4 ms·

"Free amplicfication" isn't about absolute lack of cost, it's about cost relative to older mechanisms. The printing press allowed information to spread much fas

by blix 6y ago

"Free amplicfication" isn't about absolute lack of cost, it's about cost relative to older mechanisms. The printing press allowed information to spread much faster and more cheaply than having a monk write it by hand. It also allowed ideas that were not monk-approved to appear in print. When it first came out people were pretty upset about the incorrect ideas that propogated as a result. Eventually people with power figured out how to mostly control the printing press and so created the heavily gate-kept institutions you describe. The transitions our society is facing now echo these past struggles.

JohnBooty 6y ago
There are similarities with those past struggles, but the differences are significant. We cannot simply hand-wave some of them away as "the struggles every new medium faces." Printed materials were still pretty gate-kept. Sure, anybody could spend a modest sum and get a bunch of roughly-printed pamphlets printed up. You could walk around London and hand them out. People did, and I suppose some of these ideas got traction. And some of those ideas were even good. That was still a lot of money and effort, and it was still a lot of work to establish some kind of credibility so that your ideas might actually gain acceptance. Otherwise you were just a crazy person handing out pamphlets along with all of the other crazy people. Today, you can post insane and dangerous COVID-19 falsehoods to half of the freaking world via YouTube or Facebook and your message is indistinguishable from ideas presented by people who actually know what they're talking about. The gatekeeping America used to have was... not great. Network television's self-censorship was often stodgy, at best. But you didn't have absolute fucking lunatics screaming about chemtrails and Bill Gate's 5G microchip mind-control scheme racking up literally millions of followers. That is a PROBLEM. If you say to me that the ideal solution is to simply have a more educated populace, I wouldn't disagree. However, that doesn't solve things now. We need long-term solutions (education) as well as short-term ones (so we don't have the loonies electing other loonies who actually get to steer the most powerful militaries on the planet)
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  > If you say to me that the ideal solution is to simply have a more educated populace, I wouldn't disagree. However, that doesn't solve things now. Even in the long term, how are you going to produce this more educated populace? Or rather, who are you going to entrust with the task? The same educational establishment that produced the current populace? But even if you can produce your more educated populace, you still have the problem that the Russian trolls aren't going to stand still. They're going to be better, too, by then.
  - Trombone12 6y ago
    What is the end goal of this argument? That everything is great now?
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      Hardly. Things are a mess. But if your solution involves having (or making) "better people", your solution likely won't work in the real world.
  - airtonix 6y ago
    How do you imagine such an educated population occurs when you conflat Freedom of Thought with Freedom of Speech? If you don't like certain ideas being distributed then who made you the boss of ideas? Without a free exchange of ideas, you can not have a educated population, you only get programmed automotons.
  - JohnBooty 6y ago
    Or rather, who are you going to entrust with the task? The same educational establishment that produced the current populace?T Ideally, education teaches critical thinking, not a specific indoctrination. Education, obviously, often falls short of this ideal and you don't necessarily need formal education to be a critical thinker. I do think that's pretty achievable. When I went through school in the 80s and 90s we weren't exactly devoid of this sort of thing. Absurd ideas like chemtrails and flat-eartherism don't last very long in the face of the slightest hint of critical thinking. But even if you can produce your more educated populace, you still have the problem that the Russian trolls aren't going to stand still. They're going to be better, too, by then. I certainly don't disagree, but doing a better job of critical thinking certainly seems like a reasonable first step no matter what else we do.
- chmod600 6y ago
  "But you didn't have absolute fucking lunatics screaming about chemtrails and Bill Gate's 5G microchip mind-control scheme racking up literally millions of followers. That is a PROBLEM." This article is about blocking a story by the NY Post. It may be true or may be false, but it already passed the traditional gatekeepers.
  - bdamm 6y ago
    Just because it passed the bar at NY Post doesn't mean it passes the bar at Twitter.
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      That's the crux of it. There is surprise that Twitter even has a "bar". People used to think of Twitter in one way, and now Twitter's actions have encouraged people to think of Twitter in a different way.
    - hackerfromthefu 6y ago
      So twitter is not an impartial conduit - instead it is editorial and opinionated, and should face legal accountability for it's views as such, in the same way as newspapers?
      - JohnBooty 6y ago
        According to Section 230, probably yes. But I don't think Section 230 is adequate to the task. You realize, of course, that even HN is strongly moderated? The mods kill a lot of stories here. And HN is a better place for it. By your logic, HN should now be liable for anything that anybody posts. Is that what you want? Does that seem like it's in anybody's best interests?
  - JohnBooty 6y ago
    This article is about blocking a story by the NY Post. It may be true or may be false, but it already passed the traditional gatekeepers. It passed a gatekeeper, and was refuted by others. And if you're describing the NY Post as a "traditional gatekeeper", you're not familiar with the NY Post. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post#Style https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post#Style It represents roughly the midpoint between a serious journalistic operation and the National Enquirer.
- blix 6y ago
  > Today, you can [print] insane and dangerous ... falsehoods and your message is indistinguishable from ideas presented by people who actually know what they're talking about. I bet the response of the Catholic clergy to the printing press was probably pretty similar to this statement. And the ideas of the reformation were certainly far more dangerous than any chemtrail conspiracy. Chemtrail conspiracy theories are... pretty insignficant. If your goal is to eradicate all conspiratorial wrongthink of this magnitude or greater, you are going to run into ~a lot~ of problems. Epstein memes are very popular.
  - JohnBooty 6y ago
    A few things wrong with your rebuttal. One, nobody is taking away your right to say or think things. This is about Twitter's obligation (or lack thereof) to broadcast your thoughts to others. They are not burning you at the stake like a vengeful Catholic church during the Inquisition or outlawing your thoughts like "wrongthink" in 1984. Two, the printing press analogy is highly flawed. Twitter is like the owner of one specific printing press, not some entity that controls all printing presses. If you owned a printing press, would you want to be obligated to print things you find factually and harmful? I assume you'd certainly want the freedom to turn down printing jobs. Or do only certain freedoms matter?
- rland 6y ago
  Right, it's vastly preferred to have qualified people lying to everyone about WMD's in Iraq or the Gulf of Tonkin.
  - JohnBooty 6y ago
    Very flawed comparison. The government lying to you is one thing. The government has literal life and death control over you and others. There is only one government and we can't easily choose another. These things are not true about Twitter. You can go post on your own Mastodon instance or the Daily Stormer or the Fox News comment section if Twitter is too restrictive for your liking. Also, do you recognize the irony/insanity of complaining about this on Hacker News, a strongly-moderated platform? HN's centralized moderation is far more stringent.
    - rland 6y ago
      I believe the consequences of professional, expert misinformation -- half a million civilian casualties -- pales in comparison to the amateur hour on Twitter. I'm referring to New York Times reporting in the lead up to the Iraq war, which was later found to be purposeful fraud, and played a huge role in juicing the public for war. You don't need to look very far to find other examples.

by blix 6y ago

JohnBooty 6y ago

There are similarities with those past struggles, but the differences are significant. We cannot simply hand-wave some of them away as "the struggles every new medium faces." Printed materials were still pretty gate-kept. Sure, anybody could spend a modest sum and get a bunch of roughly-printed pamphlets printed up. You could walk around London and hand them out. People did, and I suppose some of these ideas got traction. And some of those ideas were even good. That was still a lot of money and effort, and it was still a lot of work to establish some kind of credibility so that your ideas might actually gain acceptance. Otherwise you were just a crazy person handing out pamphlets along with all of the other crazy people. Today, you can post insane and dangerous COVID-19 falsehoods to half of the freaking world via YouTube or Facebook and your message is indistinguishable from ideas presented by people who actually know what they're talking about. The gatekeeping America used to have was... not great. Network television's self-censorship was often stodgy, at best. But you didn't have absolute fucking lunatics screaming about chemtrails and Bill Gate's 5G microchip mind-control scheme racking up literally millions of followers. That is a PROBLEM. If you say to me that the ideal solution is to simply have a more educated populace, I wouldn't disagree. However, that doesn't solve things now. We need long-term solutions (education) as well as short-term ones (so we don't have the loonies electing other loonies who actually get to steer the most powerful militaries on the planet)

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
> If you say to me that the ideal solution is to simply have a more educated populace, I wouldn't disagree. However, that doesn't solve things now. Even in the long term, how are you going to produce this more educated populace? Or rather, who are you going to entrust with the task? The same educational establishment that produced the current populace? But even if you can produce your more educated populace, you still have the problem that the Russian trolls aren't going to stand still. They're going to be better, too, by then.
- Trombone12 6y ago
  What is the end goal of this argument? That everything is great now?
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    Hardly. Things are a mess. But if your solution involves having (or making) "better people", your solution likely won't work in the real world.
- airtonix 6y ago
  How do you imagine such an educated population occurs when you conflat Freedom of Thought with Freedom of Speech? If you don't like certain ideas being distributed then who made you the boss of ideas? Without a free exchange of ideas, you can not have a educated population, you only get programmed automotons.
- JohnBooty 6y ago
  Or rather, who are you going to entrust with the task? The same educational establishment that produced the current populace?T Ideally, education teaches critical thinking, not a specific indoctrination. Education, obviously, often falls short of this ideal and you don't necessarily need formal education to be a critical thinker. I do think that's pretty achievable. When I went through school in the 80s and 90s we weren't exactly devoid of this sort of thing. Absurd ideas like chemtrails and flat-eartherism don't last very long in the face of the slightest hint of critical thinking. But even if you can produce your more educated populace, you still have the problem that the Russian trolls aren't going to stand still. They're going to be better, too, by then. I certainly don't disagree, but doing a better job of critical thinking certainly seems like a reasonable first step no matter what else we do.
chmod600 6y ago
"But you didn't have absolute fucking lunatics screaming about chemtrails and Bill Gate's 5G microchip mind-control scheme racking up literally millions of followers. That is a PROBLEM." This article is about blocking a story by the NY Post. It may be true or may be false, but it already passed the traditional gatekeepers.
- bdamm 6y ago
  Just because it passed the bar at NY Post doesn't mean it passes the bar at Twitter.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    That's the crux of it. There is surprise that Twitter even has a "bar". People used to think of Twitter in one way, and now Twitter's actions have encouraged people to think of Twitter in a different way.
  - hackerfromthefu 6y ago
    So twitter is not an impartial conduit - instead it is editorial and opinionated, and should face legal accountability for it's views as such, in the same way as newspapers?
    - JohnBooty 6y ago
      According to Section 230, probably yes. But I don't think Section 230 is adequate to the task. You realize, of course, that even HN is strongly moderated? The mods kill a lot of stories here. And HN is a better place for it. By your logic, HN should now be liable for anything that anybody posts. Is that what you want? Does that seem like it's in anybody's best interests?
- JohnBooty 6y ago
  This article is about blocking a story by the NY Post. It may be true or may be false, but it already passed the traditional gatekeepers. It passed a gatekeeper, and was refuted by others. And if you're describing the NY Post as a "traditional gatekeeper", you're not familiar with the NY Post. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post#Style https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post#Style It represents roughly the midpoint between a serious journalistic operation and the National Enquirer.
blix 6y ago
> Today, you can [print] insane and dangerous ... falsehoods and your message is indistinguishable from ideas presented by people who actually know what they're talking about. I bet the response of the Catholic clergy to the printing press was probably pretty similar to this statement. And the ideas of the reformation were certainly far more dangerous than any chemtrail conspiracy. Chemtrail conspiracy theories are... pretty insignficant. If your goal is to eradicate all conspiratorial wrongthink of this magnitude or greater, you are going to run into ~a lot~ of problems. Epstein memes are very popular.
- JohnBooty 6y ago
  A few things wrong with your rebuttal. One, nobody is taking away your right to say or think things. This is about Twitter's obligation (or lack thereof) to broadcast your thoughts to others. They are not burning you at the stake like a vengeful Catholic church during the Inquisition or outlawing your thoughts like "wrongthink" in 1984. Two, the printing press analogy is highly flawed. Twitter is like the owner of one specific printing press, not some entity that controls all printing presses. If you owned a printing press, would you want to be obligated to print things you find factually and harmful? I assume you'd certainly want the freedom to turn down printing jobs. Or do only certain freedoms matter?
rland 6y ago
Right, it's vastly preferred to have qualified people lying to everyone about WMD's in Iraq or the Gulf of Tonkin.
- JohnBooty 6y ago
  Very flawed comparison. The government lying to you is one thing. The government has literal life and death control over you and others. There is only one government and we can't easily choose another. These things are not true about Twitter. You can go post on your own Mastodon instance or the Daily Stormer or the Fox News comment section if Twitter is too restrictive for your liking. Also, do you recognize the irony/insanity of complaining about this on Hacker News, a strongly-moderated platform? HN's centralized moderation is far more stringent.
  - rland 6y ago
    I believe the consequences of professional, expert misinformation -- half a million civilian casualties -- pales in comparison to the amateur hour on Twitter. I'm referring to New York Times reporting in the lead up to the Iraq war, which was later found to be purposeful fraud, and played a huge role in juicing the public for war. You don't need to look very far to find other examples.