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Unfortunately, this. Censorship on moral grounds, amplified by a lack of epistemic humility, is a key characteristic of modern western culture. Not only western

by suslik 5y ago

Unfortunately, this. Censorship on moral grounds, amplified by a lack of epistemic humility, is a key characteristic of modern western culture. Not only western, and modern, of course - I suspect that the feeling that 'I am more correct than the other' is a natural property of consciousness itself; an understanding of one's own mind is always more intuitive than a theory of mind. Anyways, I feel - and would be great to be wrong here - that there is no technocratic solution to prevent censorship in the context of culture that demands, even begs for it. Splitting facebook, making twitter a utility, developing government-controlled platforms - none of these sound convincing.

raxxorrax 5y ago
> epistemic humility Doesn't mix with political speech too well since most political cultures punish uncertainty, which is always prevalent in any intellectual discourse. I too believe there is no technical solution for or against censorship. Luckily digital infrastructure is at least robust against censorship because some very wise people could look beyond the horizon. But people asking for content control need to have their education improved. And to a degree they also have to be demasked, because arguing against freedom of expressions in the name of minorities is beyond reasonable.
lariati 5y ago
The lack of epistemic humility feels like such a regression. We have basically gone from Feynman's idea that science is the belief in the ignorance of experts to the idea that anything that disagrees with experts in a field is misinformation and possibly should be censored.
- pas 5y ago
  Meh. FB and Twitter and YT throwing nutjobs under the bus is bad on a philosophical level, but the real problem is that ~40% of the population holds these beliefs. Which influences their day to day conduct, how they donate to campaigns, how the vote, how they communicate IRL and online. (And that FB, Twitter and YT is the platform.) And as the submission title says, there's no way that simple prohibition can "solve" this. (It's hard to legislate epistemic hygiene.) And. "Ironically" the folks whining about woke cancel culture support the folks actually banning and burning books by government decree. Also, just for a sensible chuckle about this recent Spotify / JRE deplatforming: https://i.imgur.com/Ihf4ENv.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/Ihf4ENv.mp4 (I don't think money changed his beliefs.)

by suslik 5y ago

raxxorrax 5y ago

> epistemic humility Doesn't mix with political speech too well since most political cultures punish uncertainty, which is always prevalent in any intellectual discourse. I too believe there is no technical solution for or against censorship. Luckily digital infrastructure is at least robust against censorship because some very wise people could look beyond the horizon. But people asking for content control need to have their education improved. And to a degree they also have to be demasked, because arguing against freedom of expressions in the name of minorities is beyond reasonable.

lariati 5y ago

The lack of epistemic humility feels like such a regression. We have basically gone from Feynman's idea that science is the belief in the ignorance of experts to the idea that anything that disagrees with experts in a field is misinformation and possibly should be censored.

pas 5y ago
Meh. FB and Twitter and YT throwing nutjobs under the bus is bad on a philosophical level, but the real problem is that ~40% of the population holds these beliefs. Which influences their day to day conduct, how they donate to campaigns, how the vote, how they communicate IRL and online. (And that FB, Twitter and YT is the platform.) And as the submission title says, there's no way that simple prohibition can "solve" this. (It's hard to legislate epistemic hygiene.) And. "Ironically" the folks whining about woke cancel culture support the folks actually banning and burning books by government decree. Also, just for a sensible chuckle about this recent Spotify / JRE deplatforming: https://i.imgur.com/Ihf4ENv.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/Ihf4ENv.mp4 (I don't think money changed his beliefs.)