5 ms·

I have to be honest and say that my faith in the capacity of people to think in a free speech totally open environment was severely tested over the past 5-10 ye

by api 5y ago

I have to be honest and say that my faith in the capacity of people to think in a free speech totally open environment was severely tested over the past 5-10 years. Things like Qanon, flat Earth, antivax hysteria, the meme-driven return of both "right" and "left" totalitarian ideologies from the early 20th century that should be completely discredited, and so on have made me wonder if most people simply can't handle exposure to unregulated content as they lack the ability to think critically. I've actually wondered if most people might not need to be protected from unregulated content in the same way that people need to be protected from exposure to lead, radon gas, etc. The human brain simply didn't evolve in this environment. Throughout 99.9% of human history a person's ideas came from the tribe or neighborhood and came with the context of culture, social relationships, and physical body language cues. The brain did not evolve to process a context-free meme stream connected to an algorithm trying to keep you "engaged." If only a few people had fallen for this nonsense that would be one thing, but I witnessed mass conversions of millions of people to ideas that are more absurd than the craziest conspiracy bullshit I read on Usenet in the 1990s. This is stuff the people who are crazy think is crazy. It goes beyond shockingly bad ideas too. I've seen an alarming rise of discourse that resembles word salad spewed out by a primitive Markov chain text generator. It's terrifying. It almost looks like exposure to open discourse is causing brain damage in some susceptible fraction of the population. Some subset of people seem to have lost the ability to process or generate a coherent narrative or structured system of ideas. They just spew memes in random order. It's less coherent than classic new age babble or Orwellian "newspeak." I still lean in the free speech direction pretty hard, but my faith is shaken to the core. I honestly and non-hyperbolically wonder if the right carefully crafted AI-powered social media boosted propaganda campaign couldn't convert double digit percentages of the population into homicidal maniacs or cause a mass suicide wave killing millions. BTW this and not "Skynet" is the scary thing about AI. The most terrifying AI scenario I can think of is AI-assisted demagoguery or mass stochastic terrorism powered by big data. Think "adversarial attacks against the human neocortex." Attacks only get better.

gedy 5y ago
Flat Earth folks these days mostly seem to just delight in being contrarian/trolls. I'm sure there's some unstable folks in there like any belief system/group though.
mLuby 5y ago
> I've actually wondered if most people might not need to be protected from unregulated content in the same way that people need to be protected from exposure to lead, radon gas, etc. Yes, but that means deciding which content is harmful, and that's where we are now. Figuratively, you end up with lead-lickers coming out of the woodwork saying that their way of life is being stifled by regulation/moderation. Chasing user "engagement" has been pushing conversations from the mundane middle toward the fringes. Thus, people make understandable but hasty generalization[0] that what they're seeing is more common than average. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization#Inductive_fallacies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization#Inductiv... In the past, I think this drift was counteracted by codes of morality (whether internalized, reinforced by people you know, or promulgated by regulatory bodies) as well as the limited means of disseminating information (few newspaper editors/radio announcers/news anchors to many readers/listeners/viewers). Though I'm sure there were plenty of wild pamphlets spreading chaos in the centuries between Gutenberg and Zuckerberg. Even though most of those morality codes are downright oppressive by today's standards, and the many-to-many distribution enabled by the Internet has many benefits, we haven't found a substitute, so there's a gap in our armor. Side note: Believing conspiracies and yearning totalitarian are two different failures in thinking. I say that because only the latter had strong support in the 20th century—even earlier if you count monarchies. Someone supporting Flat Earthers isn't harming me (except by undermining science in general); someone supporting Stalin 2.0 is an indirect direct threat to me.
- thereisnospork 5y ago
  >Yes, but that means deciding which content is harmful, and that's where we are now. Figuratively, you end up with lead-lickers coming out of the woodwork saying that their way of life is being stifled by regulation/moderation. There might be something to be said for instead of limiting speech, increasing the 'reporting requirements'. This isn't a fully formed position of mine but rules along the lines of no anonynomous speech[0] and stricter fraud[1][2] rules are imo compatible with free speech and its ideals while helping to manage fraud and propaganda. [0] So if an AI wrote a blog spam post, it should be at minimum illegal to not have the AI in the byline, with e.g. a unique identifier. [1] Say loudly and publicly that there is a pedophile ring in the basement of a pizzeria, with no evidence, go to jail. [2] Not that such rules can't/haven't been abused before though.
nescioquid 5y ago
Chris Hedges sometimes remarks that he finds people turn towards superstitious, religious, or conspiratorial world views when they find they have no control over their lives. I suspect that if the US somehow changed so that economic security were increased for most people, there would be much less unreason and general discourse wouldn't be so mean.
- PerkinWarwick 5y ago
  That's an interesting theory, although I doubt that 19th century US farmers, among the most self-sufficient people in history, were lacking in religion, superstition, or conspiracies.
  - nescioquid 5y ago
    In fairness, it is trivial to point to any number of counter-examples throughout history if you just want to dismiss the observation. Hedges is a journalist and was referring to the changes he saw in the squeezed middle and lower classes through his career, and probably wasn't making a sweeping historic claim. I mentioned it as contrast to the parent comment who simply concluded people are incapable of rational thought, and meant to suggest there are mediating influences.
    - PerkinWarwick 5y ago
      > if you just want to dismiss the observation. I'm not and I'm willing to give it a chance. I'm just not seeing a strong correlation. What I do see people doing when they lack control is to attempt to gain control. Put together a group, grab some of that sweet power through mass. The more ambitious ones fight their way up the power structure. Special bonus points if you can take over an existing seat of power.
      - nescioquid 5y ago
        > What I do see people doing when they lack control is to attempt to gain control. One way in which people gain (the feeling of) control is to imagine the world differently (superstition, conspiracy, religion) in a way that makes them virtuous or special and others not (i.e. essentially Nietzsche's idea of ressentiment). If you haven't the power to take part in a real struggle, this is not so surprising to me.

by api 5y ago

gedy 5y ago

Flat Earth folks these days mostly seem to just delight in being contrarian/trolls. I'm sure there's some unstable folks in there like any belief system/group though.

mLuby 5y ago

> I've actually wondered if most people might not need to be protected from unregulated content in the same way that people need to be protected from exposure to lead, radon gas, etc. Yes, but that means deciding which content is harmful, and that's where we are now. Figuratively, you end up with lead-lickers coming out of the woodwork saying that their way of life is being stifled by regulation/moderation. Chasing user "engagement" has been pushing conversations from the mundane middle toward the fringes. Thus, people make understandable but hasty generalization[0] that what they're seeing is more common than average. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization#Inductive_fallacies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization#Inductiv... In the past, I think this drift was counteracted by codes of morality (whether internalized, reinforced by people you know, or promulgated by regulatory bodies) as well as the limited means of disseminating information (few newspaper editors/radio announcers/news anchors to many readers/listeners/viewers). Though I'm sure there were plenty of wild pamphlets spreading chaos in the centuries between Gutenberg and Zuckerberg. Even though most of those morality codes are downright oppressive by today's standards, and the many-to-many distribution enabled by the Internet has many benefits, we haven't found a substitute, so there's a gap in our armor. Side note: Believing conspiracies and yearning totalitarian are two different failures in thinking. I say that because only the latter had strong support in the 20th century—even earlier if you count monarchies. Someone supporting Flat Earthers isn't harming me (except by undermining science in general); someone supporting Stalin 2.0 is an indirect direct threat to me.

thereisnospork 5y ago
>Yes, but that means deciding which content is harmful, and that's where we are now. Figuratively, you end up with lead-lickers coming out of the woodwork saying that their way of life is being stifled by regulation/moderation. There might be something to be said for instead of limiting speech, increasing the 'reporting requirements'. This isn't a fully formed position of mine but rules along the lines of no anonynomous speech[0] and stricter fraud[1][2] rules are imo compatible with free speech and its ideals while helping to manage fraud and propaganda. [0] So if an AI wrote a blog spam post, it should be at minimum illegal to not have the AI in the byline, with e.g. a unique identifier. [1] Say loudly and publicly that there is a pedophile ring in the basement of a pizzeria, with no evidence, go to jail. [2] Not that such rules can't/haven't been abused before though.

nescioquid 5y ago

Chris Hedges sometimes remarks that he finds people turn towards superstitious, religious, or conspiratorial world views when they find they have no control over their lives. I suspect that if the US somehow changed so that economic security were increased for most people, there would be much less unreason and general discourse wouldn't be so mean.

PerkinWarwick 5y ago
That's an interesting theory, although I doubt that 19th century US farmers, among the most self-sufficient people in history, were lacking in religion, superstition, or conspiracies.
- nescioquid 5y ago
  In fairness, it is trivial to point to any number of counter-examples throughout history if you just want to dismiss the observation. Hedges is a journalist and was referring to the changes he saw in the squeezed middle and lower classes through his career, and probably wasn't making a sweeping historic claim. I mentioned it as contrast to the parent comment who simply concluded people are incapable of rational thought, and meant to suggest there are mediating influences.
  - PerkinWarwick 5y ago
    > if you just want to dismiss the observation. I'm not and I'm willing to give it a chance. I'm just not seeing a strong correlation. What I do see people doing when they lack control is to attempt to gain control. Put together a group, grab some of that sweet power through mass. The more ambitious ones fight their way up the power structure. Special bonus points if you can take over an existing seat of power.
    - nescioquid 5y ago
      > What I do see people doing when they lack control is to attempt to gain control. One way in which people gain (the feeling of) control is to imagine the world differently (superstition, conspiracy, religion) in a way that makes them virtuous or special and others not (i.e. essentially Nietzsche's idea of ressentiment). If you haven't the power to take part in a real struggle, this is not so surprising to me.