4 ms·

Sadly it's because a lot of us have lost faith in people in general over the past 5/6 years. Initially when the internet came along we though "great, now we can

Sadly it's because a lot of us have lost faith in people in general over the past 5/6 years. Initially when the internet came along we though "great, now we can share ideas and knowledge with total freedom and not worry about governments or the media". Without realizing what that freedom allowed for abject the checks and balances that were traditionally applied (editorial/peer review etc) and the sheer amount of exposure this gave to bad actors. The past 5 years have shown us that as a society we have lost our common basis in fact (alternative facts, fake news etc.) and the whole thing worries me. It worries me even more that i can't see a way out of it other than censorship. Short of a massive change in education to focus on critical thinking and evaluating received information, but that takes years and the problems we have now are destroying western democracy.

justinzollars 6y ago
The assumption here is, the censors have the ability to "critically think" and others do not. I'm not sure that is very honest.
- drenvuk 6y ago
  You're making the mistaken assumption that the people who need to think critically have all of the information or even the right information to do so. Most people are making judgements and coming to conclusions based on less than whole data. They don't have time to exhaustively investigate everything about every topic and make sure that all of their sources are flawless. You're asking for perfection. It's impossible. This is not reasoning for censorship by the way, its reasoning for systemizing trustable sources of information. Someone will care enough to get it right and fair so we should promote them and ignore the others.
  - justinzollars 6y ago
    Are you able name name one "trustable source of information"? I can't.
    - Lammy 6y ago
      My eyes; my ears. This is why the Social Cooling effect is so scary to me: people become afraid to share any observation of the world not deemed publicly-acceptable at the moment, leading other people who would agree with that observation to instead doubt their own senses. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24627363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24627363
googthrowaway42 6y ago
> It worries me even more that i can't see a way out of it other than censorship Please rest assured that there's nothing you can do about it and that is a beautiful thing.
SiVal 6y ago
It worries me even more that i can't see a way out of it other than censorship. It also worries me that so many people have been so pickled in today's ubiquitous leftist policing of what must and can't be said, what mustn't be reported, what must be publicly proclaimed (or you're a "literal nazi") that they literally can no longer understand the arguments of old fashioned leftists like Noam Chomsky about how silencing opposing opinions, regardless of what justification you claim, is utterly corrupt. A debate where one party gets to decide what both parties get to say is a sham. Whatever it pretends to be about, it's not about trying to determine actual facts.
Lammy 6y ago
> Sadly it's because a lot of us have lost faith in people in general over the past 5/6 years. This seems to be the goal of any divide-and-conquer strategy.

justinzollars 6y ago

The assumption here is, the censors have the ability to "critically think" and others do not. I'm not sure that is very honest.

drenvuk 6y ago
You're making the mistaken assumption that the people who need to think critically have all of the information or even the right information to do so. Most people are making judgements and coming to conclusions based on less than whole data. They don't have time to exhaustively investigate everything about every topic and make sure that all of their sources are flawless. You're asking for perfection. It's impossible. This is not reasoning for censorship by the way, its reasoning for systemizing trustable sources of information. Someone will care enough to get it right and fair so we should promote them and ignore the others.
- justinzollars 6y ago
  Are you able name name one "trustable source of information"? I can't.
  - Lammy 6y ago
    My eyes; my ears. This is why the Social Cooling effect is so scary to me: people become afraid to share any observation of the world not deemed publicly-acceptable at the moment, leading other people who would agree with that observation to instead doubt their own senses. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24627363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24627363

googthrowaway42 6y ago

> It worries me even more that i can't see a way out of it other than censorship Please rest assured that there's nothing you can do about it and that is a beautiful thing.

SiVal 6y ago

It worries me even more that i can't see a way out of it other than censorship. It also worries me that so many people have been so pickled in today's ubiquitous leftist policing of what must and can't be said, what mustn't be reported, what must be publicly proclaimed (or you're a "literal nazi") that they literally can no longer understand the arguments of old fashioned leftists like Noam Chomsky about how silencing opposing opinions, regardless of what justification you claim, is utterly corrupt. A debate where one party gets to decide what both parties get to say is a sham. Whatever it pretends to be about, it's not about trying to determine actual facts.

Lammy 6y ago

> Sadly it's because a lot of us have lost faith in people in general over the past 5/6 years. This seems to be the goal of any divide-and-conquer strategy.