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Self-censorship is the other half of this problem. How many of us here have self censored our writing out of fear of painting a bullseye on our backs? The more

Self-censorship is the other half of this problem. How many of us here have self censored our writing out of fear of painting a bullseye on our backs? The more you have to lose, the more cautious you are. If you’ve spent a lifetime studying a certain field, building a business or becoming a well know expert, you risk having it all taken away if you provoke the ire of the mob. And the mob has nothing to lose and everything to gain by targeting well known public figures. The result is that absurd ideas enter the public psyche and not one expert will risk their career by contradicting them. The democratization of publishing is an exciting breakthrough in all of human history. I’d rather have it than not. But this post-truth era that is emerging is worrying.

jimkleiber 5y ago
Your comment has me wondering about history and whether such previous drastic changes in communication technology have also brought waves of censorship, both by others and by ourselves. For example, with radio, the telephone, or even the printing press. In other words, not only the ability to publish/broadcast, but to have people reply to your publishing or broadcasting. I also wonder if we somehow adapt to it as we learn these new ways to communicate.
- mmaunder 5y ago
  Those breakthroughs had gatekeepers, for better or worse. Publishing house owners, newspaper owners/editors, radio station supervisors and owners. For the first time in all of history we can all publish instantly to everyone else at no cost. It’s a very exciting time and is, unsurprisingly, fraught with problems.
  - jimkleiber 5y ago
    Yeah, I agree. The ability to broadcast (and respond to broadcasts) to the world from almost anywhere in the world at any time, and have it recorded in text, audio, video, or more for an indefinite amount of time, so that people can receive it almost at any time from any place, I'd say has no close parallels in human history. The lack of gatekeepers I think is one of the biggest deals. Maybe the printing press gave the lack of gatekeeper, and maybe some forms of radio had that as well, but normally to broadcast to large audiences, there have been gatekeepers. Now, that being said, some platforms are starting to gatekeep at a very high level (e.g. Youtube, Twitter, FB), and many communication forums have lower level moderation (reddit, group chats, email lists, etc), yet, still, huge changes. I try to not say "we're living in an unprecedented time" because I think people use it way too often and it often has more to do with their inability to see similarities across time. And yet, as you've mentioned, we've never had communication like this as a species.
  - d0mine 5y ago
    It is not true now. Unless it is published on platforms controlled by select few, most people won't see it. For example, it looks like a reasonable (evidence-based) discussion on COVID is not possible on Youtube unless it reflects what google censors think the current scientific truth should be https://youtube.com/watch?v=5iABaxRWGxk&list=PLSl6im8mc0fIRuNHWzhdV-K34FvUqHRut&index=26 https://youtube.com/watch?v=5iABaxRWGxk&list=PLSl6im8mc0fIRu...
- ayngg 5y ago
  A similar thread could be the proliferation of literature meant to help identify and condemn witches with the invention of the printing press, which greatly influenced the witch hunt moral panic that followed. In contrast, telephones don't amplify messages in the same way, and radio had the drawback of being temporary since broadcasts couldn't easily be recorded and distributed like pamphlets and books.
  - jimkleiber 5y ago
    Oh yeah, the witch hunts! Such an experiment through which we're living, giving people megaphones to communicate to almost anyone on the planet, whether 1-to-1, 1-to-few, or 1-to-many. And as you said, have it be recorded! What I'm typing here from my kitchen table will be sent 'round the world to however many people who are reading now...but will continue to be sent to those people for as long as this website exists and gets indexed by search engines...or longer if it gets picked up by an archive service. For negligible cost to me, practically free. Goodness.
    - andreskytt 5y ago
      Goodness, indeed. But, in the context of memes, this means ideas no longer have to be beneficial to their human hosts in order to proliferate. It used to be that you’d have to be at least moderately well-to-do (thus, capable financially and biologically) for extended periods of time in order for your ideas to appear in print and be spread. That is no longer the case: an idea might be deadly or ruinous within hours and still have enough time to go viral.
      - jimkleiber 5y ago
        I'm a little lost yet curious, what do you mean by "no longer have to be beneficial to their human hosts in order to proliferate"?
        bavell 5y ago
        I took it to mean that the idea has escaped into the wider world and its fate is no longer tied to its originator's alone.
- andrew_ 5y ago
  The invention of the printing press opened the floodgates to both open, free discussion and wild censorship. This is a good read if you're into that kind of random info: https://brewminate.com/censorship-and-freedom-of-the-press-in-the-early-modern-period/ https://brewminate.com/censorship-and-freedom-of-the-press-i...
  - jimkleiber 5y ago
    > if you're into that kind of random info Almost always, yes. But by a German professor in Journalism and Communications on historical censorship on a website that has "brew" in the domain? Certainly. Thank you!
andrew_ 5y ago
I see small, walled groups with vibrant and varied discussion re-emerging. I hear about new small groups/chats constantly; I'm a party to several. Discussion within is without fear of consequence, ideas are discussed objectively and in earnest. Disagreements are expected and welcome. Sometimes tempers flare but mutual respect is not lost and empathy is high. The soup of the day is candor, and it's delicious. It's a matter of time until the bullseye fear is replaced with anger and gives way to courage, and until the mob annoys enough people as to lose any persuasion or power it currently holds. It'll take time, but history shows that change is inevitable.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > Discussion within is without fear of consequence, ideas are discussed objectively and in earnest. It's almost as if the Chatham House Rule is some sort of universal game theoretic truth that keeps getting rediscovered in different fields. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_House_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_House_Rule
- nekcihc 5y ago
  [flagged]
- mmaunder 5y ago
  Where? For the love of rational thinking, where???
  - jimkleiber 5y ago
    That's what I'm wondering as well. On which platforms? Group chats? Discord? Discourse? One I've never heard? I ask because I've been flirting with the idea of having more closed off groups, playing with using Discourse for it, as it's a self-hosted platform and I can tweak plugins/themes and close it off to the public. But I'm open to others, and more so, really just curious to learn about some of these communities, how or why they've chosen the level of exclusivity/inclusivity that htey have, etc.
  - andrew_ 5y ago
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Woke culture had a purpose but it has become a victim of its own success. The author of the SA article clearly wants to carve out science as biased by the mere fact of asserting that all genes are not equal. They seem to think we are all perfectly one as capable as the other in all things. That is insanity. It leads to a spiral of blame and anxiety as we see ourselves as nothing but victims of the world at large and that we're helpless to do anything about it.
- lazyeye 5y ago
  Woke people only ever want a blank slate to which they can apply their ideology. They wont tolerate nature intruding. Why is there no neuro-psychology component in gender studies for example?
  - nucleogenesis 5y ago
    Because gender is a made up thing informed by social norms. Not all societies abide the gender binary. Gender studies are a sociological study because there is no gender without some social structure enforcing it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_Bugis_society https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_Bugis_society Go learn in some depth of “woke” ideology before getting fired up online about it. Learn it from “woke” people and talk with them and take it seriously and maybe next time you might bring some critical thought to the table instead of the same rote “woke people bad and anti-science” drivel.
    - coldtea 5y ago
      >Because gender is a made up thing informed by social norms. Not all societies abide the gender binary. If you find fringe examples, and force it enough, yes. Because, thousands of years of global civilization are invalidated because of what this or that tribe does.
      - uejfiweun 5y ago
        Yeah, one big problem I have with the woke movement is that they seem to advocate for policies that contradict common sense. And then they back it up by pointing to these extreme fringe examples. And then if you question their results, they tend to just get really angry and insulting, like the comment you replied to.
RachelF 5y ago
Scientific American has been in decline since their 2003 hit pieces against environmentalist Bjorn Lomberg. All ad-hominem attacks, no science or logic. Sadly this has infected other publications: Last week The Economist did not do an official obituary of E.O. Wilson, they did a drag queen instead. Wilson was relegated to a four paragraph notice in the science section. Wilson was badly attacked by Marxists in the 1970's for his book on ants, Sociobiology.
- boppo1 5y ago
  What were their gripes with Lomberg?
  - akvadrako 5y ago
    Probably that his research shows there are more effective ways to spend resources than reducing CO2.
    - collyw 5y ago
      I listened to him recently and he seems to be looking at the climate problem in exactly the way that we should be - taking a step back, looking at the big picture, what works and what doesn't, instead of focusing on one aspect hysterically over everything else.
- sofixa 5y ago
  I think there's a significant difference between a hit piece with personal attacks and not dedicating "enough" ( for you) material to a person.
- slavik81 5y ago
  The Economist obituaries are often of unexpected people. That's part of the charm. You never know who you'll find on the last page. One of my favourites was about the guy who played The Creature from The Black Lagoon. I wouldn't read too much into their choice.
collyw 5y ago
I tend not to self censor too much (though I do on certain topics, where people are ready too jump). I get banned on pretty much every reddit sub that has any kind of political element to it now.

jimkleiber 5y ago

Your comment has me wondering about history and whether such previous drastic changes in communication technology have also brought waves of censorship, both by others and by ourselves. For example, with radio, the telephone, or even the printing press. In other words, not only the ability to publish/broadcast, but to have people reply to your publishing or broadcasting. I also wonder if we somehow adapt to it as we learn these new ways to communicate.

mmaunder 5y ago
Those breakthroughs had gatekeepers, for better or worse. Publishing house owners, newspaper owners/editors, radio station supervisors and owners. For the first time in all of history we can all publish instantly to everyone else at no cost. It’s a very exciting time and is, unsurprisingly, fraught with problems.
- jimkleiber 5y ago
  Yeah, I agree. The ability to broadcast (and respond to broadcasts) to the world from almost anywhere in the world at any time, and have it recorded in text, audio, video, or more for an indefinite amount of time, so that people can receive it almost at any time from any place, I'd say has no close parallels in human history. The lack of gatekeepers I think is one of the biggest deals. Maybe the printing press gave the lack of gatekeeper, and maybe some forms of radio had that as well, but normally to broadcast to large audiences, there have been gatekeepers. Now, that being said, some platforms are starting to gatekeep at a very high level (e.g. Youtube, Twitter, FB), and many communication forums have lower level moderation (reddit, group chats, email lists, etc), yet, still, huge changes. I try to not say "we're living in an unprecedented time" because I think people use it way too often and it often has more to do with their inability to see similarities across time. And yet, as you've mentioned, we've never had communication like this as a species.
- d0mine 5y ago
  It is not true now. Unless it is published on platforms controlled by select few, most people won't see it. For example, it looks like a reasonable (evidence-based) discussion on COVID is not possible on Youtube unless it reflects what google censors think the current scientific truth should be https://youtube.com/watch?v=5iABaxRWGxk&list=PLSl6im8mc0fIRuNHWzhdV-K34FvUqHRut&index=26 https://youtube.com/watch?v=5iABaxRWGxk&list=PLSl6im8mc0fIRu...
ayngg 5y ago
A similar thread could be the proliferation of literature meant to help identify and condemn witches with the invention of the printing press, which greatly influenced the witch hunt moral panic that followed. In contrast, telephones don't amplify messages in the same way, and radio had the drawback of being temporary since broadcasts couldn't easily be recorded and distributed like pamphlets and books.
- jimkleiber 5y ago
  Oh yeah, the witch hunts! Such an experiment through which we're living, giving people megaphones to communicate to almost anyone on the planet, whether 1-to-1, 1-to-few, or 1-to-many. And as you said, have it be recorded! What I'm typing here from my kitchen table will be sent 'round the world to however many people who are reading now...but will continue to be sent to those people for as long as this website exists and gets indexed by search engines...or longer if it gets picked up by an archive service. For negligible cost to me, practically free. Goodness.
  - andreskytt 5y ago
    Goodness, indeed. But, in the context of memes, this means ideas no longer have to be beneficial to their human hosts in order to proliferate. It used to be that you’d have to be at least moderately well-to-do (thus, capable financially and biologically) for extended periods of time in order for your ideas to appear in print and be spread. That is no longer the case: an idea might be deadly or ruinous within hours and still have enough time to go viral.
    - jimkleiber 5y ago
      I'm a little lost yet curious, what do you mean by "no longer have to be beneficial to their human hosts in order to proliferate"?
      - bavell 5y ago
        I took it to mean that the idea has escaped into the wider world and its fate is no longer tied to its originator's alone.
andrew_ 5y ago
The invention of the printing press opened the floodgates to both open, free discussion and wild censorship. This is a good read if you're into that kind of random info: https://brewminate.com/censorship-and-freedom-of-the-press-in-the-early-modern-period/ https://brewminate.com/censorship-and-freedom-of-the-press-i...
- jimkleiber 5y ago
  > if you're into that kind of random info Almost always, yes. But by a German professor in Journalism and Communications on historical censorship on a website that has "brew" in the domain? Certainly. Thank you!

andrew_ 5y ago

I see small, walled groups with vibrant and varied discussion re-emerging. I hear about new small groups/chats constantly; I'm a party to several. Discussion within is without fear of consequence, ideas are discussed objectively and in earnest. Disagreements are expected and welcome. Sometimes tempers flare but mutual respect is not lost and empathy is high. The soup of the day is candor, and it's delicious. It's a matter of time until the bullseye fear is replaced with anger and gives way to courage, and until the mob annoys enough people as to lose any persuasion or power it currently holds. It'll take time, but history shows that change is inevitable.

dane-pgp 5y ago
> Discussion within is without fear of consequence, ideas are discussed objectively and in earnest. It's almost as if the Chatham House Rule is some sort of universal game theoretic truth that keeps getting rediscovered in different fields. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_House_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_House_Rule
nekcihc 5y ago
[flagged]
mmaunder 5y ago
Where? For the love of rational thinking, where???
- jimkleiber 5y ago
  That's what I'm wondering as well. On which platforms? Group chats? Discord? Discourse? One I've never heard? I ask because I've been flirting with the idea of having more closed off groups, playing with using Discourse for it, as it's a self-hosted platform and I can tweak plugins/themes and close it off to the public. But I'm open to others, and more so, really just curious to learn about some of these communities, how or why they've chosen the level of exclusivity/inclusivity that htey have, etc.
- andrew_ 5y ago

stjohnswarts 5y ago

Woke culture had a purpose but it has become a victim of its own success. The author of the SA article clearly wants to carve out science as biased by the mere fact of asserting that all genes are not equal. They seem to think we are all perfectly one as capable as the other in all things. That is insanity. It leads to a spiral of blame and anxiety as we see ourselves as nothing but victims of the world at large and that we're helpless to do anything about it.

lazyeye 5y ago
Woke people only ever want a blank slate to which they can apply their ideology. They wont tolerate nature intruding. Why is there no neuro-psychology component in gender studies for example?
- nucleogenesis 5y ago
  Because gender is a made up thing informed by social norms. Not all societies abide the gender binary. Gender studies are a sociological study because there is no gender without some social structure enforcing it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_Bugis_society https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_Bugis_society Go learn in some depth of “woke” ideology before getting fired up online about it. Learn it from “woke” people and talk with them and take it seriously and maybe next time you might bring some critical thought to the table instead of the same rote “woke people bad and anti-science” drivel.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    >Because gender is a made up thing informed by social norms. Not all societies abide the gender binary. If you find fringe examples, and force it enough, yes. Because, thousands of years of global civilization are invalidated because of what this or that tribe does.
    - uejfiweun 5y ago
      Yeah, one big problem I have with the woke movement is that they seem to advocate for policies that contradict common sense. And then they back it up by pointing to these extreme fringe examples. And then if you question their results, they tend to just get really angry and insulting, like the comment you replied to.

RachelF 5y ago

Scientific American has been in decline since their 2003 hit pieces against environmentalist Bjorn Lomberg. All ad-hominem attacks, no science or logic. Sadly this has infected other publications: Last week The Economist did not do an official obituary of E.O. Wilson, they did a drag queen instead. Wilson was relegated to a four paragraph notice in the science section. Wilson was badly attacked by Marxists in the 1970's for his book on ants, Sociobiology.

boppo1 5y ago
What were their gripes with Lomberg?
- akvadrako 5y ago
  Probably that his research shows there are more effective ways to spend resources than reducing CO2.
  - collyw 5y ago
    I listened to him recently and he seems to be looking at the climate problem in exactly the way that we should be - taking a step back, looking at the big picture, what works and what doesn't, instead of focusing on one aspect hysterically over everything else.
sofixa 5y ago
I think there's a significant difference between a hit piece with personal attacks and not dedicating "enough" ( for you) material to a person.
slavik81 5y ago
The Economist obituaries are often of unexpected people. That's part of the charm. You never know who you'll find on the last page. One of my favourites was about the guy who played The Creature from The Black Lagoon. I wouldn't read too much into their choice.

collyw 5y ago

I tend not to self censor too much (though I do on certain topics, where people are ready too jump). I get banned on pretty much every reddit sub that has any kind of political element to it now.