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The problem is that now we have all of these discussions on a stage in front of a mob. Discourse is no longer a tool we use to approach a better mutual underst

The problem is that now we have all of these discussions on a stage in front of a mob. Discourse is no longer a tool we use to approach a better mutual understanding, it’s a gladiator match where there has to be a loser and a winner. I’ve run into this problem with people who use a lot of twitter. They would keep asking me to “state my position”, and also demand it to be about 1 sentence long. The problem being…I don’t usually have a “position”, but rather I have a set of things which haven’t yet been proven false. So it’s really a body of existing understanding, not an individual idea, which should be examined as part of a discussion. (I run into this problem with young people, in real life). An prescient example might be my dislike of electronic voting machines. If I say this in public, to the audience that grew up on twitter, they’ll accuse me of being a Republican, an insurrectionist, racist, ivermectin conspiracist anti vaxxer. I’m none of those things (although ever day I become close to being some sort of Republican), but the more complex discussion isn’t really possible on twitter. Because that is where so many people learn how to interact with others, snd where they learn to derive understanding, it doesn’t matter. And even trying to explain that some of these ideas can be bad independently springs some sort of Kafka trap. Here’s a fantastic article that I think lays out a version of the problem: https://newdiscourses.com/2020/07/woke-wont-debate-you-heres-why/ https://newdiscourses.com/2020/07/woke-wont-debate-you-heres...

52-6F-62 5y ago
It's kind of a youthful trait, isn't it? An idealism that may carry a ton of insight, really, but no understanding of application. So they think complicated things shouldn't be complicated and get angry about it. (I did. The Great Recession landed at a critical age in my life) They demand simple answers, because complicated ones take too long and require real attention and dedication. People grow out of that. While their politics may not change, usually their approach and understanding do. For any of the good it's done, it seems like Twitter has arrested that other process. Maybe it's the immediacy, or the audience, or the format, or a combination—don't know. But it used to be the only place you found that kind of squabbling was talk radio, cable TV, or a bar—easily avoidable and not as polluting of regular discourse.
- yowlingcat 5y ago
  Twitter has certainly accelerated it. I recently lost a previously intelligent and talented long-time friend who struggled with mental illness to Twitter. He only started seriously getting into it a year and a half ago when the pandemic started, but the difference was stark. Gone was his usual curiosity and desire to engage in debate -- his interactions began to simplify into snarky one-liners. And to disagree with anything he said was to invite the real life equivalent of a quote tweet clapback. It's like dealing with a cult member. I used to like Twitter. I still do. But now, feeling personally the way it exacerbates things for those who struggle with mental illness -- it's hard to not feel like it (and Facebook) are deeply complicit in harvesting mental illness for the attention economy. I was fortunate to not have family members or close friends radicalized by media outlets into becoming insufferable people to be around, but now that my luck has run out, I feel a lot more empathy for the pain so many others have gone through. There's nothing new about it besides the scale (other media obviously predates it). But society and especially the most vulnerable members are not handling or even recognizing this mental contagion very well if at all.
  - bityard 5y ago
    I'm sorry for your loss. I am hopeful that within our lifetime, humanity will figure out that social networks as currently implemented are a net loss in terms of damage to mental health, communication skills, isolation from meaningful human contact, and time wasted.
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  > It's kind of a youthful trait, isn't it? […]People grow out of that. I wish you were right, but I've met enough angry mobs of 50 to 70 people online to know you aren't unfortunately. Face to face, people are usually pretty civil and they don't easily call name on one another (because you know, a punch in the face is just painful), but even in real life, when the discussion happens in front of a group, discussions are quickly getting hotter. And being separated by a screen and an internet connection make things far worse.
  - 5y ago
chippy 5y ago
Another ultimate irony is that people who can see part of the problem will say "it's always the other side that polarizes things" without seeing that this makes the problem.
duxup 5y ago
It often feels to me like the more recent brand of this behavior is something like perfectly valid study of social phenomenon (revolving around social justice at this point) on a macro level where it makes sense .... then taken by some to use on a micro level with individuals where it stops making sense. Obama had a speech where he noted the futility of talking to someone about their privilege ... when that person as far as they're concerned has had a hard life and everything stacked against them. And maybe that person is right, they did have a hard life / quite the opposite of privilege. The macro study and ideas aren't wrong, but they don't work at a micro level. The same extends now to phrases / patterns or any indicators at a macro level we associate with injustice ... and folks take them out like a guy with only a hammer to use and apply them to groups and individuals at a micro level that stops making sense. A family member of mine is a teacher. They recently had a big discussion about how minority students (a specific minority actually) were more likely to be assigned to special ed services. Some folks identified this as troubling behavior as it was seen as a path where students would be stereotyped or other undesirable things might happen because of it. The teachers listened to the concerns and presentation by some groups... but they're left wondering what to do when the 4th of 10 students who is this minority comes in to be evaluated and clearly needs help ... On a macro and even historical level the concerns are valid and sometimes special ed in the past was used poorly. On a micro level now what do these teachers do with kids who need help? Applying these concepts on a micro level without understanding the individual / individual situation isn't justice...
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > Obama had a speech where he noted the futility of talking to someone about their privilege ... when that person as far as they're concerned has had a hard life and everything stacked against them. And maybe that person is right, they did have a hard life / quite the opposite of privilege. This resonates true in tech. I know (white) developers who grew up poor. Poor as in, hide anything you have else it'll get pawned. Poor as in it doesn't matter the fridge is broken: since the electric bill is late the whole house is freezing anyways. Then they get invited into diversity trainings and told that they are privileged, oppressors and should acknowledge it. Ohh and there's now a diverse hiring program which, so far, has hired three Ivy League educated sons of wealthy Nigerians.
vlovich123 5y ago
Wait, being against electronic machines is a Republican position? Back in the 2000s this felt more like a tech literate position with most supporters being Democrats. My recollection is that Republicans under Bush oversaw a significant largest expansion of electronic voting (which probably explains the larger Democratic opposition at the time vs it being some genuinely held principle). I'm not a Republican but I'm certainly only for some forms electronic voting where it's possible to manually verify[1] (e.g. Scantron). The more complicated machines that print a scantron for you should be reserved for the minority of people who actually need it for accessibility or language purposes. [1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/04/securing_electi_1.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/04/securing_elec...
- eplanit 5y ago
  People seemed to have forgotten the Diebold voting machines, and their provably insecure implementation... and the conspiracy theories about Bush benefiting from it. Odd how that was a liberal position at the time, and nobody called them names.
  - sophacles 5y ago
    > Odd how that was a liberal position at the time, and nobody called them names. I was with you until you threw in a blatant lie. Being against electronic voting has always been a position that got negative comments, insults etc. (unless foolish, luddite, naive, afraid, and so on are not insults anymore? Or maybe you don't consider them insults when your side issues them?). Perhaps you didn't experience that, or maybe you are just doing the whole "rose-colored glasses" view on the past thing. Either way, your statement about how no one called "them" names is just a sad attempt at throwing in a little dig, one that has no basis in reality, no real facts behind it, and only serves to divide everyone.
    - AndrewUnmuted 5y ago
      I think you're failing to apply the appropriate context to the situation back then. Your framing of the Hursti Hack [0] and how socially acceptable it is to discuss its merits does not seem to consider the very different way society tended to handle things like this in those days. Society has changed a lot. During the Bush/Kerry race I distinctly remember that being against the voting machines was decidedly counter-culture, but definitely not indicative of being a luddite or naive. Back then, being counter-culture was "cool," and only a sliver of the population actually cared to take a position against it. The considerable research and publication [1] related to this incident helps demonstrate that society saw this issue in quite a different light a mere 15 years ago. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hursti_Hack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hursti_Hack [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20161202140146/https://www.supportthevoter.gov/files/2013/09/VSTAAB-Security-Analysis-of-Diebold-AccuBasic-Interpreter-2006.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20161202140146/https://www.suppo...
yann2 5y ago
You got to deal with them the same way you deal with a herd of Buffalo. As long as the herd is running in circles, its not going to run of a cliff or into the sea. So keep them running in circles and stay out of the center. Stone age man knew how to do that, so I am quite confident we will survive Twitter and the stampeding herds it generates.
deleted 5y ago
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vlunkr 5y ago
Also, if you try to say neither side is right on some issue, you'll be called an "enlightened centrist" ironically. Because you know, you're supposed to pick one side and believe they're right on everything, like some sort of school rivalry.
- bityard 5y ago
  Off-topic story time: A few years back I had a conversation with a friend of mine. I knew we both leaned left on a lot of the same things but this particular day we started talking about politics. Turns out he was a rather devoted democrat. I eventually came around to mentioning my belief that the two-party system was the worst thing about our democracy and that both parties basically exist only to fight each other, which means rationality is by default excluded from US politics. Wow, he did not like that one bit. I'm pretty sure we would still be speaking today if I just lied and said I was a republican!
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    Well, I wouldn't stop talking to you for thinking that - if you are a decent person with the attempt to defend your points, I wouldn't want to sever that for a single misunderstanding or disagreement. To move off-topic, it is infuriating that people think the Democratic party (and the people who vote for that party) are effectively the same in their stated policy goals as the Republican Party. I believe the two party system is awful, and I think the need for large reforms of our voting systems to something (anything) other than first-past-the-post is critical. Golly Gee, which party is advancing infrastructural changes to voting and districting for the advancement of democracy? Two party system is bad. Democratic party has its own issues of political machinery and infighting. ALSO they are objectively a hell of a lot more pro-democracy and pro-America than the Republican party.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  It always amuses me how the prevailing criticism of moderates or centrists is always some compliment levied in a scathing tone. Those dastardly centrists, always waiting for conclusive information before jumping to conclusions!
CreateAccntAgn 5y ago
One can be again EVMs without holding the position that they were used to transfer votes to Biden illegally and stole the election from Trump. Was that your position? Did you try stating that?
lhorie 5y ago
Unfortunately I'm finding this sort of us-vs-them mentality starting to creep up even around HN, even though the guidelines suggest to assume good faith. It's particularly weird when you play devil's advocate on some topic (which is really just a tool to promote evaluating topics from a different perspective) and people start jumping at you with pitchforks assuming you're "against" them. Last year, some thinktanks were saying that Trump giving voice to far-right was dangerous precisely because it shifted narratives in ways that extremists from both sides would start to feel validated and come out of the woodwork, and now here we are. I've read about a similar trend regarding portrayal of China in western media and their sentiment towards us in return. Frankly it's everywhere now. On the one hand we try to teach our kids that calling each other names and escalating fights leads nowhere, but then we turn around to look at social media and it feels like people never got that memo themselves. I'm always trying to avoid falling into that trap. A quote from Dalai Lama that always stuck with me is "I'd rather be kind than right, you can always be kind". There's a bunch of other similar quotes, and it's interesting that a lot of them are about self-improvement (ironically, self-improvement the same spiritual aspect that people criticize "religious" zealots for ditching nowadays)
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  HN is the most good-faith forum I visit. I think there is some allergy to centrism/both-sides-ism because there are so many trolls on other forums trying to subvert true discussion, by slipping in one centrist/contrarian viewpoint then use that as a wedge to support all their other stances.
- finder83 5y ago
  That's a great quote. For me, it usually ends up that I need to just be silent and ask questions. And yet more and more, people are forcing an opinion, essentially taking the "If you're not with us, you're against us" stance, regardless of if I agree or disagree or how much I validate their own thought process. Just pondering, why are people not allowed to keep their opinions to themselves now, especially if they are doing so to be kind to the other person? My own opinion is often that the reality of people and situations is nuanced, and blanket policies don't work at all levels. But even that is an unacceptable position in peoples' eyes.
scythe 5y ago
On a few occasions, I have quit interesting arguments with people I respect, because it was in public Facebook comments and I could feel (and see, via reactions) the baying crowds forming camps on either side. And sure, hypothetically it could go to PMs, but these weren't close friends. "Gladiatorial" is exactly the kind of feeling I get from it. I don't think messageboards used to be this way before the proliferation of 'share' buttons and engagement-tracking algorithms. In the old days, people had to choose based on the thread title whether they wanted to read it. Today, Facebook notifies you: Trevor and Dan are going at it again.
sharikone 5y ago
Probably I am lucky but I don't meet a lot of people who use Twitter outside Twitter. I believe that Twitter is not a cultural influencer as much as a product used by people who already have a rather shallow philosophy. So I do not buy into the cultural decadence argument since they fail to convince me that Twitter-like media significantly influence people behavior.
- vlunkr 5y ago
  I don't know, I think Trump was Twitter incarnate. It's the ideal platform him: shallow philosophy represented in short, attention grabbing snippets. Naturally, it's where he first grew into popularity as a political figure.
- DenisM 5y ago
  What do you make of academia’s complete embrace of Twitter?
  - Scea91 5y ago
    Just an anecdote, but on Friday I posted a tweet about a research paper we did jointly with University. Both the main researcher (post-doc) and the professor we cooperated with do not have twitter accounts. Is there a stat somewhere about how many academics use twitter?
rrauenza 5y ago
I forwarded that article to someone and they pointed out that much of it could also apply to the right -- particularly in the anti-vax, anti-mask, stop the steal segments. > Debate and conversation, especially when they rely upon reason, rationality, science, evidence, epistemic adequacy, and other Enlightenment-based tools of persuasion are the very thing they think produced injustice in the world in the first place. Those are not their methods and they reject them. Their methods are, instead, storytelling and counter-storytelling, appealing to emotions and subjectively interpreted lived experience [...] Having seen much of the education system focus in the past on writing how you "feel" about a subject rather than "evidence based" writing (thank goodness for common core!)... I'm not surprised.
- pas 5y ago
  > writing how you "feel" about a subject rather than "evidence based" writing ... but ... these are both important. a healthy human mind has and needs both. it's important to look at data, evidence, useful models, and then it's also very important to accept that sometimes (and nowadays many times!) it conflicts with our gut instinct, this makes us feel frustrated, and yeah, we need to learn to process this. one without the other is either complete dogmatic rage/jihad or literally just mindless computation ("fact finding").
habeebtc 5y ago
> Discourse is no longer a tool we use to approach a better mutual understanding, it’s a gladiator match where there has to be a loser and a winner. This is affecting all parts of our culture. High school debate is starting to see the same sort of techniques seen in online discourse: Winning at all costs. Which leads to talking over people, steamrolling, shouting matches, the gish-gallop.
tomjen3 5y ago
I still think you can have good discussions, but you have to enforce the Chattenham house rule and be willing to boot anybody who breaks it. With the rule in place, and perhaps a moderator, it is very hard to play politics and very easy to learn something. With a chaotic neutral AI, optimized for engagement (Twitter), you can only have conflict.
- akomtu 5y ago
  That "AI" is more like a mythical demon that feeds off anger, so it does everything it can to create that anger.
deleted 5y ago
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eigengrau5150 5y ago
> I’ve run into this problem with people who use a lot of twitter. They would keep asking me to “state my position”, and also demand it to be about 1 sentence long. I get this too, and my answer is almost always, "My position is militant neutrality. Don't drag me into your pissing contest because I'll piss on /you/ first." When I get it on social media, I block the offender. I didn't have time for this bullshit when PC was a big deal back in the 1990s, and 30 years have not improved the taste. Sure, I've got no friends; but that's nothing new because I've been /cancelled since kindergarten/. You either get used to it, or you kill yourself like a pussy. Besides, I don't really know where I stand. It depends on the issue. I mean, I've got as big a hard-on for the First Amendment as I do for the Second. I think everybody has the right to speak their mind, even if it's offensive or blasphemous; and they have the right to go around with a fully-automatic Kalashnikov slung over their shoulder if that makes them feel more secure. I think that if you work for a living you shouldn't have to pay taxes, but if your wealth comes from capital gains then you should be taxed to within an inch of your life. But the world seems to have moved on without me. Alice Cooper was dealing with right-wing cancel culture in the 1970s, but he could take it in stride, which is why we have songs like "No More Mr. Nice Guy" from /Billion Dollar Babies/ and "Go To Hell" from /Alice Cooper Goes to Hell/. In the 1980s, we had people waffling over whether Salman Rushdie had it coming when the pigfucking Ayatollah issued a death sentence /in absentia/ over a fucking novel that nobody was being forced to read. Hell, if Salman Rushdie published /The Satanic Verses/ today and the current Ayatollah demanded his execution his publisher would probably have him kidnapped, gift-wrapped, and put on a one-way charter flight to Tehran. When did having a spine and refusing to put up with bullies become a right-wing thing, anyway? > Here’s a fantastic article that I think lays out a version of the problem... According to P. Z. Myers, New Discourses and James Lindsay are backed by far-right Christian supremacist Michael O'Fallon—and if you read closely half the material on New Discourses sounds like alt-reich propaganda. https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2020/08/09/the-grift-oh-the-grift/ https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2020/08/09/the-grift... By all means, despise the woke. They /richly/ deserve it. But don't assume that the enemy of your enemy is a friend. Right-wing Christians are barely friends to each other, don't count on them being your friend. PS: If P.Z. Meyers is too "woke" for you, try Aaron Rabinowitz, who Meyers links. https://voidpod.com/podcasts/2020/7/9/ev-150-sovereign-nations-and-the-grievance-hoaxers https://voidpod.com/podcasts/2020/7/9/ev-150-sovereign-natio...
unethical_ban 5y ago
An interesting site, and I don't want to reject it out of hand, but I find it humorous that a site run almost entirely by one person, and whose author claims to be a "leading expert" on CRT and thus rejects it, and which hosts articles entirely deriding the "woke" and "CRT" movements, claims to be apolitical and open-minded in nature.
908B64B197 5y ago
> I’ve run into this problem with people who use a lot of twitter. They would keep asking me to “state my position”, and also demand it to be about 1 sentence long. The problem being…I don’t usually have a “position”, but rather I have a set of things which haven’t yet been proven false. It's like choosing between two bad options at a restaurant. Then you suggest going to a completely different restaurant and all you get is blank stares, like you suggested something they can't imagine. Quite like the "NPC" meme that was deemed so "problematic" Reminds me of Yann LeCun quitting Twitter [0] after basically getting mobbed by "AI ethicists" (you'll recognize some names in the article...). Yann, of course, responded with explanations and technical expertise but realized at some point he was battling with a non-technical crowd that were trying to turn the conversation into identity politics. [0] https://syncedreview.com/2020/06/30/yann-lecun-quits-twitter-amid-acrimonious-exchanges-on-ai-bias/ https://syncedreview.com/2020/06/30/yann-lecun-quits-twitter...
raxxorrax 5y ago
Every discussion on the internet is an argument and it is automatically treated that way by now. Sometime if you write a response to an answer and agree with it, the original author still justifies himself because it is perceived as a counter argument. Happens more on certain platforms than on others. > they’ll accuse me [...] Because they are afraid. They need this rigidity to feel safe and another symptom is becoming an authoritarian mind. A simple image of an enemy helps too.

52-6F-62 5y ago

It's kind of a youthful trait, isn't it? An idealism that may carry a ton of insight, really, but no understanding of application. So they think complicated things shouldn't be complicated and get angry about it. (I did. The Great Recession landed at a critical age in my life) They demand simple answers, because complicated ones take too long and require real attention and dedication. People grow out of that. While their politics may not change, usually their approach and understanding do. For any of the good it's done, it seems like Twitter has arrested that other process. Maybe it's the immediacy, or the audience, or the format, or a combination—don't know. But it used to be the only place you found that kind of squabbling was talk radio, cable TV, or a bar—easily avoidable and not as polluting of regular discourse.

yowlingcat 5y ago
Twitter has certainly accelerated it. I recently lost a previously intelligent and talented long-time friend who struggled with mental illness to Twitter. He only started seriously getting into it a year and a half ago when the pandemic started, but the difference was stark. Gone was his usual curiosity and desire to engage in debate -- his interactions began to simplify into snarky one-liners. And to disagree with anything he said was to invite the real life equivalent of a quote tweet clapback. It's like dealing with a cult member. I used to like Twitter. I still do. But now, feeling personally the way it exacerbates things for those who struggle with mental illness -- it's hard to not feel like it (and Facebook) are deeply complicit in harvesting mental illness for the attention economy. I was fortunate to not have family members or close friends radicalized by media outlets into becoming insufferable people to be around, but now that my luck has run out, I feel a lot more empathy for the pain so many others have gone through. There's nothing new about it besides the scale (other media obviously predates it). But society and especially the most vulnerable members are not handling or even recognizing this mental contagion very well if at all.
- bityard 5y ago
  I'm sorry for your loss. I am hopeful that within our lifetime, humanity will figure out that social networks as currently implemented are a net loss in terms of damage to mental health, communication skills, isolation from meaningful human contact, and time wasted.
littlestymaar 5y ago
> It's kind of a youthful trait, isn't it? […]People grow out of that. I wish you were right, but I've met enough angry mobs of 50 to 70 people online to know you aren't unfortunately. Face to face, people are usually pretty civil and they don't easily call name on one another (because you know, a punch in the face is just painful), but even in real life, when the discussion happens in front of a group, discussions are quickly getting hotter. And being separated by a screen and an internet connection make things far worse.
- 5y ago

chippy 5y ago

Another ultimate irony is that people who can see part of the problem will say "it's always the other side that polarizes things" without seeing that this makes the problem.

duxup 5y ago

It often feels to me like the more recent brand of this behavior is something like perfectly valid study of social phenomenon (revolving around social justice at this point) on a macro level where it makes sense .... then taken by some to use on a micro level with individuals where it stops making sense. Obama had a speech where he noted the futility of talking to someone about their privilege ... when that person as far as they're concerned has had a hard life and everything stacked against them. And maybe that person is right, they did have a hard life / quite the opposite of privilege. The macro study and ideas aren't wrong, but they don't work at a micro level. The same extends now to phrases / patterns or any indicators at a macro level we associate with injustice ... and folks take them out like a guy with only a hammer to use and apply them to groups and individuals at a micro level that stops making sense. A family member of mine is a teacher. They recently had a big discussion about how minority students (a specific minority actually) were more likely to be assigned to special ed services. Some folks identified this as troubling behavior as it was seen as a path where students would be stereotyped or other undesirable things might happen because of it. The teachers listened to the concerns and presentation by some groups... but they're left wondering what to do when the 4th of 10 students who is this minority comes in to be evaluated and clearly needs help ... On a macro and even historical level the concerns are valid and sometimes special ed in the past was used poorly. On a micro level now what do these teachers do with kids who need help? Applying these concepts on a micro level without understanding the individual / individual situation isn't justice...

908B64B197 5y ago
> Obama had a speech where he noted the futility of talking to someone about their privilege ... when that person as far as they're concerned has had a hard life and everything stacked against them. And maybe that person is right, they did have a hard life / quite the opposite of privilege. This resonates true in tech. I know (white) developers who grew up poor. Poor as in, hide anything you have else it'll get pawned. Poor as in it doesn't matter the fridge is broken: since the electric bill is late the whole house is freezing anyways. Then they get invited into diversity trainings and told that they are privileged, oppressors and should acknowledge it. Ohh and there's now a diverse hiring program which, so far, has hired three Ivy League educated sons of wealthy Nigerians.

vlovich123 5y ago

Wait, being against electronic machines is a Republican position? Back in the 2000s this felt more like a tech literate position with most supporters being Democrats. My recollection is that Republicans under Bush oversaw a significant largest expansion of electronic voting (which probably explains the larger Democratic opposition at the time vs it being some genuinely held principle). I'm not a Republican but I'm certainly only for some forms electronic voting where it's possible to manually verify[1] (e.g. Scantron). The more complicated machines that print a scantron for you should be reserved for the minority of people who actually need it for accessibility or language purposes. [1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/04/securing_electi_1.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/04/securing_elec...

eplanit 5y ago
People seemed to have forgotten the Diebold voting machines, and their provably insecure implementation... and the conspiracy theories about Bush benefiting from it. Odd how that was a liberal position at the time, and nobody called them names.
- sophacles 5y ago
  > Odd how that was a liberal position at the time, and nobody called them names. I was with you until you threw in a blatant lie. Being against electronic voting has always been a position that got negative comments, insults etc. (unless foolish, luddite, naive, afraid, and so on are not insults anymore? Or maybe you don't consider them insults when your side issues them?). Perhaps you didn't experience that, or maybe you are just doing the whole "rose-colored glasses" view on the past thing. Either way, your statement about how no one called "them" names is just a sad attempt at throwing in a little dig, one that has no basis in reality, no real facts behind it, and only serves to divide everyone.
  - AndrewUnmuted 5y ago
    I think you're failing to apply the appropriate context to the situation back then. Your framing of the Hursti Hack [0] and how socially acceptable it is to discuss its merits does not seem to consider the very different way society tended to handle things like this in those days. Society has changed a lot. During the Bush/Kerry race I distinctly remember that being against the voting machines was decidedly counter-culture, but definitely not indicative of being a luddite or naive. Back then, being counter-culture was "cool," and only a sliver of the population actually cared to take a position against it. The considerable research and publication [1] related to this incident helps demonstrate that society saw this issue in quite a different light a mere 15 years ago. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hursti_Hack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hursti_Hack [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20161202140146/https://www.supportthevoter.gov/files/2013/09/VSTAAB-Security-Analysis-of-Diebold-AccuBasic-Interpreter-2006.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20161202140146/https://www.suppo...

yann2 5y ago

You got to deal with them the same way you deal with a herd of Buffalo. As long as the herd is running in circles, its not going to run of a cliff or into the sea. So keep them running in circles and stay out of the center. Stone age man knew how to do that, so I am quite confident we will survive Twitter and the stampeding herds it generates.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

vlunkr 5y ago

Also, if you try to say neither side is right on some issue, you'll be called an "enlightened centrist" ironically. Because you know, you're supposed to pick one side and believe they're right on everything, like some sort of school rivalry.

bityard 5y ago
Off-topic story time: A few years back I had a conversation with a friend of mine. I knew we both leaned left on a lot of the same things but this particular day we started talking about politics. Turns out he was a rather devoted democrat. I eventually came around to mentioning my belief that the two-party system was the worst thing about our democracy and that both parties basically exist only to fight each other, which means rationality is by default excluded from US politics. Wow, he did not like that one bit. I'm pretty sure we would still be speaking today if I just lied and said I was a republican!
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  Well, I wouldn't stop talking to you for thinking that - if you are a decent person with the attempt to defend your points, I wouldn't want to sever that for a single misunderstanding or disagreement. To move off-topic, it is infuriating that people think the Democratic party (and the people who vote for that party) are effectively the same in their stated policy goals as the Republican Party. I believe the two party system is awful, and I think the need for large reforms of our voting systems to something (anything) other than first-past-the-post is critical. Golly Gee, which party is advancing infrastructural changes to voting and districting for the advancement of democracy? Two party system is bad. Democratic party has its own issues of political machinery and infighting. ALSO they are objectively a hell of a lot more pro-democracy and pro-America than the Republican party.
throwaway894345 5y ago
It always amuses me how the prevailing criticism of moderates or centrists is always some compliment levied in a scathing tone. Those dastardly centrists, always waiting for conclusive information before jumping to conclusions!

CreateAccntAgn 5y ago

One can be again EVMs without holding the position that they were used to transfer votes to Biden illegally and stole the election from Trump. Was that your position? Did you try stating that?

lhorie 5y ago

Unfortunately I'm finding this sort of us-vs-them mentality starting to creep up even around HN, even though the guidelines suggest to assume good faith. It's particularly weird when you play devil's advocate on some topic (which is really just a tool to promote evaluating topics from a different perspective) and people start jumping at you with pitchforks assuming you're "against" them. Last year, some thinktanks were saying that Trump giving voice to far-right was dangerous precisely because it shifted narratives in ways that extremists from both sides would start to feel validated and come out of the woodwork, and now here we are. I've read about a similar trend regarding portrayal of China in western media and their sentiment towards us in return. Frankly it's everywhere now. On the one hand we try to teach our kids that calling each other names and escalating fights leads nowhere, but then we turn around to look at social media and it feels like people never got that memo themselves. I'm always trying to avoid falling into that trap. A quote from Dalai Lama that always stuck with me is "I'd rather be kind than right, you can always be kind". There's a bunch of other similar quotes, and it's interesting that a lot of them are about self-improvement (ironically, self-improvement the same spiritual aspect that people criticize "religious" zealots for ditching nowadays)

unethical_ban 5y ago
HN is the most good-faith forum I visit. I think there is some allergy to centrism/both-sides-ism because there are so many trolls on other forums trying to subvert true discussion, by slipping in one centrist/contrarian viewpoint then use that as a wedge to support all their other stances.
finder83 5y ago
That's a great quote. For me, it usually ends up that I need to just be silent and ask questions. And yet more and more, people are forcing an opinion, essentially taking the "If you're not with us, you're against us" stance, regardless of if I agree or disagree or how much I validate their own thought process. Just pondering, why are people not allowed to keep their opinions to themselves now, especially if they are doing so to be kind to the other person? My own opinion is often that the reality of people and situations is nuanced, and blanket policies don't work at all levels. But even that is an unacceptable position in peoples' eyes.

scythe 5y ago

On a few occasions, I have quit interesting arguments with people I respect, because it was in public Facebook comments and I could feel (and see, via reactions) the baying crowds forming camps on either side. And sure, hypothetically it could go to PMs, but these weren't close friends. "Gladiatorial" is exactly the kind of feeling I get from it. I don't think messageboards used to be this way before the proliferation of 'share' buttons and engagement-tracking algorithms. In the old days, people had to choose based on the thread title whether they wanted to read it. Today, Facebook notifies you: Trevor and Dan are going at it again.

sharikone 5y ago

Probably I am lucky but I don't meet a lot of people who use Twitter outside Twitter. I believe that Twitter is not a cultural influencer as much as a product used by people who already have a rather shallow philosophy. So I do not buy into the cultural decadence argument since they fail to convince me that Twitter-like media significantly influence people behavior.

vlunkr 5y ago
I don't know, I think Trump was Twitter incarnate. It's the ideal platform him: shallow philosophy represented in short, attention grabbing snippets. Naturally, it's where he first grew into popularity as a political figure.
DenisM 5y ago
What do you make of academia’s complete embrace of Twitter?
- Scea91 5y ago
  Just an anecdote, but on Friday I posted a tweet about a research paper we did jointly with University. Both the main researcher (post-doc) and the professor we cooperated with do not have twitter accounts. Is there a stat somewhere about how many academics use twitter?

rrauenza 5y ago

I forwarded that article to someone and they pointed out that much of it could also apply to the right -- particularly in the anti-vax, anti-mask, stop the steal segments. > Debate and conversation, especially when they rely upon reason, rationality, science, evidence, epistemic adequacy, and other Enlightenment-based tools of persuasion are the very thing they think produced injustice in the world in the first place. Those are not their methods and they reject them. Their methods are, instead, storytelling and counter-storytelling, appealing to emotions and subjectively interpreted lived experience [...] Having seen much of the education system focus in the past on writing how you "feel" about a subject rather than "evidence based" writing (thank goodness for common core!)... I'm not surprised.

pas 5y ago
> writing how you "feel" about a subject rather than "evidence based" writing ... but ... these are both important. a healthy human mind has and needs both. it's important to look at data, evidence, useful models, and then it's also very important to accept that sometimes (and nowadays many times!) it conflicts with our gut instinct, this makes us feel frustrated, and yeah, we need to learn to process this. one without the other is either complete dogmatic rage/jihad or literally just mindless computation ("fact finding").

habeebtc 5y ago

> Discourse is no longer a tool we use to approach a better mutual understanding, it’s a gladiator match where there has to be a loser and a winner. This is affecting all parts of our culture. High school debate is starting to see the same sort of techniques seen in online discourse: Winning at all costs. Which leads to talking over people, steamrolling, shouting matches, the gish-gallop.

tomjen3 5y ago

I still think you can have good discussions, but you have to enforce the Chattenham house rule and be willing to boot anybody who breaks it. With the rule in place, and perhaps a moderator, it is very hard to play politics and very easy to learn something. With a chaotic neutral AI, optimized for engagement (Twitter), you can only have conflict.

akomtu 5y ago
That "AI" is more like a mythical demon that feeds off anger, so it does everything it can to create that anger.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

eigengrau5150 5y ago

> I’ve run into this problem with people who use a lot of twitter. They would keep asking me to “state my position”, and also demand it to be about 1 sentence long. I get this too, and my answer is almost always, "My position is militant neutrality. Don't drag me into your pissing contest because I'll piss on /you/ first." When I get it on social media, I block the offender. I didn't have time for this bullshit when PC was a big deal back in the 1990s, and 30 years have not improved the taste. Sure, I've got no friends; but that's nothing new because I've been /cancelled since kindergarten/. You either get used to it, or you kill yourself like a pussy. Besides, I don't really know where I stand. It depends on the issue. I mean, I've got as big a hard-on for the First Amendment as I do for the Second. I think everybody has the right to speak their mind, even if it's offensive or blasphemous; and they have the right to go around with a fully-automatic Kalashnikov slung over their shoulder if that makes them feel more secure. I think that if you work for a living you shouldn't have to pay taxes, but if your wealth comes from capital gains then you should be taxed to within an inch of your life. But the world seems to have moved on without me. Alice Cooper was dealing with right-wing cancel culture in the 1970s, but he could take it in stride, which is why we have songs like "No More Mr. Nice Guy" from /Billion Dollar Babies/ and "Go To Hell" from /Alice Cooper Goes to Hell/. In the 1980s, we had people waffling over whether Salman Rushdie had it coming when the pigfucking Ayatollah issued a death sentence /in absentia/ over a fucking novel that nobody was being forced to read. Hell, if Salman Rushdie published /The Satanic Verses/ today and the current Ayatollah demanded his execution his publisher would probably have him kidnapped, gift-wrapped, and put on a one-way charter flight to Tehran. When did having a spine and refusing to put up with bullies become a right-wing thing, anyway? > Here’s a fantastic article that I think lays out a version of the problem... According to P. Z. Myers, New Discourses and James Lindsay are backed by far-right Christian supremacist Michael O'Fallon—and if you read closely half the material on New Discourses sounds like alt-reich propaganda. https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2020/08/09/the-grift-oh-the-grift/ https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2020/08/09/the-grift... By all means, despise the woke. They /richly/ deserve it. But don't assume that the enemy of your enemy is a friend. Right-wing Christians are barely friends to each other, don't count on them being your friend. PS: If P.Z. Meyers is too "woke" for you, try Aaron Rabinowitz, who Meyers links. https://voidpod.com/podcasts/2020/7/9/ev-150-sovereign-nations-and-the-grievance-hoaxers https://voidpod.com/podcasts/2020/7/9/ev-150-sovereign-natio...

unethical_ban 5y ago

An interesting site, and I don't want to reject it out of hand, but I find it humorous that a site run almost entirely by one person, and whose author claims to be a "leading expert" on CRT and thus rejects it, and which hosts articles entirely deriding the "woke" and "CRT" movements, claims to be apolitical and open-minded in nature.

908B64B197 5y ago

> I’ve run into this problem with people who use a lot of twitter. They would keep asking me to “state my position”, and also demand it to be about 1 sentence long. The problem being…I don’t usually have a “position”, but rather I have a set of things which haven’t yet been proven false. It's like choosing between two bad options at a restaurant. Then you suggest going to a completely different restaurant and all you get is blank stares, like you suggested something they can't imagine. Quite like the "NPC" meme that was deemed so "problematic" Reminds me of Yann LeCun quitting Twitter [0] after basically getting mobbed by "AI ethicists" (you'll recognize some names in the article...). Yann, of course, responded with explanations and technical expertise but realized at some point he was battling with a non-technical crowd that were trying to turn the conversation into identity politics. [0] https://syncedreview.com/2020/06/30/yann-lecun-quits-twitter-amid-acrimonious-exchanges-on-ai-bias/ https://syncedreview.com/2020/06/30/yann-lecun-quits-twitter...

raxxorrax 5y ago

Every discussion on the internet is an argument and it is automatically treated that way by now. Sometime if you write a response to an answer and agree with it, the original author still justifies himself because it is perceived as a counter argument. Happens more on certain platforms than on others. > they’ll accuse me [...] Because they are afraid. They need this rigidity to feel safe and another symptom is becoming an authoritarian mind. A simple image of an enemy helps too.