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To be honest it sounds like a regular end of the election craziness. To all those people, who think this is somehow special and deserves special new set of rule

To be honest it sounds like a regular end of the election craziness. To all those people, who think this is somehow special and deserves special new set of rules, I can only point to 2016 ( Comey saga that also included Guliani ). It is not special. It is not new. It is still speech. It may be lies ( and I am sure we will find out soon enough ) and I get that a lot of people can be influenced. I get it. And it still think it is risky to the existing system that RELIES on lies flowing freely. What I do not get is why some people honestly do believe that an average person needs to be protected from lies by a censor? And who ensures censor is not a liar? Who guards the guards? The question is important as people seem to be clamoring for rather powerful guards of 'what is true truth'.

specialist 6y ago
"What I do not get is why some people honestly do believe that an average person needs to be protected from lies by a censor?" I was a Chomsky style free speech ultimatist. Unfortunately, humans aren't rational. Lying is super effective, its effects pernicious. They activate identity and trigger negative partisanship. Simply trying to refute lies only embeds them further. Profiting from the outrage machine (dopamine addiction) has created a vicious cycle, and worse every year. Is this really what we want? The founders had the notion that democracy requires an informed populace. When the audience of NY Post, Fox News, OANN, and others are objectively, stubbornly anti-informed, how is democracy served? What's the alternative to censorship? How does Truth prevail in the public square? Even Good Samaritan Chomsky has no response to the Paradox of Tolerance. -- For my part, I think it's hysterical that Facebook and Twitter censored a NY Post. That's like the biggest dealer of crack cocaine indignantly tossing a hit of molly in the trash, because that crap ain't no good for y'all. I'm still baffled why any one would get their news from NY Post, Facebook, or Twitter. It's quite a stretch to call any of that "news". So I don't see how allegations of censorship even apply.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  I don't think you are wrong. I would not dare to suggest there are easy answers here. My initial reaction was to attempt to argue that we are not, in fact a democracy, completely derailing the conversation in an attempt simply to 'win' an argument. I am oddly surprised with myself over this. There is no ego here. Nothing to prove. And yet, the need to be right on the internet prevails. This agrees with your note that humans are not rational. I definitely agree that lying is effective. I agree that outrage machine is getting really annoying, but I also found a way to deal with it in an imperfect way. Stop consuming this information and, eventually, stop internalizing this overwhelming pile of crap that is shoved into our minds 24/7. There is a reason we are a republic. There is a reason we protect ( or at least give lip service to protecting ) minority voices. And that's usually, because popular opinions don't need defenders. And I want those voices protected even if they are unpopular, ill-informed, dishonest, or even just lying. The alternative is that we ban lying. Period. No cute ads that dance on the edge of misrepresentation. No white lies. You had a shitty day. Say so. No lie of omission. Your company uses child labor, disclose it in 10-k ( oi, all material facts should be available for investors ). No politician talk. We usher a new world where dictionary police is king and every single one of us has to weigh each word carefully.. I feel I should apologize. This post may be now coming across as snarky. I think that fact that I don't really have a good answer makes me frustrated. edit: added don't in last sentence.
  - specialist 6y ago
    No snark detected. I chose to reply to you, specifically, because you were discussing ideas and principles, avoiding getting caught up by personalities and the food fight. I've been obsessing about rhetoric, persuasion, discourse for way too long. I've tried any thing and every thing suggested. Stuff like David Domke and heroesnarrative.org. I've spent 100s of hours working on framing, wordsmithing, resolutions, whitepapers. Nothing I've tried has made a lasting difference. Most of it was probably counter productive. Of course there are some obvious things we (society) can do, short of banning falsehoods. - Add friction to, and sometimes break, feedback loops to thwart the dopamine rush. - Decouple (unbundle) activities to create opportunities for competition. - Prohibit self dealing and other conflicts of interest. - Ban toxic incentives (targeted ads, freemium). You may note these remedies have some overlap with the adjacent issues of monopolies and privacy. Of course, no silver bullets. People smarter than me will surely add to this list. (I barely understand the debates about Section 230.) And I'm still find a response to algorithmic newsfeeds. All of these measures limit, deny, thwart. But I want to find positive alternatives. Role models for better behavior. In the marketplace for ideas, I want to be selling the best ideas. -- Have you listened to KEXP 90.3 FM Seattle (kexp.org) lately? In response to COVID-19, they're now doing mass psychiatry, group therapy with their "You are Not Alone" campaign. I think this might be one antidote to the outrage machine. It's a synthesis of many aspects and features you'll recognize. And most of the time these kinds of things backfire. Perceived as insincere empathy and saccharin positivity. But KEXP somehow makes it work. A slow metamorphosis over years. They're now fulfilling a yearning need for connection and community and calmness that, frankly, is mostly missing in media. One example of their genius: In response to the ridiculous assaults on the USPS, KEXP did the "Support The Post Office" event, encouraging listeners to send their song requests via USPS. Then one morning they played those requests and read the cards. Not once did KEXP engage in the food fight. They didn't have to. They only said positive things and encouraged positive actions. KEXP said what they're for, not what they're against. Of course KEXP is listener funded, and therefore directly incentivized to do positivity and outreach. Versus ad based outrage machines. (A few years ago, KEXP canceled their weekend morning shows on politics and current events. I had listened for decades and really liked those programs. But the format and strategy practiced by aging hippies, standard public radio fare, was long past being constructive.) I'm now wondering how the KEXP experiment can be replicated. Done many many times vs scaled larger. I'm also wondering if this strategy can reconnect people, help reduce our hyper polarization. Stock advice for cult deprogramming is unconditional acceptance, no judgement. Just be glad your friend or family member is back and listen listen listen. That kinda feels like what KEXP is doing.
- AI_WAIFU 6y ago
  > What's the alternative to censorship? How does Truth prevail in the public square? Even Good Samaritan Chomsky has no response to the Paradox of Tolerance. As someone who's still on the free speech bandwagon. I think that this situations is pretty straight forward. One of the founding motivations for free speech is that it allows us to form accurate beliefs. Any approach that uses censorship to deal with the problem of misinformation and lying doesn't even pass the sniff test as a solution. This is because if the censor is factually wrong, it's game over. There is no recovery from that situation. The second you start filtering information that disagrees with your beliefs is the second you lose the ability to change them when new information comes in. You can't fix the issues with free speech by selectively attacking individual topics based on your belifes about ground level truth. You have to do it at least 1 meta level up. Ask yourself, if humanity was a collection of nodes in a network, and social media was the protocol, "how do I choose a protocol which maximises the probability that the nodes in the network all converge to the truth even when I don't know it a priori". You'll quickly find that platforms like twitter, instagram, and tiktok are the opposite of the answer. Each of them is engineered to minimise critical thinking, source checking, viewpoint sharing, and discussion. Facebook and reddit are bit better, at least on those you can post an essay and respond. Hacker news is even better, it has a simple UI that prioritizes text. You also get more interesting ideas, like integrated cryptographic signing into social media platforms, or tuning feed algorithms to promote discussion using simple unbiased mechanism. There's a whole bunch of shit we can do to solve the problem. Most of it hasn't been tried. Don't let people who are extremely intolerant use the paradox of tolerance to shut down opinions, ideas, and cultures they won't tolerate.
- amadeuspagel 6y ago
  Freedom of speech doesn't rely on the belief that humans are rational, it relies on the belief that there's no fundamental difference between some enlightened, rational circle of censors and the irrational masses. WTF does this question have to do with the paradox of intolerance? There's nothing intolerant about the claim that the Bidens are corrupt. > It's quite a stretch to call any of that "news". So I don't see how allegations of censorship even apply. Freedom of speech isn't restricted to news and the idea that you can censor anything which doesn't fall into a narrowly defined category such as "news", with the censor deciding what counts as news and not, would completely kill the point of freedom of speech. > The founders had the notion that democracy requires an informed populace. I often see this claim but I'm not aware of any evidence that either the founders believed this, nor for the belief itself. It's also often used to argue for voting restrictions. It's kind of parallel to the idea that freedom of speech requires that people are rational, where again my question is: What's the alternative? What is the rational informed group that we should entrust restrictions to? In your view some elite group should decide that NY Post, Fox News and OAnn are anti-informing people, not serving democracy. Well if we trust that elite group, why bother with democracy in the first place?
  - specialist 6y ago
    "... it relies on the belief that there's no fundamental difference between some enlightened, rational circle of censors and the irrational masses." This is a very excellent point. While bingeing on HOPWAG, it finally occurred to me that our current food fight (fake news, cancel culture, censoring, trolling) might be due to very different ideas of What Is Truth. If we can't even agree that the universe is knowable and someone somewhere probably has the correct answer, then the whole fight is pointless. "In your view some elite group should decide..." That's the exact opposite of my view. We'll always have more falsehoods than truth. Even when we're trying to find the truth. The challenge of mitigating the replication crisis (in science) is proof of that. Plus, I no longer care what the truth is. Because my opponents don't care. So further debate is pointless. At this point I only want two things. #1 Unplug the outrage machine. #2 To be left alone. I'd like to go ONE FULL DAY without having to think about this stuff. I shouldn't have to completely unplug from the world and actively defend my filter bubble just to do normal people stuff. "...have to do with the paradox of intolerance? There's nothing intolerant about the claim that the Bidens are corrupt." Honestly, I'm not quite sure yet. It certainly seems "flood the zone with bullshit" strategy is related to triggering identity and radicalization.
syndacks 6y ago
Not everything can be reduced to a O or 1. Our imperfect species often draws a line in the sand and says you're either on this side or that. Sometimes that line is a fucked up line and we go to war over it. And other times, we accept it (yes there are other states), internalize it and move along collectively as consciously elevated apes with a new feather in our culture-cap. That you might not feel a sliver of moral dignity in the line that was drawn by globally dominant companies today, fighting disinformation before an election, saddens me deeply. Like, yea, your logical brain might be short circuiting right now but can't you see the bigger issue at play? I'm reminded of the post circulating on HN a few days ago about how FB shut down some Holocaust Denier groups, and the commentary thread just blew up about "violating free speech" etc. That really messed me up, and made me lose faith in this community.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  One's man disinformation is another man's propaganda. What is the bigger issue at play? I honestly cannot see a bigger issue than a society wide decree on what can and cannot be uttered. To me, the notion of being able to say what I want to say without the reprisal of "globally dominant companies today"/government/we, is so ingrained that it is possible that I genuinely cannot see the forest for the trees. Great. And now I feel like a Boy Scout reciting badly written essay about why I love America. For me there is no bigger issue.
  - bgorman 6y ago
    In two ways, America is fundentally different than most advanced economies. 1. We have essentially absolute free speech 2. We have the absolute right to gun ownership If those values appeal to you, America is unrivaled.
ryanmarsh 6y ago
This whole begging for a Ministry of Truth has me wondering... do the kids still read 1984 in school? Maybe I’m old. What are the kids reading in High School English? Marx?
JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
The average person isn't aware of the very intentional acts to subtly shift their perspective and world view. You're aware of its presence, which to some degree, inoculates you from its effects. Whenever you see any news, you ask yourself: "What actors might be trying to influence me to believe this, and why?" and I assert the average person does not offer that level of introspection when consuming content. The solution is media blackouts for a period of N days to weeks before elections. It's what other democracies do. But, during critical periods of time, we temporarily restrict speech. That's how you handle it. Is it a perfect solution, no, but it offers some benefit with not too much restriction.

specialist 6y ago

"What I do not get is why some people honestly do believe that an average person needs to be protected from lies by a censor?" I was a Chomsky style free speech ultimatist. Unfortunately, humans aren't rational. Lying is super effective, its effects pernicious. They activate identity and trigger negative partisanship. Simply trying to refute lies only embeds them further. Profiting from the outrage machine (dopamine addiction) has created a vicious cycle, and worse every year. Is this really what we want? The founders had the notion that democracy requires an informed populace. When the audience of NY Post, Fox News, OANN, and others are objectively, stubbornly anti-informed, how is democracy served? What's the alternative to censorship? How does Truth prevail in the public square? Even Good Samaritan Chomsky has no response to the Paradox of Tolerance. -- For my part, I think it's hysterical that Facebook and Twitter censored a NY Post. That's like the biggest dealer of crack cocaine indignantly tossing a hit of molly in the trash, because that crap ain't no good for y'all. I'm still baffled why any one would get their news from NY Post, Facebook, or Twitter. It's quite a stretch to call any of that "news". So I don't see how allegations of censorship even apply.

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
I don't think you are wrong. I would not dare to suggest there are easy answers here. My initial reaction was to attempt to argue that we are not, in fact a democracy, completely derailing the conversation in an attempt simply to 'win' an argument. I am oddly surprised with myself over this. There is no ego here. Nothing to prove. And yet, the need to be right on the internet prevails. This agrees with your note that humans are not rational. I definitely agree that lying is effective. I agree that outrage machine is getting really annoying, but I also found a way to deal with it in an imperfect way. Stop consuming this information and, eventually, stop internalizing this overwhelming pile of crap that is shoved into our minds 24/7. There is a reason we are a republic. There is a reason we protect ( or at least give lip service to protecting ) minority voices. And that's usually, because popular opinions don't need defenders. And I want those voices protected even if they are unpopular, ill-informed, dishonest, or even just lying. The alternative is that we ban lying. Period. No cute ads that dance on the edge of misrepresentation. No white lies. You had a shitty day. Say so. No lie of omission. Your company uses child labor, disclose it in 10-k ( oi, all material facts should be available for investors ). No politician talk. We usher a new world where dictionary police is king and every single one of us has to weigh each word carefully.. I feel I should apologize. This post may be now coming across as snarky. I think that fact that I don't really have a good answer makes me frustrated. edit: added don't in last sentence.
- specialist 6y ago
  No snark detected. I chose to reply to you, specifically, because you were discussing ideas and principles, avoiding getting caught up by personalities and the food fight. I've been obsessing about rhetoric, persuasion, discourse for way too long. I've tried any thing and every thing suggested. Stuff like David Domke and heroesnarrative.org. I've spent 100s of hours working on framing, wordsmithing, resolutions, whitepapers. Nothing I've tried has made a lasting difference. Most of it was probably counter productive. Of course there are some obvious things we (society) can do, short of banning falsehoods. - Add friction to, and sometimes break, feedback loops to thwart the dopamine rush. - Decouple (unbundle) activities to create opportunities for competition. - Prohibit self dealing and other conflicts of interest. - Ban toxic incentives (targeted ads, freemium). You may note these remedies have some overlap with the adjacent issues of monopolies and privacy. Of course, no silver bullets. People smarter than me will surely add to this list. (I barely understand the debates about Section 230.) And I'm still find a response to algorithmic newsfeeds. All of these measures limit, deny, thwart. But I want to find positive alternatives. Role models for better behavior. In the marketplace for ideas, I want to be selling the best ideas. -- Have you listened to KEXP 90.3 FM Seattle (kexp.org) lately? In response to COVID-19, they're now doing mass psychiatry, group therapy with their "You are Not Alone" campaign. I think this might be one antidote to the outrage machine. It's a synthesis of many aspects and features you'll recognize. And most of the time these kinds of things backfire. Perceived as insincere empathy and saccharin positivity. But KEXP somehow makes it work. A slow metamorphosis over years. They're now fulfilling a yearning need for connection and community and calmness that, frankly, is mostly missing in media. One example of their genius: In response to the ridiculous assaults on the USPS, KEXP did the "Support The Post Office" event, encouraging listeners to send their song requests via USPS. Then one morning they played those requests and read the cards. Not once did KEXP engage in the food fight. They didn't have to. They only said positive things and encouraged positive actions. KEXP said what they're for, not what they're against. Of course KEXP is listener funded, and therefore directly incentivized to do positivity and outreach. Versus ad based outrage machines. (A few years ago, KEXP canceled their weekend morning shows on politics and current events. I had listened for decades and really liked those programs. But the format and strategy practiced by aging hippies, standard public radio fare, was long past being constructive.) I'm now wondering how the KEXP experiment can be replicated. Done many many times vs scaled larger. I'm also wondering if this strategy can reconnect people, help reduce our hyper polarization. Stock advice for cult deprogramming is unconditional acceptance, no judgement. Just be glad your friend or family member is back and listen listen listen. That kinda feels like what KEXP is doing.
AI_WAIFU 6y ago
> What's the alternative to censorship? How does Truth prevail in the public square? Even Good Samaritan Chomsky has no response to the Paradox of Tolerance. As someone who's still on the free speech bandwagon. I think that this situations is pretty straight forward. One of the founding motivations for free speech is that it allows us to form accurate beliefs. Any approach that uses censorship to deal with the problem of misinformation and lying doesn't even pass the sniff test as a solution. This is because if the censor is factually wrong, it's game over. There is no recovery from that situation. The second you start filtering information that disagrees with your beliefs is the second you lose the ability to change them when new information comes in. You can't fix the issues with free speech by selectively attacking individual topics based on your belifes about ground level truth. You have to do it at least 1 meta level up. Ask yourself, if humanity was a collection of nodes in a network, and social media was the protocol, "how do I choose a protocol which maximises the probability that the nodes in the network all converge to the truth even when I don't know it a priori". You'll quickly find that platforms like twitter, instagram, and tiktok are the opposite of the answer. Each of them is engineered to minimise critical thinking, source checking, viewpoint sharing, and discussion. Facebook and reddit are bit better, at least on those you can post an essay and respond. Hacker news is even better, it has a simple UI that prioritizes text. You also get more interesting ideas, like integrated cryptographic signing into social media platforms, or tuning feed algorithms to promote discussion using simple unbiased mechanism. There's a whole bunch of shit we can do to solve the problem. Most of it hasn't been tried. Don't let people who are extremely intolerant use the paradox of tolerance to shut down opinions, ideas, and cultures they won't tolerate.
amadeuspagel 6y ago
Freedom of speech doesn't rely on the belief that humans are rational, it relies on the belief that there's no fundamental difference between some enlightened, rational circle of censors and the irrational masses. WTF does this question have to do with the paradox of intolerance? There's nothing intolerant about the claim that the Bidens are corrupt. > It's quite a stretch to call any of that "news". So I don't see how allegations of censorship even apply. Freedom of speech isn't restricted to news and the idea that you can censor anything which doesn't fall into a narrowly defined category such as "news", with the censor deciding what counts as news and not, would completely kill the point of freedom of speech. > The founders had the notion that democracy requires an informed populace. I often see this claim but I'm not aware of any evidence that either the founders believed this, nor for the belief itself. It's also often used to argue for voting restrictions. It's kind of parallel to the idea that freedom of speech requires that people are rational, where again my question is: What's the alternative? What is the rational informed group that we should entrust restrictions to? In your view some elite group should decide that NY Post, Fox News and OAnn are anti-informing people, not serving democracy. Well if we trust that elite group, why bother with democracy in the first place?
- specialist 6y ago
  "... it relies on the belief that there's no fundamental difference between some enlightened, rational circle of censors and the irrational masses." This is a very excellent point. While bingeing on HOPWAG, it finally occurred to me that our current food fight (fake news, cancel culture, censoring, trolling) might be due to very different ideas of What Is Truth. If we can't even agree that the universe is knowable and someone somewhere probably has the correct answer, then the whole fight is pointless. "In your view some elite group should decide..." That's the exact opposite of my view. We'll always have more falsehoods than truth. Even when we're trying to find the truth. The challenge of mitigating the replication crisis (in science) is proof of that. Plus, I no longer care what the truth is. Because my opponents don't care. So further debate is pointless. At this point I only want two things. #1 Unplug the outrage machine. #2 To be left alone. I'd like to go ONE FULL DAY without having to think about this stuff. I shouldn't have to completely unplug from the world and actively defend my filter bubble just to do normal people stuff. "...have to do with the paradox of intolerance? There's nothing intolerant about the claim that the Bidens are corrupt." Honestly, I'm not quite sure yet. It certainly seems "flood the zone with bullshit" strategy is related to triggering identity and radicalization.

syndacks 6y ago

Not everything can be reduced to a O or 1. Our imperfect species often draws a line in the sand and says you're either on this side or that. Sometimes that line is a fucked up line and we go to war over it. And other times, we accept it (yes there are other states), internalize it and move along collectively as consciously elevated apes with a new feather in our culture-cap. That you might not feel a sliver of moral dignity in the line that was drawn by globally dominant companies today, fighting disinformation before an election, saddens me deeply. Like, yea, your logical brain might be short circuiting right now but can't you see the bigger issue at play? I'm reminded of the post circulating on HN a few days ago about how FB shut down some Holocaust Denier groups, and the commentary thread just blew up about "violating free speech" etc. That really messed me up, and made me lose faith in this community.

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
One's man disinformation is another man's propaganda. What is the bigger issue at play? I honestly cannot see a bigger issue than a society wide decree on what can and cannot be uttered. To me, the notion of being able to say what I want to say without the reprisal of "globally dominant companies today"/government/we, is so ingrained that it is possible that I genuinely cannot see the forest for the trees. Great. And now I feel like a Boy Scout reciting badly written essay about why I love America. For me there is no bigger issue.
- bgorman 6y ago
  In two ways, America is fundentally different than most advanced economies. 1. We have essentially absolute free speech 2. We have the absolute right to gun ownership If those values appeal to you, America is unrivaled.

ryanmarsh 6y ago

This whole begging for a Ministry of Truth has me wondering... do the kids still read 1984 in school? Maybe I’m old. What are the kids reading in High School English? Marx?

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago

The average person isn't aware of the very intentional acts to subtly shift their perspective and world view. You're aware of its presence, which to some degree, inoculates you from its effects. Whenever you see any news, you ask yourself: "What actors might be trying to influence me to believe this, and why?" and I assert the average person does not offer that level of introspection when consuming content. The solution is media blackouts for a period of N days to weeks before elections. It's what other democracies do. But, during critical periods of time, we temporarily restrict speech. That's how you handle it. Is it a perfect solution, no, but it offers some benefit with not too much restriction.