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You claim "nothing good comes out of these places" - that's a strong claim to make. Here's my argument: having this stuff out in the open does have benefits. M
by gfodor 6y ago
You claim "nothing good comes out of these places" - that's a strong claim to make. Here's my argument: having this stuff out in the open does have benefits.
Most people lurk. Lurking these sites has a lot of benefits despite the risk of being drawn into radicalization:
- It allows you to truly understand the motives of these kinds of people, and predict what they will do.
- Understanding these motives allows you to address root causes that lead to this extremism. For every radical who storms the capitol, there are a thousand people who have slightly watered down but directionally parallel beliefs. This is good to understand so you can contribute to finding solutions to any justifiable grievances motivating their higher order beliefs (some won't be justified, some will), to help pull them in the other direction.
- Seeing this stuff full-on and not heard about through second hand accounts demystifies it. There are people like yourself who look at this, get a sense of revulsion from it, and then that both hardens their mind away from it and also motivates them to counteract it when they see people in their own lives starting to echo similar sentiments. If you don't truly grok the mental models these people have, you lack the prerequisites needed to disarm any version of them in the minds of people you care about. This isn't a sure thing, but anyone who doesn't will have no effect.
- criddell 6y agoThere may be benefits, but the harm - real and potential - dwarf anything you've listed.
- gfodor 6y agoThat's not an argument, it's a claim. And it also is shifting the goalpost from the original post, but you're not the same person so that seems fair.
- criddell 6y agoSay the investigation of the recent riots and deaths discovers that people connected and planned on the sites you are talking about. Would that move you from your current position? It seems like it would take what I've said from a claim to a simple description of reality.
- notahacker 6y agoIf you're sufficiently motivated by the prospect of disarming an insane conspiracy theory in the minds of someone you care about to actually want to read and understand it, you [i] can certainly seek it out on obscure cult websites without seeing it recommended in your favourite social media feed and [ii] are potentially better off getting it second hand complete with rebuttals. The people with slightly watered down but directionally parallel beliefs certainly exist in huge numbers, but they're the reason why such places are so harmful; they're much easier to radicalize than deradicalize, and they're the ones getting the content recommended to them or being swept along by the enthusiasm other people who share some of their views seem to have for it. And it'd actually be easier to understand their justifiable grievances if they weren't encouraged to connect them to pizza parlours or Jews.