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> science is not democratic I strongly disagree, it's inherently democratic. The scientific method is all about making mistakes and trying again. Discourse is

by rhaksw 4y ago

> science is not democratic I strongly disagree, it's inherently democratic. The scientific method is all about making mistakes and trying again. Discourse is all about sharing knowledge. Open societies do this effectively. Jonathan Rauch, in Kindly Inquisitors (1993) wrote, > Authoritarian systems have their intellectual giants. What they lack is the capacity to organize and exploit their masses of middling thinkers. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=uZUVAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&q=%22Authoritarian+systems+have+their+intellectual+giants.+What+they+lack+is+the+capacity+to+organize+and+exploit+their+masses+of+middling+thinkers.%22 https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=uZUVAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA74... > From my experience, I think without moderation r/science would become “aliens built the pyramids” in a week. It might. What would happen then? I'd argue there'd be a lot of good discussion. The reason people don't think it's possible to change people's minds over the last 7-8 years is because during this whole period you didn't know about shadow moderation. Watch the linked talk, look at the examples. Deception is being crowdsourced and it is happening across every ideology, geography, and on every major platform.

matthewmacleod 4y ago
It might. What would happen then? I'd argue there'd be a lot of good discussion. Why bother though? There are thousands of places you can have that discussion, including on Reddit. You can set up, say, /r/scienceforall right now and establish the rules you want. The /r/science sub has decided that it’s a space which should have heavy moderation - a totally legitimate viewpoint with obvious benefits and costs. You might not agree with the balance, but the beauty is you don’t have to.
- rhaksw 4y ago
  > Why bother though? See 18:20 [1] and 19:52 [2] in the talk linked on this post. Nobody will visit r/scienceforall because r/science will remove references to it. Plus, forcing me to set up a group doesn't sound like a solution, it sounds like a shake down. To get an open discussion space I have to moderate it, and then have the social media site threaten removal of my mod powers if I fail to remove something they don't like within their desired time frame. That means I have to review every piece of user-submitted content. No thanks. Transparency and light-touch moderation would be more efficient. > The /r/science sub has decided that it’s a space which should have heavy moderation - a totally legitimate viewpoint with obvious benefits and costs. You might not agree with the balance, but the beauty is you don’t have to. My issue is with the system, not moderators. Legally speaking, shadow moderation may be in the clear, but it's still harmful for society while we have just a few major platforms. We should all know and share what's going on. [1] https://youtu.be/aCadmiIfbcI?t=18m20s https://youtu.be/aCadmiIfbcI?t=18m20s [2] https://youtu.be/aCadmiIfbcI?t=19m52s https://youtu.be/aCadmiIfbcI?t=19m52s
  - x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
    If nobody will visit your subreddit, then that might be an indication of how it's actually being perceived, and not evidence of some great injustice surrounding "free speech".
    - rhaksw 4y ago
      No, it's just hard to advertise them. Groups often offshoot specifically because they disagreed with moderators of the previous group. The new group will want to attract users from the old group, but the old group's moderators set up bots to auto-remove any attempts at sharing the new group. I linked the point in the talk where I discuss this, but I can share an example here too. r/LibertarianUncensored is 2,000 members and stickied this post [1] explaining shadow removals occurring on r/Libertarian which has 500,000 members. If you bring this up on r/Libertarian your commentary will be removed and you'll either be banned or shadow banned. Both make it impossible for you to share what's going on with users in r/Libertarian. Meanwhile, moderators there publicly deny that anything untoward is happening [2]. Maybe some day r/LibertarianUncensored can overcome its userbase deficit of half a percent, but it's obvious that shadow moderation is helping to maintain r/Libertarian's domination. Other groups that skew younger, for example r/Overwatch, may already be familiar with Reveddit and thus have a better chance at challenging mod biases [3]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/LibertarianUncensored/comments/uotv5a/analysis_criticism_of_mods_at_rlibertarian_will/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LibertarianUncensored/comments/uotv... [2] https://archive.ph/O0GN8 https://archive.ph/O0GN8 [3] https://old.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/ye16uv/this_subreddit_is_in_damage_control_mode/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/ye16uv/this_subr...
  - matthewmacleod 4y ago
    I think the issue here is that you’re blurring your complaints between the two quite distinct issues of heavy-handed moderation, and shadow moderation. You’re talking about having a philosophical or principled issue with shadow moderation; fine - I don’t necessarily agree, but it’s a reasonable argument to have. But what you have ended up saying here is “all moderation in all communities must be to my own standards and any others are wrong”. And I don’t think that’s reasonable - individual communities, like on Reddit, should have the freedom to enforce the rules of those communities as they see fit. Reddit is full of terrible, mostly unmoderated cesspits; it’s also full of heavily- and lightly-moderated subs. I would tend to agree that moderation in general should be on the lighter side and in particular there should be approaches to tackle the abuse of power that’s pretty common (such as auto-banning links to alternative subs you mention). But I have seen so many spaces ruined by lack of moderation over the years that it’s hard to get enthusiastic about it as a cause.
- BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
  >”You can set up, say, /r/scienceforall right now and establish the rules you want.” In theory this is a viable solution. In all likelihood, this won’t succeed and there are probably a dozen offshoots already that no one knows about. I suspect two things would happen. The most likely thing is the subreddit languishes and never gets any traction. But if it somehow does, it is likely to get targeted as a disinformation subreddit or the admins will install their own powermods - as they typically do once subreddits become big enough. Given what we know about how Reddit chooses to display content and run its moderation team, I don’t think any alternative science subreddit would be allowed to successfully exist and be of any real competition to r/science.
ravenstine 4y ago
> I strongly disagree, it's inherently democratic. No, it really is not. You might as well state that truth is decided by committee and that individuals cannot or should not decide what is true for themselves. Democracy is a tool, not an inherent virtue. If science was inherently democratic, The Science would be "settled"; such is a state of things that has been demonstrated time and again to discredit consent. Just because a bunch of people, no matter the number or expertise, decide that something is a fact doesn't make it so. Conclusions on science are opinions, and always will be. By the way, nothing about the scientific method involves review by committee. Science is just having a hypothesis, doing tests, and reporting observations. Everything else is overloading the term "science."
- rhaksw 4y ago
  > No, it really is not. Forgive me, I live in Taiwan and in this region "democracy" can sometimes be colloquially equated with "free speech", perhaps because the two concepts seem distant to some stricter regimes. You're right though, and now I can't edit the comment. If I could, I would rewrite it to say, > Science may not be "democratic", however it does depend on the ability to conduct civil discourse, which depends on free speech and is central to the US implementation of democracy. I agree with what you wrote. I think the rest of my comment illustrates that, but saying "science is inherently democratic" is clearly wrong outside of the colloquial definition I've given here which probably nobody else on this board uses. facepalm
otikik 4y ago
Not at all. For the same reason that heart surgery isn’t. Or black belt karate isn’t. Some human activities just have high skill floors. Science (at the levels we are talking about here - groundbreaking hard to understand complex stuff) is one of them. Just to clarify: I think science MUST be open for anyone and I think divulging it is critical.
- rhaksw 4y ago
  > Not at all. For the same reason that heart surgery isn’t. Or black belt karate isn’t. Some human activities just have high skill floors. Science (at the levels we are talking about here - groundbreaking hard to understand complex stuff) is one of them. Are you saying that anyone publicly discussing science on the internet should be subjected to secretive removals because publishing groundbreaking science is complex stuff? If so I strongly disagree and I find it hard to square that with your following statement, > Just to clarify: I think science MUST be open for anyone and I think divulging it is critical. Those two paragraphs are in direct conflict. You're saying science should be open but not everyone should be able to discuss it online without having their commentary secretly removed.??? Nobody is born a heart surgeon or karate expert. Every single one of today's experts got there by beginning somewhere near the bottom and working their way up. Some may have found their way easier than others, but that doesn't change where they began, or the general direction they had to take. Left foot, right foot, we all march, and those who had a harder time of it may be better off for making it through that (not that I want this to happen, I'm just saying it can be a result of enduring hardship). Not to mention, science is meant to be disseminated. If you just put it up to be read rather than discussed, nobody is going to understand it. It's okay if people misinterpret things, that is part of how we learn.
  - otikik 4y ago
    No. I have explicitly mentioned that a single comment by someone doesn’t amount to anything. When 60% of the comments are like that, that is when this becomes a problem. Then it simply isn’t science any more. Just like when my site was flooded by memes, the original goal of the channel has been compromised.

by rhaksw 4y ago

matthewmacleod 4y ago

It might. What would happen then? I'd argue there'd be a lot of good discussion. Why bother though? There are thousands of places you can have that discussion, including on Reddit. You can set up, say, /r/scienceforall right now and establish the rules you want. The /r/science sub has decided that it’s a space which should have heavy moderation - a totally legitimate viewpoint with obvious benefits and costs. You might not agree with the balance, but the beauty is you don’t have to.

rhaksw 4y ago
> Why bother though? See 18:20 [1] and 19:52 [2] in the talk linked on this post. Nobody will visit r/scienceforall because r/science will remove references to it. Plus, forcing me to set up a group doesn't sound like a solution, it sounds like a shake down. To get an open discussion space I have to moderate it, and then have the social media site threaten removal of my mod powers if I fail to remove something they don't like within their desired time frame. That means I have to review every piece of user-submitted content. No thanks. Transparency and light-touch moderation would be more efficient. > The /r/science sub has decided that it’s a space which should have heavy moderation - a totally legitimate viewpoint with obvious benefits and costs. You might not agree with the balance, but the beauty is you don’t have to. My issue is with the system, not moderators. Legally speaking, shadow moderation may be in the clear, but it's still harmful for society while we have just a few major platforms. We should all know and share what's going on. [1] https://youtu.be/aCadmiIfbcI?t=18m20s https://youtu.be/aCadmiIfbcI?t=18m20s [2] https://youtu.be/aCadmiIfbcI?t=19m52s https://youtu.be/aCadmiIfbcI?t=19m52s
- x86_64Ubuntu 4y ago
  If nobody will visit your subreddit, then that might be an indication of how it's actually being perceived, and not evidence of some great injustice surrounding "free speech".
  - rhaksw 4y ago
    No, it's just hard to advertise them. Groups often offshoot specifically because they disagreed with moderators of the previous group. The new group will want to attract users from the old group, but the old group's moderators set up bots to auto-remove any attempts at sharing the new group. I linked the point in the talk where I discuss this, but I can share an example here too. r/LibertarianUncensored is 2,000 members and stickied this post [1] explaining shadow removals occurring on r/Libertarian which has 500,000 members. If you bring this up on r/Libertarian your commentary will be removed and you'll either be banned or shadow banned. Both make it impossible for you to share what's going on with users in r/Libertarian. Meanwhile, moderators there publicly deny that anything untoward is happening [2]. Maybe some day r/LibertarianUncensored can overcome its userbase deficit of half a percent, but it's obvious that shadow moderation is helping to maintain r/Libertarian's domination. Other groups that skew younger, for example r/Overwatch, may already be familiar with Reveddit and thus have a better chance at challenging mod biases [3]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/LibertarianUncensored/comments/uotv5a/analysis_criticism_of_mods_at_rlibertarian_will/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LibertarianUncensored/comments/uotv... [2] https://archive.ph/O0GN8 https://archive.ph/O0GN8 [3] https://old.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/ye16uv/this_subreddit_is_in_damage_control_mode/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/ye16uv/this_subr...
- matthewmacleod 4y ago
  I think the issue here is that you’re blurring your complaints between the two quite distinct issues of heavy-handed moderation, and shadow moderation. You’re talking about having a philosophical or principled issue with shadow moderation; fine - I don’t necessarily agree, but it’s a reasonable argument to have. But what you have ended up saying here is “all moderation in all communities must be to my own standards and any others are wrong”. And I don’t think that’s reasonable - individual communities, like on Reddit, should have the freedom to enforce the rules of those communities as they see fit. Reddit is full of terrible, mostly unmoderated cesspits; it’s also full of heavily- and lightly-moderated subs. I would tend to agree that moderation in general should be on the lighter side and in particular there should be approaches to tackle the abuse of power that’s pretty common (such as auto-banning links to alternative subs you mention). But I have seen so many spaces ruined by lack of moderation over the years that it’s hard to get enthusiastic about it as a cause.
BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
>”You can set up, say, /r/scienceforall right now and establish the rules you want.” In theory this is a viable solution. In all likelihood, this won’t succeed and there are probably a dozen offshoots already that no one knows about. I suspect two things would happen. The most likely thing is the subreddit languishes and never gets any traction. But if it somehow does, it is likely to get targeted as a disinformation subreddit or the admins will install their own powermods - as they typically do once subreddits become big enough. Given what we know about how Reddit chooses to display content and run its moderation team, I don’t think any alternative science subreddit would be allowed to successfully exist and be of any real competition to r/science.

ravenstine 4y ago

> I strongly disagree, it's inherently democratic. No, it really is not. You might as well state that truth is decided by committee and that individuals cannot or should not decide what is true for themselves. Democracy is a tool, not an inherent virtue. If science was inherently democratic, The Science would be "settled"; such is a state of things that has been demonstrated time and again to discredit consent. Just because a bunch of people, no matter the number or expertise, decide that something is a fact doesn't make it so. Conclusions on science are opinions, and always will be. By the way, nothing about the scientific method involves review by committee. Science is just having a hypothesis, doing tests, and reporting observations. Everything else is overloading the term "science."

rhaksw 4y ago
> No, it really is not. Forgive me, I live in Taiwan and in this region "democracy" can sometimes be colloquially equated with "free speech", perhaps because the two concepts seem distant to some stricter regimes. You're right though, and now I can't edit the comment. If I could, I would rewrite it to say, > Science may not be "democratic", however it does depend on the ability to conduct civil discourse, which depends on free speech and is central to the US implementation of democracy. I agree with what you wrote. I think the rest of my comment illustrates that, but saying "science is inherently democratic" is clearly wrong outside of the colloquial definition I've given here which probably nobody else on this board uses. facepalm

otikik 4y ago

Not at all. For the same reason that heart surgery isn’t. Or black belt karate isn’t. Some human activities just have high skill floors. Science (at the levels we are talking about here - groundbreaking hard to understand complex stuff) is one of them. Just to clarify: I think science MUST be open for anyone and I think divulging it is critical.

rhaksw 4y ago
> Not at all. For the same reason that heart surgery isn’t. Or black belt karate isn’t. Some human activities just have high skill floors. Science (at the levels we are talking about here - groundbreaking hard to understand complex stuff) is one of them. Are you saying that anyone publicly discussing science on the internet should be subjected to secretive removals because publishing groundbreaking science is complex stuff? If so I strongly disagree and I find it hard to square that with your following statement, > Just to clarify: I think science MUST be open for anyone and I think divulging it is critical. Those two paragraphs are in direct conflict. You're saying science should be open but not everyone should be able to discuss it online without having their commentary secretly removed.??? Nobody is born a heart surgeon or karate expert. Every single one of today's experts got there by beginning somewhere near the bottom and working their way up. Some may have found their way easier than others, but that doesn't change where they began, or the general direction they had to take. Left foot, right foot, we all march, and those who had a harder time of it may be better off for making it through that (not that I want this to happen, I'm just saying it can be a result of enduring hardship). Not to mention, science is meant to be disseminated. If you just put it up to be read rather than discussed, nobody is going to understand it. It's okay if people misinterpret things, that is part of how we learn.
- otikik 4y ago
  No. I have explicitly mentioned that a single comment by someone doesn’t amount to anything. When 60% of the comments are like that, that is when this becomes a problem. Then it simply isn’t science any more. Just like when my site was flooded by memes, the original goal of the channel has been compromised.