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> It would not be difficult to assemble the same kind of narrative based on plentiful evidence of the same abstract psychological behavior, except from the rad

> It would not be difficult to assemble the same kind of narrative based on plentiful evidence of the same abstract psychological behavior, except from the radical left. To be fair, I do think this is an underappreciated point. Despite the fact that I'm a leftist, I do see lots of misinformation coming from the left, and I've seen leftist facebook groups that quickly devolve into memes about killing landlords or other extremist drivel. > I happened to read a BLM post on Medium once, and I now get a daily email of several blog posts that are at least as delusional as the above beliefs about how all white people are not just racist, but fundamentally and immutably racist. Although I agree the left can spew out all kinds of BS, the difference here is that your example is lukewarm extremist content at best. This kind of content paints wild ideas but does not contest reality or directly incite weird actions. Here's some examples of what I mean: * (contesting reality) My family member who reads GNews will sometimes randomly start conversations with absolutely out-there tidbits of misinformation like "oh my god, did you know JFK Jr is still alive? I just saw a video that proved it" * (inciting actions) My family member who reads GNews went out of her way to acquire HCQ as a "just in case", and also tried to convince family members in China who had a fever (unconfirmed covid) to take it without even seeing a doctor. At some point she considered taking HCQ as a preventative for covid despite being being at nearly 0 risk of exposure (never going outside) > I often wonder if politicians and forum/media commentators are completely oblivious to this notion, or if they are aware of it but have some sort of a "the ends justify the means" thing going on. I strongly suspect this is the case.

mistermann 6y ago
> the difference here is that your example is lukewarm extremist content at best That is "a" difference, not the difference > This kind of content paints wild ideas but does not contest reality It describes reality in ways that are not actually true. > or directly incite weird actions. You do not know the direct or indirect consequences of such content. Understanding causation in a complex, chaotic system is far beyond the cognitive capabilities of the human mind. To make it even worse, the mind typically (and incorrectly) perceives itself to be capable of such calculations. > Here's some examples of what I mean I belong to a wide variety of communities - I could also provide similar examples of silly thinking from those who fall into various categorizations. I don't disagree that the "far right" types may indeed pose greater risk (but to be clear: whether that is actually true, is unknown, and a body count perspective strongly suggests otherwise [1]), but to speak as if they are the only risk worth worrying about is itself contesting reality. Reality is infinitely complex, but the conscious mind does not perceive it this way. Even worse, it (the mind, which is in ultimate control of each comment posted on forums like this) seems to refuse to even consider (almost without exception) that it is infinitely complex. I believe that this may be much more dangerous than it may appear (to the mind...which may happen to be just a little biased on the subject). [1] Here I refer to war, in general, which is not the fault of "the far right", who seem to very conveniently get all the media attention.
- helen___keller 6y ago
  I wouldn't say only far-right extremism is dangerous, any extremism that incites actions and contests reality is dangerous. Gnews (or atleast the Guo stuff) is arguably not even far-right, most of their content is orthogonal to US left/right divisions and they just happen to be supportive of Trump as Trump is vocally anti-China (and because they allied with Bannon in the past year or so)
  - mistermann 6y ago
    To clarify: have you modified your opinion on the matter such that you now no longer consider far right beliefs to be especially dangerous, but rather only note that they are one of many risks, and that the true risk in the system is unknown and largely unknowable due to the inherent complexity of a large chaotic system?
    - helen___keller 6y ago
      > have you modified your opinion on the matter such that you now no longer consider far right beliefs to be especially dangerous, but rather only note that they are one of many risks This was always my belief. If you examine my original post[0] I do not even discuss left/right framing, your response to my post introduced it. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25345741 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25345741 > and that the true risk in the system is unknown and largely unknowable due to the inherent complexity of a large chaotic system I hadn't previously considered where the "true risk in the system" lies because my concerns with misinformation are more local (will my mother-in-law do something crazy this week?), but yes I would say that I think this is a reasonable assessment. If you're thinking of society as a system, then it is impossible to determine precisely which elements introduce risk of social instability/destruction for precisely the reason you mention.
      - mistermann 6y ago
        Ah, my mistake...I attributed a portion of the general topic to your comment (ah, the sweet irony)! Rather than far right, I actually meant the subculture that you (seemed) to be referring to. But your last response here well illustrates that you seem to appreciate the complexity (and uncertainty) of the system, which is the fundamental idea I was hoping to introduce into the memeplex.

mistermann 6y ago

> the difference here is that your example is lukewarm extremist content at best That is "a" difference, not the difference > This kind of content paints wild ideas but does not contest reality It describes reality in ways that are not actually true. > or directly incite weird actions. You do not know the direct or indirect consequences of such content. Understanding causation in a complex, chaotic system is far beyond the cognitive capabilities of the human mind. To make it even worse, the mind typically (and incorrectly) perceives itself to be capable of such calculations. > Here's some examples of what I mean I belong to a wide variety of communities - I could also provide similar examples of silly thinking from those who fall into various categorizations. I don't disagree that the "far right" types may indeed pose greater risk (but to be clear: whether that is actually true, is unknown, and a body count perspective strongly suggests otherwise [1]), but to speak as if they are the only risk worth worrying about is itself contesting reality. Reality is infinitely complex, but the conscious mind does not perceive it this way. Even worse, it (the mind, which is in ultimate control of each comment posted on forums like this) seems to refuse to even consider (almost without exception) that it is infinitely complex. I believe that this may be much more dangerous than it may appear (to the mind...which may happen to be just a little biased on the subject). [1] Here I refer to war, in general, which is not the fault of "the far right", who seem to very conveniently get all the media attention.

helen___keller 6y ago
I wouldn't say only far-right extremism is dangerous, any extremism that incites actions and contests reality is dangerous. Gnews (or atleast the Guo stuff) is arguably not even far-right, most of their content is orthogonal to US left/right divisions and they just happen to be supportive of Trump as Trump is vocally anti-China (and because they allied with Bannon in the past year or so)
- mistermann 6y ago
  To clarify: have you modified your opinion on the matter such that you now no longer consider far right beliefs to be especially dangerous, but rather only note that they are one of many risks, and that the true risk in the system is unknown and largely unknowable due to the inherent complexity of a large chaotic system?
  - helen___keller 6y ago
    > have you modified your opinion on the matter such that you now no longer consider far right beliefs to be especially dangerous, but rather only note that they are one of many risks This was always my belief. If you examine my original post[0] I do not even discuss left/right framing, your response to my post introduced it. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25345741 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25345741 > and that the true risk in the system is unknown and largely unknowable due to the inherent complexity of a large chaotic system I hadn't previously considered where the "true risk in the system" lies because my concerns with misinformation are more local (will my mother-in-law do something crazy this week?), but yes I would say that I think this is a reasonable assessment. If you're thinking of society as a system, then it is impossible to determine precisely which elements introduce risk of social instability/destruction for precisely the reason you mention.
    - mistermann 6y ago
      Ah, my mistake...I attributed a portion of the general topic to your comment (ah, the sweet irony)! Rather than far right, I actually meant the subculture that you (seemed) to be referring to. But your last response here well illustrates that you seem to appreciate the complexity (and uncertainty) of the system, which is the fundamental idea I was hoping to introduce into the memeplex.