5 ms·

> Bradbury predicted that people, disturbed by confusing or challenging ideas, might one day demand censorship for themselves and protection from any informatio

> Bradbury predicted that people, disturbed by confusing or challenging ideas, might one day demand censorship for themselves and protection from any information that pierced the veil of their own simplified reality. > In a society now dominated by reassuringly reductive tweets and memes, where supposedly learned people choose to boycott long-form podcasts, encourage publishers to ditch books by controversial authors, or lean on streaming providers to severe ties with comedians and other artists, this prediction from 1953 sounds eerily familiar. Assuming this is the underlying thesis of the article, this is a simplistic view of information. In real world, it's not always obvious how to distinguish "controversial" with "crackpot". With today's ease of publishing, there's plenty of information on every crackpot theory, which requires a practically impossible amount of research from the individual to systematically falsify. Some of them are harmless (flat earth), some of them are potentially dangerous (e.g. ivermectin). Spread of potentially dangerous information is a lose-lose situation. If let spread, it will cause (on large enough scale) harm, if not, the popoluation will scream at censhorship. The related link to a Don’t Look Up screenshot in the article page is actually very telling - in that movie, the audience knows for certain that the asteroid/comet will destroy earth. In reality, it's not so black and white, and doomsday theories are a dime a dozen. Articles like this don't help at all to shape a cognitive approach to modern excess of information.

AlexDragusin 5y ago
re flat earth, not as harmless I'd say https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrAdayUh6-4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrAdayUh6-4
- mannykannot 5y ago
  To be fair, this guy was almost certainly only adopting the flat-earth premise for publicity (and possibly funding.)
  - happytoexplain 5y ago
    This assertion is made about many "fringe" social/political sentiments (or alternatively, some version of "they're trolling you"), but I think people frequently misunderstand how many practical similarities there are between one promoting these things "ironically" vs sincerely, outside of one's own mind.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - voakbasda 5y ago
      When done right, satire is indistinguishable from fundamentalism.
mannykannot 5y ago
If I accept your argument I should reject it on account of the impossibility of adequately verifying its premises!
pinephoneguy 5y ago
There are many people who argue that even having a discussion about side-loading apps is dangerous. If you let some authority tell everyone what’s dangerous to talk about you give them absolute power. That’s far more dangerous than people taking some well understood medicine when they might not need it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
inglor_cz 5y ago
"With today's ease of publishing" We seem to be replaying the Early Modern Age conversation about the printing press. The printing press was considered dangerous precisely because individuals and identities other than the Church could easily publish their heresies and the low-born could publish pamphlets attacking the Sovereign and Peers of the Realm. In the Islamic world, the Caliph (who, at the time, was identical with the Ottoman Sultan) banned the use of the printing press by Muslims in 1485. (Unbelievers could print whatever they wanted in their languages and for their exclusive consumption.) If you look at the entire history of suppressing misinformation, you will see that: a) in the long run, freer societes did better, b) the club of the censors seems to contain all the nastiest regimes and there seems to be a clear correlation between nastiness of a regime and its eagerness to control information; for that reason alone, I wouldn't want to be caught dead in the same company, c) it was fairly common that the kind of information censored overlapped significantly with the kind of information that people in power didn't like.
- TMWNN 5y ago
  >In the Islamic world, the Caliph (who, at the time, was identical with the Ottoman Sultan) banned the use of the printing press by Muslims in 1485. (Unbelievers could print whatever they wanted in their languages and for their exclusive consumption.) [...] >If you look at the entire history of suppressing misinformation, you will see that: >a) in the long run, freer societes did better, Quite. As a result, 10,000 books have been translated into Arabic in the past 1,000 years. That is fewer than the number translated in Spain in one year. <https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3e2xho/til_that_10000_books_have_been_translated_into/ https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3e2xho/til_t...>
- pizza234 5y ago
  To be clear, I don't take any position about how to handle "ease of publishing" (I may have used inappropriate terminology, as I was referring to publishing of ideas from individuals). To me, it's an open problem.
- tanseydavid 5y ago
  >> We seem to be replaying the Early Modern Age conversation about the printing press. Some people refer to this phenomenon as "The Internet Reformation." IMHO this is a very apt comparison.
ehnto 5y ago
> Some of them are harmless (flat earth) There seems to be a non-trivial anti-semetic component to at least one version of the flat earth conspiracy. It seems there's not one coherent view that all flat-earther's follow, which is not surprising at all. But I would feel confident in saying that the part where the earth is flat is just a springboard for the more insidious conspiracies people conjure up.
- MockObject 5y ago
  I wouldn't say it's a gateway drug, but rather a filter that selects for people willing to accept conspiracies that last hundreds of years and involve a million conspirators, across every advanced society, for unclear goals.
chmod600 5y ago
Your best example of a dangerous theory is Ivermectin? How many deaths has that idea caused? That's the problem with censorship/cancellation/deplatforming. The standards are very loose and selective. You say that a theory about Ivermectin is dangerous without a shred of evidence. Maybe it's wrong. Maybe people died. But I doubt it's of any significant scale. Probably it's just snake oil. But how many morning TV hosts repeat the latest health food craze that's just as dubious? Why aren't those labeled "dangerous"? The answer is that it's about politics, authority, and group identity; not health. You are really saying that JR has identified with the wrong tribe, and so it's time to expel him. And the fact that doctors (currently) agree with you is the justification to do so. Life is complex and nuanced. Relying on authorities and groupthink works most of the time, but I'm glad not everyone does so or we would be in a dystopia. Saying JR is a crackpot and ignoring him is fine, and that's probably where the smart money will be. But trying to ostracize him is not OK.
- awb 5y ago
  > Your best example of a dangerous theory is Ivermectin? How many deaths has that idea caused? I'm guessing that OP was referring to the idea of Ivermectin as a cure for COVID. For example, choosing not to get vaccinated or wear a mask but to have a plan to take Ivermectin if they contract COVID and then contracting COVID and spreading it to others and possibly succumbing to it.
  - chmod600 5y ago
    But how dangerous is that idea, really? How many people heard the idea, and didn't get vaccinated because of it? If this idea weren't put out there, how many of those people would have just found some other reason to not get vaccinated? It's just a scare tactic to get us to accept censorship/deplatforming/cancellation as a legitimate practice. Drugs are scary. Terrorists are scary. Now podcasters are scary. Looks like we've already decided to give up our values, and we're just looking for any flimsy excuse to justify it.

AlexDragusin 5y ago

re flat earth, not as harmless I'd say https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrAdayUh6-4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrAdayUh6-4

mannykannot 5y ago
To be fair, this guy was almost certainly only adopting the flat-earth premise for publicity (and possibly funding.)
- happytoexplain 5y ago
  This assertion is made about many "fringe" social/political sentiments (or alternatively, some version of "they're trolling you"), but I think people frequently misunderstand how many practical similarities there are between one promoting these things "ironically" vs sincerely, outside of one's own mind.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - voakbasda 5y ago
    When done right, satire is indistinguishable from fundamentalism.

mannykannot 5y ago

If I accept your argument I should reject it on account of the impossibility of adequately verifying its premises!

pinephoneguy 5y ago

There are many people who argue that even having a discussion about side-loading apps is dangerous. If you let some authority tell everyone what’s dangerous to talk about you give them absolute power. That’s far more dangerous than people taking some well understood medicine when they might not need it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

inglor_cz 5y ago

"With today's ease of publishing" We seem to be replaying the Early Modern Age conversation about the printing press. The printing press was considered dangerous precisely because individuals and identities other than the Church could easily publish their heresies and the low-born could publish pamphlets attacking the Sovereign and Peers of the Realm. In the Islamic world, the Caliph (who, at the time, was identical with the Ottoman Sultan) banned the use of the printing press by Muslims in 1485. (Unbelievers could print whatever they wanted in their languages and for their exclusive consumption.) If you look at the entire history of suppressing misinformation, you will see that: a) in the long run, freer societes did better, b) the club of the censors seems to contain all the nastiest regimes and there seems to be a clear correlation between nastiness of a regime and its eagerness to control information; for that reason alone, I wouldn't want to be caught dead in the same company, c) it was fairly common that the kind of information censored overlapped significantly with the kind of information that people in power didn't like.

TMWNN 5y ago
>In the Islamic world, the Caliph (who, at the time, was identical with the Ottoman Sultan) banned the use of the printing press by Muslims in 1485. (Unbelievers could print whatever they wanted in their languages and for their exclusive consumption.) [...] >If you look at the entire history of suppressing misinformation, you will see that: >a) in the long run, freer societes did better, Quite. As a result, 10,000 books have been translated into Arabic in the past 1,000 years. That is fewer than the number translated in Spain in one year. <https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3e2xho/til_that_10000_books_have_been_translated_into/ https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3e2xho/til_t...>
pizza234 5y ago
To be clear, I don't take any position about how to handle "ease of publishing" (I may have used inappropriate terminology, as I was referring to publishing of ideas from individuals). To me, it's an open problem.
tanseydavid 5y ago
>> We seem to be replaying the Early Modern Age conversation about the printing press. Some people refer to this phenomenon as "The Internet Reformation." IMHO this is a very apt comparison.

ehnto 5y ago

> Some of them are harmless (flat earth) There seems to be a non-trivial anti-semetic component to at least one version of the flat earth conspiracy. It seems there's not one coherent view that all flat-earther's follow, which is not surprising at all. But I would feel confident in saying that the part where the earth is flat is just a springboard for the more insidious conspiracies people conjure up.

MockObject 5y ago
I wouldn't say it's a gateway drug, but rather a filter that selects for people willing to accept conspiracies that last hundreds of years and involve a million conspirators, across every advanced society, for unclear goals.

chmod600 5y ago

Your best example of a dangerous theory is Ivermectin? How many deaths has that idea caused? That's the problem with censorship/cancellation/deplatforming. The standards are very loose and selective. You say that a theory about Ivermectin is dangerous without a shred of evidence. Maybe it's wrong. Maybe people died. But I doubt it's of any significant scale. Probably it's just snake oil. But how many morning TV hosts repeat the latest health food craze that's just as dubious? Why aren't those labeled "dangerous"? The answer is that it's about politics, authority, and group identity; not health. You are really saying that JR has identified with the wrong tribe, and so it's time to expel him. And the fact that doctors (currently) agree with you is the justification to do so. Life is complex and nuanced. Relying on authorities and groupthink works most of the time, but I'm glad not everyone does so or we would be in a dystopia. Saying JR is a crackpot and ignoring him is fine, and that's probably where the smart money will be. But trying to ostracize him is not OK.

awb 5y ago
> Your best example of a dangerous theory is Ivermectin? How many deaths has that idea caused? I'm guessing that OP was referring to the idea of Ivermectin as a cure for COVID. For example, choosing not to get vaccinated or wear a mask but to have a plan to take Ivermectin if they contract COVID and then contracting COVID and spreading it to others and possibly succumbing to it.
- chmod600 5y ago
  But how dangerous is that idea, really? How many people heard the idea, and didn't get vaccinated because of it? If this idea weren't put out there, how many of those people would have just found some other reason to not get vaccinated? It's just a scare tactic to get us to accept censorship/deplatforming/cancellation as a legitimate practice. Drugs are scary. Terrorists are scary. Now podcasters are scary. Looks like we've already decided to give up our values, and we're just looking for any flimsy excuse to justify it.