10 ms·

Not an American but here's my two cents: I know it's about the event happened few days ago, but based on what I've learned on the other side of the Earth during

• saiya-jin 6y ago
  We all can agree situation and potential solutions are complex beyond imagination, but there is one place, one long term action that could solve most of this to some degree - proper mandatory education, based on proved science. Learn kids critical thinking, rather than raise another obedient generation who doesn't think for themselves and picks up a narrative from some place and then just sticks with it. Learning more soft skills at school (at which most teachers suck, but that's another topic), psychology, why people behave as they do, biases, how our childhood affects us all etc. I think generally our schooling systems globally need big rehaul, but for topic discussed, I can't imagine what I mention it wouldn't bring some improvement. Teaching with current level of science as hard baseline is already a place where some western countries like US fail (ie evolution vs creationism topic). I don't think the change I mention is in direct interest of many governments, so its more like a pipe dream and an additional burden on parents to drill this into their kids.
  • throwaway80332 6y ago
    This is a very good idea, and the measurement of success in these important educational efforts must be: "after this mandatory education that teaches you critical thinking and how to not just be obedient, do you now finally have the correct opionions?" If the student doesn't, he/she/xir should be deplatformed for life.
    • MrPatan 6y ago
      A bit too harsh? Surely they could be granted a second chance by sending them to be educated again.
      • derwiki 6y ago
        I read GP as sarcastic.. “think critically and agree with us or de-platformed for life”
        • throwaway80332 6y ago
          At the very least we should require that people learn the basic tenets of modern science: that war is peace, slavery is freedom and ignorance is power. That would go a long way towards curbing extremism.
          • jlkuester7 6y ago
            ROTFL! I read your grandparent comment and said to myself "this feels just like a George Orwell dystopia"...
            • throwaway80332 6y ago
              Well, the lefties just realized it was satire, so they memoryholed my original comment. As long as they thought I was being serious they upvoted like crazy. I hope I still, before I'm banned, managed to demonstrate that it is nigh impossible to tell the difference between the most extreme satirical absurdly totalitarian opinion, and actual "progressive" thought these days. And now they have both chambers.
  • robertlagrant 6y ago
    I would de-emphasise pop psychology, and more emphasise: - clarity: while not everything has a right or wrong answer, but lots of things do - robustness: it's okay for people to disagree with you, and also for you to be wrong and learn from it - reason: avoiding the standard fallacies - agreeing to disagree: individuals you know/interact with and your relationships with them are more important than abstract tribes you may or may not belong to
  • cat199 6y ago
    > proper mandatory education, based on proved science In the case of political discourse, that may improve the case around some 'fringe theory' concepts which add fuel to the fire, but it's not going to stop the core 'fire', which is driven by philosophy/ethics/metaphysics. People need to be able to break the 'fourth wall' in these debates in order to question their philosophical biases, and empiricism-as-answer-to-all-problems is also a philosophical bias - eugenics was seen by many as 'scientific virtue' in the 1920s, as one obvious example
  • bserge 6y ago
    I've been saying the same, but sometimes I doubt something like that could be implemented. "Based on proven science" doesn't work for most things social. How do you teach someone to self-analyze and understand where their problems are actually coming from? To question their own conclusions and rethink what they know? Still, it's possible to improve the current education system, by a lot. The current "learn this, don't ask why" doesn't work, and to make it worse, parents can be just as uninformed and stubborn as their kids, so they'll come to school raising hell over their lil' precious' bad grades.
    • anp 6y ago
      As I understand it, this is essentially what various specialties bucketed under “therapy” work to understand and practice ethically and safely. “Give all schoolchildren therapy” sounds a bit radical but I imagine there are ways to scale it that would be 100x more valuable than the typical curriculum.
  • victorevector 6y ago
    1. Scientific and rational debate are first class citizens in online communication 2. No speech limitations should be placed on online discussions unless it deviates away from rational debate. 3. Newsfeeds are sorted by popularity AND scientific accuracy. 4. All opinions about an issue, article, or topic are categorized and mapped on a spectrum. Meta data for quick analysis: how does my opinion compare to my peers?
  • brokenkebab 6y ago
    Teaching is one group of people trying to instill their ideas/understanding to others. There's always an authority to decide what should be taught, and it's power will be abused. Resorting to just proven science may limit these abuses but will leave you without social sciences/humanities altogether, because they almost never operate with properly (from scientific pov) proven things
• repolitical 6y ago
  Not an American as well. Regarding alternative solutions, maybe people should try to soothe trump supporters in order to rid the extremists among them of grounds for committing violent crimes, and it should be done as soon as possible to avoid the impression of conceding to violence. For example, Democrat leadership could promise to hold another election immediately after the vaccination is complete. In addition, to persuade trump supporters, they could consider getting rid of mail-in ballots, and legislating a Democratic version of voter ID law. It's the democratic solution as well. Democracy should be about appealing to the largest possible percentage of population, and shutting up the other side is not a democratic solution to the current US crisis.
  • egypturnash 6y ago
    These are terrible ideas IMHO. Republicans don't like mail-in voting because it makes it a lot easier for the entire population to vote, and they have been spending the last few decades making it a lot harder for people who are not rich white suburbanites to vote.
    • hajile 6y ago
      What we need is a blockchained using name, DOB, address, and ID. At that point, most issues go away and where you vote becomes much less important. Neither the Democrat nor Republican establishments want that either. After all, rigging primaries or engaging in other dubious activities would be much too hard.
      • tekknik 6y ago
        The changes need to still allow for anonymous voting. Nobody should face repercussions for how they vote.
        • randomswede 6y ago
          And equally important, no one should be able to prove to someone else how they voted (because if they can prove it, coerced[1] voting could be a thing). "Secure voting" is a complicated beast, at the best of times. [1] I am using "coerced" a bit loose here, I am including both "vote X, or else" as well as "if you vote X, I will give you this $SUM money". If it is by structure impossible to show that you complied, it is less likely that either will happen.
• camillomiller 6y ago
  I think deplatforming is exactly what we need here: neonazi and white supremacists are people who are reliant on easy to use discourse-amplifying platforms. The more you make it difficult for them to gather virtually, the more you’re breaking the spell that keeps them together. Before social media, physical neonazi or white supremacy chapter had A LOT of work to do to radicalize people, and were very easy to police and keep under control. With online-based organizational tools, radicalization became easier and harder to patrol. Do you think a random Arkansas soccer mom would have ever joined anything as crazy as Q-anon conspiracy, if she had to attend Q-anon chapter in person instead of participating in an online forum while doing the laundry?
  • koheripbal 6y ago
    There's a contradiction in your argument. On one hand, you claim these platforms "amplify" hate speech, and on the other hand, you want to push them to other platforms. ...but it is exactly that isolation that create the bubble induced amplification of hate-speech. If everyone was forced to exist on the same platform (as a though experiment) then hate-speech would have to co-exist with rational thinkers and their hateful ideas might not propagate much. ...but the moment you ban/deplatform/censor/etc... then they begin to form isolated groups with no counter-balance of rationality.
    • throwaway2245 6y ago
      > ...but the moment you ban/deplatform/censor/etc... then they begin to form isolated groups with no counter-balance of rationality. The first such group that comes to mind is Heaven's Gate, which I think illustrates the opposite: A brief reading of Wikipedia suggests to me that key members arrived in place via media attention, even though they spent significant other effort trying to recruit members. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven's_Gate_(religious_group)#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven's_Gate_(religious_group...
    • pixl97 6y ago
      Have you been discussing this online with people that fervently believe the election was fraudulent? It is eerily similar to talking with someone in a cult. Any 'evidence' you present to them will be taken and 'debunked' by their fellow cult members. There is already no counter balance. Breaking up their platforms into smaller pieces is actually helpful and will keep them from readily finding new members on the internet.
• ksec 6y ago
  And I just I want to add, As long as the Internet exist, ( not only the Web, but the Net ) you are only pushing these people to other places. And possibly to an invitation only sub group. They will form its circle in Telegram or other means of media. A bit slower than they first appeared. But the power of internet meant that movement is still relatively quick. And with the power of Hyperlink, news and information spread just as fast as they are in a single group. So the platform isn't Facebook, Twitter or Youtube, It is the Internet. Or the name information super highway really describe the point better. Which sort of brings the question of regulating the internet but we wont go into that for now. There is another point wroth mentioning. The making of decent fake news that cant be easily rebutted is far easier than the time and money required to spent for Fact Checking. Not to mention most people dont bother Fact Checking in the first place. Having been on the other side of the fence with freedom of speech taken away, I agree with parent and grand parent; Freedom of speech is of extremely high importance for any free society and should not be taken for granted I think deplatforming is a bad solution to this problem.
• wyh008 6y ago
  I agree that deplatforming is a bad solution to the problem. I don't think there is an easy solution to "the problem", certainly not by tech companies. The response by tech companies is more like an emergency response to a dangerously close attempt to overthrow the government. It is an incredible show of power by the tech companies, and I am sure both political camps have taken notice regardless of their preferences in this particular case. I think the free speech issue may be a little overblown here. I would be really concerned if cable companies stop carrying Fox News, but I get that this is a slippery slope. However, I think at the end of the slippery slope is not really the end of free speech, but rather two completely separate echo chambers each with its own mega distribution channels.
• stjohnswarts 6y ago
  The government has been shutting down death threats and open sedition since the birth of the United States. There's a difference between free speech and saying "i'm going to go down to the capitol and put _______ head on a spike" . That's not free speech that's a threat. "Let's blow up ____________" is also a threat and not free speech. Also facebook, twitter, etc should not host such things, and they decided not to, thus this really isn't about free speech in the Constitution and no one really has ever had a right to post such things anywhere unless they have a contract that says it, and such a contract would be illegal anyway. The government didn't force AWS to remove Parler.