4 ms·

> The most abhorrent idea of all to me is that there are stupid, weak people that are worse than "us" Not what I said. However the idea that everyone is equall

by Nursie 5y ago

> The most abhorrent idea of all to me is that there are stupid, weak people that are worse than "us" Not what I said. However the idea that everyone is equally able to parse out good information from bad is absurd, and I make no claims to be one of the group of enlightened ubermensch who should be able to decide for the rest. Neither do I argue that such people exist or are necessary. > we can be adults and let everyone get the same information and make their own choice, or we can go the other way where someone who thinks they know more than us (and you hope it's you but it doesn't have to be) gets to decide. Or we can ditch bland cliches and false dichotomies and look at pragmatic steps that can be taken to, for instance, improve access to good information, improve education around critical thinking, and perhaps (as mentioned in other comments) re-examine things like automated algorithms that feed people ever more extreme content because it increases engagement levels, clicks and ad revenue. But no, of course, you're right, taking any action at all is akin to fascism. Totally.

slibhb 5y ago
> I make no claims to be one of the group of enlightened ubermensch who should be able to decide for the rest I would say you did: > And before anyone asks who I am to judge the best ideas, I'll answer - nobody, but I can see that factually incorrect, scientifically illiterate, conspiratorial, harmful crank ideas gain legs in the online world we've created. Often at the root of these is a profit motive. You asked the right question (who are you to determine the truth?) but then you didn't answer it. You continued on to imply that, in fact, you are in a position to sort out what's true unlike those other, inferior people who fall for conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. > Or we can ditch bland cliches and false dichotomies and look at pragmatic steps that can be taken to, for instance, improve access to good information, improve education around critical thinking, and perhaps (as mentioned in other comments) re-examine things like automated algorithms that feed people ever more extreme content because it increases engagement levels, clicks and ad revenue. "Improving access to good information" is usually a euphemism for some kind of censorship. As far as I'm concerned, all of these "problems" are not problems, they're justifications for controlling other people and expressions of impotent rage at the failure to control those people. I'm vaccinated and I voted for Biden but I do not understand why peope care that others decide not to get vaccinated or voted for the other guy. Part of freedom is the freedom to be wrong. I think these are not new problems. Democracy, pluralism, free speech, trial by jury, etc are our solutions to these problems. They aren't particularly satisfying solutions because, as you said in your first post, the truth doesn't always win. Rather they're tragic compromises. But I don't see any serious suggestions about how we should improve them.
- Nursie 5y ago
  > You continued on to imply that, in fact, you are in a position to sort out what's true unlike those other, inferior people who fall for conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. You missed that I was drawing a distinction between what is commonly thought of as the market place of ideas - in which rational discourse and honest debate enables people to learn, compare, agree and disagree, find greater truths, learn, etc etc - and the spread of misinformation based on falsehood, often perpetuated for profit. We absolutely can, as a society, say that (for example) misinformation about vaccines, where we are dealing with matters of fact, is not on a level with actual vaccine science. This is not really up for honest debate. We can debate until the cows come home about what it means, whether any opinions should be drawn or any action taken, but motivated lies are just not on the same footing as factual information. > "Improving access to good information" is usually a euphemism for some kind of censorship. You assume bad faith here, again. I think there’s a lot can be done by way of giving access to scientific information in accessible ways. > I'm vaccinated and I voted for Biden but I do not understand why peope care that others decide not to get vaccinated Well firstly Because that decision affects more than just those individuals, and puts others (including the already vaccinated and those who cannot be vaccinated) at risk. And secondly because some of those making the decision not to vaccinate, and putting themselves at risk, have done so armed with bad information. The nature of the problems may not be new, but the scale and severity seem to be.
  - exporectomy 5y ago
    > with actual vaccine science Who decides what that is? Plenty of actual scientists publish papers in actual science journals that conflict with each other and with official public health advice. The whole vaccines cause autism idea came from what looked like actual vaccine science. Knowledge isn't actually that sure. Sometimes the authorities are wrong. Remember when bread was at the bottom of the food pyramid? > but the scale and severity seem to be. Seem to be or actually are? Are you using "facts" or media sensationalization to form your opinion?
    - Nursie 5y ago
      So there’s no way at all, to your mind, to distinguish millions of shitposts about “The covid vaccine causes infertility, and contains 5G chips” from, for instance, genuine risk information? We truly are swimming in a world in which nothing is true. Or you are anyway.
zamalek 5y ago
> improve education around critical thinking, Aye. This would improve so many things. Critical thinking is, in fact, not an instinctual ability. It's perfectly okay to talk mathematics illiteracy, but propaganda literacy? "No, no, we can't imply that people aren't capable of thinking for themselves." We have multiple historical instances of extremely successful disinformation campaigns, and people fell for it en-masse. These "let people decide" trolls are effectively correlating critical thinking skills with intelligence, and it's patently absurd. Philosophers, some of the greatest thinkers there are/were, have spent years of their lives pondering the art of critical thinking.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  Educating people with better critical thinkings skills is great. Deciding that educating people is too hard and that we need to allow large monopilistic platforms to decide what can be said with zero liability is much less good. Mandating data interoperability between platforms seems like a good middle ground that allows diversity of moderation while reducing the monopoloatic power of large platforms.
monkeybutton 5y ago
I don't understand how one could look at the current state of affairs regarding rampant misinformation online and say "yeah this is the best we can do without compromising our ideals". Its not good enough.
- hrh 5y ago
  I think that's the real issue in all of this discussion: there is simply no will. It's too hard, it's too impossible, we've decided big tech has already won, we've ceded decades of open progress in tech to moguls who don't give the fuck about us, or we're so ideological that any step to the "left" or "right" is perceived as abdicating principles of freedom. My gp was a former-Jew (thanks anti-semites) that flew over nazi germany. My other grandfather served in Europe after that whole debacle. I feel I have as much right as anyone to say that it's bullshit going on Reddit and running into the same hateful misinformation on every thread, of "arguing" with holocaust deniers on conspiracy that think Sly Stallone kisses dolphins, use the same canards they've been suing for 2k years, and I can promise you were the first to notice my crypto-Jewishness. These same dummies love Q and have never found covid information that fit their narrative that they didn't love. We really gonna relitigate (and lose) historical issues like the Holocaust for the next 10,000 years? We gonna sit by and whine about "principles" as people are murdered on a daily basis because of misinformation like that? That's not good enough. What marketplace of ideas? How many serious challenges have there been to big tech by any company in the last decade? What freedom is there if you can't walk out your front door without being directly impacted by disinformation of various kinds on a daily basis?
  - Zpalmtree 5y ago
    Who is being murdered on a daily basis because of holocaust deniers?
    - hrh 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_synagogue_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_synagogue_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Jersey_City_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Jersey_City_shooting Every day? No. But when it's 2021 and you gotta worry about getting gunned down for being a Jew? Putin loves to use anti-Semitic rhetoric when convenient. Which is the big part of this...the stand pat and do nothing approach doesn't work when the resources of nation states can (logically) and have been behind harnessing disinformation. The Jewish issue isn't the only issue, better examples might be the Christchurch shooting where the gunman was livestreaming on and because of 4chan. If you get a chance check out HBO's doc about Jim Watkins and Q.

by Nursie 5y ago

slibhb 5y ago

> I make no claims to be one of the group of enlightened ubermensch who should be able to decide for the rest I would say you did: > And before anyone asks who I am to judge the best ideas, I'll answer - nobody, but I can see that factually incorrect, scientifically illiterate, conspiratorial, harmful crank ideas gain legs in the online world we've created. Often at the root of these is a profit motive. You asked the right question (who are you to determine the truth?) but then you didn't answer it. You continued on to imply that, in fact, you are in a position to sort out what's true unlike those other, inferior people who fall for conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. > Or we can ditch bland cliches and false dichotomies and look at pragmatic steps that can be taken to, for instance, improve access to good information, improve education around critical thinking, and perhaps (as mentioned in other comments) re-examine things like automated algorithms that feed people ever more extreme content because it increases engagement levels, clicks and ad revenue. "Improving access to good information" is usually a euphemism for some kind of censorship. As far as I'm concerned, all of these "problems" are not problems, they're justifications for controlling other people and expressions of impotent rage at the failure to control those people. I'm vaccinated and I voted for Biden but I do not understand why peope care that others decide not to get vaccinated or voted for the other guy. Part of freedom is the freedom to be wrong. I think these are not new problems. Democracy, pluralism, free speech, trial by jury, etc are our solutions to these problems. They aren't particularly satisfying solutions because, as you said in your first post, the truth doesn't always win. Rather they're tragic compromises. But I don't see any serious suggestions about how we should improve them.

Nursie 5y ago
> You continued on to imply that, in fact, you are in a position to sort out what's true unlike those other, inferior people who fall for conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. You missed that I was drawing a distinction between what is commonly thought of as the market place of ideas - in which rational discourse and honest debate enables people to learn, compare, agree and disagree, find greater truths, learn, etc etc - and the spread of misinformation based on falsehood, often perpetuated for profit. We absolutely can, as a society, say that (for example) misinformation about vaccines, where we are dealing with matters of fact, is not on a level with actual vaccine science. This is not really up for honest debate. We can debate until the cows come home about what it means, whether any opinions should be drawn or any action taken, but motivated lies are just not on the same footing as factual information. > "Improving access to good information" is usually a euphemism for some kind of censorship. You assume bad faith here, again. I think there’s a lot can be done by way of giving access to scientific information in accessible ways. > I'm vaccinated and I voted for Biden but I do not understand why peope care that others decide not to get vaccinated Well firstly Because that decision affects more than just those individuals, and puts others (including the already vaccinated and those who cannot be vaccinated) at risk. And secondly because some of those making the decision not to vaccinate, and putting themselves at risk, have done so armed with bad information. The nature of the problems may not be new, but the scale and severity seem to be.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  > with actual vaccine science Who decides what that is? Plenty of actual scientists publish papers in actual science journals that conflict with each other and with official public health advice. The whole vaccines cause autism idea came from what looked like actual vaccine science. Knowledge isn't actually that sure. Sometimes the authorities are wrong. Remember when bread was at the bottom of the food pyramid? > but the scale and severity seem to be. Seem to be or actually are? Are you using "facts" or media sensationalization to form your opinion?
  - Nursie 5y ago
    So there’s no way at all, to your mind, to distinguish millions of shitposts about “The covid vaccine causes infertility, and contains 5G chips” from, for instance, genuine risk information? We truly are swimming in a world in which nothing is true. Or you are anyway.

zamalek 5y ago

> improve education around critical thinking, Aye. This would improve so many things. Critical thinking is, in fact, not an instinctual ability. It's perfectly okay to talk mathematics illiteracy, but propaganda literacy? "No, no, we can't imply that people aren't capable of thinking for themselves." We have multiple historical instances of extremely successful disinformation campaigns, and people fell for it en-masse. These "let people decide" trolls are effectively correlating critical thinking skills with intelligence, and it's patently absurd. Philosophers, some of the greatest thinkers there are/were, have spent years of their lives pondering the art of critical thinking.

shkkmo 5y ago
Educating people with better critical thinkings skills is great. Deciding that educating people is too hard and that we need to allow large monopilistic platforms to decide what can be said with zero liability is much less good. Mandating data interoperability between platforms seems like a good middle ground that allows diversity of moderation while reducing the monopoloatic power of large platforms.

monkeybutton 5y ago

I don't understand how one could look at the current state of affairs regarding rampant misinformation online and say "yeah this is the best we can do without compromising our ideals". Its not good enough.

hrh 5y ago
I think that's the real issue in all of this discussion: there is simply no will. It's too hard, it's too impossible, we've decided big tech has already won, we've ceded decades of open progress in tech to moguls who don't give the fuck about us, or we're so ideological that any step to the "left" or "right" is perceived as abdicating principles of freedom. My gp was a former-Jew (thanks anti-semites) that flew over nazi germany. My other grandfather served in Europe after that whole debacle. I feel I have as much right as anyone to say that it's bullshit going on Reddit and running into the same hateful misinformation on every thread, of "arguing" with holocaust deniers on conspiracy that think Sly Stallone kisses dolphins, use the same canards they've been suing for 2k years, and I can promise you were the first to notice my crypto-Jewishness. These same dummies love Q and have never found covid information that fit their narrative that they didn't love. We really gonna relitigate (and lose) historical issues like the Holocaust for the next 10,000 years? We gonna sit by and whine about "principles" as people are murdered on a daily basis because of misinformation like that? That's not good enough. What marketplace of ideas? How many serious challenges have there been to big tech by any company in the last decade? What freedom is there if you can't walk out your front door without being directly impacted by disinformation of various kinds on a daily basis?
- Zpalmtree 5y ago
  Who is being murdered on a daily basis because of holocaust deniers?
  - hrh 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_synagogue_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_synagogue_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Jersey_City_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Jersey_City_shooting Every day? No. But when it's 2021 and you gotta worry about getting gunned down for being a Jew? Putin loves to use anti-Semitic rhetoric when convenient. Which is the big part of this...the stand pat and do nothing approach doesn't work when the resources of nation states can (logically) and have been behind harnessing disinformation. The Jewish issue isn't the only issue, better examples might be the Christchurch shooting where the gunman was livestreaming on and because of 4chan. If you get a chance check out HBO's doc about Jim Watkins and Q.