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You're not censoring anything - you're exercising your judgement. Who would have a problem with that? Not me! But, have you ever been convinced about somethi

You're not censoring anything - you're exercising your judgement. Who would have a problem with that? Not me! But, have you ever been convinced about something, and then changed your mind? I have. In order for that to happen (a change of mind) it is useful to have full/better information available. But if there are forces at play (eg coordinated FAANG efforts, see Alex Jones) to supress information, the possibility of finding that information is removed. You are making reasonable decisions, but you do not have the full facts. You do not even know that you don't have the full facts. This is not a good state to be in! The messy noise is not a bad thing. Even if you want to stick to what you know, others will trawl through that information and will uncover some gems. I mean, its not like governments and corporations don't conspire together for whatever purposes. They plainly do and we see evidence this with lobbyists, pre-prepared bills waiting for the right moment, the well-emunerated advisory roles provided to ex-politicians, etc. The point I am trying to make, is that whatever your position is, you want all information to be free and for people to exercise their judgement. Reason will prevail. But de-platforming, etc is terrible! Don't plead to be kept in the dark by the government!

awb 5y ago
> whatever your position is, you want all information to be free and for people to exercise their judgement. Reason will prevail. Sounds like a simple solution, but I don’t know of any country that has 100% access to all information, so I don’t think anyone has been able to test your theory throughout history. I’d argue that a large minority of people are highly persuadable and not near the unbiased, logical arbiters required to have an ideal outcome when presented with information. You can see this in the misinterpretation of valid information and the consumption and retention of misinformation. So, 1) I don’t think the human condition is as ideal as you describe where reason always prevails. Also, most people agree that some content is too dangerous to disseminate, like content that can be used to create great harm or destruction. Like, blueprints for WMDs, or maybe content about how to breach security at a nuclear facility, or how to hack power plants, etc. So 2) there’s a line somewhere about what content is safe for the general public to consume but I don’t know any country or person that thinks it’s at 100%. So now the question becomes not if we should draw a line at all, but where to draw the line on what content is beneficial to the public.
- verisimi 5y ago
  Yes - some of what you say is true - there is dangerous info. The question is what is more dangerous? Having information running free? Or having a governance structure that decides what you should see or not? I do not trust governments for sure. There is such a huge conflict of interest there. "For the sake of maintaining trust with the people, we can't afford to let them know about such-and-such a terrible mistake we made". (Says government...) Its just a fantastic excuse to take all sorts of unsavoury actions against you. And let's not forget that government is just people trying to make money. Arguably the worst of us, or the people with most to lose, are the one's that seek these powerful positions.
  - awb 5y ago
    > The question is what is more dangerous? Having information running free? Or having a governance structure that decides what you should see or not? Yeah that’s the $1M question. We have far too many examples of the latter failing with horrific consequences, and some examples where the restrictions are annoying but not catastrophic. With the former, I don’t think we have any examples of info running totally free.
diego_moita 5y ago
> you want all information to be free Yes, I do. And I also want it to be free from a cacophony of noise. And big corporations also have the right to practice judgment and filter out noise, if they want to do so. And Alex Jones is mostly noise, he barely provides any information.
- Brian_K_White 5y ago
  "And I also want it to be free from a cacophony of noise." That is an invalid self-contradictory idea. You can't have curated un-curated.
- verisimi 5y ago
  "And I also want it to be free from a cacophony of noise." Oh dear - I think you have been born in the wrong time. :) My point is that there aren't external independent arbiters of information out there. No one holds the truth. Facebook even admits that its fact checking is just opinion.
- mherdeg 5y ago
  > And I also want it to be free from a cacophony of noise. OK in this case I think the dystopia you're living in is Neal Stephenson's Anathem, where a tribe of techno-priests professionally searches the Internet to try to find true information among a sea of lies that were machine-generated by large language models which were deployed during various nation-state conflicts and are now permanently endemic on the Internet.
  - diego_moita 5y ago
    You got me. Added that title to my "books to read" list. Thank you.

awb 5y ago

> whatever your position is, you want all information to be free and for people to exercise their judgement. Reason will prevail. Sounds like a simple solution, but I don’t know of any country that has 100% access to all information, so I don’t think anyone has been able to test your theory throughout history. I’d argue that a large minority of people are highly persuadable and not near the unbiased, logical arbiters required to have an ideal outcome when presented with information. You can see this in the misinterpretation of valid information and the consumption and retention of misinformation. So, 1) I don’t think the human condition is as ideal as you describe where reason always prevails. Also, most people agree that some content is too dangerous to disseminate, like content that can be used to create great harm or destruction. Like, blueprints for WMDs, or maybe content about how to breach security at a nuclear facility, or how to hack power plants, etc. So 2) there’s a line somewhere about what content is safe for the general public to consume but I don’t know any country or person that thinks it’s at 100%. So now the question becomes not if we should draw a line at all, but where to draw the line on what content is beneficial to the public.

verisimi 5y ago
Yes - some of what you say is true - there is dangerous info. The question is what is more dangerous? Having information running free? Or having a governance structure that decides what you should see or not? I do not trust governments for sure. There is such a huge conflict of interest there. "For the sake of maintaining trust with the people, we can't afford to let them know about such-and-such a terrible mistake we made". (Says government...) Its just a fantastic excuse to take all sorts of unsavoury actions against you. And let's not forget that government is just people trying to make money. Arguably the worst of us, or the people with most to lose, are the one's that seek these powerful positions.
- awb 5y ago
  > The question is what is more dangerous? Having information running free? Or having a governance structure that decides what you should see or not? Yeah that’s the $1M question. We have far too many examples of the latter failing with horrific consequences, and some examples where the restrictions are annoying but not catastrophic. With the former, I don’t think we have any examples of info running totally free.

diego_moita 5y ago

> you want all information to be free Yes, I do. And I also want it to be free from a cacophony of noise. And big corporations also have the right to practice judgment and filter out noise, if they want to do so. And Alex Jones is mostly noise, he barely provides any information.

Brian_K_White 5y ago
"And I also want it to be free from a cacophony of noise." That is an invalid self-contradictory idea. You can't have curated un-curated.
verisimi 5y ago
"And I also want it to be free from a cacophony of noise." Oh dear - I think you have been born in the wrong time. :) My point is that there aren't external independent arbiters of information out there. No one holds the truth. Facebook even admits that its fact checking is just opinion.
mherdeg 5y ago
> And I also want it to be free from a cacophony of noise. OK in this case I think the dystopia you're living in is Neal Stephenson's Anathem, where a tribe of techno-priests professionally searches the Internet to try to find true information among a sea of lies that were machine-generated by large language models which were deployed during various nation-state conflicts and are now permanently endemic on the Internet.
- diego_moita 5y ago
  You got me. Added that title to my "books to read" list. Thank you.