and another gives legitimacy to complaining about religion, IMO. > To apply it to our legal system, tax system and to cherry pick bits from it for our military conflicts seem less than fruitful and more than a little hypocritical in a modern age I totally agree and it saddens me to see this happen. I think one crucial detail though is that instead of religion, I would call this dirty politics (or maybe even just rhetoric?). Dirty politics itself isn't new, but what has changed has become the scale at which it is now employed. > It doesn't matter until the likes of Facebook are turned into public spaces and regarded as havens for free speech or they are not. That's really the question that has to be answered. I don't really know myself, but I lean towards yes, if the likes of Facebook had a policy of safe harbor, then they should be regards as havens for free speech. I don't know enough about FB to say if they are no longer protected by safe harbor, but they're probably not in that category. When we consider though the systematic exploitation of human psychology deployed at scale, it's honestly terrifying, but to me instead of treating it as a free speech question (which is hard), it should be treated as a privacy question and the kinds of businesses you should be able to make. All of these terrifying capabilities and their free speech implications are predicated on companies harvesting our data at scale. The answer should be that there are limitations on what you can do, and business should probably just make money by charging people for stuff. I get that, early on, it may have felt necessary because we didn't know better, and there wasn't a cultural infrastructure for consumers paying for digital goods. However, a lot has changed since then, and the internet has now become basically the equivalent of a welfare state, where our digital existences within it have been sponsored by all powerful benefactors, e.g. Facebook, Google. To me the solution is simply, pay for stuff, and make it hard to have businesses where your users don't pay for stuff. That could be have liabilities around data that you collect, or outright making it illegal. Can't promise I have answers to all of the details, but this I feel good about the overall premise of my hypothesis.
- UnpossibleJim 6y ago
  Of course you don't have all the answers. No one can. It's an impossible task and that's where civil conversations like these come in. I quit Facebook quite a while ago because civil conversations were becoming rare and spiteful rhetoric was becoming the norm. I obviously don't have the answers. I think a very good first step, especially since schools have been forced online, is to see internet access become a public utility before we ever worry about the likes of Facebook. A public space to voice one's concerns can be made at a .gov space or hosted at one's own website once internet access is a utility. The only barrier to entry then is learning to set up your own server (I always thought it was fun when I was younger). Though security certificates are a harder hurdle to clear, these days. As for data collection, well, I trust neither corporations nor government. They've both proven to be dishonest when it comes to that particular topic, laws be damned =[

asimpletune 6y ago

> with tax loop holes removed Yeah, I agree completely. The fact that there is a material difference between one kind of institution and another gives legitimacy to complaining about religion, IMO. > To apply it to our legal system, tax system and to cherry pick bits from it for our military conflicts seem less than fruitful and more than a little hypocritical in a modern age I totally agree and it saddens me to see this happen. I think one crucial detail though is that instead of religion, I would call this dirty politics (or maybe even just rhetoric?). Dirty politics itself isn't new, but what has changed has become the scale at which it is now employed. > It doesn't matter until the likes of Facebook are turned into public spaces and regarded as havens for free speech or they are not. That's really the question that has to be answered. I don't really know myself, but I lean towards yes, if the likes of Facebook had a policy of safe harbor, then they should be regards as havens for free speech. I don't know enough about FB to say if they are no longer protected by safe harbor, but they're probably not in that category. When we consider though the systematic exploitation of human psychology deployed at scale, it's honestly terrifying, but to me instead of treating it as a free speech question (which is hard), it should be treated as a privacy question and the kinds of businesses you should be able to make. All of these terrifying capabilities and their free speech implications are predicated on companies harvesting our data at scale. The answer should be that there are limitations on what you can do, and business should probably just make money by charging people for stuff. I get that, early on, it may have felt necessary because we didn't know better, and there wasn't a cultural infrastructure for consumers paying for digital goods. However, a lot has changed since then, and the internet has now become basically the equivalent of a welfare state, where our digital existences within it have been sponsored by all powerful benefactors, e.g. Facebook, Google. To me the solution is simply, pay for stuff, and make it hard to have businesses where your users don't pay for stuff. That could be have liabilities around data that you collect, or outright making it illegal. Can't promise I have answers to all of the details, but this I feel good about the overall premise of my hypothesis.

UnpossibleJim 6y ago
Of course you don't have all the answers. No one can. It's an impossible task and that's where civil conversations like these come in. I quit Facebook quite a while ago because civil conversations were becoming rare and spiteful rhetoric was becoming the norm. I obviously don't have the answers. I think a very good first step, especially since schools have been forced online, is to see internet access become a public utility before we ever worry about the likes of Facebook. A public space to voice one's concerns can be made at a .gov space or hosted at one's own website once internet access is a utility. The only barrier to entry then is learning to set up your own server (I always thought it was fun when I was younger). Though security certificates are a harder hurdle to clear, these days. As for data collection, well, I trust neither corporations nor government. They've both proven to be dishonest when it comes to that particular topic, laws be damned =[